20 February 2020
Ivette Saldana & Perla Miranda
By a presidential decree published on the Federal Official Gazette (DOF), from Thursday, February 20, the import of electronic cigarettes is forbidden to protect the Mexican population from heavy metals and other substances contained in them, as reported by the Health and Economy Ministries.
This, given the increase of patients with lung damage related to the use of electronic cigarettes used for the so-called vaping or the inhaling of nicotine and other chemical substances.
Through the DOF, it was asserted that there are “over 200 registered cases of patients with serious lung damage, related to the use of the electronic cigarette, mainly teenagers and young adults, in at least 25 states.”
Since May 2008, the sale of electronic cigarettes is forbidden in Mexico. Nonetheless, the agencies said that it requires the harmonization of a regulatory framework to prevent the illegal sale of this kind of product.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that the Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS), best known as electronic cigarettes or vaping devices, the Electronic Non-Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENNDS), and the Alternative Nicotine Delivery Systems (ANDS) can contain levels of toxic substances and carcinogenic compounds, in occasions higher than traditional cigarettes.
the WHO has stressed that the devices constitute a risk for people around who are exposed to the spray exhaled by the users of the devices because the solutions and the mixes used in them are usually dissolved in propylene glycol or glycerine, elements that harm the heart and lungs,” they assert.
In Mexico, 938,000 teenagers have tried at least once an electronic cigarette, out of which 160,000 use it on a regular basis according to the ENDODAT 2016-2017; this information alerted the federal government since it represents the entrance door to nicotine addiction.
