Vietnam is preparing to ban new tobacco products such as e-cigarettes that are now accused of being the cause for higher youth smoking rates in the country.
Vietnam may soon ban all new tobacco products after a recent study found the e-cigarette smoking rate among students rising in recent years, reports Vietnam Plus.
Nguyen Thi Thu Huong from the Ministry of Health’s Vietnam Tobacco Control Fund said the e-cigarette use rate among students rose from 2.6% in 2019 to 3.5% in 2021. The smoking rate among male students went up from 3.6% to 4.3% and from 1.5% to 2.8% in female students. A reported 7.8% of students had ever tried an e-cigarette.
Deputy minister of health Tran Van Thuan stated at a recent workshop to share research findings on tobacco use among students aged 13 to 15 in Vietnam that the increase of new tobacco products like e-cigarettes hampered efforts to prevent and reduce e-cigarette usage. People also continued to have easy access to cigarettes since they were extensively distributed throughout the nation.
According to Tran Thi Trang, the Government of Health's deputy director of legal affairs, the ministry is proposing banning all new tobacco products in keeping with global and regional trends.
Nguyen Huu Hoang, a lecturer from the Medical Education Centre at HCM City's University of Medicine and Pharmacy, says the smoking rate among teenagers is increasing due to the emergence of new-generation cigarettes, which is changing nicotine addiction, adding that “"E-cigarette devices that look like USB drives, pens, or pen boxes are making it tough for parents to detect and keep their kids from vaping. They also make young people curious and excited by their eye-catching, fashionable, and modern designs.”