About 71, 000 Thai people die each year from tobacco, a cause of 47 deaths per day, according to the news, but smoking is the culprit.
There hasn’t been a second fatality in Thailand from using e-cigarettes, despite an average of 47 deaths per day from cigarettes.
Some nations actively promote vaping as a way to break the fatal habit, and millions of people have quit smoking as a result. Every Thai pleasure store sells e-cigarettes, but traditional smoking are forbidden in some stores.
Government authorities and media reports on the alleged dangers of smoking, but they remain motionless despite the fact that tobacco kills 71, 000 Thais annually, the single biggest avoidable cause of death. No results from hours of research in peer-reviewed scientific journals that match the frequently repeated claims made by Thai officials that vaping is just as harmful as smoking.
According to the British National Health Service, vaping is “far less harmful than cigarettes,” and it is positively promoted in the country as a way to reduce the death toll from smoking. A 2015 separate assessment by Public Health England that included the findings of animal testing found that vaping products are about 95 % safer than smoking cigars.
Asa Saligupta, a proponent of smoking, stated on the Deeper Dive Thailand audio from the Bangkok Post,” Vaping has been around for at least 20 times.
” We have tens of thousands of testimonials that say smoking is safer.
He continued,” Smoking depends on combustion to release the active ingredients in tobacco.”
” Combustion produces oil, which coats your lungs and spreads cancer. Additionally, there are [other ] carcinogens in a lot and lots and lots of them.
More than 100 million deaths have been linked to vaping since the introduction of the earliest e-cigarettes about 20 years ago, compared to a percentage of 10, 000, 000:1, and the majority of those fatalities were those resulting from the EVALI outbreak in 2019-2020, which was brought on by a particular model of THC-containing smoke juice laced with Vitamin E-acetate.
So why the vaping frenzy, then? One explanation seems to be economical.
According to a representative from the automatic government agency ThaiHealth, “farmers may suffer money loss” according to a source quoted by The Bangkok Post.
Is it reasonable to wonder how valuable 71, 000 lives are saved annually for nicotine producers? Every season, it costs an estimated 93 billion ringgit to cure smoking-related diseases. This money could be used to pay farmers to grow something else or rewild the land to help combat climate change.
In fact, Mr. Asa claimed that farmers may remain growing tobacco because it could still be used with heat-not-burners and to make wet nicotine for vape juice.
Mr. Asa stated in the audio,” I have spoken with tobacco farmers.” They were fully aware of the benefit within 45 to a half hour.
If smoking is certainly much safer than smoking, as all the data suggests, then one burning question is: Does vaping actually help smokers stop?
According to a 2021 peer-reviewed research, regular e-cigarette use among US cigarette smokers may increase the likelihood of quitting eightfold. Additionally, according to a 2019 peer-reviewed randomised controlled study, regular e-cigarette use results in a nearly twice-doubled price of smoking cessation after a year compared to various nicotine-replacement products.
Vaping aids in a quit tobacco, according to Mr. Asa. The American government yet distributed vaporizers to those who wanted to stop smoking.
If cigarettes is much safer than smoking and helps people stop smoking, then Thailand’s ban on it will always be the answer.
The problem can also be posed for Thailand’s thousands of international visitors, some of whom will revert to their dangerous habit of smoking while staying there.
The final drawback to smoking is the potential for it to be a tobacco ground. According to a 2023 study letter, unique e-cigarette users are unlikely to transition to explosive cigarette.
Yet, everyone agrees that children should not be marketed or used for e-cigarettes.
Mr. Asa stated in the podcast that “let’s ban promotion ]aimed at ] children and young people, not the product itself.” And finally, let’s ban toys pods if you want to ban everything.
No one who doesn’t now fumes should try an e-cigarette and risk becoming addicted to nicotine, according to Mr. Asa, who is convinced that vaping may be treated totally as a way to stop smoking.
Because nicotine itself is not completely safe, it could increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, impact brain development, especially in adolescents, and affect bone health, and it’s the delivery system that’s responsible for the majority of the damage to health.
E-cigarettes should only be used as a means of quitting much more dangerous cigars, as they are in neighboring countries like the Philippines and Indonesia, despite the strong argument that they should be legalized, controlled, and taxed.
According to Mr. Asa, some of the tax and customs revenue could be used to implement more measures to prevent children from using all vaping products.
The biggest risk, in fact, may be related to the fact that unlicensed e-liquid ( that might have been produced by Thai farmers ) are flooding the market without enough quality control and inspection, which could be the cause of new, well-known hospital admissions.
What does the kingdom’s potential hang for vaping then? Mr. Asa claimed that the majority of the commission established last year to study the issue recommended legalizing marijuana, but he was unsure whether it would occur due to fervent pursuits.
He said,” I could only hope for that.” That they would at least pay attention to purpose, logic, and scientific proof.