The e-cigarette is being marketed in the Philippines as a “safer way” to smoke or to quit smoking Viceroy, but the Health department does not endorse this as an alternative way to smoke.
The Department of Health (DOH) even claimed it will not help people to quit smoking.
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Quitting has never been easy for most smokers in the Philippines. Despite the strong campaign of the Department of Health, local government units, and other private organizations, achieving a 100 percent cigarette smoke free country is still proving to be an uphill climb.
This probably attracted a Hong Kong-based business firm to invent the so-called e-cigarette.
The Health department recently issued a public advisory e-cigarettes falls into “a category of consumer products designed to deliver nicotine into the lungs after one end of a metal or plastic cylinder is placed in the mouth, like a cigarette or cigar and inhaled to draw a mixture of air and vapors from the device into the respiratory system.”
The US Food and Drugs Administration also stated the e-cigarette is not healthy and cancer-free as many people believed.
Though e-cigarette is not yet included in the anti-smoking campaign in Baguio City, the public is nevertheless warned about its effects.