Over the past 20 years, fewer than 100 people worldwide have died from vaping, while more than 100 million people have died from smoking regular cigarettes. In Thailand, the tobacco death toll is 71,000 people each year, and from vaping – zero. So why are cigarettes available in every convenience store, while e-cigarettes are banned?
In this Deeper Dive Thailand, Dave Kendall is joined by Asa Saligupta, president of Ends Cigarette Smoking Thailand, to help answer the following questions:
-What are the health risks from vaping versus combustible cigarettes?
-Since e-cigarettes have only been around since 2004, how likely is it that they’ll cause disease as vapers get older?
-How effective is vaping to get people either to quit or avoid smoking for good?
-How likely is that people will get addicted to nicotine from vapes and then transition to cigarettes?
-Should tobacco-flavoured e-liquid be treated differently from candy flavours specifically marketed to children?
-If e-cigarettes are much safer than tobacco cigarettes, and many smokers would have switched to vaping if it was legal, what is the likely death toll from Thailand’s ban?
-Among the hundreds of millions of foreign tourists since 2015, how many vapers may have switched back to cigarettes during their stay here and will eventually die as a result?
Click below to watch the vodcast, or search for "Deeper Dive Thailand" wherever you get your podcasts.
