On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day (May 31) and National No Tobacco Week (taking place from May 25 to 31), experts once again emphasized the need for strong solutions to prevent and combat the harmful effects of tobacco to protect people's health.
Unforeseeable danger
In recent years, the work of preventing and combating the harmful effects of tobacco has achieved remarkable results. Compared to 2015, the rate of smokers aged 15 and over decreased from 22.5% to 21.7% in 2020, of which the rate of tobacco use among Vietnamese men decreased from 45.3% to 42.3%. With this result, according to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), Vietnam has prevented 280,000 premature deaths due to diseases related to tobacco use. The estimated cost savings due to the reduction in the rate of diseases caused by tobacco use in the period 2015-2020 is 1,277 billion VND.
These are the figures given by Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Huong - representative of the Tobacco Harm Prevention Fund (Ministry of Health) at the Workshop providing information to the press on preventing the harmful effects of consumer products harmful to health, organized by the Legal Department (Ministry of Information and Communications) in coordination with Health Bridge (Canada) in Phu Quoc (Kien Giang), on May 25.
However, according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Huong, Vietnam is still one of the 15 countries with the highest number of adult male smokers in the world. Worryingly, the rate of e-cigarette smoking among adults has increased 18 times (from 0.2% in 2015 to 3.6% in 2020).
Doctor Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of the Poison Control Center (Bach Mai Hospital) said that smoking electronic cigarettes causes a series of new diseases and poisonings that are unknown to medicine, unpredictable, and cannot be effectively resolved, increasing the burden on society.
For example, there was a case of a 20-year-old female patient hospitalized due to e-cigarette poisoning in a state of multiple organ damage, coma, convulsions, and renal shock. Or the case of a 39-year-old male patient who had a stroke due to using e-cigarettes. According to Dr. Nguyen, people with brain damage due to using e-cigarettes are often twice as severe as those with a normal stroke...
In addition, Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen also warned about a new disease causing acute lung injury associated with electronic cigarettes (EVALI) that has broken out in the US. EVALI has no official treatment regimen, all patients must be hospitalized with a rate of 76% requiring oxygen support, 22% on non-invasive ventilators, 26% on endotracheal tubes, and some cases requiring ECMO intervention (artificial heart and lung devices). Upon recovery, 25-85% suffer from pulmonary fibrosis with varying degrees.
Testing respiratory fluids of EVALI patients found vitamin E acetate. “Vietnam has also detected vitamin E acetate in e-cigarette liquid but has not yet detected any cases of EVALI. However, sooner or later, we will have to face this emerging disease,” said Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen.
More sophisticatedly, drugs are also included in the production of electronic cigarettes, which are both toxic and addictive...
How to control?
To reduce tobacco use in Vietnam, a representative of the Tobacco Harm Prevention Fund (Ministry of Health) proposed increasing tobacco taxes, banning advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and widely communicating to the public.
Sharing the same view, Ms. Hoang Thi Thu Huong, Department of Legal Affairs (Ministry of Health) said that the Law on Prevention and Control of Tobacco Harms, the Law on Advertising and related laws prohibit advertising, promotion and marketing of tobacco directly to consumers in any form. The widespread trading and sale of electronic cigarettes is against the law.
According to Dr. Nguyen Tuan Lam - WHO expert in Vietnam, the special consumption tax on the retail price of cigarettes in Vietnam is 38.8%, while in Malaysia it is 58.6%, Singapore is 67.5% and Thailand is 78.6%. This rate in developed countries is 67.9%, while the global average is 61.5%. According to WHO's recommendation, the special consumption tax on cigarettes should be at 70% - 75% of the retail price; increase cigarette tax regularly so that cigarette prices increase faster than inflation and income growth. In addition, cigarette tax should be increased in the short term to achieve the goals of the national action plan for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases.
Regarding the issue of increasing taxes on cigarettes, Ms. Tran Thi Tuyet - Tax Policy Department (Ministry of Finance) said that the general direction in directing the amendment of the Law on Special Consumption Tax in the coming time is to increase taxes on alcohol, beer, cigarettes, and sugary drinks according to Vietnamese standards. In the period 2008 - 2019, we have revised the special consumption tax on cigarettes 3 times, but the tax rate is not high, this time the revision will increase the mixed tax to orient consumption, aiming to reduce the smoking rate.
According to Ms. Vu Thi Minh Hanh, former Deputy Director of the Institute of Strategy and Health Policy (Ministry of Health), we should not spread false information that e-cigarettes are harmless, e-cigarettes help quit smoking traditional cigarettes... This harmful information makes young people mistaken, easily addicted to new cigarettes following the crowd.
It is necessary to warn that tobacco use in general, including new generation tobacco, affects the race and quality of the labor force. Increasing taxes on tobacco is necessary. It is necessary to add that tobacco smuggling is not due to high taxes, 94% of countries increasing tobacco taxes do not increase smuggling - Ms. Vu Thi Minh Hanh further emphasized.
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