Vietnam’s health ministry has proposed a ban on NGPs including vaping and heated tobacco products, reports VN Express International.

The reason given for the proposed ban is the harmful impacts NGPs can have on youths as well as the additional management costs that they can bring about.
Tran Thi Trang, deputy head of the legislation department under the Ministry of Health, said that the current Law on Tobacco Harm Prevention does not have provisions to deal with e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, reports VN Express International.
Trang said that having trialled the distribution of NGPs, the potential negative impacts such as their negative impact on youth’s behaviour and lifestyles as well as the state having to expend resources to resolve social issues that result from the use and abuse of NGPs had become apparent.
She continued to say that the proposed ban was the health ministry’s way of trying to protect people’s health, reports VN Express International. Nguyen Thi Thu Huong from the health ministry said that the number of e-cigarette users in 2020 had increased from 0.2 per cent in 2015 to 3.6 per cent and that every year 40,000 people in the country die from tobacco-related causes.