A vaper advocacy group in Thailand has urged the government to reverse its e-cigarette ban after a study supporting the ban was retracted.
The study, co-authored by long-term vape industry adversary Stanton Glantz, suggested that vaping caused heart attacks.
However, the analysis included former smokers who had had heart attacks before they started vaping.
End Cigarette Smoke Thailand (ECST) spokesperson Asa Saligupta said:
“The Medical Journal of the American Heart Association has therefore retracted the research from its publication giving the reason that its conclusions are unreliable.
“This reflects the dangers of referencing and misusing of inaccurate information from researches by the anti-tobacco associations in Thailand.
“It also raises questions whether the public can trust the information provided by these organisations.”
Saligupta argued that the government and anti-smoking groups ‘often present only one-sided, negative information,’ which can lead former smokers to panic and question their decision to switch to what they believed to be a less harmful product.
The spokesperson said that recent research supporting the continuation of the ban was not subjected to public scrutiny.
He said:
“[We] demand that information presented regarding electronic cigarettes in Thailand must not be biased and must be based on credible researches because accessing accurate and credible information are the basic rights that both conventional cigarette smokers and e-cigarette smokers should have.”
Thailand’s vape ban was introduced in 2014 as the government feared that e-cigarettes were ‘luring young people into smoking’.
Tourists and nationals caught vaping can be fined and face jail time, according to the Thai Embassy in London.
Source: Planet of the Vapes
