Argentina Must End Vaping Ban

The World Vapers' Alliance told Planet of the Vapes that almost 15 years after banning the sale, importation and advertising of vaping products, Argentina faces an unsustainable reality: consumption continues to increase thanks to the existence of a huge informal market and millions of users have access to products without guarantees of quality or safety.

In 2011, Argentina declared vapes a tobacco product and banned all advertising and sales – but maintained the sale of actual tobacco products. Heated tobacco products are also banned, but oddly enough snus and other nicotine pouches aren’t.

Traditional nicotine replacement products such as sprays, gums and patches are allowed and command a market worth almost £250 million.

Argentina’s tobacco market caters to 7.9 million Argentinian smokers, representing a shocking 23.1% of the population, with 5.2 million saying they are daily smokers.

The Argentinian tobacco industry is dominated by Massalin Particulares S.A. and Nobleza Piccardo. The TVPRA List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor says that “children in Argentina continue to engage in child labor in agriculture and the worst forms of child labor,” and compromise the majority of tobacco industry workers in the country.

Alberto Gómez Hernández, policy manager of the World Vapers' Alliance, commented: "The ban has not reduced consumption or prevented access for young people, it is a failure. It only makes it difficult for adult smokers to access a less harmful alternative to cigarettes and pushes them to purchase potentially dangerous products in the informal market."

ANMAT (Administración Nacional de Medicamentos, Alimentos y Tecnología Médica) is Argentina's national regulatory body for medicines, food, and medical technology. It justified the 2011 ban by saying there was a lack of scientific evidence on vaping.

The World Vapers' Alliance says that hundreds of studies since have confirmed that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking and an effective tool for quitting cigarettes.

Despite this, neither ANMAT nor the Government have considered reversing the ban.

Gómez Hernández added: “Science has advanced but regulation is still anchored in the past. Today we know for sure that vaping can save the lives of millions of smokers in Argentina. Continuing to ignore the evidence is irresponsible and costs health and lives every day. It is urgent that the ban be eliminated now.”

The World Vapers' Alliance believes that international experiences, such as those of Sweden, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, show that incentivising the switch to less harmful nicotine products can dramatically reduce smoking and improve public health.

"Argentina has the opportunity to become a global benchmark in evidence-based public health policies. To do this, it needs to abandon the prohibitionist approach and move towards modern regulation that protects consumers," concluded Gómez Hernández.

The Responsible Vaping campaign, launched by the World Vapers' Alliance , seeks to give a voice to Argentines who use or have used vaping products to quit smoking.

Photo Credit:

• Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash, resized and cropped

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.