North Luzon Monitor

North Luzon

Study show E-cigarette brands target children through online marketing

A newly-released study from the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Tobacco Control examined over 5,500 publicly-visible posts of e-cigarette brands in the Philippines between August 2022 and January 2023.

The findings show that these brands are not only violating already weak Philippine vape regulation through the use of online marketing, but are thriving under the pro-tobacco industry Vape Law.

These are the key findings from the study, which reviewed posts found across some of the most popular social media platforms in the Philippines – Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube:

  • Most social media posts of e-cigarette brands use marketing elements that appeal to children and young people (e.g., emoticons, cartoons, depictions of partying, influencer and celebrity endorsements).

  • Over 50% of these posts are without health warnings, and those with warnings often only use text warnings instead of graphic images.

  • One-third (34%) of these posts have no specified age restriction on e-cigarettes.

  • The brands used engagement strategies such as user interaction, co-marketing, contests, giveaways, influencers, and monetary promotions such as discounts to promote e-cigarettes, as if they’re regular consumer products.

  • The Vape Law, despite being pro-industry, does prohibit the use of flavor descriptors that “appeal particularly to minors.” But is this being followed? Absolutely not. The study showed high percentages of concept flavors (57%), fruit flavors (56%), and ‘sweets’ flavors (29%) being advertised.

Child rights advocates would like to remind our government authorities and legislators that this situation didn’t arise out of the blue.

The Vape Law transferred the authority to regulate vapes from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which has limited capacity to assess the health risks of these products.

It also lowered the age restriction to e-cigarettes from 21 to 18 and allowed and legitimized online sales and advertising of these harmful products.

The law, according to tobacco industry propaganda, was supposed to help smokers switch to “safer alternatives.” But the reality appears to be a push to classify vapes as regular consumer products to avoid proper health assessments and maximize profit.

As a result, many school-aged children now in the Philippines have been introduced to nicotine addiction through vapes. Earlier this year, we recorded the first EVALI (E-cigarette or Vaping Product Use-Associated Lung Injury) death in the Philippines – a young person with no comorbidities who had been vaping daily for two years.

This new study just shows the urgent need to reinstate the child protection measures removed by the Vape Law:

  • Bring back the regulatory authority from the DTI to the FDA.

  • Raise the minimum age of e-cigarette (and traditional combustible cigarette) access from 18 to 21.

  • Strictly implement the ban on the use of flavors.

  • Ban the online marketing and advertising of e-cigarette products.

Vapes and e-cigarettes are NOT regular consumer products. They represent new forms of smoking designed to facilitate nicotine addiction, and our laws should treat these products as such.

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