In Santa Fe (Argentina), the Legislature is currently discussing a bill to reform the Provincial Tobacco Control Program.
It is undoubtedly commendable that the Santa Fe Congress is getting involved in the smoking issue. As we all know, millions of people worldwide are affected by this scourge, and exploring ways to offer them solutions to improve their lives is essential. It is an issue with profound human implications.
The leading proponent of the bill, Congresswoman Erica Hynes (PS), has been emphatic that the main reason for the reform is to include innovative products such as vaping within the anti-smoking regulations. In this sense, she expressed that:
“The modifications not only have a function of identifying all tobacco products and associated to cigarette consumption that appeared in the market but also, being included in the Smoking Control Program, they add to the prohibition for the advertising of these products and their use in closed areas, workplaces, public buildings, and means of transportation.” The Congresswoman also stated that “we propose to include in the ban the new heated tobacco devices (vaping [sic] and electronic cigarettes).”
A rudimentary reform
Despite the goodwill of all parties involved with the project, the proposed reforms are reckless and, alarmingly, lack solidity.
Thus, the project proposes in Article 3 a very questionable definition of smoking:
“Define, for the purposes of the application of this law…as smoking, the act of inhaling, exhaling, being in possession or control of a lighted tobacco product or any other substance, including tobacco or nicotine combustion or heating devices, regardless of whether the person is inhaling or exhaling smoke.”
Tobacco is then equated with nicotine when they are two distinct substances that can be consumed separately.
The consequences of this equation are very harmful, and even the scope of the law would end up being absurd.
The unjustified equalization between tobacco and nicotine forces the advertising ban on traditional cigarettes to the safer, non-combustion nicotine products.
Under the umbrella of treating nicotine and tobacco as the same, it also bans the use of such products in enclosed public spaces.
This logical leap seeks to include vaping in a tobacco control law when vaping lacks tobacco and combustion. To include vaping in its orbit, the draft amendment states in article 2:
“Products made with tobacco or any other substance that are intended for human consumption through the action of smoking or that expel smoke, gases, or vapors in any of their forms, including electronic cigarettes and similar devices, are included in the scope of this Law.”
In its anti-vaping zeal, the definition is so coarse that, technically, hot chocolate or tea could fall under the ban as they are substances intended for human consumption that expel smoke or vapors.
Ending smoking
According to Public Health England, innovative alternatives such as vaping are 95 percent safer than traditional combustion cigarettes.
Thanks to them, we are on the verge of eliminating smoking as we know it. Treating the antidote as if it were poison puts at risk the tens of thousands of vapers in the province of Santa Fe and condemns current smokers to the inhumane dichotomy of “quit or die.”
As stated in a paper published in the prestigious scientific journal Science:
“The evidence warns against prohibitionist measures. Restricting access and appeal among less harmful vaping products out of an abundance of caution while leaving deadly combustible products on the market does not protect public health. It threatens to derail a trend that could hasten the demise of cigarettes, poised to take a billion lives this century.”
Smart regulation and a climate open to innovation are essential for a billion human beings to live.
* Federico N. Fernández is Executive Director at Somos Innovación (a Latin American pro-innovation alliance) and CEO at We Are Innovation (Somos Innovación’s sister organization for Europe). Federico is Founder and President of Fundación Internacional Bases (Rosario, Argentina) and also the Chairman of the Organizing Committee of the International Conference “The Austrian School of Economics in the 21st Century,” which takes place in Europe and LatAm alternatively.
