What happens when a government bans safer nicotine alternatives instead of regulating them? In this GFN Voices episode from #GFN26, Brent Stafford speaks with Dr. Mariana Hoyo (Mexico) and Gina Reyes (Colombia) about how two neighboring countries have taken very different approaches to vaping—and what those policies mean for public health.
Transcription:
00:04 - 00:13
[Brent Stafford]
The promotional line for the conference is prohibition and public health. Do they go together?
00:13 - 00:20
[Mariana Hoyo]
Yes, they go together, but I don't think with the same objectives.
00:20 - 00:22
[Brent Stafford]
How do you mean?
00:22 - 01:00
[Mariana Hoyo]
I don't think prohibition comes in the best interest for public health. As we've seen, as we've known, prohibition goes the other way other than getting better at public health, getting people in a better state. We don't see that, or at least in our perspective in Mexico, Latin America, we've seen prohibition goes to the way to the illicit market, getting more public health issues and security problems and a whole bunch of complex situations that I don't think that they meet together in a positive way.
01:00 - 01:07
[Brent Stafford]
Now, is it true that organized crime, the cartels in Mexico, you know, own the illicit e-cigarette market?
01:07 - 01:30
[Mariana Hoyo]
Yes, yes, yes. I mean, they own pretty much, not everything, but a lot of stuff. And they have a big role in the cigarettes. We know one out of four cigarettes in Mexico come from the illicit market. But now, at least in vaping, 100%. comes from the illicit market.
01:30 - 01:43
[Brent Stafford]
So, yes, they're getting all over and the government system is just giving them all and just... So that must be a consequence of writing a vaping ban into the Constitution.
01:43 - 02:56
[Mariana Hoyo]
Into the Constitution, yes. Now it's official in January and it puts us in a very... complex situations as healthcare professionals because we cannot even talk about it. We cannot recommend. They'd say, you cannot recommend, promote, or anything about non-combustible products and that's with big sanctions I was just I just knew yesterday that I should be more cautious at what I speak in social media with the patients because someone can say like hey that doctor is recommending these safer products as they see it, because they don't go to evidence. I think this decision was made out of ignorance of this precautionary principle that it goes through, okay, we don't know, but what about what we do know, right? So it's a very frustrating point, but coming here and getting very positive stories and successful cases gives us hope. to follow that pathway at some point.
02:56 - 03:00
[Brent Stafford]
Excellent. Is there prohibition in Colombia?
03:00 - 04:28
[Gina Reyes]
No. No, in this moment we have... Okay, I speak in Spanish. In this moment we have in Colombia... There is no prohibition, there is regulation, but at the moment they want to compare the VAPE or this type of alternative, they want to compare them with the combustion cigarette. So at the moment we have high taxes. So this allows people who really want to change to a less risky alternative, like vaping, to not be able to do it, to not be able to access these types of alternatives. There are other legal gaps. They haven't talked about flavors at the moment. There is no prohibition with flavors, but we can't vape in public places. There are restrictions, certain stigmas. But in general, we are one of the countries that do not have a prohibition at the moment. We work every day to ensure that people can and know more about the information and that there is not so much misinformation about this alternative.