A call to prevent minors from taking e-cigarettes

Shanghai's public health experts said the government should issue regulations and laws to prohibit minors from buying electronic cigarettes, ban e-cigarette stores from opening near schools and places minors often visit and enhance education on the harm of e-cigarettes.

The government also should step up inspection and monitoring on social media and ban online sales of e-cigarette to minors, experts told a symposium on the impact of e-cigarette on minors and relevant inspection and solutions launched by the Health Communication Institute of Fudan University on Friday.

According to a survey conducted by the institute on 2,405 middle and high school students in Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu, 4.5 percent have tried e-cigarettes and 1.6 percent have used them in the past 30 days.

Almost all minors who have tried e-cigarettes have also smoked cigarettes.

"Minors have a certain understanding of e-cigarettes' harm but not enough. Curiosity is one important reason that minors try e-cigarettes, and their curiosity is related to companies' online and offline marketing strategies," said Zheng Pinpin from Fudan, who led the survey. "We researched 104 e-cigarette websites, and only 43 percent set up age restrictions, but such restrictions have no verification requirement. As high as 76 percent of the websites don't have any health alerts. Some websites which have health alerts only give very vague warnings."

She said sales of e-cigarettes on WeChat and physical stores are also very active.

"Pictures and videos on WeChat show e-cigarettes are 'fun.' All offline stores offer free samples of e-cigarettes. It is an important strategy to attract buyers, but at the same time poses a threat to a non-smoking indoor environment. The health alert on e-cigarettes in stores is not enough," Zheng said.

Officials from the World Health Organization Representative Office for China said e-cigarettes impose health risks to both smokers and people around them.

"The multiple flavors and market strategies of e-cigarettes are very attractive to children and youth, which might be the reason why minors start to smoke and make smoking prevalent in public places again," said Sun Jiani from the office. "Research found young people under the age of 20 will have a two-fold possibility of smoking in the future if they try e-cigarettes. WHO has suggested that countries which don't ban e-cigarettes take actions like enhancing inspection, prohibiting non-smokers and minors from trying e-cigarettes and reducing the health risks to e-cigarette smokers."