Group warns against use of electronic cigarettes harmful

RIYADH: A voluntary youth outreach group has issued a warning against the publication of any study that intends to promote smoking tobacco.
The warning comes on the heels of a study published by a well-known wire agency and a foreign health agency saying that electronic cigarettes are less harmful than tobacco by 95 percent and should be promoted as a tool to help smokers quit smoking.
But the volunteer youth group said that electronic cigarettes are very harmful and detrimental to health. It added that it is also the easy way to tobacco smoking.
“Marketing of this and similar studies is alarming and must be addressed accordingly.Professionals must educate young people regarding such a study so that they don’t fall victim to smoking,” the group said.
The volunteer group said such a study is used as a marketing tool of companies who want to cash in and therefore they’re circumventing the regulations that prohibit the promotion of tobacco or its derivatives.
The group warned that the publication of the study and marketing images of adolescents and teens smoking heavily and without explaining the danger of smoking is a serious marketing and contrary to state regulations.
Talking on the matter, a local expert on carcinogens, said the study was misleading and incomplete and purely non-scientific.
He added that the study only increased addiction to nicotine instead of preventing it, adding that it did not also mention the increase in heart beat rate as well as intensified addiction among adolescents.
If the group and other concerned individuals are alarmed by the study, it’s because they know the bad consequences.
Besides, it had been reported earlier that by 2020, there would be about 10 million smokers in Saudi Arabia.