Staff Reporter:Musician and anchor Hasan Abidur Reja Jewel was a smoker from his teenage years and later suffered from major health issues as a result. Jewel underwent surgery and chemotherapy in 2011 and doctors advised him to quit smoking immediately, but the musician found it difficult to quit the habit.
Doctors from United Kingdom and Thailand, who treated Jewel, recommended replacing cigarette smoking with vaping. “Doctors presented me some evidences and I also studied and found out myself that vaping significantly less harmful than cigarettes,” said Jewel. The musician is now advocating for picking up vaping to replace cigarette for living healthier lives.
Vaping is a harm reducing product, its advocates say, and, -can save millions of lives by helping smokers to quit cigarettes. But misconception and misinformation about the device could mar its positive impact and jeopardize public health securities, said physicians and vaping promoters.
Vaping advocates believe that Bangladesh can achieve its aim of being tobacco-free by 2040. Vaping is the perfect tool to achieve that because it is 95 per cent less harmful than cigarette smoking according to the credible medical research.
Ishraq Dhaly, a promoter of Voice of Vapers, a facebook-based community for vapers in Bangladesh, said that some vapers are choosing vaping as a life style and while the others prefer it as a cessation tool. Ishraq was addicted to smoking for nearly 30 years until he switched to vaping, which helped him in quitting.
“Vaping has impacts in individual and broader level as people can stop smoking with it while the country can also attain its goal being tobacco-free by 2040,’’-he said. Voice of Vapers Bangladesh, while celebrating World Vape Day on May 30, talked about the necessity to eliminate misconceptions and misinformation on vaping.The organizers said that vaping can save millions of lives by helping smokers quit cigarettes, but misconception and misinformation about vaping could mar its positive impact and jeopardize public health. They sought for monitoring and regulations in the sector, instead on outright ban.
Professor Mithun Alamgir, Head of Department of Community Medicine at Enam Medical College Hospital, said that death by smoking is a silent global pandemic that is invisible to the people.-“In epidemiology, we call cigarette smoking a grade one carcinogenic. All of the most potent substances that cause cancer are in it. The best is to quit smoking completely,-” said Alamgir, adding that the most effective tool of doing this is vaping. The organizers said that they have launched a website (https://voiceofvapersbd.com/) which aims to provide details about vaping and clarify all the misconceptions.
Schumann Zaman, President of Bangladesh Electronic Nicotine Delivery System Traders Association (BENDSTA), said that vaping is only to be used by smokers. “We would never advocate vaping for a non-smoker. What we want is that a smoker will quit smoking by using vaping. This is the role of vaping. This is not about fashion. Vaping has the potential to save many lives.” Many are treating vaping and cigarette identically in terms of health hazards, which is utterly based on misconception, as studies have confirmed vaping as far less hazardous to health than cigarette smoking, said Schumann.
