By Jung Min-ho
There may be good reason not to turn to electronic cigarettes in response to the recent steep hike in cigarette prices.
On Sunday, an electronic cigarette exploded in a house in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province while being charged.
Fortunately, no one was injured when the 30,000-won ($27) battery-powered vaporizer went off. The owner, identified by his surname Choi, woke up to find the machine completely destroyed. .
As the consumption of e-cigarettes has increased following the recent rise in cigarette prices, the Ministry of Health and Welfare is now focusing on the safety of e-cigarettes.
“We found that the gas emitted by electronic cigarettes contains nicotine twice as much as in a traditional cigarette,” Ryu Geun-hyeok, the ministry’s bureau chief of health policy, said. “Inhaling an e-cigarette 150 times consecutively could even kill you.”
According to the ministry’s own research in 2011 and 2012, the gas produced by e-cigarettes contains toxic ingredients such as acetaldehyde, and hormone disruptors such as diethyl phthalate.
The National Institute of Health Sciences, Japan released similar study results last year that noted that heating the nicotine liquid used in an e-cigarette may produce up to 10 times the formaldehyde of a typical cigarette.
Yet many people fail to recognize the health risks, with some vendors advertising them as a harmless way to quit smoking, Ryu said.
According to G-Market, an online retailer, sales volumes of e-cigarettes from December 1 to 22 last year were 17 times higher than the same period the previous year.
“E-cigarettes have not been proved to help quit smoking. The World Health Organization also recommends each government not to allow e-cigarettes,” Ryu said.
Under Korean law, e-cigarettes are banned in non-smoking areas, which now include all restaurants, cafes or bars, regardless of their size. If anyone is found smoking, the shop owner and the smoker have to pay a fine of 1.7 million won ($1,500) and 100,000 won, respectively.
Also, those who sell e-cigarettes to children could face up to three years in prison or 20 million won ($18,000) in fines. Vendors who advertise that electronic cigarettes are harmless or even helpful in quitting smoking may also face penalties of up to 10 million won.
According to the ministry, 11 percent of males and 6 percent of females have smoked an e-cigarette at least once in their lifetime. These numbers are expected to shoot up in the near future.
Ryu said that the ministry will continue to work hard to prevent health damage caused by second-hand smoking from e-cigarettes.
However, the information about e-cigarettes ― what they contain, who uses them and under what circumstances ― is still cloudy. Last year the Lancet, a medical journal, reported that e-cigarettes were as effective as nicotine patches in helping smokers ditch the real thing. But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cautions that this evidence is still slim.