Lowering the minimum age of persons who can buy, sell, or use vapes and electronic cigarettes to 18 years old means giving younger people access to products with adverse health effects and which could lead to substance abuse, medical and health experts say.
Almost two years into the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, variants of the novel coronavirus are getting “fitter and better” at transmission in humans, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Commission on Audit (COA) recently became the second independent constitutional body that got a tongue-lashing from President Rodrigo Duterte. After castigating the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) on several occasions for its critical stand on his war on drugs, the president has turned his ire on COA over its findings noting “deficiencies” in P67.32 billion of the Department of Health’s (DOH) spending of the COVID-19 response funds.
Barely 15 months after President Rodrigo Duterte banned “the use, sale or purchase of e-cigarettes and tobacco products” to persons below 21 years old, the House of Representatives approved a bill lowering to 18 the minimum age of persons who can buy heated tobacco products (HTPs) and electronic nicotine/non-nicotine delivery systems (ENDs/ENNDS).
Locally, vaccine wastage often happens due to “oversight in the monitoring of vaccine storage temperatures."
