The lower house of Mexico’s Congress voted to alter the constitution to include a ban on e-cigarettes, reports Reuters. The measure passed with 410 votes in favor and 24 against.
The reform also sanctions “production, distribution and sale of toxic substances, chemical precursors, the illicit use of fentanyl and other non-authorized synthetic drugs.”
Less than 1 million people from ages 12 to 65 reported regularly using a vape in 2022, according to federal data cited by lawmakers. Meanwhile, around 500,000 teens and 300,000 adults used e-cigarettes.
The proposal was sent to Congress by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who argued that smoking devices were damaging public health, with children particularly susceptible to getting hooked.
Lopez Obrador had already banned such devices through a presidential decree, though they remain widely available for purchase. Millions of Mexicans, meanwhile, smoke traditional cigarettes, which remain legal.
Opposition legislator Ector Jaime Ramirez said banning fentanyl and vaping in the same reform was excessive and “trivializing to the effort being made to combat the most addictive and dangerous drugs.”
Mexico’s ban on imports of e-cigarettes and related products is unconstitutional, the nation’s top court ruled, reports Meganoticias.
The First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation determined that the prohibition imposes excessive restrictions on commercial freedom of Philip Morris Mexico.
The ruling is limited to Philip Morris Mexico and does not affect similar products that could be brought to market in the future.
It protects Philip Morris Mexico from future restrictions and sets a legal precedent that could influence future litigation. The judgment specifies that this protection will be maintained until the government amends its General Import and Export Taxation Act.
According to the Mexican government, an estimated 938,000 teenagers have tried electronic nicotine delivery systems, and about 160,000 use them regularly
Despite the import ban, vaping has spread rapidly. In 2023, there were an estimated 2.1 million e-cigarette users in Mexico, compared with 975,000 in 2019.
The Philip Morris Mexico case stems from an October 2022 Supreme Court ruling that deemed some prohibitions on ENDS unconstitutional and allowed certain groups to apply for permission to continue the import and sale of these products.
Vapers protested in front of Mexico’s Congress of the Union, calling for the country’s vaping ban to be replaced with risk-based regulation. The protest was organized by the World Vapers’ Alliance and All Vape Mexico.
The protesters also demanded a halt to the constitutional reform proposed by President Andres Mauel Lopez Obrador that would elevate the ban to the Constitution. In addition, they called for approval of a risk-based regulation allowing adult smokers access to vapor products to quit smoking combustible cigarettes.
Mexico’s vaping ban has been in place since May 2020.
“The ban was introduced in order to prevent underage vaping; however, minors now have full access to potentially dangerous products on the black market,” said Alberto Gomez Hernandez, policy manager of the World Vapers’ Alliance. “At the same time, smokers who want to quit smoking have difficulty finding safe vaping products. The ban has clearly been a failure and must be reversed as soon as possible. Legislation cannot be based on whim or ideology; it must be based on scientific evidence and the experience of other countries that have had good results.”
Vapes can easily be obtained on the informal market from underground vape shops and on the black market, which is controlled by organized crime groups.
“It is very unfortunate that the federal government thought that the ban would prevent many young people from having access to vaping and does not give people who want to quit smoking the opportunity to use this option,” said Deputy Sergio Barrera. “We need to have clear rules. We need to know who can produce it, who can distribute it and who can consume it, and that is why we are pushing for regulation.”
“The president sees a problem where there is actually a solution to smoking,” said Antonio Toscano, All Vape Mexico spokesperson. “His prohibitionist stance unprotects adult users, who are forced to buy black market products, where there are no quality controls, let alone controls on sales to minors. Prohibition is a danger to public health; good regulation could benefit public health enormously and save millions of lives.”
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stated his intentions to introduce a law forbidding the use of e-cigarettes and vapes before he finishes his term in 2024.
Mexico already has one of the most stringent anti-tobacco laws globally, as evidenced by their implementation of a bill in January that prohibits smoking in all public spaces – including outside on the street, according to media reports.
Mexico has already banned the import of e-cigarettes.
The Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (Credit: Fernando)
Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice has ruled that the presidential decree banning the sale of e-cigarettes is unconstitutional.
The court’s Second Chamber ruled by three votes in favor that the decree is contrary to the right to freedom of commerce.
The ruling only permits those retailers who were parties to the case to sell e-cigarettes.
In an en banc decision, the full Supreme Court of Justice of Mexico found the interpretation of Article 16(VI) banning e-cigarettes unconstitutional; however, this ruling does not automatically toss out the ban on e-cigarettes under Art. 16(VI).
Instead, if a retailer wants to sell e-cigarettes, he/she must bring a court case to declare the unconstitutionality of the ban in his/her specific case.
Thus, for now, e-cigarettes remain prohibited.
Alberto Gómez Hernández, policy manager of the World Vapers’ Alliance, said he welcomed the decision of Mexico’s High court, adding that the decree violates the right to freedom of trade of the companies, but also the right to health and the free development of the personality of Mexican adults. “Mexicans should be free to decide how they consume nicotine,” he said in an emailed release.
The declaration of unconstitutionality was carried out in an amparo lawsuit – a type of lawsuit in Mexico through which a company can seek legal protection or permission not to abide by regulation that violates its rights.
The general ban will stay in place since the ruling applies only to that specific case and business, yet it shows that even Mexico’s highest court agrees that a ban on vaping products is unconstitutional.
“Although the ruling does not establish jurisprudence, we hope that the government or the judiciary will reverse the ban soon,” said Gomez. “The ban has failed, it has aggravated the public health problem of smoking in Mexico and has created a huge black market controlled by mafias.
“Mexico needs to abandon the ban and adopt a strategy that includes the use of less harmful nicotine products as a smoking cessation tool. It should follow the example of Sweden, which is about to become the first smoke-free country, and the UK, which promotes the use of vapes to quit smoking.”
After banning the sale of all vaping products, Mexico has implemented one of the world’s strictest anti-tobacco laws by enacting a complete ban on smoking in public places.
The move also includes a total ban on the advertising, promotion and sponsorship of tobacco products, which means that cigarettes cannot be displayed inside shops. The step was first approved in 2021.
E-cigarettes and heated tobacco products are also facing tighter new restrictions, particularly indoors, as per BBC. Last year, Mexico banned the import, sale and distribution of vaping and heated-tobacco products.
The existing 2008 law in Mexico is responsible for smoke-free spaces in bars, restaurants and workplaces. The same law extended to a total ban in all public spaces including parks, beaches, hotels, offices and restaurants.
Several other Latin American countries have also passed legislation to create smoke-free public spaces. Last year for example, Panamanian President Laurentino Cortizo also signed legislation banning the sale of vapor products in his country.
However, Mexico’s legislation is considered to be the most robust and wide-ranging in the Americas.
However, some smokers are dismayed at the draconian nature of the new law. In essence, it means that many will only be allowed to smoke in their homes or other private residences.
Others have raised questions about the practicalities of enforcing the law.
With police corruption so rampant in Mexico, many fear that rather than issuing real fines or punishments for smoking in public, some officers will use it as a pretext for taking bribes.
A health regulatory body for Mexico’s government says its scientists have developed a new methodology to analyze the aerosols in electronic nicotine-delivery systems (ENDS) because “no one else has come up with one.” The sale of ENDS products was banned in Mexico in June.
Final results of a new analysis of ENDS products using the new method will be published in scientific journals in the coming months, according to Cofepris chief Alejandro Svarch, who added that the “pioneering methodology” developed in Mexico will be of interest to health authorities in other countries.
Aerosol testing has been performed on vaping products since at least 2014 in other countries, such as the U.S. and the UK. Svarch offered no explanation on how Mexico’s new testing method is performed or why it is effective or why other methods were not effective, only that a testing method “did not exist.” There was no mention of what products were tested or at what temperatures.
He said an analysis using the exclusive method by health regulator Cofepris detected “30 undisclosed substances in aerosols inhaled” via ENDS products.
Linalool, which can be used as an insecticide, was one of the substances detected, Svarch said during Mexican President López Obrador’s press conference last week.
“This in itself is an enormous deception of consumers, who trust that the product is less harmful than a conventional cigarette, because it [supposedly] only has flavorings and nicotine, when in fact, it has other kinds of substances or ingredients that are highly dangerous for humans,” Svarch said.
Among the “hidden” ingredients that “producers of vaping devices don’t want us to know about,” he said, are dimethyl ether, benzyl alcohol, ethyl propionate, isoamyl acetate, butyl acetate and methyl cinnamate.
Svarch also presented a song commissioned by Cofepris (song starts at 1:40) that warns of the risks of vaping and advises ENDS users to “give up now.”
Among the cautionary tales offered via the song’s lyrics are the cases of a woman who lost three teeth due to vaping and a handsome man who became known as “burnt face” because his “beloved vape” exploded while he was using it, according to media reports.
The old format of gathering thousands of people together at a vape convention is changing.
By Norm Bour
For 18 months while Covid-19 was shutting down borders, the vape industry event space was a ghost town. Between not wanting to travel and the inconvenience, everyone was hunkering down and waiting for the pandemic to end. Even though the pandemic has not ended in any official capacity, the events industry has roared back with a vengeance.
Nevertheless, it looks different than before.
There are few, if any, large vape conventions in vapor-filled convention halls, and it’s rare to find “vape only” meetings since all the different components—vape, CBD, hemp and alternatives—have all melded together.
Alongside traditional large-scale trade shows, there has also been a movement toward more intimate events, and along with SSE and smoke shop events comes the Counter Culture Convention (C3), which recently held two shows in Cancun, Mexico.
The founder of C3, Michael Wittenberg, is no stranger to the events space since he has been doing them for nearly two decades, nor is he new to vaping. In years past, he ran National Vape Expos (NVE) at locations throughout the eastern U.S. But doing international vape events is new to him even though there have been typical booth shows in Colombia, Mexico and throughout Europe.
However, that’s just one of the differentiators.
The other is that this new version is not a booth show but instead it’s formatted as a one-on-one meeting behind closed doors, designed for networking, intimacy and fun.
“After running NVE for many years, and then being shut down by Covid, I knew I wanted to do something different than before,” Wittenberg said. “I loved the one-on-one meetings format, so we launched that model in Cancun, Mexico, earlier this year. That proved to be a great success, so we duplicated it again in April and [will] have the next one in the Dominican Republic.”
The C3 website bills its events as “everything you love about conventions or trade shows;” however, the “hustle and bustle” of the show floor is removed. The VIP events instead highlight and amplify the personalized introductions.
“Our attendees represent the most influential thought leaders, innovators and trendsetters that Counter Culture has to offer, from cannabis and vape leaders all the way to the cutting-edge products and trends of the future,” the site states. “Our mission is to create an environment in which the only thing on our buyers’ minds is how they can find more value for their businesses. These buyers represent the cream of the crop—the leaders in the counterculture space who help facilitate and drive the various industries [that] are helping define our popular culture.”
The events likely won’t be held in the U.S., according to Wittenberg. He says that finding all-inclusive resorts is not that easy in the U.S., and they’re expensive. “When you go to exotic locations in Mexico, the [Dominican Republic] or other Caribbean countries, the all-inclusive-style resorts are everywhere,” Wittenberg explains. “Plus, the advantage of having everything on-site keeps our gathering intimate; there is no need to go anywhere. We even have our own in-house travel agent with decades of experience and connections, so we do our homework.
“When we launched our first NVE in 2015, we intentionally did not want to have it at a boring convention center or hotel. Instead, we picked Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, which was near to us, and later, we moved the event to the Mohegan Casino and Resort. After that, we duplicated the event in Alabama, and the results were terrific.”
Credit: Vepar5
Wittenberg said that he also rented the largest suites at his convention show, not because of vanity but because it encouraged networking.
“I always invited the attendees up to our room, which they [accepted] and many times brought their customers or vendors with them. That worked well until the end of 2019,” he said.
Until Covid-19 came along, which changed everything.
“Everything is different now, and vape, CBD, hemp and alternative[s] all run together. Before, you’d have just a vape show or just a hemp show, but now we have vape and smoke shops that carry a variety of crossover products,” he says. “[There’s] something for everyone.”
The terms “counterculture” or “alternative” are more mainstream than ever, which makes sense since hemp has become legal in many jurisdictions. Medical cannabis is legal in two-thirds of states, and recreational use is legal in almost half the U.S. Legal or not, the negative stigma cannabis once carried is mostly in the past.
While cannabis is gaining acceptance, vaping faces increasing pressure. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s premarket tobacco product application process has proven to be a significant, costly hurdle to many vapor businesses. It’s almost ironic that CBD and marijuana face less pressure than nicotine vapes.
The industry continues to accommodate regulations along with the needs of the public and the vaping space.
“In our industry, we’ve learned to be resilient, which makes sense since so many of us are radicals and rule breakers,” Wittenberg said. “In other [industries] under such attack, most entrepreneurs would have quit a long time ago. But so many of our peers have fought demons worse than government intervention, so they tend to stick it out regardless of the pressure. Plus, a lot of our people don’t really have anything else. They put all their efforts into vape and don’t have a Plan B.”
C3 brings together 30 buyers and 30 vendors and has them rotate through 30-minute meetings. If that time is too short, they can meet over a meal or drinks at night. They check in on Monday, leave on Friday, and the costs to run the event are borne by the vendors; the buyers’ costs are paid. And they do their best to screen the buyers to make sure they are who they say they are, and they now have a waiting list of candidates that wish to attend. Wittenberg calls his concept “luxury business networking.”
When specifically asked about any challenges C3 had doing events like this in Mexico, which has a long, sorted history and relationship with drug culture, the answer was somewhat complicated. Cannabis is technically illegal without a permit in the country, but you can be sure that attendees brought their own products into the country.
“They pretty much turned a blind eye,” Wittenberg said. “Our people kept things on the down-low. After Covid, the hospitality market had a long dry spell, and they were looking for (paying) bodies more than they normally would need to. That worked in our favor.” Times change. People change. Vape lounges, cloud comps, events with 20,000 attendees—they are all memories of the past. Now it seems like the right time to reinvent the industry. C3 is stepping up to help make those changes in an industry that always seems to be changing.
Norm Bour is the founder of VapeMentors and works with vape businesses worldwide. He can be reached at norm@VapeMentors.com.
Mexico has banned all vaping and heated tobacco products. A decree signed Tuesday by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that outlaws the sale of e-cigarettes is in line with continuing the government’s ongoing anti-vaping policy. Heated tobacco products are not exempt from the ban as previously reported they would.
The decision also follows a maximum health alert issued by the country’s federal health risks commission, which declared that all alternative tobacco smoking products can cause major illness, according to El Pais. Federal and local authorities have launched several campaigns to locate and seize these devices in at least a dozen states.
Mexico had already prohibited imports of the devices since at least October. And even before that, consumer protection and other laws had been used to discourage sales, according to the Associated Press.
Despite Tuesday’s decree, many Mexicans import or buy vaping cartridges or fluid under the table or online domestically. Assistant Health Secretary Hugo López Gatell lashed out at industry claims that vaping is safer than smoking, calling it “a big lie.”
The health alerts and legal measures have prompted a debate about vaping devices that are being smuggled into the country, according to El Pais. During the Senate debate about the tax law, Senator Luis Ortiz proposed regulating the market, saying that distribution is being left to the black market in the absence of companies being able to import the products and pay taxes and salaries.
Credit: 5m3 Photos
The government’s own figures estimate that at least 5 million Mexicans have tried vaping at least once.
Although the legal market for vaping products has grown in the country, it still represents a tiny fraction compared to that of conventional cigarettes. Philip Morris International, one of the marketers of these alternatives, went from having 35,000 to nearly 42,000 users of tobacco heaters. According to official government estimates, in the last five years the tobacco industry increased its sales from about 846 to 1.2 billion pesos (about $64 million) a year.
At the same time, according to a study carried out by the Mexican federation of business chambers, illegal tobacco represents 19 percent of the total market. Between 2019 and 2020, although there was an increase in tobacco taxes due to the Special Tax on Products and Services (IEPS), payment of the taxes contracted due to the trade in counterfeit tobacco products.
One of the arguments used to ban all types of vaporizer devices, whether with or without nicotine, is that various flavorings are used to “hook children and adolescents who will later be consumers of other drugs,” Senator Lilia Valdez said before the bill’s approval, according to El Pais.
Andrea Constantini, head of Regional Scientific Engagement for Latin America and Canada at Philip Morris International, says that the ban creates more channels for minors to access unregulated products. Prohibitions, she says, simply lead to a further “lack of control” over the market, with minors acquiring products of varying quality through illicit channels.
Mexico’s Supreme Court has ruled that heated tobacco products (HTP) will be exempted from a February 2020 presidential decree that bans importation of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), reports Filter.
Prior to the on July 16 ruling, manufacturers were able to import and sell HTPs legally using a loophole in the law called “habeas corpus trials.” But the loophole prevented the development of a fully regulated, legal market. The new presidential decree reverses that and allows for increased sales of these devices.
Vapor products that use e-liquids continue to be banned by the Mexican government. According to Roberto Sussman, a researcher at the National University of Mexico and president of Pro-Vapeo Mexico, the vapor market in Mexico has been functioning since 2009 as part of the huge informal economy, which employs more than 50 percent of the workforce and it is illegal but not criminal.
It was an embarrassment for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has expressed opposition to foreign NGOs and agents meddling with Mexican government regulations.
More than 1.2 million Mexicans—1 percent of the adult population—use vapor products somewhat regularly, according to a survey by the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction.
According to Filter, a fatal blow to the HTP ban came when it was leaked that the draft of the decree was written by a lawyer working for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
“It was an embarrassment for President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who has expressed opposition to foreign NGOs and agents meddling with Mexican government regulations,” said Roberto Sussman.
It’s not the first time Mexico’s Supreme Court intervened in the country’s drug policy. On June 28, it stepped in to legalize marijuana, after lawmakers had failed to finalize the legislation the court demanded three years earlier.
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador stated his intentions to introduce a law forbidding the use of e-cigarettes and vapes before he finishes his term in 2024.
