SAFEGUARDING THE FUTURE

What Is an E-Cigarette?
Electronic cigarettes — commonly known as e-cigarettes, vapes, vapourizers, or Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) — are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid solution to produce an aerosol that is inhaled by the user. Unlike conventional cigarettes, which generate smoke through the combustion of tobacco leaf, e-cigarettes operate through an electrical heating mechanism that vapourizes a chemical liquid, commonly called e-liquid or e-juice. This fundamental distinction — vapourization rather than combustion — was the cornerstone of the industry’s early marketing claim that e-cigarettes are ‘safer’ than traditional smoking. That claim, as the global scientific community has firmly established, is dangerously misleading.
E-cigarettes come in numerous forms: cigarlike devices that resemble conventional cigarettes, pen-style vapourizers, tank-based mods, and the increasingly ubiquitous pod systems and disposable single-use devices. Heated tobacco products (HTPs) such as IQOS, and electronic shisha or e-hookah devices fall within the broader category of emerging tobacco and nicotine products regulated under international frameworks.

Core Components
All e-cigarette devices share three essential components: a battery providing the power source; an atomizer (heating coil) that converts e-liquid to aerosol; and the e-liquid reservoir — a cartridge, tank, pod, or bottle containing the consumable solution. The e-liquid itself contains a mixture of propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin as the base carrier, nicotine in concentrations ranging from zero to over 50 milligrammes per millilitre in some products, flavouring agents — which may number in the thousands across products — and additional chemical additives.
Crucially, the e-liquid and the aerosol it generates are not inert. Heating these compounds produces new chemical species not present in the original liquid. At high temperatures, propylene glycol and glycerin decompose to form formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and acrolein — substances classified as known or probable human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). The flavouring compound diacetyl, widely used in buttery and creamy flavour variants, is firmly linked to bronchiolitis obliterans — a severe, irreversible obliterative lung disease colloquially known as ‘popcorn lung.’ Heavy metals, including nickel, tin, and lead, have been detected in e-cigarette aerosols, leached from heating coil components.

Global and Myanmar Prevalence
The Global Vaping Epidemic
The global growth of e-cigarette use has been extraordinary in both scale and speed. From a niche consumer product a decade ago, the global e-cigarette market had attracted an estimated 82 million users by 2021, up from 68 million in 2020 — a 20.6 per cent increase in a single year. The South-East Asia region alone accounted for approximately 14.3 million users in 2021. Market analysts project the global ENDS industry to exceed US$55 billion in annual revenue by 2030, driven by aggressive expansion into low- and middle-income markets across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The demographic profile of e-cigarette uptake is perhaps its most alarming feature. According to the World Health Organization’s 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis on global youth e-cigarette prevalence, at least 15 million children aged 13 to 15 years currently use e-cigarettes worldwide. Children are, on average, nine times more likely to use e-cigarettes than adults in surveyed countries. Among youth aged 16 to 19 years, current usage rates range from 7.7 to 9.4 per cent across countries — figures that represent an unprecedented epidemic of nicotine addiction initiation among a generation that had never smoked conventional cigarettes.
The tobacco industry’s strategy is explicit in its internal documents: recruit a new generation of nicotine- dependent consumers to replace adults who quit or die from smoking-related diseases. The instrument of this recruitment is the e-cigarette — packaged in child-friendly designs, available in thousands of sweet and fruity flavours, priced at pocket money levels in disposable form, and promoted through social media platforms where young people spend the majority of their leisure time.

Myanmar’s Burden
In Myanmar, e-cigarette use has expanded rapidly against an already concerning backdrop of conventional tobacco use. National STEPS survey data recorded an adult smoking prevalence of approximately 26 per cent, and an estimated 56,841 people die annually in Myanmar from smoking- related diseases — a figure that will grow as the downstream health consequences of the emerging vaping epidemic materialize.
A 2020 study of tobacco smokers across six states and regions of Myanmar found that 11.6 per cent of respondents reported ever having used an e-cigarette. Use was significantly concentrated among males, students, youth aged 18 to 29 years, and residents of Mandalay Region — the demographic groups most targeted by the industry’s marketing. Data from the 2016 Global Youth Tobacco Survey showed that smoking prevalence among students aged 13 to 15 in Myanmar had already risen from 6.8 per cent in 2011 to 8.3 per cent in 2016, before the explosive growth of affordable disposable vapes in subsequent years.

WHO FCTC: The International Call for Action
The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), which entered into force in 2005 and to which Myanmar acceded in 2004, remains the world’s first international public health treaty and the cornerstone of global tobacco control. It’s 182 Parties collectively represent over 90 per cent of the world’s population, making it one of the most widely adopted treaties in United Nations history.
The 11th Conference of the Parties (COP11) to the WHO FCTC, held in Geneva, Switzerland from 16 to 22 November 2025, placed ENDS and emerging nicotine products at the centre of its deliberations. I attended COP11 as a WHO Guest Advisor. The consensus of COP11 was unambiguous: e-cigarettes represent a dangerous gateway that leads young people towards conventional cigarette use through nicotine addiction, and the protection of youth must be the paramount priority for all Member States.

Key COP11 Resolutions and Positions
• All Member States resolved to prioritize protective measures for youth against e-cigarettes and to establish strict regulations, treating the issue as an urgent public health emergency rather than a commercial regulatory matter.
• The Conference reaffirmed that e-cigarettes are not an approved smoking cessation therapy — the WHO does not recommend ENDS for cessation — and that framing them as harm reduction tools plays into the tobacco industry’s strategy of delay and deception.
• Member States were called upon to implement the full range of FCTC provisions — particularly Articles 5.3 (protection from industry interference), 8 (protection from secondhand exposure), 11 (packaging and labelling), and 13 (advertising, promotion and sponsorship bans) — as applied to ENDS products.

• Countries that had not yet enacted ENDS-specific legislation were urged to do so without delay, citing the accelerating youth epidemic and the industry’s deliberate targeting of unregulated markets.
• The Conference strongly emphasized that the tobacco and vaping industries must be excluded from all policy-making processes relating to tobacco and ENDS control, in line with Article 5.3.
The FCTC framework provides Myanmar — and all Parties — with both the legal mandate and the technical guidance to act decisively. Myanmar’s Customs Order 8/2026 is a direct response to these international obligations and the conclusions of COP11.

Global Situation: How the World Has Responded
The international policy landscape on e-cigarettes is now clearly bifurcating into two camps: countries that have enacted comprehensive bans or severe restrictions, and those that have opted for regulatory frameworks. The trend among public health leaders — particularly in Asia — is decisively towards prohibition.

Comprehensive Prohibition Countries
More than 35 countries have enacted comprehensive bans on the sale, importation, and/or use of e- cigarettes. India’s 2019 Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Ordinance — subsequently enacted as permanent legislation — banned production, manufacture, import, export, transport, sale, distribution, storage, and advertisement of all ENDS products, with penalties of up to 3 years imprisonment for repeat offences. Brazil’s ANVISA has maintained a ban since 2009, one of the earliest in the world. Thailand’s ban, enacted under the Customs Act in 2014, carries penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment. Singapore’s prohibition under the Tobacco (Control of Advertisements and Sale) Act has been comprehensively enforced since 2016. Cambodia and Laos both prohibit ENDS, meaning every one of Myanmar’s neighbouring countries to the east and south had acted years before Myanmar’s 2026 order.

Strict Regulatory Frameworks
The European Union’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) and its 2024 revisions represent the most detailed regulatory framework for ENDS globally, limiting nicotine concentrations to 20 milligrammes per millilitre, restricting tank volumes, mandating health warnings covering 30 per cent of packaging, and prohibiting characterizing flavors in many member states. The United Kingdom, following its post-Brexit regulatory divergence, has adopted a ‘regulated authorization’ approach while pursuing stricter youth protection measures, including a generational tobacco ban. Australia, after a period of prescription-only access, moved in 2024 toward a phased ban on commercial disposable vapes.

The Industry’s Preferred Markets
Indonesia, the Philippines, and several Central Asian and African nations remain as relatively permissive markets where the tobacco industry has concentrated its promotional efforts. This deliberate targeting of unregulated markets is a well-documented industry strategy: when one market restricts access, the industry redirects resources toward the next available jurisdiction. Myanmar’s 2026 ban removes the country from this category.

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