Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has announced a reform that plans to ban vapers because she understands that these represent a risk to the health of the population. In this way, it supports the determination of the previous government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was the one who started the crusade against said artifacts.
«Approval for the elimination of vapes is in process“We hope that this year all the reforms that were presented on February 5 will come out,” said Sheinbaum.
Last August, the Constitutional Points Commission of the Chamber of Deputies endorsed prohibiting the production, distribution, marketing and sale of electronic cigarettes, vapers and other similar electronic systems or devices established by law. Now the approval of the Senate remains. It also prohibits the illicit use of fentanyl “to protect the health of Mexican men and women.”
The business sector has spoken out against it. The tobacco company Phillip Morris Mexico has pointed out that the ban on tobacco heaters and vapers has only given new business to organized crime and caused a tax loss of 5 billion pesos annually. (approximately 250 million euros). According to official data, there are 17 million active smokers in Mexico.
Vape black market
The black market for vapes is not a secret in Mexico City. In this capital, it is common for street vendors to sell vape pens on terraces, bars and outside nightclubs, which have also become extremely popular among the young public.
An irregular business that in other latitudes offers more sinister postcards. In October of last year it appeared in the streets of Los Mochis, in the state of Sinaloa, in the Mexican Pacific, a naked man, tied to a light post and with a piece of cardboard stuck to his chest: «This happened to me because I was selling vapes, this is a warning for the missing grasshoppers. “The others are going to do worse, they have been warned, we have already identified them.” The video circulated on social networks and quickly spread the news that drug cartels are now also entering the vaping business.
Entry into the world of drugs
According to a report from the Sinaloa Youth Integration Centers (CIJ), the use of vapers among young people in that state increased by more than 50% and that in 2023 They received more than 300 teenagers who confirmed to them that electronic cigarettes became their entry into the world of other drugs such as marijuana, crystal and fentanyl.
Martha Alicia Torres Reyes, head of the State Commission for Prevention, Treatment and Control of Addictions (CEPTCA) stated that organized crime is behind the sale of vapes altered with methamphetamine and fentanyl mixtures to “hook” new consumers.
In an interview for the Río Doce portal, he explained that organized crime is taking advantage of the niche that vapers represent, because given the prohibition on their legal sale in Mexico, the cartels are meeting that demand but they do so with substances dangerous for young people.
The London newspaper ‘The Guardian’ reported this weekend that The black market for vapes covers 90% of consumers and that he is infiltrated by the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel.
The crusade against the legal sale of vapers began in the López Obrador government when in his morning conferences the now former president began to say that vapers “they destroy the respiratory system of young people”.
In October 2022, the Federal Commission for the Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris) warned about the use of vapes, saying they contain more than 30 substances that are omitted from their labeling, one of which is used to kill flies and cockroaches. .
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