Ban on heated tobacco in Cambodia

Following instructions from the National Authority for Drug Control (NACD), e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products are now banned in Cambodia. According to the agency, this new measure is justified by health reasons, particularly in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic.[1].

The President of the National Authority for the Fight against Drugs has called on the public authorities to ban electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products because they represent vectors for the initiation of tobacco and nicotine consumption, particularly for the youngest. According to him, the risks associated with these products are underestimated, while studies show that these products cause addiction, and constitute a risk factor for health, particularly pulmonary health. Finally, according to the NACD, new tobacco and nicotine products could have a potential gateway effect towards the use of illegal drugs.

A decision taken in the context of Covid-19

The Executive Director of the Cambodian Health Movement expressed his full support for the NACD. New tobacco and nicotine products are particularly implicated in the spread of the Covid-19 virus, due to the use of the same device by several people. Furthermore, weak advertising regulations have allowed the tobacco and nicotine industry to massively promote e-cigarettes and heated tobacco on social media. With no studies available on the consumption levels of these products, the scale of the phenomenon remains difficult to assess today, as do its consequences for public health in Cambodia.

Distinguishing e-cigarettes from heated tobacco

From a public health perspective, it is relevant to distinguish heated tobacco from electronic cigarettes. The former remains a tobacco product, the consumption of which has not been shown to result in a reduction in risks compared to the consumption of manufactured cigarettes. Furthermore, heated tobacco, initially developed by the tobacco industry, is identified by research as a tool for initiating smoking, and as a complementary product to the traditional cigarette.[2]. In other words, heated tobacco is a product of manufacturers designed to perpetuate nicotine addiction and the tobacco epidemic. Electronic cigarettes, on the other hand, are not tobacco products and, under certain conditions, can be considered as a tool to help with withdrawal, particularly for heavy smokers, for whom other withdrawal methods have not worked, such as nicotine patches.

An amalgamation maintained by cigarette manufacturers

This confusion between electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco is deliberately maintained by cigarette manufacturers. The reasons for this confusion are primarily commercial, since it allows the consumption of heated tobacco to be normalized and its risks to be minimized by associating them with those of electronic cigarettes. Furthermore, by maintaining the confusion between these two devices, cigarette manufacturers can hope to obtain for heated tobacco products a regulatory and tax framework aligned with that of electronic cigarettes, and therefore less restrictive.

[1] Khmer Times, Cambodia bans e-cigarettes, March 23, 2021, (accessed 03/24/2021)

[2] Dautzenberg B, Dautzenberg MD. Heated tobacco: systematic review of the literature [Systematic analysis of the scientific literature on heated tobacco]. Rev Mal Respir. 2019 Jan;36(1):82-103. French. doi: 10.1016/j.rmr.2018.10.010. Epub 2018 Nov 11. PMID: 30429092.