[Anchor]
New types of pseudo-cigarettes resembling liquid e-cigarettes are spreading these days. These are products that allow users to inhale not just beverages, but even alcohol. However, safety verifications regarding their impact on the human body have not even been conducted.
Reporter Park Ha-jeong has the details.
[Reporter]
An e-cigarette store in Seoul.
[They sell a lot.]
Presenting it as a recent popular product, they promote it like this.
[Store Staff: You can mix alcohol in it, you can mix beverages, you can mix orange juice. Then the percentage comes out. The nicotine percentage.]
They even demonstrate by adding cola.
[Store Staff: Smoking it like lung inhalation, lung inhalation. You draw it in for a while. Since it is smoked like a hookah, it is less harmful to the human body.]
This product, which boasts that users can "enjoy their own recipes," is structured so that when a person puts their mouth on the mouthpiece and inhales, the aerosol generated by heating the built-in liquid passes through the beverage and is delivered together.
Alcohol, cola, and energy drinks high in caffeine can all be placed into the device and inhaled.
Nicotine can also be added, but the product sales website only discloses a battery safety confirmation report, with no information regarding its harmfulness to the human body.
[Choi Chang-min / Professor of Pulmonology, Asan Medical Center: Even if there is no problem when consumed orally, the lungs are very sensitive tissues with many blood vessels, so no one knows what kind of damage it might cause. If substances like narcotics are inhaled, it could also lead to major social problems.]
The device importer claims that the product itself does not contain nicotine, making it safer than liquid e-cigarettes.
However, health authorities maintain that caution is necessary because products labeled as nicotine-free may actually contain nicotine or other unverified chemical substances.
[Nam In-soon / National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee Member (Democratic Party): (Overseas) even if they are nicotine-free, if they are vaporized and directly inhaled into the lungs, such cases are regulated. I think safety inspections are necessary, but because it is in a legal blind spot....]
In countries such as Canada and the EU, all liquid inhalation products are managed as e-cigarettes regardless of whether they contain nicotine.
In response to an inquiry regarding the safety of the products, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety stated that products not using nicotine as a raw material cannot be classified as tobacco, and therefore fall outside its jurisdiction.
(Video Journalist: Kim Yong-woo | Video Editor: Ahn Yeo-jin | Design: Kang Yoon-jung | VJ: Shin So-young)
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