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New types of similar products, resembling liquid e-cigarettes, are spreading these days. These devices allow users to inhale not only beverages but even alcohol, leaving them in a regulatory blind spot and making safety verification urgent.

Reporter Park Ha-jeong has the story.

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An e-cigarette shop in Seoul.

[They sell a lot.]

Promoting it as a recently popular product, the staff explains:

[Store Staff: You can mix in alcohol, you can mix in beverages, you can mix in orange juice. Then the percentage comes out. The nicotine percentage.]

They even demonstrate by adding cola.

[Store Staff: Smoking it like direct-to-lung vaping, direct-to-lung. You inhale it for a while. Since it is smoked like a shisha, it is less harmful to the human body.]

Marketed with the pitch that users can enjoy "their own recipe," the device works by placing one's mouth on the mouthpiece and inhaling. The aerosol generated by heating the built-in liquid passes through the beverage and is delivered together.

Alcohol, cola, and caffeine-loaded energy drinks can all be put 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 potential harm to the human body.

[Choi Chang-min / Professor, Department of Pulmonology, Asan Medical Center: Even if consuming it orally causes no issues, the lungs are very sensitive tissues with numerous blood vessels, so no one knows what kind of damage it might cause. If substances like narcotics are inhaled, it could also turn into a major social problem.]

The device importer claims that the product itself does not contain nicotine, making it safer than liquid e-cigarettes.

However, health authorities advise caution, stating that products labeled as nicotine-free may actually contain nicotine or other unverified chemical substances.

[Nam In-soon / Member, National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee (Democratic Party): (Overseas), even if products are nicotine-free, if they vaporize and are directly inhaled into the lungs, they are regulated. I believe safety tests are necessary, but because they are in a legal blind spot...]

Countries such as Canada and the EU regulate all liquid inhalation products as e-cigarettes, regardless of whether they contain nicotine.

In response to inquiries regarding the safety of these 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 Reported by Kim Yong-woo | Video Edited by Ahn Yeo-jin | Design by Kang Yun-jung | VJ: Shin So-young)