Thailand’s National Health Commission Office Reviews Two Years of E-Cigarette Control Efforts and Plans Further Recommendations

Key Takeaways

• Thailand’s National Health Commission Office held a meeting on March 13, 2026 to assess two years of e-cigarette control efforts.
• The resolution on protecting children and youth from e-cigarettes was endorsed by more than 264 partner organisations on May 13, 2024.
• Thailand’s cabinet approved five e-cigarette prevention and control measures on May 20, 2025.
• Survey data showed that more than 1.7 million additional people aged 15 and over in Thailand used e-cigarettes over the past five years.
• Participants urged the new government to maintain the import and sales ban and proposed making e-cigarettes a national agenda issue.

2Firsts, March 17, 2026

According to the original report, Thailand’s National Health Commission Office, together with partner network agencies, organised a policy forum titled “Public Policy Drive: Lessons Learned and Future Directions on Protecting Children and Youth From E-Cigarettes” to assess the results of e-cigarette control efforts over the past two years and to develop recommendations for submission to the National Health Commission.

The meeting was held on March 13, 2026. It reviewed the implementation over the past two years of the issue-specific National Health Assembly resolution on “protecting children and youth from e-cigarettes.” The resolution had been endorsed by consensus from more than 264 partner agencies across sectors on May 13, 2024.

The original report said one of the key advances was the cabinet resolution of May 20, 2025, which approved five measures to prevent and control e-cigarettes in Thailand in line with the National Health Assembly resolution proposed by the National Health Commission. These measures include developing knowledge, raising awareness of harms, strengthening surveillance and law enforcement, improving network capacity, and reaffirming the policy banning imports and sales, in line with the prime minister’s directive, leading to more serious enforcement and crackdowns.

Suwanna Ruengkarnjanases, deputy director of the Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Center and former chair of the Public Policy Development Committee on E-Cigarette Control, said all sectors must work together to ensure that policies can continue to genuinely protect children and youth from e-cigarettes. She said it is essential for the new government to maintain the laws banning imports and sales, and proposed declaring e-cigarettes a national agenda issue in order to intensify suppression and surveillance.

She said past implementation had shown that when the government takes the issue seriously, the spread of e-cigarettes can be reduced and children and youth can be protected. She cited the government’s serious action in March 2025, saying that one month of intensive action produced results equivalent to a full year of suppression.

She also referred to treatment for nicotine users, saying the treatment uptake rate remains very low at only 10 percent. She said that while smoking cessation medication such as Cytisine is included in the benefits package, it does not cover laboratory fees, physician fees and other related costs, which hospitals must handle themselves. She said a research team is currently studying access to smoking cessation services in order to propose that the National Health Security Office develop a more complete benefits package covering diagnosis, medication, laboratory fees, physician costs and behavioural therapy.

Roengrudee Pathanavanich, associate professor and physician in the Department of Community Medicine at Ramathibodi Hospital Faculty of Medicine, said that according to a 2024–2025 survey on e-cigarette use in Thailand involving more than 25,000 people, the number of e-cigarette users aged 15 and over increased by more than 1.7 million over the past five years compared with the previous 2019–2020 survey. She said e-cigarettes have led to more new smokers, especially among children and adolescents.

She also said that more than one-third of current e-cigarette users had started using them for the first time within the past year, while also having no prior history of conventional cigarette use. She therefore said e-cigarettes are not a harm reduction strategy and do not reduce conventional cigarette smoking as claimed. She said there is no reason to accept or legalise them, adding that lessons from many countries show that countries banning e-cigarettes have lower youth use rates than countries where they are legal.

Nataya Promthong, director of the Central Public Policy Bureau of the National Health Commission Office, said the various opinions and proposals from the forum will be compiled and submitted to the National Health Commission in order to define future cooperation with different sectors. She also said work would continue through 13 regional mechanisms to improve coordination on e-cigarette issues across the country.

The forum also highlighted remaining gaps that still need to be addressed, including the lack of alignment among state agencies in preventing interference from the tobacco industry, the lack of a dedicated law specifically for e-cigarettes, and the fact that management of e-cigarettes is currently carried out under several laws overseen by multiple agencies, creating problems related to definitions, interpretation, authority and direction. It also noted that sales have shifted from storefronts to online channels, with sellers using online platforms that are difficult for state agencies to coordinate with. Awareness-building at the school level also remains limited, with some teachers and parents still lacking sufficient knowledge, understanding and awareness of the issue.

Among the proposals and recommendations reflected by participants were a call for the Office of the Prime Minister’s Secretariat to set guidelines or a central standard to prevent policy interference by the tobacco industry in accordance with the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, so that other agencies could adapt the standard to their own contexts. Participants also proposed that provincial governors declare e-cigarettes a provincial agenda issue in order to trigger whole-of-province action. They further suggested using policy as the driving force and establishing integrated working groups capable of linking laws and agency practices while no specific e-cigarette law yet exists.

Image source: The Coverage