• DECISION: A Mexican federal judge rejected on a technicality a legal challenge by Phillip Morris International against President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s February decision to ban the legal importation of e-cigarettes and vaping devices into Mexico.
• CHALLENGE: Philipp Morris International is one of the two main companies dominating cigarette sales in Mexico. E-cigarette commerce has been banned in Mexico since 2008 but was hoping to introduce Iqos, a device that relies on “heated tobacco” and not on nicotine e-liquids.
• TECHNICALITY: “(Legal) resources that lack a signature cannot express the subscriber’s will, and due to such omission, the documents have no value. Because every document must be guaranteed by name and signature”, said federal judge Germán Cruz Silva on his decision dated March 3.
• NUMBERS: Some 1.3 million Mexicans vape regularly according to a 2017 Mexican government survey. This represents 1% of the total Mexican population. However, cigarette use in Mexico began to decrease substantially during the last decade. Today the smoking rate among adults is 11.9%.
