Mexico City, Mexico - Health authorities have seized the biggest shipment of electronic cigarettes in Mexico's history, more than 9,000 units of a product whose use is banned in this country but which, according to experts, is increasing due to the unproven belief that they help people quit smoking.

"They are products that have not been confirmed anywhere in the world to have the necessary safety, quality, and effectiveness to replace the use of tobacco. Unfortunately people believe they are a viable means to stop smoking when no evidence for that exists," said Alvaro Perez Vega, commissioner of the Cofrepis Health Operation.

Last week the "Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks," or Cofrepis, closed two establishments in the Mexican capital for selling such products, which are banned by health legislation, and seized 9,455 e-cigarettes and accessories.

Counting these, over the past two years a total of 11,700 e-cigarettes and accessories have been confiscated, Perez Vega said, adding that most of those items are "smuggled" into Mexico from China.

The "General Tobacco Control Law" bans importing, selling, distributing, displaying, promoting, or producing any object that is not a tobacco product but which displays some elements of a tobacco brand or some design or audio effect that identifies them with tobacco products.

And since e-cigarettes have the same shape as traditional cigarettes, they are subject to that prohibition.

But it's not just their similarity to real cigarettes nor their possibly false promise that concerns health authorities - the ban is, above all, because the liquid contained in e-cigarettes consists of "unregulated chemical components that could be damaging and dangerous to the user's health."

Dr. Guadalupe Ponciano Rodriguez, a specialist in treating addictions, said that many e-cigarette brands actually contain nicotine, but the makers never say how much, and people have the mistaken idea that what they're smoking is "just water vapor."

"That smoke really isn't water vapor. The makers include propylene and diethylene glycol, which are highly irritating types of alcohol," she explained.

In her opinion, other treatments are much more effective like "nicotine patches, inhalers, chewing gum," which really do help people quit smoking while getting rid of habits related to that practice.