BANGKOK, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The Tobacco Control Research and Knowledge Management Centre (TRC) on Wednesday lauded the Thai government's commitment not to reverse a ban on smoking alternatives such as e-cigarettes.

In response to Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha's recent vow to retain Thailand's ban on e-cigarettes, Dr Ronnachai Kongsakon, director of TRC said Thailand has done the right thing in banning e-cigarettes.

Dr Ronnachai said vaping is no different to smoking cigarettes, citing cases of vaping-related deaths in the United States, adding that it is good that Thailand bans the import, sale and possession of e-cigarettes, said Dr Ronnochai.

Dr Ronnochai also said that Indian academics have considered as baseless a report from Britain released in 2015, which claimed e-cigarettes were 95 percent safer than cigarettes.

He said the report referred to the opinions of 12 writers and one-third of them were stakeholders in the tobacco industry.