Health authorities in Mexico have seized more than 9,000 units of electronic cigarettes, which are banned in Mexico.

"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, but unfortunately people believe they are a viable means to stop smoking when no evidence for that exists," Alvaro Perez Vega, commissioner of health operations for Mexico's COFEPRIS, said according to EFE.

The Federal Commission for the Protection against Sanitary Risk (COFEPRIS) closed two businesses in Mexico City for selling e-cigarettes. The product is banned in the country by health legislation. 

Mexican officials have confiscated 11,000 e-cigarettes and accessories in the past two years. Officials say they are mostly smuggled into Mexico through China.

Dr. Guadalupe Ponciano Rodriguez, a specialist in treating addictions, said many e-cigarette brands contain nicotine, and a lot of users don't know what they're smoking.

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

Rodriguez added that other treatments are much more effective in getting smokers to quit like "nicotine patches, inhalers and chewing gum."

Drug users have also found a way of adapting e-cigarettes to vaporize a class A hallucinogen, according to Newhub. Certain e-cigarettes can generate the proper temperature to vaporize the drug called dimethyltryptamine or DMT. Some users call it "the spirit molecule." DMT is predicted to be one of the strongest hallucinogens in the world, even more powerful than LSD. It can be dangerous if someone uses an e-cigarette for DMT in the wrong way, although the process has proven to be quite simple.

"You can adapt those e-cigs to smoke just about anything -- not just what you're supposed to," Harry Shapiro of the British DrugScope said.

Authorities in Mexico said they banned the product because the chemical components in the e-cigarette alone could be damaging and dangerous.