Promote e-cigarettes widely as substitute for smoking says report
E-ciggs are officially being heralded as a method to drive down smoking rates
A new report released today from the Royal College of Physicians, ‘Nicotine without smoke: tobacco harm reduction’ concludes that e-cigarettes are likely to be beneficial to Scotland's public health.
Smokers can therefore be reassured and encouraged to use them, and the public can be reassured that e-cigarettes are much safer than smoking.
Tobacco smoking is addictive and lethal.
Half of all lifelong smokers die early, losing an average of about 3 months of life expectancy for every year smoked after the age of 35, some 10 years of life in total.
Although smoking prevalence in the UK has reduced to 18%, 8.7 million people still smoke.
Harm reduction provides an additional strategy to protect this group of smokers from disability and early death.
Since e-cigarettes became available in the UK in 2007, their use has been surrounded by medical and public controversy.
This new 200-page report examines the science, public policy, regulation and ethics surrounding e-cigarettes and other non-tobacco sources of nicotine, and addresses these controversies and misunderstandings with conclusions based on the latest available evidence.
The report acknowledges the need for proportionate regulation, but suggests that regulation should not be allowed significantly to inhibit the development and use of harm-reduction products by smokers.
A regulatory strategy should take a balanced approach in seeking to ensure product safety, enable and encourage smokers to use the product instead of tobacco, and detect and prevent effects that counter the overall goals of tobacco control policy.