F E AT U R E
SMOKERS SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED
TO USE E-CIGARETTES SAYS
ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS
E-cigarettes can help smokers quit all
tobacco use forever and public can be
reassured that they are much safer than
smoking.
E-cigarettes are likely to be beneficial
to UK public health and smokers should
be encouraged to use them according
to a new report by the Royal College of
Physicians.
The report, entitled ‘Nicotine without
smoke: tobacco harm reduction’ also
concludes that the public can be
reassured that e-cigarettes are much
safer than smoking.
The influential medical body points out
that tobacco smoking is both addictive
and lethal with half of all lifelong smokers
dying early, losing an average of about 3
months of life expectancy for every year
smoked after the age of 35.
Around 8.7 million people still smoke
in the UK and the Royal College of
Physicians says that it is important to
help protect this group of smokers from
disability and early death.
The body said: “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.”
Key findings from the report include:
is no evidence that either nicotine
replacement therapy (NRT) or
e-cigarette use has resulted in
renormalisation of smoking. None of
these products has to date attracted
significant use among adult neversmokers, or demonstrated evidence
of significant gateway progression into
smoking among young people.
• E-cigarettes and quitting smoking
- among smokers, e-cigarette use
is likely to lead to quit attempts that
would not otherwise have happened,
and in a proportion of these to
successful cessation. In this way,
e-cigarettes can act as a gateway
from smoking.
• E-cigarettes and long-term harm the possibility of some harm from
long-term e-cigarette use cannot
be dismissed due to inhalation of
the ingredients other than nicotine,
but is likely to be very small, and
substantially smaller than that
arising from tobacco smoking. With
appropriate product standards to
minimise exposure to the other
ingredients, it should be possible to
reduce risks of physical health still
further. Although it is not possible
to estimate the long-term health
risks associated with e-cigarettes
precisely, the available data suggest
that they are unlikely to exceed 5%
of those associated with smoked
tobacco products, and may well be
substantially lower than this figure.
• E-cigarettes are not a gateway
to smoking – in the UK, use of
e-cigarettes is limited almost entirely
to those who are already using, or
have used, tobacco.
• E-cigarettes do not result in
normalisation of smoking – there
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.
It says that a regulatory strategy should
78 ISSUE 05 VAPOUROUND MAGAZINE
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.
Professor John Britton, chair of the
RCP’s Tobacco Advisory Group, said:
“The growing use of electronic cigarettes
as a substitute for tobacco smoking has
been a topic of great controversy, with
much speculation over their potential
risks and benefits. This report lays to
rest almost all of the concerns over
these products, and concludes that,
with sensible regulation, electronic
cigarettes have the potential to make a
major contribution towards preventing
the premature death, disease and social
inequalities in health that smoking
currently causes in the UK.
“Smokers should be reassured that these
products can help them quit all tobacco
use forever.”
RCP president Professor Jane Dacre
said: “Since the RCP’s first report on
tobacco, Smoking and health, in 1962,
we have argued consistently for more
and better policies and services to
prevent people from taking up smoking,
and help existing smokers to quit. This
new report builds on that work and
concludes that, for all the potential risks
involved, harm reduction has huge
potential to prevent death and disability
from tobacco use, and to hasten our
progress to a tobacco-free society.
“With careful management and
proportionate regulation, harm reduction
provides an opportunity to improve
the lives of millions of people. It is an
opportunity that, with care, we should
take.”