NEWS
COP7 - THE CONSUMER AND E-CIGS
So what would be a good outcome of
this upcoming COP for e-cigs and ENDS,
the consumer and the industry?
Well for a start, e-cigarettes and ENDS
should not be banned. Lets face it,
e-cigarettes are here to stay anyway.
The EU has regulated them, the US FDA
is regulating them and the Australian
and New Zealand governments are
now looking at them. The Australian
government has announced a
consultation following a petition by NNAAustralia (New Nicotine Alliance) to allow
nicotine for e-cigarette use (currently
it is on the poisons list). And in New
Zealand, the government has agreed in
principle that nicotine should be legally
available for use in e-cigarettes.
In the UK, Public Health England,
the government’s main public health
agency, published a report saying
that e-cigarettes are at least 95% less
harmful than cigarettes. And the UK
Royal College of Physicians (RCP)
argued that ‘e-cigarettes should be
promoted widely as a substitute for
smoking.’ Their report also concluded
that e-cigarettes are likely to be
beneficial to UK public health and that
smokers should be reassured and
encouraged to use them and the public
can be reassured that e-cigarettes are
much safer than smoking.
The WHO is, therefore, unlikely to call
for a ban, and everyone agrees that
e-cigarettes should be regulated. But
regulation should be proportionate.
Proportionate regulation would, for
example, facilitate and not overly restrict,
access and availability, appeal (such as
choice of flavor), ability to communicate
about the products and appropriate
public place vaping.
The RCP also argue for proportionate
regulation. Their report said that
regulation should not be allowed to
inhibit innovation and the use of these
products by smokers. A regulatory
strategy should take a balanced
approach in seeking to ensure product
safety and enable and encourage
smokers to use the product instead
of tobacco…’
But proportionate regulation doesn’t
mean no regulation To allay concerns
of regulators and consumers, the WHO
has a unique opportunity to call for
product safety and quality standards.
There is already a growing body of work
with national standards bodies such
as the UK BSI and the French AFNOR
standards on ENDS that can be used as
the basis of national standards in other
countries. The European standards
body, CEN is also actively working to
create European standards that could
underpin EU regulations. These working
groups also include members of the
WHO’s TobLabNet, and should be
entrusted with forming the basis of any
new regulatory frameworks around the
world.
THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS SAYS:
• 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 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
never-smokers, 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.
The Royal College of Physicians says:
•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 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
never-smokers, 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.
VAPOUROUND MAGAZINE ISSUE 07 35