Smoking represents an enormous threat to public health and efforts to minimise it are rightly welcomed. Exercising caution on such an important issue is always wise but equally it would be foolish to make rash judgments about e-cigarettes when, according to a team at University College London, up to 6,000 lives a year could be saved for every 1 million new adopters of the technology. Scale those figures up to the national level and a potential 54,000 of the annual 60,000 UK smoking-related premature deaths could be prevented.
The entry of e-cigarettes into the marketplace is a relatively new development and as such conversation across the media around restricting these devices has been continual. Debate has intensified in recent months and only last week the World Health Organisation called for the use of e-cigarettes to be banned in public places, much like tobacco product use has been restricted in many parts of the world in the last decade.
The recent success of e-cigarettes has made a noticeable impact on the business models of traditional tobacco companies, prompting some to enter the new sector to compete on an equal footing and others to concentrate their efforts on highlighting the concerns of health professionals who remain unconvinced by these ground-breaking products.
Amid all the confusion, there is one thing upon which the experts are all clear – e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful than traditional cigarettes or other tobacco products. Given that simple truth, perhaps that should be the guiding principle of those seeking to formulate policy and draft legislation in this complicated area.
