F E AT U R E
These are the main findings of the
report ‘Nicotine without smoke: tobacco
harm reduction’ - a major new study into
smoking and electronic cigarettes which
has been published by the Royal College
of Physicians.
The report looks at the harm caused by
smoking - describing it as “the biggest
avoidable cause of death and disability,
and social inequality in health, in the UK”
and goes on to show how e-cigarettes
can help reduce that harm.
I t says that most of the harm to society
and to individuals caused by smoking
in the near-term future will occur in
people who are smoking today and adds
that “quitting smoking is very difficult
and most adults who smoke today will
continue to smoke for many years.”
The report says that people smoke
because they are addicted to nicotine,
but points out that they are harmed by
other constituents of tobacco smoke and
concludes: “Provision of the nicotine
that smokers are addicted to without the
harmful components of tobacco smoke
can prevent most of the harm from
smoking.”
80 ISSUE 05 VAPOUROUND MAGAZINE
The main findings include:
• E-cigarettes are marketed as
consumer products and are proving
much more popular than nicotine
replacement therapy (NRT) as a
substitute and competitor for tobacco
cigarettes.
• E-cigarettes appear to be effective
when used by smokers as an aid to
quitting smoking.
• E-cigarettes are not currently made to
medicines standards and are probably
more hazardous than NRT however,
the hazard to health arising from
long-term vapour inhalation from the
e-cigarettes available today is unlikely
to exceed 5% of the harm from
smoking tobacco.
• Technological developments and
improved production standards
could reduce the long-term hazard of
e-cigarettes.
• There is no evidence that e-cigarettes
will increase tobacco smoking by
renormalising the act of smoking or
by acting as a gateway to smoking in
young people.
• The available evidence to date
indicates that e-cigarettes are being
used almost exclusively as safer
•
•
•
•
alternatives to smoked tobacco, by
confirmed smokers who are trying to
reduce harm to themselves or others
from smoking, or to quit smoking
completely.
Regulation to reduce direct and
indirect adverse effects of e-cigarette
use 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.
The tobacco industry has become
involved in the e-cigarette market and
can be expected to try to exploit these
products to market tobacco cigarettes,
and to undermine wider tobacco
control work.
In the interests of public health it
is important to promote the use of
e-cigarettes, NRT and other nontobacco nicotine products as widely
as possible as a substitute for
smoking in the UK.