IN WHAT could prove to be a game-changer for the marketing of e-cigarettes, or vaping devices, various experts from the EU and UK have argued that a switch policy to move tobacco smokers across to e-cigarettes would be pro-health.
Public Health England (PHE) said that "best estimates show e-cigarettes are 95% less harmful to your health than tobacco" and witnesses at the House of Commons Science and Technology Select Committee hearing agreed that switching from normal cigarettes to e-cigarettes had "substantial health benefits", according to a report in the Pharmaceutical Journal.
Italy's University of Catania professor of internal medicine Riccardo Polosa even suggested selling larger refill containers may reduce costs and encourage the switch to vaping, saying it should be a priority to switch smokers to less harmful products.
Queen Mary University in London professor of clinical psychology Peter Hajek told the committee that "overall, studies have shown that the cancer risk of e-cigarettes is less than half the cancer risk of normal smoking".
As to the issue of vaping being a gateway to smoking, "E-cigarettes with nicotine are spectacularly unattractive to non-smokers," said Hajek, citing data he said shows they are "rarely" a stepping stone from not-smoking to smoking.
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