NHS: Another Vaping Victory

When e-cigarettes first flooded the UK market with a new vaping trend a decade ago no one really knew what to think. Chinese-made devices turned your choice of hundreds of flavours of e-liquid into a thick white cloud you could inhale to mimic the effects of smoking with – supposedly – few of the health consequences. Perfectly safe? The science was not clear but vape retailers sprang up across the country with 1,700 specialist shops now believed to be trading in the UK.

Some 2.3 million people were e-cigarette users in England, Scotland and Wales two years ago and there has been little change in the overall attitude to vaping. The consensus seems to be that despite the lingering doubts about its health effects this smooth aerosol could hardly be as bad as smoking, which is the UK’s biggest health problem and is responsible for 200 deaths a day.

Vaping confirmed safer

In February health experts finally gave some weight to that argument with a University College London study of 181 current and former smokers finding that those who replaced cigarettes with vaping had significantly fewer toxins and cancer-causing carcinogens in their bodies than the smokers.

Dr Lion Shahab, an expert in epidemiology and public health at UCL who was lead author of the publication, said the study “adds to existing evidence showing that e-cigarettes and Nicotine Replacement Therapy are far safer than smoking, and suggests that there is a very low risk associated with their long-term use.”

Another frequent concern about e-cigarettes, the fear that they could be delivering high amounts of nicotine, was also disproved. “Our results also suggest that while e-cigarettes are not only safer, the amount of nicotine they provide is not noticeably different to conventional cigarettes. This can help people to stop smoking altogether by dealing with their cravings in a safer way,” said Dr Shahab.

The findings were welcomed by Cancer Research UK, which funded the study. “This study adds to growing evidence that e-cigarettes are a much safer alternative to tobacco and suggests the long-term effects of these products will be minimal,” said Alison Cox, the group’s director of cancer prevention. “Understanding and communicating the benefits of nicotine replacements, such as e-cigarettes, is an important step towards reducing the number of tobacco-related deaths here in the UK.”

First-time vapers

While vaping is now known to cause less harm than smoking some concern has been raised about vaping serviing as an entry point to smoking and nicotine addiction as well as a quitting aid. The Royal Society for Public Health reported in April that vape retailers are deliberately targetting e-cigarettes at people who have never smoked or vaped before.

The code of conduct of the Independent British Vape Trade Association (IBVTA) says that vape products “are for current or former smokers and existing users of vaping devices, therefore never knowingly sell to anyone who is not a current of former smoker, or a current vaper.”

But an investigation of 100 shops in February found that almost half of the surveyed stores did not check whether new customers were current or former smokers and three-quarters of those who did check continued to encourage the customer to start vaping even when they knew they were a non-smoker.

Sixty percent of vape users are believed to also smoke cigarettes, and the UCL study showed that combining the two is little better than sticking to cigarettes.

Department of Health

A new report by the Department of Health  “Towards a smoke-free generation” placed great emphasis on electronic cigarettes as a valuable quitting aid, marking a considerable shift from a few years ago when the lack of regulation of these new products meant they were treated with caution. The Department of Health now says it will “monitor the impact of regulation and policy on e-cigarettes and novel tobacco products in England, including evidence on safety, uptake, health impact and effectiveness of these products as smoking cessation aids to inform our actions on regulating their use.”

Public Health England will update this information until the end of the Parliament in 2022 and use it to inform public campaigns highlighting the “relative safety” of e-cigarettes compared to traditional cigarettes.

There is a fair way to go yet but official attitudes to vaping are certainly changing.

by Stewart Vickers

 

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