Decision over e-cigarettes and 'vaping' imminent

An announcement is expected soon about whether electronic cigarettes are to be licensed and regulated as an aid to quit smoking. Medical experts and trading standards officials have urged the government to classify e-cigarettes – battery-operated devices that mimic cigarettes – as a form of nicotine-replacement therapy, which would mean stringent checks by medicine regulator the MHRA. At the moment, e-cigarettes are only covered by general product safety legislation, meaning they can legally be promoted and sold to children, and we cannot be sure of their ingredients or how much nicotine they contain.   Are e-cigarettes safe?  We don’t really know until they have been thoroughly assessed and monitored in a large population over time. However, compared with regular cigarettes, they are certainly the lesser of two evils. First, e-cigarettes don’t contain any tobacco – only nicotine, which is highly addictive but much less dangerous. For this reason, smoking e-cigarettes (known as ‘vaping’) is generally regarded a safer alternative to smoking for those unable or unwilling to stop using nicotine. Also, while the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found the liquid and vapour to contain traces of toxins (PDF, 237kb), including cancer-causing chemicals nitrosamines and formaldehyde, the level of these toxins is about one thousandth of that in cigarette smoke. We cannot be certain that these traces of toxins are harmless, but tests on animals and a small study...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Special reports QA articles Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news