E-cigarettes to be regulated as medicines

Electronic cigarettes are to be licensed and regulated as an aid to quit smoking from 2016, it has been announced. E-cigarettes – battery-operated devices that mimic cigarettes – are to be classed as 'medicines', which means they will face stringent checks by medicine regulator the MHRA and doctors will be able to prescribe them to smokers to help them cut down or quit. This move has been widely welcomed by medical experts and officials, as tighter regulation will ensure the products are safe and effective. Until this happens, 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. The MHRA will not ban the products entirely during this interim period, but will encourage e-cigarette manufacturers to apply for a medicine licence.   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 co...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Special reports QA articles Lifestyle/exercise Source Type: news