E-cigarettes: assisting smokers quit or glamorising a unsafe habit?

Electronic cigarettes are to be classed as medicines, which means medical doctors will be able to prescribe them to smokers trying to quit. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA

Smoking is great again. At least, electronically. The electronic cigarette (e-cig, vapouriser, fake fag, digital cancer) is, if you feel the adverts and scare stories in the press, the new black.

No longer pleased with the adverse well being effects of smoking analogue conventional cigarettes, a big swathe of smokers are hanging up their lighters and picking up minor metal sticks loaded with a battery, a metal coil, propylene glycol, glycerine and nicotine.

“In one year, its use has doubled,” says Iain Quinn of ILoveVapour.com. “In 2012, there have been about 500,000 vapers in the Uk. Now there are 1.2 million.”

The ubiquity of the digital cigarette is undeniable. As a new convert to vaping – a reference to the smoke-like vapour the unit emits when you suck on it, I appear to uncover them everywhere. Men and women use them in offices, in bars, on public transport. And, though some quizzical looks are thrown when you puff out a cloud of smoke, faces calm as soon as men and women realise you’re not smoking an real cigarette.

Because England’s smoking ban in 2007, smokers have had to duck out of buildings to get their nicotine resolve. Action on Smoking and Well being (Ash) estimates that two thirds of the UK’s ten million smokers would like to quit. Health-related tips varies from GP to GP, but mine advised I give e-cigarettes a go soon after its cousin, the inhalator – a plastic tube filled with a nicotine-soaked sponge – manufactured me come to feel I was sucking on a tampon.

From 2016, the electronic cigarette will be classed as a medicine. This signifies it will be regulated by the MHRA and medical doctors in the NHS will be in a position to prescribe it to support smokers minimize down or quit.

However this seeming official acceptance of vaping cannot quell fears that it is not only normalising smoking, but glamorising it. Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus chuffed on a single at the Golden Globes and celebs are papped strolling out of bars with them. Advertised as the healthy way to smoke and seeing a gap in the market place, firms are now becoming acquired by tobacco companies that want a stake in the £200m business – for example, Skycig’s acquisition by Lorillard.

Vapour liquid comes in flavours from chocolate to piña colada, top colleges in the US to ban it simply because they worry it will act as a gateway drug to the true issue.

“Smokers are addicted to the nicotine but it is the smoke that kills them,” says Martin Dockrell of Ash. “Nicotine is frequently element of the resolution rather than the difficulty, and we know that nicotine substitute treatment combined with skilled support makes smokers four instances a lot more likely to quit successfully.”

For a smoker, the benefits are clear. You can feed – or wean by yourself off – your addiction to nicotine. You will not have to inhale the 4,000-seven,000 toxins a regular cigarette sends down your throat. It is less costly. A unit charges a minor a lot more than a packet of cigarettes and refills are just more than a pound each and declare to have as much nicotine as twenty smokes.

You never drop the social facet of cigarette smoking both. Variations in nicotine doses and tastes appear to be an easy subject of conversation from the darkest of Soho members’ bars to the rainiest of Hackney bus stops.

There are downsides.

Legal authorities, this kind of as Alex Bonner from London’s Blake Lapthorn, say it truly is up to employers to make their personal policy determination as to whether or not or not to allow vaping at perform. “Employers have an obligation to supply a risk-free spot of operate,” says Bonner. “The lengthy-phrase well being implications of the e-cigarette are not nevertheless recognized, and it has even been suggested that they may possibly not presently meet acceptable specifications of safety and top quality.”

A University of Sterling and Cancer Investigation Uk report on the trend raises inquiries about the safety of some of the doses of nicotine in some designs as effectively as the propylene glycol utilized to suspend it.

The report also addressed the problems of corporate power and tobacco companies’ real commitment to harm reduction through their exploration of the e-cigarette market place. They have extended been making an attempt to push reduced-tar and “safer” cigarettes. As the cigarette marketplace deteriorates, does their recent investment maintain rather than minimize harm?

“I know a couple of men and women who by no means smoked cigarettes but are now hooked on e-cigs,” says Mohammed, a thirty-12 months-previous sound engineer. “I’ve completed a couple of Bengali weddings and even the girls are puffing away. It is a amazing thing to do.”

What transpires to discarded e-cigs and refills is also a concern as they contribute to the volume of global e-waste. “How quickly will these products end up on the shores of Africa and Asia?” asks Michael Jones of the United Nations’ Secure Planet campaign.

The truth remains that we might be moving away from tobacco, but, as prolonged as we have nicotine, we’re just finding new approaches of dosing up with the drug we’re addicted to. And as long as there is demand, a person is going to provide.

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E-cigarettes: assisting smokers quit or glamorising a unsafe habit?