Ought to e-cigarettes be licensed as medicines?

Nicholas Hopkinson at Imperial Faculty London welcomes the transfer, saying this can give medical doctors one other means to assist people who smoke give up.

E-cigarettes are presently regulated as shopper merchandise so can’t be promoted as smoking cessation aids, he explains. But a Cochrane evaluate already helps present e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation support, as does lately up to date steering from the Nationwide Institute for Well being and Care Excellence.

The introduction of e-cigarettes which have been by way of a stricter medicinal licensing course of “ought to present additional reassurance to healthcare professionals that they might help their sufferers to give up smoking on this method, notably in psychological well being settings the place smoking charges stay excessive,” he writes.

It’s also possible to enhance confidence amongst people who smoke who up to now have been reluctant to do this strategy, in addition to reversing false beliefs about relative hurt when put next with smoking, he provides.

He emphasises that medically licensed e-cigarettes, as and once they develop into out there, will likely be just one amongst many instruments to assist smoking cessation, all ideally delivered alongside psychological assist for behaviour change.

It’s also necessary to make sure that debate round e-cigarettes doesn’t distract from different mandatory duties to realize the UK’s ambition to be smoke free by 2030, similar to introducing a “polluter pays” levy on tobacco business earnings and elevating the age of sale from 18 to 21, he provides.

There are nonetheless greater than six million individuals who smoke within the UK: medicinal licensing of e-cigarettes may assist lots of them to reside longer, more healthy lives, he concludes.

However Jørgen Vestbo on the College of Manchester and colleagues say that the effectiveness of e-cigarettes in serving to individuals to give up is unproved and doubtlessly dangerous.

They level to trial proof displaying that folks utilizing e-cigarettes are inclined to proceed vaping, whereas most individuals utilizing medicinal nicotine merchandise give up, and lots of restart smoking whereas they proceed vaping (referred to as “twin use”). The widespread use of e-cigarettes additionally carries a considerable societal danger of accepting habit, they add.

What’s extra, many e-cigarettes are produced and marketed by firms owned by the tobacco business—an business with a historical past of mendacity to the general public and spending fortunes on advertising and marketing, together with to youngsters. “We should always shield kids and adolescents from these cynical marketeers and permit them to be the primary technology in a century not hooked on nicotine,” they write.

To disguise e-cigarettes as a wise hurt discount technique “will danger weakening sustainable smoking cessation methods,” they argue.

“As a substitute, medical doctors ought to assist to revive an honest NHS funded smoking cessation service, foyer politicians to extend taxes on merchandise containing nicotine, and prohibit smoking—in addition to vaping—much more.”