E-cigarettes are not a very good competitor to the conventional cigarettes yet, but if left to develop, they are likely to replace them within a few years and end the tobacco epidemic. Alarmingly, there is an effort under way to stop it. The UK wants to regulate e-cigarettes as a medicinal device. Medicinal licensing is an expensive process likely to be accessible only to big
tobacco and pharmaceutical companies,
and it is likely to fossilise e-cigarettes in their current not-yet-very-good state for two reasons: any changes to the product would trigger expensive licensing renewals, and neither the tobacco nor pharmaceutical industry will have much interest in allowing e-cigarettes to push conventional cigarettes and stop-smoking medications off the market. The case for regulating e-cigarettes as a pharmaceutical product is on a par with regulating coffee. It is even more absurd given that conventional cigarettes face no such hurdle.
Legislation which cripples e-cigarettes will protect the market monopoly of the deadly conventional cigarettes and represent a serious disservice to public health.
Professor Peter Hajek
Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry
Professor Peter Hajek is Professor of Clinical Psychology, Head of Psychology, Director of Tobacco Dependence Research Unit at the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine. On this blog he says
E-cigarettes should be left to evolve into an alternative to smoking as a consumer product. Overzealous regulation (let alone bans) will protect the market monopoly of the deadly conventional cigarettes. Public health strategists should view the growing interest in e-cigarettes among smokers as a grass-root harm reduction movement and a potential end-game of the tobacco epidemic.
