Particular sensible bits from this report:
The strength of e-cigarettes in health terms probably lies less in their ability to compete as pharmacological therapies than in their consumer acceptability, wide availability, non-medical image and price advantage over cigarettes.
and
In practice, new users of e-cigarettes are probably most likely to come from the same population of young people who currently experiment with tobacco.
and
Concerns about renormalisation through use in places where smoking is prohibited assume that e-cigarettes and tobacco cigarettes look so similar that non-smokers, and particularly children, cannot tell the difference, which is unlikely. E-cigarettes especially later generation products clearly look different, and the odourless vapour that they produce is quite different from tobacco smoke.
We now have eminently-quotable opinions from a major UK medical institution, as ammunition against three very common fallacies: the "medical licensing or nothing" fallacy, the "gateway" fallacy, and the "renormalisation" fallacy.
More worrying is the RCP's apparent acceptance (in the "UK Regulation" section), without questioning, of the regulatory attitude of the MHRA and the EU TPD. Perhaps it's too much to expect the RCP, at this stage, to take up arms against these regulations, especially in a short, non-technical "FAQ" document.
Another passage that caught my eye as less positive than it could be is this one:
There are concerns about sustained dual use in smokers who might otherwise have quit completely and also that continued use of e-cigarettes might make relapse to smoking more likely among those who have quit tobacco completely. Although it is too early to tell whether smokers who quit smoking with e-cigarettes are more likely to relapse than are those who use other methods, no evidence as yet shows that dual use results in reduced quit rates.
Carl Phillips has a good analysis of this "quit cold-turkey or don't quit at all" meme. The counter-argument is, funnily enough, the same one that the RCP itself uses earlier on against the "gateway" fallacy: who can tell whether a minor who experiments with e-cigs WOULD, in the absence of e-cigs, have remained "pure", or WOULD be experimenting with tobacco instead? And, in parallel: who can tell, with regard to a "dual user", whether they WOULD have quit completely if they didn't use e-cigarettes?
(This is modal logic, which is a course I remember enjoying for its psychoactive effect. A couple of hours thinking about possible-world theory is as good as a few drinks or unmentionables to put your mind into a strange state...
)
But generally the RCP's tone is calm, factual and open to new information. Makes a nice change!
