Enjoy vaping while you still can, warns Public Health England

Re: Ban them!! Ban them all!!!

Only that there is more than just a grain of truth to the calls for them to be banned.

...... Governments around the world are very hostile to e-cigs, and somehow manage to get the backing of major medical organisations (the BMA for example).

It doesn't take a great deal of testing to know that inhaling synthetically produced food products and nicotine, are going to be non-dangerous, as compared to inhaling some 4,000 dangerous toxins.

Draw a bar graph with tobacco at 100% dangerous......... e-cigs wouldn't even show up on the chart.

In fact the graph could be made up of other dangerous consumable items, like peanuts, chicken, beefburgers, alcohol, shellfish, fizzy drinks.

In terms of safe consumption..... comparing tobacco to e-cigs, is utterly ridiculous.

Tobacco kills millions of people each year; e-cigs have killed nobody, and other than an extreme reaction to say nicotine, it's highly unlikely they will ever kill anyone.

So why are governments against them?

Probably because they will impact upon tobacco sales.

These not only bring in vast sums in tax revenue, (£15b 2012/13) but they also help kill off the unproductive members of the population.

This group of people are retired, and they are primary users of state health, welfare, and pensions.

State pension alone is £115.95 per week, multiplied by 100k deaths x 52 = £603m

Add in individual health and welfare requirements, and this figure balloons into an enormous positive on the balance sheet.

Sure there are some health costs to smoking, but these have little impact on the £15b tax revenue, and are likely well covered by the gains from early deaths.

Overall, from a financial perspective.... can you blame governments for taking this line?

In France..... going with the flow of protesting tobacconists was an easy decision to take.

Calls for banning e-cigs, is sadly a fact of life.

Still unpleasant to smell though. Was in a restaurant in London a while back and some American guy (vapourizers weren't as known over here then) pulled out his e-cig and started puffing clouds of the stuff over to our table. Seemed to think that because it wasn't actually a cigarette it was suddenly fine to use indoors in a place filled with non-smokers.

As studies have shown, drivers in London are exposed to considerably more fumes and pollution than cyclists primarily because pollutants that enter the vehicle build up in the enclosed space. Other factors include air intakes on vehicles being at the level of the exhaust pipe of the vehicle in front of them and cyclists being exposed to moving air and being higher off the ground.

"Almost certainly"

I spoke to a GP about this, her position was that there is not enough time/evidence to say that vaping is safe. That's the sort of careful opinion I expect to someone belonging to a profession with a memory of prescribing thalidomide. That's not to say vaping should be controlled, just don't expect any health professional to be jumping up and down with enthusiasm about it.

Tempering my comment towards the cautious side, E-Cigs are a relatively new product which require further study to assess and possible health concerns.

That said, they are inevitably* going to be many times less dangerous than smoking tobacco products. Every person who moves from smoking to e-cigs will be better off, health-wise, even if they keep using the e-cig indefinitely without reducing their nicotine content. These devices should be encouraged.

Also, they are not medical devices, were never designed to be and were never promoted as such. They are recreational products, a substitute for tobacco. Why the **** should they be treated and regulated as medical devices? It will destroy innovation in the sector and, likely, destroy the sector. Only Big Pharma will have the resources to make them and we have all seen how good the pharmaceutical industries NRT products are. They will go from a vibrant, innovative product to a clinical mess in no time flat, with people forced to either accept the inferior Big Pharma versions or go back to smoking.

The e-cig portions of the TPD are insanity on a bewildering scale. All I can think is that there was some serious lobbying from the Tobacco industry (loosing out due to people not buying as many cigs) and Big Pharma (loosing out due to lower sales of their inferior products). It's similar to the music industries recentish problem: They were loosing out to pirates, as pirates were offering what the consumers wanted (convenient access to music). Rather than improve their own game, they got the governments to crack down on the pirates. Only this time it's worse: Rather than illegal operations disrupting the market, it's legitimate, innovative businesses, and rather than the result being less convenience, it will be deaths.

Of course, the cynic in me can also see governments worrying about the loss of tax revenue...

*I recently watched Team America again for the first time in years. Now I can't hear or type the word 'inevitably' without hearing Kim Jong-Il saying 'inebitabry'...

So fix the London air!. Just because it's safer than something doesn't mean it's right. The preferable option is cleaner air everywhere....

Re: Nicotine-free?

That's what I did. I don't vape much anymore, a couple of days per year maybe, if that. The compulsion to smoke went away with vaping, and then compulsion disappeared, it became an intermittent pleasure. Now the hassle of cleaning my tanks and charging batteries keep my gear in the corner. I view it like candy or chips now, albeit a tad more meckish to set up.

Re: Why should they ban them?

"Most e-cigs seem to be from China, with dodgy CE marks on them and are doubtful electrically, let alone what they are actually doing with the chemicals put in them."

Any evidence for that hysterical claim?

Remember - you've said "most", so we're looking at >50% of all e-cigs to be dodgy and containing more than nicotine and vapour...

Re: Why should they ban them?

The PHE report details four tests of 'expired' vapour (pages 64-65) and concludes:

Electronic cigarettes "...release negligible levels of nicotine into ambient air with no

identified health risks to bystanders."

Not that you'd let real evidence get in the way of your uninformed rant...

Re: Why should they ban them?

Those are valid points, particularly the dodgy Chinese manufacturing, however assuming I'm a responsible vaper (which I'm not, I smoke proper fags like an effing chimney) and don't pollute your airspace then I assume you've no problem with me doing so?

Re: Why should they ban them?

@AC - What a bell-end of a comment. Vaporising is one of the most effective ways of getting smokers off cigarettes there has ever been. They remove ~99% of the harmful stuff, leaving only the practically harmless nicotine (less harmful than the related chemical caffeine). I have many friends who were unhealthy smokers who are now much healthier vapers. I've been in confined spaces with them and smelt nothing at all because there's nothing to smell. In a modern free society we should be able to as we choose, so long we aren't harming anyone. People inhaling nicotine vapours are not harming anyone, not even themselves compared to smoking cigarettes. If you are personally offended by then, you can personally piss off.