Lobbyists and health campaigners are touting e-cigarettes as a safer version of the real thing, but there’s no evidence to prove that they are
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/19/nicotine-poison-e-cigarettes-evidence
It’s rare for pro-smoking lobbyists and health campaigners to stop bickering with one another – let alone agree on something. But this week, the two groups have come out in unison against a new Scottish health policy.
From April, all Scottish health boards (bar one, NHS Lothian) will ban the use of e-cigarettes on NHS premises. The move makes perfect sense, and falls firmly into line with current NHS policies relating to other nicotine-laden items. But smokers’ rights groups have lambasted the ban as “perverse” – and, believe it or not, anti-smoking campaigners at Ash Scotland seem to agree with them.
According to both camps, e-cigs should be considered a vital tool to help smokers cut down and ultimately kick the habit. By banning both cigarettes and e-cigarettes from hospital grounds, they claim, NHS boards are removing a critical incentive for nicotine addicts to switch over to “less harmful” e-cigs. But should we really be encouraging smokers to make that switch?
Lobbyists have been queuing up for a few years now to push the idea that e-cigs are somehow safer than normal cigarettes. One of the most dangerous aspects of your typical, run-of-the-mill cigarette is the tar-filled smoke you’re inhaling with each puff. That tar may contain up to 7,000 different toxins, which are otherwise found in everything from rat poison to nail polish. E-cigs, on the other hand, produce a light, tar-free vapour. But this doesn’t necessarily make them any safer.
E-cigs don’t contain the same type of nicotine you might find in an ordinary tobacco leaf. They contain liquid nicotine, which can be lethal: doctors say a tablespoon of some e-liquids on the market would be enough to kill an adult; half a teaspoon could kill a child. And the worst part is, you don’t even need to ingest these liquids to end up in hospital. Mere skin contact with concentrated liquid nicotine is enough to cause symptoms of poisoning, such as dizziness, elevated blood pressure and seizures.
That should scare even the most devout e-cig user, because the truth is that nobody’s actually regulating the concentration levels of liquids going into each cartridge. This lack of oversight may change next year, thanks to EU legislation that should see the products slapped with a few crucial safety guidelines. But for now, e-cigarette manufacturers preside over a cowboy industry that’s expanding at breakneck speed.
Bearing that in mind, every puff you take on an e-cig is a roll of the dice. After all, how confident can you be that the unbranded cartridges you’ve been purchasing from your local corner shop were filled by a chemist who actually knows what they are doing?
Sixty years ago, we had doctors telling us that one brand of cigarettes was better for your health than another. Today, we’ve got lobbyists telling us virtually the same thing about e-cigarettes. But as research slowly begins to catch up with emerging technology, chances are we’ll soon be scoffing at the health campaigners of today in the same way that we now roll our eyes at the smoking enthusiasts of the 1950s.
As with most new discoveries, we have absolutely no idea what sort of longterm impact e-cigarettes may have on our health. We probably won’t know for decades. So for now we’re just going to have to make educated decisions based on the information we’ve got at hand: namely, that e-cigs are loaded with unregulated contents. And based on this it makes sense to send them packing in the same direction as their tobacco-laden cousins.
E-cigs may or may not be a potential escape route for smokers looking to kick the habit, and that’s great for them. But NHS Scotland is absolutely right in asking e-cig users to take their habit elsewhere.
No matter how you choose to dress it up, nicotine is nicotine, and public health is public health. Let’s not confuse the two.