Disappearing in cloud of vapour

The move to legalise vaping should, oddly, further clear the air in the battle against smoking.

On balance it should help smokers to quit their disastrous habit for a much cleaner one, and lead them to the promised land of a smoke-free existence.

This week’s Government announcement that the sale of nicotine e-cigarettes and e-liquid will be made legal, with controls, next year is overdue.

In fact it may have been a surprise to many because vaping, using e-cigarettes to get a hit of nicotine vapour without all the nasty tobacco byproducts, has been flourishing in New Zealand, as it has around the world.

Health authorities have effectively turned a blind eye even though it’s been illegal to sell the nicotine liquids.

Everyone agrees vaping is much healthier than smoking tobacco, with British Government research rating it as 95 per cent less harmful.

Nicotine itself is not the villain in cigarettes; it’s addictive but not dangerous like tar and other toxins in tobacco products.

Announcing the legalisation move this week Associate Health Minister Nicky Wagner said public consultation last year showed a strong appetite for change to allow vaping.

The proposed new rules will restrict sales of vaping products to those over 18, prohibit vaping in indoor workplaces and other areas where you can’t smoke, and will ban media advertising of vaping products, allowing only point-ofsale promotion.

The Government says the advertising measures will limit the attraction of e-cigarettes to young people.

One of the fears about vaping is its attraction as a ‘‘cool’’ practice, possibly even acting as a gateway to smoking.

But anti-smoking researchers say vaping is much more likely to help the dwindling number of regular smokers – about 15 per cent of New Zealanders now – stub out their habit permanently.

Some argue the Government could have gone further by allowing vaping at indoor venues to avoid confusion that vaping was the same as smoking. Wagner says it has taken a ‘‘cautious approach’’ because it wants to discourage people from smoking or vaping in the first place.

Such devils in the detail should be exposed when the new rules go before Parliament. But vaping shapes, alongside tobacco price rises, as the tools to save more lives wasted by smoking.

- Fairfax NZ