Now ban e-cigs from public places, say world health chiefs

BRITAIN is being asked by the world’s leading health watchdogs to consider banning electronic cigarettes from public places.

Countries could ban e-cigarettes from all public places where smoking is not allowed, a World Health Organisation report says.

Such a ban would outlaw the increasingly popular vaping devices from schools, hospitals and public transport in the same way as tobacco.

WHO is calling on countries to look at this because of the dangers of ‘passive vaping’, which growing evidence has linked to lung damage, heart complications and stillbirth in pregnant women.

The move echoes calls from the BMA, which says e- cigarettes should be banned from pubs and restaurants because of just such dangers.

WHO is also supporting potential cigarette-style health warnings about the chemicals e-cigarettes include and information on the danger of addiction. Its advice, issued before a major meeting on tobacco control in India next week, is expected to stoke a row between health experts.

The smoking ban, in July 2007, made it illegal to smoke cigarettes in public places or the workplace. But that has not been extended to electronic cigarettes, with legislation aiming at a ban on public places in Wales defeated earlier this year by just one vote.

All Bar One, Caffe Nero, KFC and Starbucks are among the food chains that have banned them on their premises. The devices are also banned on trains operated by Thameslink, Southern Trains and Great Northern and at all UK airports bar Heathrow.

Nevertheless, many British doctors are resistant to a ban because they believe e- cigarettes help people to quit tobacco. WHO’s report sums up the latest scientific evidence ahead of next week’s meeting of 180 countries signed up to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Dr Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, head of the WHO convention secretariat, said: ‘So far there is a clear understanding that e- cigarettes should be regulated. They should not be promoted among young people and pregnant women and other specific groups. They should not be promoted widely – there should be restrictions and regulations.’

WHO’s stance will be controversial among those - including British medics – who see ecigarettes as helpful in getting smokers to quit.

A recent study found around 18,000 people in England last year may have given up cigarettes by vaping, which pro- vides nicotine without the tobacco linked to lung cancer.

But WHO says this is undermined by the number of young people being ‘recruited’ into nicotine dependency by taking up e- cigarettes. It suggests countries consider banning the flavouring of e- cigarettes whose bubblegum and fruit varieties have raised concerns they may be appealing to children. It also says they should not be sold or advertised to young people.

In a joint statement on the WHO advice last night, Professors John Britton, Linda Bauld and Ann McNeill from the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, said: ‘The WHO report fails to accurately present what is already known about e-cigarettes.

‘In particular, it positions ecigarettes as a threat rather than an opportunity to reduce smoking, fails to accurately quantify any risks of e- cigarettes … and appears to support very restrictive policies on e-cigarettes without including any good policy analysis.’

‘They should be regulated’