Ban e-cigs from all public places, say health chiefs
BRITAIN is being asked by the world’s leading health watchdogs to consider banning electronic cigarettes from public places.
Countries could prohibit them in all spaces where smoking is not allowed, a World Health Organisation report says.
The move would outlaw the increasingly popular vaping devices from schools, hospitals and public transport in the same way as tobacco.
The WHO is highlighting 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 British Medical Association, which says e-cigarettes should be banned from pubs and restaurants.
Dr Vera Luiza da Costa e Silva, head of the WHO convention secretariat, said: ‘E-cigarettes should be regulated.
‘They should not be promoted among young people, pregnant women and other specific groups. There should be restrictions.’
The WHO is supporting cigarettestyle health warnings about the chemicals in e-cigarettes and information on the danger of addiction. The body has summed up the latest scientific evidence ahead of next week’s meeting of 180 countries signed up to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – and the report is set to stoke a row between health experts.
There is some evidence linking e-cigarettes to cancer and fears they act as a gateway to tobacco.
But British doctors use e-cigarettes to help people to quit smoking, with support from Public Health England (PHE), if the devices are licensed, to prescribe them on the NHS.
Professor Kevin Fenton, national director of health and wellbeing at PHE, said: ‘The evidence remains clear, with PHE’s most recent review and the Royal College of Physicians both finding that while not risk-free, vaping carries a fraction of the risk of smoking – around 95 per cent less harmful.
‘The real concern is that smokers increasingly believe the inaccurate reports that vaping is as dangerous as smoking and are more likely to continue to smoke.’
A study found about 18,000 people in England last year may have quit cigarettes by vaping, which provides nicotine without the tobacco linked to lung cancer.
But the WHO says this is undermined by young people being ‘recruited’ into nicotine dependency by taking up e-cigarettes. It suggests countries ban the flavouring of e-cigarettes, with fruit varieties raising fears they appeal to children. It adds they should not be sold or advertised to youths.
The WHO also highlights fears over liquid nicotine vapour.
It says metals, including lead, have been found in e-cigarettes at higher levels than ordinary cigarettes, while nicotine may act as a ‘tumour promoter’ in people with cancer, or cause heart disease.