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Experts’ stance

David Owen, South FremantleStirling Times

More than 10 million people in Europe and US are now ‘vaping’ instead of smoking tobacco.

Contrary to our local ‘experts” assertions, there is extensive research readily accessible online inarguably demonstrating its greater safety than smoking by orders of magnitude, and widespread support in the international health community.

Professor J. Britton, Tobacco Advisory Group, Royal College of Physicians (UK) says: “If all the smokers in Britain stopped smoking cigarettes and started smoking e-cigarettes we would save five million deaths in people who are alive today. It’s a massive potential public health prize.”

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In addition, Professor R. West, Tobacco Studies at Cancer Research UK, says: ‘E-cigarettes are probably about as safe as drinking coffee.’

A brief internet search throws up an international horde of highly credentialed supporters.

It’s disturbing that while, based on extensive studies, so many eminent public health figures internationally support vaping, our local ‘experts’, who have done none, imagine they know better and effectively block it.

Inevitably, their public ‘rationale’ is based on unsubstantiated factoid, not fact.

Briefly, on the issues: all the harm in smoking is caused by burning tobacco; nicotine does not cause cancer, lung or heart problems.

The only unknown health factor is the effect on humans (but it’s fine with rats) of long-term glycerine inhalation, which will take more time to establish beyond doubt.

There is no evidence anywhere that vaping encourages youth or non-smokers to adopt smoking behaviour.

The 16 per cent plus of adults who still smoke are the internationally standard hard core, evidently immune to conventional tobacco control measures.

Utopian ideals apart, by blocking nicotine content in e-cigarettes (though not in lethal tobacco), our authorities are actually helping to ensure the tobacco casualty pipeline of 1500 smoking-related deaths and 30,000 smokers who become sick in Australia every single month remains primed.