Written by Jasmine Khouja, PhD Student, Tobacco and Alcohol Research Group
Today sees the publication of a report on electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) by the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee. This compiles evidence from over 100 pieces of written submissions and five oral sessions, and highlights key issues around reducing harm, promoting smoking cessation and effectively regulating e-cigarettes. Since the report is quite long, we’ve tried to extract the main messages.
The report takes a relatively positive stance on e-cigarettes, encouraging use for smoking cessation and suggesting a more accepting approach to e-cigarettes in public spaces. This is in contrast to other countries, such as Australia, where a ban is in place due to the lack of long-term research on the health impact of using e-cigarettes.
Reducing harm
The general consensus from a variety of sources is that e-cigarettes are less harmful than combustible cigarettes. However, a frequent theme is that this does not mean that e-cigarettes are ‘safe’, and the report is careful to emphasise that e-cigarettes are not completely harmless. The relative harm of heat-not-burn tobacco products compared to combustible cigarettes is less clear. There is a lack of independent evidence as the majority of data on the safety and emissions of these product has come from Philip Morris, a major tobacco company.
The long-term effects of using e-cigarettes are currently unknown. It is difficult to assess the comparative harm of e-cigarettes without also measuring the effects of prior smoking, since there are very few long-term e-cigarette users who have never smoked. Exposure to second-hand e-cigarette vapour has been similarly difficult to assess, but since potentially harmful compounds emitted are present only at very low levels second-hand vapour is unlikely to be harmful.
E-cigarettes have become a popular tool for quitting smoking and an estimated 16,000 to 22,000 people who would not have quit using alternative products or willpower alone have successfully quit each year by using e-cigarettes. Although these figures are promising, there is a lack of high-quality evidence from randomised control trials showing how effective e-cigarettes are when quitting smoking. Other evidence has been inconclusive due to the low quality of some studies.
Despite fears that e-cigarettes may act as a ‘gateway’ to smoking, current evidence does not show that using e-cigarettes causes people to start smoking. Although there is a link between e-cigarette use and subsequent smoking initiation, very few never smokers regularly use e-cigarettes, so any causal link would have a limited impact on smoking rates.
Smoking cessation
Providing e-cigarettes on prescription could encourage smokers to try e-cigarettes without barriers such as money as well as give them more confidence in the product being less harmful than cigarettes. The report concludes that e-cigarettes should be available to those in NHS mental health services given high rates of smoking in this group.
NHS England were unable to provide evidence for how they were addressing this issue. They were unable to provide a representative because there is no one individual responsible centrally with ‘oversight’ of e-cigarette policies across NHS mental health trusts. The report criticises this, stating it was concerning and that a position should be created as a matter of urgency.
E-cigarettes are generally prohibited in closed spaces such as workplaces, public transport and restaurants and vapers are usually encouraged to vape outside within designated ‘smoking’ areas. Since second-hand vapour is unlikely to be harmful, these policies may be more harmful than beneficial; frequently exposing vapers to cigarettes and cigarette smoke may increase the likelihood that they will relapse to smoking.
Regulation
E-cigarettes are currently regulated under the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD; see our previous blog) if you want to learn more about these regulations). As part of this directive, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency must be notified before any e-cigarette or e-liquid can be sold in the UK.
Four key criticisms of the TPD were identified in the report: i) unnecessary limits on nicotine strength of refill liquids which may lead to failed quit attempts, ii) unnecessary tank size restrictions which may lead to failed quit attempts, iii) blocking advertising the relative harm-reduction of e-cigarettes which may discourage quit attempts, and iv) the ineffective notification scheme for e-cigarette ingredients which slows innovation.
Some TPD regulations are optional and give freedom to governments to be as restrictive as they feel necessary. Scotland has been more restrictive than England in their regulations by banning certain advertising of vapour products. Currently, health claims are banned from all media advertising of e-cigarettes without a medical license (of which none is currently available). The Advertising Standards Authority is currently reviewing the legislation on e-cigarette advertising and health claims and are considering allowing this in the future.
Unsurprisingly, there is uncertainty about the future regulation of e-cigarettes due to Brexit. Regulation of e-cigarettes may change after leaving the European Union and it is unclear what these changes may be or what potential impact increased flexibility in regulating e-cigarettes could have.
Conclusions
The report is comprehensive and raises some interesting questions particularly about the lack of NHS involvement in developing strategies for smoking cessation that utilise e-cigarettes. It will be interesting to see if the NHS responds to these criticisms by taking action. I am also interested to see what Brexit will mean for the regulation of e-cigarettes in the UK, given the criticisms of TPD regulations.
The full report can be accessed here: [The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee reports on e-cigarettes]