Lawmakers in the United Kingdom are launching an investigation into the safety and effectiveness of electronic cigarettes as the vaping population surges.
The Science and Technology Committee opened the inquiry Wednesday, which will review the current regulatory environment governing the products. The committee is also seeking clarity on the health impacts of vaping, how effective they are for smoking cessation, if the devices are re-normalizing smoking and what the overall economic impact is on public health services in the U.K., reports Bloomberg.
The popularity of smoking alternatives is exploding in the U.K. as consumers warm to the idea of transitioning off combustible tobacco. There are now nearly 3 million users of vapor and heat-not-burn products in the U.K., up from only 0.7 million in 2012.
MP Norman Lamb, chairman of Science and Technology Committee, said there is still a lot of disagreement about whether e-cigarettes “reduce the number of people smoking ‘conventional’ cigarettes,” or if the technology is attracting a younger generation to tobacco products.
“There isn’t a single shred of evidence anywhere that vaping is re-normalizing smoking, and nor would we expect there to be just as drinking water doesn’t normalize drinking vodka,” Clive Bates of Counterfactual, a public interest consultancy and advocacy group, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Vaping normalizes vaping, and it functions as an alternative to smoking. In fact, since the rise of vaping in the U.K. we have seen a dramatic fall in adult smoking, just as in the United States.”
The U.K.’s Office of National Statistics shows the smoking rate in the U.K. dropped from 17.2 percent in 2015 to 15.8 percent in 2016. The U.K. now has the second lowest smoking rate in all of Europe, and officials say vaping is a big part of the reason.
“The committee’s inquiry will give us an opportunity to show we could could be heading for one of the greatest public health wins ever, and without punishing or bullying anyone, and without a call on the taxpayer,” Bates told TheDCNF. “It’s all good news, and I am sure we will convince the committee to back us.”
A growing body of research reveals that alternative smoking technologies could drastically reduce deaths from smoking. A study released Oct. 2 by the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center shows if vaping were to largely replace smoking, roughly 6.6. million smokers would avoid premature death and collectively add 86.7 million extra years to their lives.
Public health experts focused on harm reduction say governments need to embrace the benefits of vaping if they are serious about achieving a smoke-free future.
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