E-cigarettes are 95 percent less dangerous than tobacco: UK study

E-cigarettes are less dangerous than tobacco and should be boosted as a tool to help smokers quit, a study by an agency of the Department of Health of Britain said on Wednesday.

E-cigarettes, tobacco-free devices people use to inhale nicotine-laced vapor, have surged in popularity on either side of the Atlantic but health organizations have thus far been cautious of recommending them as a safer alternative to tobacco and governments from California to India have tried to introduce bills to regulate their use more firmly.

Most of the compounds that cause smoking-associated disorders are not present in e-cigarettes and the current best approximation is that electronic cigarette use is less dangerous to health than smoking, the study said.

Passive inhalation from an electronic cigarette was also not as dangerous.

The freely-financed study goes against an 2014 report by the World Health Organization that called for harsh regulation of e-cigarettes and bans on their indoor use and sale .

Additionally, it contradicts the finding of another study by researchers from the University of Southern California which said this week that U.S. adolescents who tried electronic cigarettes might be more than twice as likely to move on to smoking traditional smokes as those who’ve never tried the devices.

The Public Health England study said e-cigarettes, which are the most famous discontinuing aids in the USA and Britain, could be a low-cost way to cut back smoking in deprived areas where there remains a higher percentage of smokers.

It criticized media campaigns which have called e-cigarettes equally or much more dangerous than smoking that could function as a “gateway” to tobacco cigarettes among adolescents.

“There is no evidence that e-cigarettes are undermining England’s falling smoking rates,” said Professor Ann McNeil who helped author the study.

“Instead the evidence consistently finds that e-cigarettes are another tool for stopping smoking and in my view smokers should strive vaping, and vapers should quit smoking completely,” she added.

Almost all of the 2.6 million adults using e-cigarettes in Britain are current or ex-smokers who are using the devices to help them stop and only 2 percent of young folks are frequent drug users, the study said.

Tobacco firms such as Philip Morris International and British American Tobacco (BAT) have seen e-cigarettes as a solution to declining sales in Britain and the USA and have purchased makers of the metal devices.

Calling the study an “amazingly important landmark”, a BAT spokesman admitted the risk presented by substances found in cigarette smoking and said raising income of e-cigarettes would considerably help their customers’ health.