“Electronic cigarettes they are helping millions of people quit smoking. As a result, I cannot understand why the World Health Organization is threatening to ban them." The words, which reopen the debate on e-cigarettes and alternative tobacco products, are from Mark Pawsey, Member of Parliament of the United Kingdom and President of the Inter-party Parliamentary Group on Electronic Cigarettes. His echoes are those of David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a US-based non-profit organization: low risk products. However, the WHO's position is quite different: "All governments should ban electronic cigarettes or electronic nicotine release systems," said director general Margaret Chan.
But let's go in order. In the last few years electronic cigarettes and alternative products to traditional cigarettes in general (such as those with heated tobacco but without combustion, so-called "heat not burn") have seen a boom among the population all over the world. The result is that today there are as many as 500 brands of electronic cigarettes available on the market but, claims the WHO, “only a few have been analysed. Most contain nicotine – explains a 2015 release -, an addictive substance. Vapor often contains substances that can cause cancer (like formaldehyde), but at levels 1-2 times lower than tobacco smoke. E-cigs are therefore less toxic than traditional cigarettes, however there is still uncertainty as to how much less toxic they actually are. Evidence shows that e-cigarettes are dangerous for young people, pregnant women and people who do not use nicotine”.
In an attempt to provide a regulatory framework, the European Union issued directive 40/2014, implemented in May by Italy with the entry into force of a law that regulates the tobacco market but also that of e-cigarettes and other alternative products through for example the prohibition, also for the latter as for traditional cigarettes, of online sales, also for refill containers with the presence of nicotine. Also introduced was the prohibition of sale to minors under 18 years of electronic cigarettes and refill liquid with the presence of nicotine. The law, on the other hand, does not prohibit the use of electronic cigarettes in public places, but the possibility remains for operators or for the managers of halls and restaurants, as well as for companies, to give indications on the possibility or otherwise of "vaping" in public .
However, the WHO current of thought, according to which they should even be banned, contrasts with those of other authoritative scientists who instead see electronic cigarettes as one of the possible solutions to remedy a global health problem which in the twentieth century has caused around 100 million deaths worldwide, more than the two great wars combined. In 2020, according to estimates by the WHO itself, there will be one billion smokers in the world: for this reason the debate on available alternatives is - or should be - increasingly topical.
As emerges from an independent study published in August 2015 by Public Health England, e-cigarettes are about 95% less harmful than tobacco smoke and could help reduce smoking rates among young people and adults in the UK. The Public Health England study found that almost all of the 2,6 million adults who use e-cigarettes in Great Britain are current smokers or ex-smokers: most of them use these devices as an aid to quit smoking. smoking or to avoid relapse into cigarette addiction. A reassuring perspective also emerges from the text: very few adults and young people who have never smoked have become habitual users of electronic cigarettes (less than 1% in each group).
“E-cigarettes are not completely risk-free, but compared to tobacco smoke, evidence shows they cause very little harm,” confirms Kevin Fenton, Director of Health and Wellbeing at Public Health England, an independent body from the ministry. of British Health. “E-cigarettes could be a turning point for public health, in particular by reducing the huge health consequences of smoking,” echoes Ann McNeill of King's College London.
In support of these theses, a new report by the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), entitled "Nicotine without smoke: tobacco harm reduction" (Nicotine without smoke: reduction of tobacco harm), which focuses above all on one aspect: electronic cigarettes are not a preliminary step to tobacco smoking. “E-cigarette use in the UK is confined almost exclusively to current tobacco users or ex-smokers,” writes the RCP ultimately arguing that “e-cigarettes can be considered a way to quit smoking”, and acknowledging that "the possibility that the use of the e-cig results in some harmful long-term cannot be excluded, given the inhalation of ingredients other than nicotine, but it is likely to be very small and substantially less than the effects of tobacco smoke".
These analyzes are also the subject of debate in Italy, where it was established International Scientific Committee in support of the electronic cigarette, with the support of the Italian Anti-Smoking League (LIAF) which includes 12 authoritative international doctors and scientists including Umberto Veronesi. Following an article in the prestigious journal Nature, against the demonization of innovative products by the WHO, the famous oncologist recently stated that "a pilot study published in Bmc Public Health by the University of Catania has demonstrated the efficacy and safety of the electronic cigarette. Together with my colleagues, we therefore support Nature's position and renew the invitation, already presented to WHO with a letter signed by 50 other European and American scientists, not to criminalize the electronic cigarette, and not to launch alarms and bans based on assumptions , but on the contrary, promote their scientific study and use in the fight against cancer and cardiovascular diseases”.
Ban any alternative product to traditional cigarettes or, conversely, allow their development in order to provide an alternative to one billion smokers. Above all, this will be discussed at the next WHO conference dedicated to smoking, scheduled for November in New Delhi: as long as there will be a debate, given the Organization's decision to limit participation in the work only to government representatives who have no relationship with the tobacco supply chain and therefore effectively to exclude the majority of Western governments, including the Italian one. New generation products, just a few years after their introduction, risk being banned without the right to appeal.
