A review has concluded that E-cigarettes may help smokers quit as they are considered to be 95% less harmful than regular cigarettes.
Experts wrote a report for Public Health England stating that E-cigarettes might actually help smokers quit. They see electronic cigarettes as a game changer and they believe that doctors should prescribe them to their patients in order to help them quit regular cigarettes.
According to the report, there is no real proof to indicate that electronic cigarettes will tempt children to start smoking, as it was previously believed. Even though some specialists took the review well, the British Medical Association didn’t and expressed caution regarding the matter.
The views regarding electronic cigarettes are mixed. While some governments wish to ban smoking e-cigarettes in closed spaces, others think they are better than regular ones.
It seems that electronic cigarettes are becoming more and more popular. In Britain, 2.6 million adults are using them on a regular basis.
Some health experts see electronic cigarettes as a safer alternative to regular smoking, while others are totally against it, considering it a first step that could lead to a deadly addiction.
The study suggests that electronic cigarettes are up to 95% safer than regular cigarettes. Based on the fact that 80,000 British people die every single year because of smoking, experts have come to the conclusion that these deaths could be reduced by 4,000 a year, if all the smokers in Britain would switch from regular cigarettes to electronic ones.
At the moment, e-cigarettes can’t be prescribed to people who wish to quit smoking, as this type of products that are currently available on the market are not yet registered for medical use. Still, specialists believe that they should be.
Still, specialists supporting this type of smoking in favour of the regular cigarettes insist that this should change so doctors will be able to prescribe electronic cigarettes to the smokers who want to quit this bad habit.
The review also points out that the number of people having doubts in this relatively new type of cigarettes is increasing. Specialists think that this is because most people do not realise that e-cigarettes are less harmful than smoking, even though it is clear that they are not completely risk-free.
The report states that almost half of Britain’s population (48%) are oblivious to the benefits of smoking this type of cigarettes instead of regular ones.
Photo credits: Wcweekly.com
