Interesting responses.
May I ask, are you all currently smokers and/or trying to give up and on substitutes (like e-cigs)?
All the people I know don't smoke and I don't smoke.
I was a smoker, now using ecig to quit, more effective than NRT for me.
So the EU can lump their research in my case.
I think the cost argument regarding smoking related treatments is highly dubious. I question whether the £25bn is correct - because that would represent almost a quarter of the entire health care budget - which is patently nonsense.
Secondly, the brutal truth is that if people are dying younger due smoking related illnesses this means they are drawing less from state in terms of pensions (which represents 80% of welfare costs), as well as all those other services that elderly rely upon - like hospital treatment and care homes. This obviously isn't a justification for encouraging smoking, but it shows how difficult it is to asses the cost of smoking to the tax payer.
Anyone can do a study that suggests that mint and chocolate are flavours children might be attracted to. That doesn't mean that children are using e-cigarettes. But doing a study that proves children are more likely to become nicotine addicts than they would have been otherwise, is much harder. And I very much doubt there are any studies that provide any conclusive link like that.
And then you've got to prove that it is acting as an entry drug to tobacco smoking long term - again this is very difficult to prove conclusively. It seems far more likely to me the tobacco industry has paid for some skewed research which suggests some kind of association between e-cig flavours and children, and that this is being used by them to lobby certain unscrupulous EU MEP's. That's seems more likely than the EU carrying out extensive research. Let's face it - the tobacco industry has form, in terms of this kind of behaviour.
I have yet to see any youngster with a ecig, always a real cig they are puffing on!
I think it is still very early days for e-cigs at the moment, and Alan CD is right that we should be wary of them, and the effect that they may have on children if they become very widespread.
If, say, we regularly see celebrities like Angelina or Brad puffing away on e-cigs, and e-cigs are easily available in all newsagents and used by significant numbers of ex-smokers, we could start to see kids wandering around with e-cigs too. And the thought of that does concern me.
I could see that happening if e-cigs become more socially acceptable than cigarette smoking, and widely considered as harmless. Nicotine is a dangerous drug, and we don't want to be encouraging it's usage by the young at all.
Perhaps we need to ban e-cigs in public places, so as not to make it "fashionable" to be seen using them, whilst what you do privately is your own business.
I personally don't smoke and never have in a regular sense- I have smoked tobacco products but have never craved them. I do know people that are using e-cigs as a means of stopping smoking conventional cigarettes and some of those are trying the lowered dosage method in an attempt to quit.
I've never heard of someone starting on e-cigs and given that I don't think they are considered as 'cool' as normal cigs and lack many of the social triggers that cigarettes have are absent. If we take a purely health related take on young people starting smoking despite vast evidence it is bad for you, surely the e-cig is the 'least worst' option for them as they are apparently hell bent on smoking something.
It must be difficult to deal with a drug habit you want to kick. The craving for nicotine in any form must be a 24-hours-a-day problem.
I can well imagine anyone or any government creating an obstacle to easily obtaining nicotine would be angrily rebuffed by those who have a relentless craving.
I've never seen an electronic cigarette or anyone smoke one. How does the nicotine get into the bloodstream without entering the lungs?
One thing I do feel strongly about is that the tobacco industry should lose it's legal right to have any influence on the public debate or legislation relating to nicotine related products - and there should be criminal sanctions should they attempt to exert any influence at all on the decision making process. They have made billions by killing millions of people prematurely, and have been found to be complicit in corruption and distortion. So in my book, they've lost any ethical right to participate in any democratic or legislative processes.
So maybe we should just ban tobacco altogether?
It's absorbed through the mouth and cheeks, etc, like the nicotine in nicotine gum (or via the skin with patches).
The thing about craving, Alan, you don't have it all the time. You only have it when you lack nicotine. So it doesn't impair your objectivity, or influence your thought process, unless you happen to be desperate for nicotine at the time. It's a bit like hunger, in that way. You don't spend all day thinking about having McDonalds, do you? You only think about lunch when your blood sugar levels start to get a bit low - and only then does it start to influence your decision making process (eg. "let's end this meeting, because I'm hungry", etc).