“Local stop smoking services should look to support e-cigarette users in their journey to quitting completely”, Director of Health and Wellbeing at PHE, Professor Kevin Fenton said.
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For smokers who want to quit, the electronic or e-cigarette is a viable option that replaces tobacco with various vapors. A Welsh Government spokesperson yold the BBC: “We are concerned the use of e-cigarettes may renormalise smoking, especially for a generation who have grown up in a largely smoke-free society”. Another study from the University of Southern California found teens were more than twice as likely to use conventional tobacco products after trying e-cigarettes as were those who did not experiment with them.
The study doesn’t prove that electronic cigarettes are a “gateway drug”, but some doctors say it bolsters arguments that the devices should be strictly regulated as proposed by the Food and Drug Administration. After the report was publicized, the Conservatives have said that e-cigarettes should not be banned in enclosed public places in Wales. Of those surveyed, 222 had tried e-cigarettes. At six months, more than 30 percent of the e-cigarette users reporting imbibing in combustible tobacco compared almost 10 percent in the other group.
Is there a wrecking job being done against e-cigarettes?
The comments mark the first time a major health body has endorsed e-cigarettes and attempted to debunk the “myth” that vaping is bad for the health.
In addition, researchers said that the increased propensity to try e-cigarettes during adolescence might arise from the stage of teens’ brain development during that time. Therefore, the researchers were unable to measure whether students had a few puffs of a nicotine product or whether they were smoking them regularly and frequently.
The two academics said the evidence pointed to e-cigarettes contributing to falling smoking rates among adults and young people.
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While it is hard to quantify how many lives could be saved by people switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, they said around 80,000 deaths a year in England are caused by smoking – the greatest cause of preventable deaths.
