Electronic cigarettes are “undoubtedly harmful” and should be regulated, the WHO said on Friday as it warned against the use of vaping products by smokers trying to quit.
The growing popularity of e-cigarettes, battery-powered devices that enable users to inhale addictive nicotine liquids, has raised fears among policymakers worldwide of a new gateway addiction for young people.
While vaping exposes users to lower levels of toxins than smoking, the WHO said that the devices still pose “health risks” to users.
Photo: AFP
Warning: The WHO says e-cigarettes are undoubedly harmful
“Although the specific level of risk associated with ENDS [electronic nicotine delivery systems] has not yet been conclusively estimated, ENDS are undoubtedly harmful and should therefore be subject to regulation,” the WHO said in a report on the global smoking epidemic.
There was also “insufficient evidence” to support claims of their effectiveness in assisting smokers trying to quit conventional cigarettes, it said.
“In most countries where they are available, the majority of e-cigarette users continue to use e-cigarettes and cigarettes concurrently, which has little to no beneficial impact on health risk and effects,” the report said.
Big tobacco companies have been aggressively marketing e-cigarette and heated tobacco products as they seek new customers.
They argue that such products are far less dangerous than traditional cigarettes and could help some smokers completely switch to “safer” alternatives, but the WHO said that misinformation spread by the tobacco industry about e-cigarettes was “a present and real threat.”
As well as nicotine, e-cigarettes also contain metal-laced aerosols, which WHO Tobacco Free Initiative program manager Vinayak Prasad said “are known to damage the heart, all of them are known to damage the lungs.”
“They’re also now looking at the long-term effect whether it can even cause cancer, but it’s not very well established,” Prasad said.
Restrictions on the use of e-cigarettes around the world is increasing. San Francisco last month banned the sale and manufacture of the products. China, home to nearly one-third of the world’s tobacco smokers, is also planning to regulate vaping devices.
More effort is needed to help smokers quit, the WHO said in the report, adding that only “30 percent of the world’s population have access to appropriate tobacco cessation services,” such as counseling, telephone hotlines and medication.
Without assistance, only 4 percent of attempts to stop smoking succeed.
Tobacco claims more than 8 million lives each year either from direct use or secondhand smoke, according to the WHO.
While the number of users has declined slightly since 2007, it remains stubbornly high at 1.4 billion, the vast majority of them men.
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