Britain Will Regulate E-Cigarettes To Ensure Quality

Date: Jun-12-2013All nicotine-containing products (NCPs), such as electronic cigarettes, are to be regulated as medicines in the U.K, in a move to make these products safer and more effective in reducing the harms of smoking.

Within the next few years Britain will regulate electronic cigarettes and all other NCPs as non prescription medicines to improve product quality and ensure that people using the devices aren't put at significant harm.

Other countries have outright banned these new electronic cigarette-like devices that emit vapor instead of harmful tobacco smoke - tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 different types of chemicals.

However, the U.K has decided that it will allow "e-cigs" to continue existing under the condition that they are regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

More than 80,000 people die in England each year because of smoking - it is one of the nation's biggest killers. According to the World Health Organization smoking will have caused over 1 billion deaths by the end of this century.

Therefore, any product that can help smokers cut down or quit is quite welcome.

Dr Clare Gerada, Chair of the General Council at the Royal College of General Practitioners said:

"Rates of smoking in the poorest in our communities remain high, and as a GP in a deprived area of London I see firsthand the deaths and disease this causes. The RCGP supports MHRA regulation of novel nicotine products such as e-cigarettes as this will ensure that they are of good quality and reliability and are effective in helping smokers who want to use them to cut down and quit."

The MHRA's Group Manager of Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines, Jeremy Mean, said that it is a Government health priority to reduce the harms of smoking to people who smoke, as well as those around them.

He commented that previous studies have indicated that "existing electronic cigarettes and other nicotine containing products on the market are not good enough to meet this public health priority."

Although some NCPs have already been licensed, the government is working to have all these products licenced.

The government believes that by doing so every NCP product available to customers will be of a certain standard to help them cut down or quit smoking.

Electronic cigarettes are thought to be much less harmful than normal cigarettes.
Jeremy Mean added that the decision made by the MHRA will establish a framework to "enable good quality products to be widely available. It's not about banning products that some people find useful, it's about making sure that smokers have an effective alternative that they can rely on to meet their needs."

The announcement comes following widespread support from the public health community for these products to receive regulation, their decisions have been driven by research into the safety and quality of NCPs on the market.

Only licensed NCPs should be used to reduce the harms of smoking, such as gums, patches or mouth sprays, as the quality of NCP products significantly varies.

The European Commission announced that the new legislation will most likely be adopted in 2014 and will come into effect in the UK from 2016, giving manufactures ample time to ensure their products meet the standards required.

Until then the MHRA encourages manufacturers to apply for a medicine license.

Professor Dame Sally Davies, concluded:

"Smokers are harmed by the deadly tar and toxins in tobacco smoke, not the nicotine.While it's best to quit completely, I realise that not every smoker can and it is much better to get nicotine from safer sources such as nicotine replacement therapy. More and more people are using e-cigarettes, so it's only right these products are properly regulated to be safe and work effectively."
The safety of using e-cigs
The safety of using electronic cigarettes was presented by researchers from the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center, Athens, Greece, at the European Society for Cardiology 2012 Conference in Munich, Germany.

Their study concluded that electronic cigarettes are far less harmful than smoking tobacco  and switching from smoking normal cigarettes to electronic cigarettes is probably a very good health decision.

In addition, researchers at the Boston University School of Public health reported that electronic cigarettes are a very promising tool to help smokers quit. Their use is associated with six-month abstinence rates, nearly double those of traditional nicotine replacement products, according to the study.

Michael Siegel, from the Boston University School of Public Health, explains why e-cigarette users have had such amazing success quitting smoking:

Written by Joseph Nordqvist

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