Why the U.K. Isn’t Having Problems With Vaping

The lessons of Prohibition’s failure in the U.S. haven’t been lost on the British

By Matt Ridley. Excerpts:

"Nicotine itself is far less harmful to smokers than the other chemicals created during combustion. Heavyweight studies confirm that there are much lower levels of dangerous chemicals in e-cigarette vapor than in smoke and fewer biomarkers of harm in the bodies of vapers than smokers."

"In Britain, vaping is all about nicotine, not drugs. It is socially acceptable and is confined almost entirely to people who have smoked, even among the young. Less than 1% of vapers are people who have never smoked, and there is little sign of young people taking it up faster than they would have taken up smoking.

There are now 3.6 million vapers in the U.K. and 5.9 million smokers (some people are in both categories). Many British smokers have switched entirely to vaping, encouraged by the government, whose official position is that vaping is 95% safer than smoking, an assertion now backed by early studies of disease incidence. The organizations that have signed a statement saying that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking include Public Health England, the Association of Directors of Public Health, the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society for Public Health.

There have been no deaths and few if any cases of lung illness directly attributed to vaping in the U.K. A recent study has concluded that vaping is now helping up to 70,000 people stop smoking every year by reaching those who failed to quit smoking by other means."

"The CDC says that most cases of illness are linked to vaping products laced with THC oil, an ingredient of cannabis, “particularly those obtained off the street or from other informal sources (e.g., friends, family members, illicit dealers).”"