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Cancer Research UK's Briefing on Electronic Cigarettes
In stark contrast to Australia's Cancer Council position, the Cancer Research UK' s position on E-Cigs/Vaping shows a lot of common sense.
Rather than the Cancer Council's ideaological stance, Cancer Research UK has taken an evidence based approach to formulate its position on vaping.
Trans-Tasman Report Calls For Life-Saving Reforms To Help Smokers Quit
SYDNEY/WELLINGTON, November 9, 2016 - The Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance, MyChoice Australia and the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union today jointly launched a report calling for the governments on both sides of the Tasman to legalise, and lightly regulate, new technologies to help smokers quit.
“The evidence is overwhelming: vaping technologies will save millions of lives” said Lara Jeffery, Director of MyChoice Australia.
“Millions of smokers worldwide have quit smoking because of this technology, and it is now the most popular way for smokers to quit in countries such as the United Kingdom. Public health experts worldwide have praised it as being 'at least 95%' safer than smoking. It is time for our regulations to catch up to the times and encourage this life saving technology” concluded Ms Jeffery.
E-cigarettes help save lives, says Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians has issued a report strongly critical of “public health” scolds, such as GPs and EU officials, who want the use of e-cigarettes of restricted.
These anti-vaping crusaders are costing lives, the venerable institution warns, as encouraging e-cigarettes is the most effective tobacco control strategy yet seen.
The report by the college’s Tobacco Advisory Group, titled Nicotine without smoke: Tobacco harm reduction (PDF, 4MB), concludes that public health policy should change to encourage smokers to one of nicotine substitution.
It isn’t the college’s first intervention. In a March 2014 statement, the surgeons wrote:
Switching completely from tobacco to e-cigarettes achieves much the same in health terms as does quitting smoking and all nicotine use completely.
Nicotine is largely harmless – albeit in strictly tiny doses – but the most popular delivery vehicle, cigarettes, are extremely harmful.
“Harm reduction works by providing smokers with the nicotine to which they are addicted without the tobacco smoke that is responsible for almost all of the harm caused by smoking,” the report advises.
Call to Legalise Nicotine For Electronic Cigarettes
The New Nicotine Alliance Australia (NNA) today announced that it has made a submission to the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) for low-strength nicotine for use in electronic cigarettes to be made legally available in Australia as a substitute for smoking. Electronic cigarettes have the potential to save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Australian smokers by providing a safer alternative to tobacco smoking, the leading preventable cause of death and illness in Australia.
“It is ludicrous to ban a product that the UK’s Department of Health and the UK Royal College of Physicians have concluded is at least 95 per cent safer than smoking while deadly tobacco cigarettes can be purchased at any corner shop or petrol station in Australia”, said Donna Darvill, NNA spokesperson.
The NNA-AU is a non-profit organisation & is funded by donations from private individuals and organisations.
They are leading the fight for Tobacco Harm Reduction in Australia, such as making nicotine eliquids available to purchase for vaping in Australia.
You can donate to them using the donate button below, which will take you to their website.
Libs call for rethink on e-cigarette ban
A Liberal backbencher has called for a rethink of Australia's ban on nicotine e-cigarettes, arguing the devices could spell the end of harmful cigarette smoking.James Paterson said some of the reasons cited by health groups for maintaining the ban were puzzling and strange.
He hopes the government will facilitate rather than block moves to legalise what advocates say is a healthier alternative to smoking,
The medicines regulator has been asked to exempt nicotine from the Schedule 7 dangerous poisons list, at concentrations of 3.6 per cent or less, to try to reduce the harm caused by tobacco.
Dozens of academics and researchers have written to the Therapeutic Goods Administration in support of the application, calling for the ban to be lifted - including a top Cancer Council researcher.
Ron Borland argued the current laws were difficult to defend - a position at odds with the Cancer Council which is vehemently opposed to e-cigarettes.
Vaping may lead to fewer respiratory infections for ex-smokers
The online survey of 941 respondents assessed subjective changes in respiratory symptoms in smokers who switched to vaping for at least two months
The results, published in the Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy, show that 66 per cent of respondents reported an improvement in respiratory symptoms, 29 per cent reported no change and 5 per cent reported worsening.
Senior author Professor Peter Hajek from QMUL's Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine said: “There is no doubt that e-cigarettes are much safer than conventional cigarettes, but smokers are still led to believe that they’re dangerous.
