Regulating electronic cigarettes for maximum benefit

A US legal scholar and tobacco control expert says he has developed a research-based roadmap that allows for the immediate regulation of e-cigarettes.

Writing in the March issue of Food and Drug Law Journal, Eric N. Lindblom, JD, senior scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, said his proposal would minimize the threats that electronic cigarettes posed to public health while still enabling them potentially to help reduce smoking.

‘This approach could help to heal the current split in the public health community over e-cigarettes by addressing the concerns of both sides,’ Lindblom said.

‘We already know that using e-cigarettes is less harmful than smoking, but more harmful than not using any tobacco or nicotine at all, and that’s enough to figure out how to regulate them both to protect and promote the public health.’

Lindblom’s piece ‘Effectively Regulating E-Cigarettes and Their Advertising – And the First Amendment’, was relayed by medicalxpress.com at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-03-e-cigarettes-expert.html.