U.K. stance questioned

Stanton Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, has called U.K. health authorities’ policies of promoting e-cigarettes for smoking cessation “dangerous” and “irresponsible.”
A new study conducted by Glantz and his colleagues found that EU smokers who use vapor products are less, not more, likely to quit smoking.
“Our study strongly indicate[s] that implementing these policies that promote e-cigarette use will substantially worsen the tobacco epidemic,” he said.
According to Glantz, the study found that, on the population level, the net effect of the entry of vapor products into the EU was associated with depressed smoking cessation of conventional cigarettes.
PHE supports the licensing of vapor products as smoking-cessation aids so that general practitioners can prescribe the devices to patients who are trying to quit smoking.