Yesterday the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) published the latest in a series of major reports on tobacco and nicotine, a series that first began in 1962. This report assesses the public health controversies surrounding low risk non-combustible nicotine products (“nicotine without smoke”), such as e-cigarettes.
Controversies centre around:
How harmful e-cigarettes and other non-combustible products are, when compared to smoking tobacco
Whether these products somehow encourage smoking through gateway effects, ‘renormalising’ smoking or reducing the rate at which smokers quit
The role of the tobacco industry