By Hamish Fitzsimmons
Health industry workers and academics are working on a national approach to the growing phenomenon of e-cigarettes, with some concerned they are not as harmless as widely believed.
E-cigarettes are vaporisers through which liquid nicotine can be ingested and are sometimes promoted as less harmful than smoking.
Professor Ron Borland from Cancer Council Victoria says they work rather like an electric jug.
“They work by a battery-powered device turning on a little heater – really a miniature electric jug – which heats up the liquid and the propelene gycol creates a thin mist which is like the mist which is used in theatre,” he said.
At talks held in Melbourne on Wednesday by government-funded VicHealth, speakers warned of the unregulated industry overseas which is pitched at young people.
The meeting also discussed the possible long-term side effects of using e-cigarettes or vaping – turning liquid into a mist and inhaling it through an e-cigarette.
E-cigarettes that contain nicotine are promoted as less harmful than smoking traditional tobacco cigarettes, but health experts disagree about how dangerous this new fad is.
Experts split on effects of e-cigarettes
Dr Dorothy Hatsukami from the University of Minnesota backs the view that e-cigarettes can play a role in the minimisation of traditional smoking.
“It is less harmful because there’s a lot of combustion products in cigarettes so when you burn it they have a lot of harmful constituents. With e-cigarettes it’s not burned,” Dr Hatsukami said.
Others like Professor Mike Daube from Curtin University are not so sure.
“There’s nothing terribly new about e-cigarettes. We’ve seen so many miracle cures for smoking, we’ve seen a long history of tobacco industry products that are supposed to be safe or safer,” Professor Daube said.
However the use of e-cigarettes that do not contain liquid nicotine is viewed as relatively benign by some like Professor Borland.
“All of the evidence from around the world is that there’s no acute health risks associated with doing that because it’s not an addictive product,” he said.
So new are e-cigarettes to the market that research into their long-term health effects does not exist.
Jerril Rechter, VicHealth’s chief executive, says there is confusion about them in professional circles, hence the need for the talks.
“Part of the confusion is we don’t have the evidence base to tell us whether these devices are going to benefit consumers or be harmful to consumers,” Mr Rechter said.
E-cigarette industry booming
It is a growing industry; some estimates expect the global e-cigarette industry will reach $23 billion within a decade.
“Some of the projections from Wall Street are that the e-cigarette market might exceed conventional cigarettes in the next decade or two,” Dr Hatsukami said.
In Australia e-cigarette laws vary from state to state, but Mr Rechter says while it is legal to buy vaporisers, it is not legal to buy liquid nicotine.
“Liquid nicotine is illegal to purchase in Australia and so it’s coming in predominately via online sales,” he said.
“And you can buy it online if you have a medical certificate, though there aren’t too many doctors around who are going to grant that.”
But in April the Supreme Court of Western Australia prevented their sale in the state.
The court ruled that e-cigarettes – even if they did not contain nicotine – still breached the Tobacco Control Act, which prohibits any “food, toy or other product” looking like a tobacco product.
Professor Daube said the court was simply upholding standing West Australian laws.
“I don’t think people selling these products are naive. Anybody in this area would have known it, they would have known these things resemble cigarettes – the health department took action,” he said.
The online retailer is appealing the decision.
But while the market in Australia is still small, its growth in the US has alarmed health professionals like Dr Hatsukami.
“We have 400 brands of e-cigarettes out in the market, we have over 7,000 flavours of e-cigarettes,” she said.
“People have referred to the e-cigarette market as the wild west because there is no regulation over these products.”
Tobacco companies see huge potential in the e-cigarette market, according to Simon Chapman, professor in public health at the University of Sydney.
“What they’re interested in is getting people to use e-cigarettes as well as rather than instead of cigarettes,” Professor Chapman said.
British American Tobacco estimates use in the UK has tripled in the past three years and says people should have the option of choice.
“We believe that tobacco consumers should have the option of choosing less risky products instead of existing more risky products, like conventional cigarettes,” the company said in a statement.