PARIS, Feb 3, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Does vaping offer an opportunity for smokers
to kick their deadly tobacco habit, or pose a vast new health threat to the
world's young people?

This long-smouldering question has again come to the forefront in the run-up
to a tobacco summit being held by the World Health Organization next week.

It will likely be the scene of a familiar fight pitting proponents of e-
cigarettes -- including some lobbyists for the tobacco industry -- against
anti-smoking campaigners.

Vaping and other recent smoking innovations are expected to be high on the
agenda as country representatives gather in Panama City on Monday, tasked
with revising a WHO treaty on tobacco control.

E-cigarette devices do not contain tobacco. Instead, they are loaded with a
liquid usually containing nicotine that is inhaled as vapour.

The process does not involve tar or carbon monoxide, the main drivers of the
countless cancers and heart diseases linked to tobacco, suggesting that
vaping should be less harmful than smoking.

However, the WHO has declined to acknowledge that vaping is any less
dangerous than cigarettes.

This position, shared by many anti-smoking campaigners, is based on the
precaution principle.

Because there is very little research on vaping dating back more than a
decade, it is impossible to rule out that it could pose an unknown, long-term
threat to people's health.

This lack of clarity has led to very different national policies. More than
30 countries have banned vaping, but it is largely unregulated in others.
 
- Big Tobacco influence -

Outraged pro-vaping groups say these bans deprive smokers of a crucial way to
quit tobacco, which is confirmed to be a massive threat to public health.

This pro-movement is partly led by the traditional tobacco industry, which
was initially slow to join the vaping revolution, but has now heavily
invested in e-cigarettes and new tobacco products.

In October, the Guardian revealed that a senior vice-president at tobacco
giant Philip Morris International told staff to fight back against the WHO's
"prohibitionist attack on smoke-free products".

Philip Morris International told AFP that it is "committed to presenting to
governments and the media the value of innovation for reducing smoking rates
more rapidly".

Tobacco Tactics, a group linked to the UK's University of Bath, documented a
large number of interactions between the tobacco industry and British
legislators between 2021 and 2023, according to researcher Tom Gatehouse.

The "vast majority" of these interactions were about "vaping and newer
products and the regulation of them," he told AFP.

Gatehouse accused Big Tobacco of trying to regain influence by falsely posing
as fighters against cigarettes, which are still the industry's biggest source
of income.

He admitted that "it's a very complex scenario," because some pro-vaping
lobbying is conducted by other e-cigarettes producers, whose interests
sometimes diverge from the tobacco industry.

And other independent groups "really do believe that vaping is a solution to
smoking," said Amelie Eschenbrenner, spokeswoman for France's National
Committee Against Smoking.

She said that one way to spot of the influence of the tobacco industry is
that it has deliberately sown confusion about the difference between e-
cigarettes and heated tobacco products, which use tobacco and are considered
probably more harmful than vaping.

But even sincere defenders have a habit of speaking about vaping in ways not
backed by scientific evidence, Eschenbrenner said.

This was particularly the case when opposing measures aiming to stem teenage
vaping, such as prohibitions on youth-focused flavours or recent bans on
disposable e-cigarettes in the UK and France, she added.

- What does the research say? -

A Cochrane review -- considered the gold standard for analysing the available
knowledge -- found there was strong evidence that e-cigarettes are more
effective for quitting smoking than nicotine patches.

But another question lingers: Do the young people who have taken up vaping in
huge numbers eventually move on to cigarettes?

Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, who has led several Cochrane reviews on vaping, told
AFP that "there is clear evidence that young people who vape are more likely
to go on to smoke".

But it is not clear that this is driving more young people to smoke who would
not have anyway, she added. If that were the case, youth smoking would be
rising overall -- instead it is declining in most countries.

Many medical researchers have called for vaping to remain legal as a tool for
quitting smoking, while doing everything possible to stop young people from
taking up either habit.

"If people switch completely from smoking to vaping they substantially reduce
their risk of premature death and disability," Nicholas Hopkinson, professor
of respiratory medicine at Imperial College London, told AFP.

"But people who do this should be encouraged to quit vaping as well in the
long run."