Academics warn vaping products must not be sold as medicines

 

Vaping products should be sold from behind the counter amid increasing concern they pose a risk to health, experts have claimed.

Martin McKee, Professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said e-cigarettes and nicotine ‘juices’ should be placed in closed cabinets rather than sold as healthcare items in supermarkets.

In 2015, Public Health England (PHE) advised smokers to switch to vaping because research suggests it is 95 percent safer than smoking tobacco.

However, the move has led to some major stores placing e-cigarettes among healthcare products, with some supermarkets stacking juices next to sweets at the checkout.

Professor McKee fears positioning them alongside medicines could mislead consumers.

“Even if you accept Public Health England’s claim that e-cigarettes are 95 per cent safer than conventional ones – which hardly any health organisation outside England does – they are still hazardous,” he said. “For this reason, it is bizarre to present them as a health product”.

US health officials recently warned people to stop vaping after several deaths and more than 200 cases of respiratory deaths were linked to the devices. There has also been growing concern youngsters take up the habit because is appears fashionable.

 

Via The Telegraph