Shout it from the roofs

The government should launch mass media campaigns to disseminate correct evidenced-based information on the relative risks of smoking and vaping, according to a recent report by the British Psychological Society.

Titled Changing behaviour: Electronic cigarettes, the report calls on the National Health Service to offer vapor products to boost smoking-cessation rates. It urges the government to use policy interventions and fiscal measures to raise cigarette prices and lower vapor product prices, and regulate reduced-risk products less heavily than it regulates cigarettes.

The report also calls for allowing vapor devices to further evolve and improve so that they are safer, more appealing and satisfying to the smoker.

Lynne Dawkins, associate professor at London South Bank University and co-author of the report, said for smokers trying to quit, vapor products are more attractive than traditional smoking-cessation methods, such as nicotine replacement therapy products—and at least as effective.

He noted “mounting evidence” that vapor products are much safer than cigarettes.