Are e-cigs tobacco products?

Things have kind of gone to hell and back recently, so I have had zero time at all to put my fingers to key and keep this blog updated. Much has happened which has been thoroughly discussed elsewhere. I may revisit some of those points at some point in the near future, but that depends on time; which as I’ve already pointed out, I don’t have a lot of. Who knew married life would be so busy?

This article caught my attention quite late in the day and is entitled the same as this humble post. “Are e-cigarettes tobacco products?”

The short answer is, quite obvious. No, they aren’t. However. As succinctly pointed out in the article:

Just as with the European Union, the FDA considers vapour products as tobacco products. It is merely a legislative facilitation, however, many groups – and yes, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, I am looking at you – are insistent that vapour products or ecigs if you prefer that name, are tobacco products.

A trip through their press releases, aside from causing severe blood pressure spikes, clearly demonstrates how they conflate the two products. Much to the detriment of your average Jane (or Joe, I don’t want to be sexist here) who now, quite firmly believe that ecigs are as bad, if not worse, than smoking.

Slow hand clap.

Except, it isn’t.

That’s because those countries, or political entities in the case of the European Union, view electronic cigarettes as tobacco products. The clue, as you would say, is in the name:

Electronic. Cigarette.

Unfortunately for consumers, or fortunately depending on your point of view, the name has stuck despite many attempts to call them something more akin to their function. This is why you’ll hear many in the US particularly, refer to the products as “vapour products”.

That’s a far more accurate description than “electronic cigarette”.

Except the perception of the general populace is such that a nuance like this is entirely missed, and thus ecigs/vapour products are deliberately mis-categorised frequently.

Which should be clear to anyone with an ounce of common-bloody-sense, no?

Thus, we come to some alternative naming from the author:

I can just imagine Doris strolling into her local newsagent and asking for a pack of 20 nicotine-containing products. This is the thing with scientific journals and academia in general, they simply don’t truly understand the language that real people use. It is language that I wish to, briefly, touch upon here.

Consider the following:

<a href="https://twitter.com/gillianegolden/status/1011509084410040320?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 26, 2018</a>

As I mentioned above, the clue is in the name. Electronic cigarette. What is a tobacco product? Mostly cigarettes and cigars. What is heated tobacco?

Well bless me, it’s an electronic cigarette, isn’t it? After all, the sticks contain tobacco and look very much like a mini cigarette! Regardless of the method of consumption – heating and inhaling a vapour instead of combustion and smoke, it is still a cig-a-like type product.

See the problem yet?

Again, something we consumers already knew. I appreciate that the author does take the time to engage with consumers as often as possible, so I’m not trying to take anything away from them, but this is something that should have been settled a long time ago.

Except that pretty much every device that falls under the term ENDS (a hateful term coined by the World Health Organisation via the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) is, by the very definition, electronic. It is true that all devices can be used with, or without, nicotine, which is why the WHO and the Parties to the FCTC deigned to call those without nicotine as Electronic Non-Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENNDS). Original, huh?

As mentioned above, language is important. Particularly so in a scientific journal. Which is why the term “e-cigarette”, a foreshortened “electronic cigarette” encompasses heated tobacco. In fact, as argued above, an e-cigarette, by the very language used, is actually a heated tobacco product and not what we, as vapers, use regularly.

Therefore, shouldn’t we be classifying heat-not-burn and vapour products as what they are? Both are harm reduction products (thanks for the prompt Adam!). Both, to varying degrees, are pleasurable to use for the individual, and both have ‘public health’ trying to eat itself.