Draconian outdoor vape bans not supported by science

A proposal by the EU Commission to ban vaping outdoors ignores the science and risks sending smokers back to vaping. 
The Commission has proposed extending outdoor bans on smoking to any aerosol emitting product, whether it contains nicotine or not. This includes products like e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products.

The Commission had justified this proposal on the basis that:

• the utility of these products in smoking cessation ‘is inconclusive’
• that second-hand vapour exposes by-standers to dangerous levels of toxicants and 
• that the product acts as a gateway to smoking. 
  

None of these claims are supported by the science, however! 

• A recent Cochrane Review, which is considered the gold standard for informed health-care decisions concluded that e-cigarettes help people quit.  Based on this data, the UK NHS advises patients wanting to quit that “you are roughly twice as likely to quit smoking if you use a nicotine vape compared with other nicotine replacement products, like patches or gum”. 
  
• e-cigarettes do not produce smoke, and the evidence suggests that vaping creates exposures far below occupational health limits, i.e. the levels of exposure considered to be safe in the air of a workshop, levels that are set by regulatory authorities.
  
• Rather than a gateway into smoking, all evidence points towards e-cigarettes being a gateway OUT of smoking. 

Vaping groups have already expressed their concerns over the Commission's plans. 

“The commission is making a disastrous mistake by lumping vaping with smoking,” said Michael Landl, director of the World Vape Alliance. “This sends a dangerous message to millions of smokers who need vaping to quit…These recommendations will keep more people smoking and put public health at greater risk by equating vaping with smoking.”

Opposition has also come from Dr. Peter Liese, the health policy spokesperson for the centre-right EPP-Christian Democrats, the largest group in the European Parliament. Liese, who is a practicing doctor has been very clear in his opposition to the proposed bans. 

“For heavy smokers who otherwise cannot quit, e-cigarettes are an important tool to reduce harm and risks”, said Liese. “E-cigarettes do contain nicotine, which is addictive, but they do not contain all the other substances in cigarette smoke that cause damages such as cancer and stroke, Even experts from the World Health Organization say that there is no theoretical scenario where e-cigarettes are as harmful,” he said.
“I do not think it is effective to equate them with tobacco smoke in the proposal for the Council recommendation. I hope the member states will correct this point” Liese concluded.