Should e-cigarettes be available on the NHS?

E-cigarette use is on the rise, with specialist shops cropping up in towns across the country. But should they be available on the NHS as an aid to quitting smoking? This issue has gotten a lot of people talking, and reacting, but what are the facts?

There are several motivating reasons to have e-cigarettes as a quitting aid on the NHS. Firstly, it will help people quit smoking. E-cigarettes are an ideal stepping stone between smoking and stopping. E-cigarettes help to ease that transition without having to go ‘cold turkey’. This helps to ensure that when smokers quit, they quit for good.

E-cigarettes are healthier than normal cigarettes - by a long way. They may still have nicotine (the addictive element that causes harm in itself) but they lack a vast variety of other elements present in cigarettes that cause health problems. This includes tobacco, arsenic, benzene, tar, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde. All of these elements are known to cause a variety of cancers. E-cigarettes remove the majority of the harmful elements of cigarettes, leaving just the addictive nicotine.

E-cigarettes are also cheaper than cigarettes. The liquid in e-cigarettes lasts a lot longer than cigarettes do – a smoker of around 15 a day will not need to replace the liquid in their e-cigarette for a week. This lowers the cost when switching to e-cigarettes.

E-cigarettes also drastically reduce the amount of harmful substances released into the air, and therefore have little to no effect on others around the smoker. This lack of second hand smoke means that so far, e-cigarettes have not been banned in all public places – which is more convenient for smokers. The lack of second hand smoke also means that friends and family of smokers are no longer at risk from respiratory disease.

Despite media worries that young people who do not smoke will take up e-cigarettes, there is no evidence that non-smokers are starting to use e-cigarettes. Less than 1% of e-cigarette users were non-smokers before using them.

The main reason the government may consider e-cigarettes on the NHS is that in the long run it will save the NHS money. The use of e-cigarettes as aids to quitting smoking will drastically reduce the number of cases of respiratory diseases such as emphysema, bronchitis and lung cancer, as well as other pulmonary diseases and circulatory diseases. This will reduce money that the NHS will have to spend on treating these diseases. The cost of providing e-cigarettes will be negligible in comparison to the money saved. The government will then also benefit as these people who would otherwise be sick can remain in work, benefiting the economy.

It is also important to consider the moral benefit – e-cigarettes on the NHS will save lives and improve peoples’ health. This increase on quality of life in the country is a huge benefit.

However, there are some reasons why e-cigarettes on the NHS may not be the right thing to do. Firstly, the long term effects are unclear. As with all new technologies, we do not know what the results will be in the long term. It is unclear what will happen in the future because of e-cigarettes.

There are currently many concerns regarding e-cigarettes; should they be able to advertise? Should they be banned in public places? These arise from the concerns about the safety of e-cigarettes. If the advertising of e-cigarettes is limited, and they are banned in public places, they may be less effective as a quitting aid.

There may be better methods for aiding quitting – such as patches or gum. They may be more effective as they rule out the process of inhaling smoke, and they are a proven technique to use.

E-cigarettes could reinvigorate the smoking culture as a whole. They may make smoking seem acceptable and ‘cool’ again, leading to a rise in smoking and a rise in smoking-related illnesses. This is a concern that cannot be prevented or quashed.

The final reason against e-cigarettes on the NHS is that it is publically unpopular. E-cigarettes in general get a hard time in the media, with fear-mongering articles on their dangers (that fail to mention that they are definitely better for you than cigarettes). The idea of providing them through the NHS is popular because the public do not view them as a legitimate quitting aid, which may prevent the government from backing NHS provided e-cigarettes.

It seems that deciding whether or not to have e-cigarettes on the NHS is a tough decision, but the poor public opinion surely is outweighed by the potential of life-saving that this could provide.