E-cigarettes, facing Hong Kong ban: a healthy way to quit tobacco or a risk in themselves?
- Some people say vaping helps smokers kick a tobacco habit
- But local doctors say the products are too new to properly understand their harms and benefits
Vaping could soon be all but banned in Hong Kong.
It will still be legal for the 5,700 Hongkongers who, according to a 2017 government survey, vape daily, to use the products, even if their supply will be completely outlawed.
The research we have now is not enough to draw conclusions, but what we do know is that the chemicals present in e-cigarettes are carcinogenic
That figure was a big change on 2015, when there was no significant number of daily e-cigarette users. And with a surge in the products’ popularity globally, more studies and reports have surfaced on their benefits, and harms.
A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests e-cigarettes are almost twice as effective at getting people to quit smoking than nicotine replacements such as chewing gum or patches.
Other studies have drawn the same conclusion. But doctors say any serious claims about the safety of e-cigarettes would be premature.
“They’re too new,” says Dr William Li Ho-cheung, who heads the smoking cessation team at HKU’s school of nursing.
“Conventional tobacco products have been around for more than a century, and researchers have had time to study them and conclude that they’re bad for you. The research we have now is not enough to draw conclusions, but what we do know is that the chemicals present in e-cigarettes are carcinogenic.”
