‘Vape juice’ concerns spark e-cigarette regulation

Thursday 12 April 2018

Health officials are drafting legislation to control the quality and advertising of e-cigarettes over concerns about the safety of certain ingredients.

E-cigarettes are a handheld electronic device used for ‘vaping’ – a practice that simulates the feeling and effect of smoking. Each device can be filled with different liquids featuring flavours varying from tobacco, to peppermint and even candyfloss.

They were recently hailed by Health officials across Jersey and the UK as a step in the right direction towards helping the population give up smoking, which remains the biggest cause of death and disease in Jersey, with around 1,000 hospital admissions and 140 people dying prematurely each year with tobacco-related diseases. 

But, although acknowledging the valuable role it can play in the fight against the cancer-causing practice, they admitted that the risks of vaping are not yet fully known.

Colloquially known as ‘vape juice’, the liquid used inside e-cigarettes typically contains water, vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol and flavouring – the latter of which is causing concern among some health circles, with some claiming that some taste-enhancing chemicals could be even more carcinogenic than real cigarettes.

Pictured: Health officials say that e-cigarettes pose a lower risk to health than traditional ones.

The Minister for Health has now instructed his department to draft a new law that would see the sale and distribution of e-cigarettes regulated in terms of their ingredients, as well as their promotion and advertisement and the consumer information provided on packaging.

“Emerging evidence suggests that e-cigarettes may have a role in helping smokers to quit, and are becoming a popular method for this purpose. Evidence concerning their harms and potential benefits is constantly evolving and there have been concerns raised around the variation in quality and ingredients used, and the increased uncertainty as to the impact this has on health.

“However, overall current evidence suggests that vaping is significantly less harmful than smoking. It is vital that these products are made available and promoted to those you want to stop smoking, but also to ensure consistency and safety of product formulation and restrictions on promotion and advertisement to, non-smoker, and particularly children and young people,” a report detailing the Minister’s decision stated. 

It comes after more than a dozen top local health professionals and organisations in Jersey signed up to a joint agreement to promote the use of e-cigarettes over conventional smoking as a route to helping islanders give up smoking last month. Following that, HM La Moye Prison announced intentions to become completely smoke-free by the end of 2018.

Pictured: HM Prison La Moye aims to stamp out smoking by the end of the year.

Speaking at the time, Health Medical Officer Dr Susan Turnbull admitted that she previously had "reservations about e-cigarettes since they came on the scene, knowing that it can take many years, or even decades, for the health consequences of something new like this to become apparent."

Nonetheless, she welcomed the drive to provide islanders with clear and consistent information on their use, adding: "There does seem to be sufficient confidence now to be able to say that e-cigarettes pose a lower level of health risk to smokers, than conventional smoking. To be absolutely clear, if e-cigarettes have a useful role to play for public health purposes, it is for some smokers who may find them useful on their journey to stopping smoking.  There is insufficient research evidence available yet to support any wider use, as their medium and long term risks to non-smokers cannot be quantified.

"Thanks to all the various strategic efforts over the years to reduce tobacco-related harm, smoking has become very much a minority activity here, with only around one in eight islanders overall reporting that they smoke daily. I look forward to seeing that rate continuing to fall, and to creating a new generation of non-smokers, as smoking is increasingly unpopular among today’s young people.

"I dream of a future where hardly any lung cancer, or chronic respiratory disease, blights lives as it does nowadays."