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Imagine if there were an alternative to smoking
cigarettes.

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Imagine this alternative could help millions
of people quit smoking and came with only

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a fraction of the harmful chemicals that cigarettes
do.

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Well, you don’t have to imagine it.

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It exists.

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E-cigarettes are the most innovative and promising
smoking-cessation product yet invented.

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So, public health officials and anti-tobacco
activists are all in favor of this

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life-saving innovation, right?

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Actually, they’re almost all totally against
it.

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Why?

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Because, incredibly, they make no substantial
distinction between e-cigarettes and real

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cigarettes -- even though they are completely
different products.

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To begin with, e-cigarettes aren’t cigarettes.

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They contain no tobacco.

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Instead, a liquid containing nicotine derived
from tobacco leaves is vaporized,

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and users of e-cigarettes inhale that vapor.

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Vapor, mind-you – not smoke.

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This is significant because the real harm
from tobacco comes from the combustion process,

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which releases hundreds of toxic compounds
known as tar.

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Since e-cigarettes have no tobacco and no
combustion, they release no tar.

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This makes them, according to Britain’s
Department of Health, at least 95% less harmful

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than tobacco cigarettes.

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E-cigarettes do contain nicotine, an addictive
drug.

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However, there is little evidence that nicotine
alone is bad for you, making it similar to, say,

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caffeine -- a drug used every day by millions
of people.

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Brad Rodu, an oral cancer specialist at the
University of Louisville, put it this way:

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“I love coffee, and I’m sure I could get
caffeine if I smoked my coffee beans…

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but I would be paying a much different price in
overall health [if I did].”

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In other words, when it comes to addictive
substances like caffeine or nicotine,

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it isn’t the addictive substance that’s harmful;
it’s how it’s delivered.

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As South African psychiatrist Mike Russell
said about cigarettes: “[People] smoke for

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[the] nicotine, but they die from the tar.”

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And again, there’s no tar in e-cigarettes.

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Does this all mean e-cigarettes are completely
safe?

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Of course not. Nothing is completely safe.

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E-cigarettes are a relatively new innovation
so more research is needed,

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especially on long-term effects.

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There’s also a place for sensible regulation
to ensure consumer safety.

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But unlike normal everyday products, any potential
risk posed by e-cigarettes is far outweighed

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by a real – not potential – good: saving
lives by providing the nicotine that smokers

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enjoy without delivering the deadly toxins
that can kill them.

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Many former smokers have successfully used
e-cigarettes to help them

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kick their nicotine addiction altogether.

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A recent study in an Oxford Journal peer-reviewed
publication, Nicotine and Tobacco Research,

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said that e-cigarettes could reduce smoking-related
deaths by 21 percent.

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That’s thousands of lives every year.

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John Britton, an epidemiologist and director
of the University of Nottingham’s Center

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for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies, is even more
optimistic:

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“[E-cigarettes are] the first genuinely
new way of helping people stop smoking that

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has come along in decades…[They] have the
potential to help half or more of all smokers

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get off cigarettes.”

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So, again, you’d think public health officials
and anti-tobacco groups would be doing everything

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they could to encourage smokers to switch
to e-cigarettes.

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Instead, they push for laws and rules that
equate the two products: cigarettes are bad,

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so e-cigarettes must also be bad.

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As of August 2016, the US Food and Drug Administration
has ruled that all e-cigarettes must go through

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a long and expensive application process.

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This process could end up costing as much
as $1 million per new product.

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While some of the biggest manufacturers will
be able to shoulder the costs and navigate

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the regulatory mess, most small e-cigarette
companies will be forced out of business.

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With less competition, e-cigarettes will become
more expensive, and many people

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will go right back to smoking.

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E-cigarette prohibitionists may think they’re
using a “better-safe-than-sorry” approach

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to save consumers from some yet-to-be-discovered
danger, but they’re not.

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They’re actually endangering millions of
smokers who would make the switch if the e-cigarette

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market were allowed to flourish.

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As Joe Nocera, a New York Times columnist,
wrote:

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“Equating smoking cigarettes with inhaling
e-cigarettes...is a huge disservice to public health.

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On the scale of potential harms, e-cigarettes
aren’t even in the same ballpark

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as combustible cigarettes.

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They have the potential to save millions of
lives.”

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The government needs to develop a new paradigm
for dealing with e-cigarettes – one that ensures

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basic standards but recognizes their relative
safety and immense benefit to public health.

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If they don’t, more people will die.

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Imagine that.

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I’m Caroline Kitchens of the R Street Institute
for Prager University.