The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists endorse e-cigarettes

E-CIGARETTES have been backed by Australian health professionals for the first time as experts warn they are desperately needed to help smokers quit.

E-CIGARETTES have been backed by Australian health professionals for the first time as experts warn they are desperately needed to help smokers quit.

And convenience stores are now lobbying to be able to sell the products which are illegal in Australia despite widespread use.

It comes as British health authorities this week threw their support behind vaping, saying it is a safer alternative to smoking and helps people quit the killer habit.

Under their new radical plan to curb smoking they said staff should be allowed to vape in offices.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists endorse e-cigarettes. Picture: David Smith

“The evidence is increasingly clear that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful to health than smoking tobacco,” the British plan says. “The government will seek to support consumers in stopping smoking and adopting the use of less harmful nicotine products.”

UNSW public health expert Professor Colin Mendelsohn said the adult smoking rate in England is now lower than Australia for the first time ever with 15.5 per cent lighting up in the UK.

The smoking prevalence in Australia was 15.7 per cent in 2016.

“The traditional tobacco strategies have worked but we are now stuck with a population who have tried and tried and just can’t quit. In the US and UK where e-cigarettes are widely available smoking rates are dropping much faster than in Australia where they have levelled out,” he said.

E-cigarettes deliver nicotine to the user — satisfying their addiction — without tobacco smoke which is the culprit for the majority of cigarette-related health problems.

“People smoke nicotine — that’s what they’re addicted to — but they die from the smoke and that comes from burning the tobacco,” Prof Mendelsohn said.

Australasian Association of Convenience Stores CEO Jeff Rogut wrote to a federal inquiry into e-cigarettes calling for their stores to be allowed to sell the products.

Cancer Council Australia and the National Health Foundation do not support e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool and say it can be a precursor to smoking in young people. Picture: Nam Y. Huh

“Consumers would like the choice and we believe that the government would be short sighted in not making these available. They are concerned about this but seemingly turning a blind eye to all of the illegal tobacco availability which represents a real health hazard for consumers,” Mr Rogut told The Saturday Telegraph.

Without a doctor’s prescription, it is against the law in Australian to possess nicotine.

The powerful Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists is the first health organisation in Australia to break ranks and endorse e-cigarettes.

“In the RANZCP’s view, an appropriate legislative framework for e- cigarettes and vaporisers is one where they are controlled proportionate to their risks while still allowing for individuals to have appropriate access to these products at a reasonable cost,” it wrote to the inquiry.

“People living with mental illness also experience significantly poorer physical health outcomes when compared to the general population too and smoking is the leading cause of this gap.”

“E-cigarettes and vaporisers provide a safer way to deliver nicotine to those who are unable to stop smoking, thereby minimising the harms associated with smoking tobacco and reducing some of the health disparities experienced by people with mental illness.”

However AMA NSW’s Dr Kean-Seng Lim said there is not “sufficient evidence” that vaping helps smokers quit cigarettes.

“We know college of psychiatrists feel it’s a less harmful alternative to cigarettes but it’s just another delivery system for a addictive drug,” Dr Lim said.

Cancer Council Australia and the National Health Foundation do not support e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool and say it can be a precursor to smoking in young people.