Derek Yah, which in the past headed the Department of Noncommunicable Diseases of the World Health Organization (WHO), led the WHO’s initiative group called – “World No Tobacco”.
According to the scientist, were conducted several studies that prove that electronic cigarettes are less harmful than tobacco cigarettes. However, the WHO is not in a hurry to recognize the benefits of e-cigarettes.
According to the “Action on Smoking and Health” organization, 38% of British smokers are sure that electronic cigarettes help them quit smoking. Another 25% have noticed that, thanks to electronic cigarettes, they began to smoke less. Thus, if the WHO does not recognize the benefits of electronic cigarettes and will advocate for the strict legislative control, it may prevent smokers to switch to less harmful electronic cigarettes, and thus save millions of lives.
As an example of unreasonable and excessive regulation of products that reduce smoking rates, is the example of snus – smokeless chewing tobacco, snus sale is prohibited in all EU countries except Sweden. Nevertheless, in Sweden the smoking rates are the lowest in the EU.
“In Sweden, the death rate of male smokers is 2.5 times lower than the average for EU countries. And one of the reasons is that over the last few years many people give the preference to snus, rather than to traditional cigarettes. With the increase of snus consumption, tobacco cigarette consumption fell sharply. The situation is similar in Norway, due to increased consumption of snus, from 1985 to 2012, the rate of smoking people has decreased by 20% “- Derek Yah said.
The expert’s studies are confirmed by the WHO’s research results in “The mortality caused by tobacco” report. In 2012, the death rate from the lung cancer in Sweden was 87 deaths per 100,000 population (males 60-69 years), while the European average was 220 deaths per 100 thousand population.
Despite the existence of objective arguments that the use of snus and e-cigarettes reduce the tobacco cigarettes consumption and the damages associated with smoking, the sale of snus is still banned in almost all EU countries. “It seems that electronic cigarettes and other innovative technologies for smokeless nicotine consumption will be faced with the same conservative approach ” – predicts senior vice president of the Vitality Institute, Derek Yah.