All in all, there is strong opposition to the use of e-cigs. Some organisations will find it hard to make a fortune if e-cigarettes become popular. The biggest loser would the pharmaceutical industry, as their tremendously profitable NRTs (quit-smoking medicines) will not be required.

The ECCA says: “As a result the pharmacy industry will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in global sales of NRTs; and they will lose a very much larger sum from lost sales of the chemotherapy drugs and similar that are used to treat sick smokers - possibly billions of dollars in lost drug sales, as smokers will no longer get sick and die. They are desperate to avoid this and are fighting hard to have e-cigarettes banned or restricted - and with some success, as they have millions of dollars available for this purpose.”

ECCA is arguing that too much money is spent on the NHS stop smoking service (SSS) and it refers to the service as a “massive fail”. According to ECCA, 90% of people who used this service will not fully quit smoking. Also, some of the drugs used for assisting people to quit smoking cost more than the smoking itself.

According to pools, about 7% owners of e-cigs use zero-nicotine liquid, which is refill liquid with flavouring but no nicotine at all. There are a variety of liquid strengths consumers can purchase. In that way they can swap their normal cigarettes to a strongest electronic one and later gradually lower the strength of it by buying liquids with less grams of nicotine in it. Some people even use this method to quit smoking completely.

 Electronic cigarettes are not only a safe alternative to smoking, but they are also much cheaper than normal cigarettes. There are a number of companies which sell these modern cigarettes. Sellers say that they have a mixture of clients – men and women of various ages. Some people smoke just electronic cigarettes, but others use it together with the normal ones.

Nevertheless, there are some strong debates going on at the moment as these modern cigarettes does not break the law, but some employers are starting to ban the usage of these in the workplace because of the “fire and safety risks”. These include NHS Fife and Blackburn College.

By Monika Petrauskaite

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