E-cigarettes Cleaner Than Traditional Tobacco, With Potential Smoking-Cessation Benefits

Johannesburg, June 3 (People’s Daily Online) — According to data from the World Health Organization (WHO), 6 million people die each year due to smoking. On June 2, Derek Yach, head of the South Africa-based Vitality Institute, called on doctors to encourage smoking patients to use e-cigarettes instead of traditional tobacco, saying that e-cigarettes are safer than conventional tobacco products.

E-cigarettes are electronic products designed to mimic cigarettes, with a similar appearance, vapor, taste, and sensation. Through atomization and related technology, they turn nicotine and other ingredients into vapor for users to inhale.

Dr. Yach said that e-cigarettes provide users with cleaner nicotine separated from the harmful tar found in tobacco. Their potential function is to help smokers reduce or give up traditional tobacco products such as cigarettes. He also said that the e-cigarette market and the traditional tobacco market are in healthy competition.

He said public health policy should continue to tighten interventions on tobacco products, such as taxation and advertising bans, while also publicizing the potential role of e-cigarettes. In addition, e-cigarette products should be regulated to ensure that consumers can purchase reliable products.

Yussuf Saloojee, executive director of South Africa’s National Council Against Smoking, said that e-cigarettes do indeed have the potential to reduce the harm caused by traditional tobacco products, but that people still know relatively little about them at present.