The potential for E-Lites electronic cigarettes to dramatically reduce smoking-related illnesses was highlighted on BBC Radio 4’s You & Yours programme this week.
An estimated three million listeners heard E-Lites co-director Michael Ryan interviewed by presenter Winifred Robinson about the advantages of electronic cigarettes over traditional tobacco cigarettes.
The absence of tar, tobacco and other carcinogenic elements means that E-Lites offer a significantly healthier alternative to smokers, he said.
Also interviewed on air was Martin Dockrell, the director of research and policy at the anti-smoking charity ASH, who admitted: “We really like the idea of a safe and satisfying alternative to cigarettes. The thing with these cigarettes is that they are not, in fact, cigarettes, and you are not consuming and not creating smoke. This is all very good.”
He went on to question the regulation of electronic cigarettes. In response, Mr Ryan, who is also chairman of the industry body ECITA, explained that manufacturers within ECITA had met strict compliance standards in terms of quality and safety.
Mike Ryan said: “E-Lites, and indeed all members of ECITA, the Electronic Cigarette Industry Trade Association, are in support of measured and reasonable regulation, but not as a medicinal product. Electronic cigarettes are in fact a recreational product, they are an alternative to harmful tobacco.”
ECITA is working closely with the Medicine and Health Products Research Authority (MHRA) to agree a suitable regulatory framework for electronic cigarettes.
Meanwhile, the government’s behavioural insights unit has expressed support for the wider use of electronic cigarettes, which it says could save tens of thousands of people from smoking-related deaths.
E-Lites are at the forefront of the electronic cigarette revolution, which is inspiring an increasing proportion of smokers to ditch conventional cigarettes in favour of an alternative that’s significantly healthier, yet still provides a familiar intake of nicotine.