E-cigarettes are almost certainly better than smoking

FOR decades, doctors and governments have been trying to wean smokers from their habit. It is a tricky task. Nicotine is as addictive as heroin and cocaine. There are plenty of officially endorsed methods for quitting. People can try inhalators, gum, lozenges, patches, nasal sprays and prescription drugs. All can help, but few replicate all the physical and social rituals that surround cigarettes. That limits how appealing they are to committed smokers.

It was into this mix that e-cigarettes arrived about a decade ago. Unlike ordinary cigarettes, which rely on burning tobacco to deliver their payload, e-cigarettes use an electric charge to vaporise a dose of nicotine (accompanied, often, by various flavouring chemicals). They have proved extremely popular, particularly in America, Britain and Japan. Public-health officials have been quick to conclude that they are much better than smoking. Consumers, says Robert West, a professor of health psychology at University College London, are “voting with their lungs”.