There prevails the idea that the smoking revolution that is electronic cigarettes and other vaping products are some kind of ‘quit smoking aid’, - effectively the same as NRT products such as nicotine patches, inhalators and gum. This is simply not the case.

Certainly these electronic cigarettes mean that we are able to move away from smoking tobacco cigarettes, therefore, -“stop smoking’’ – but it does not therefore automatically mean (nor were they designed to) that we want to quit the nicotine or indeed the smoking experience. Did you know that in the UK at least, despite the proposed EU regulation to classify electronic cigarettes as ‘medicines’ – it is currently illegal to market these products as ‘’stop smoking aids’’ – or to imply that they will assist a smoker in quitting?

Of course one of the primary reasons that stop-smoking aids have such a high failure rate (93%) is because the idea is to utilise them in place of what you really want, (the cigarette) and then move away even from them. They are hard to come by, as in most cases they require a prescription from the doctors, and they come with a time limit and external pressure. Precisely what vaping products do not have! (And yet the the EU governments want to take them away from us)! Now it’s no surprise that certain groups have jumped on the bandwagon and wish for vaping products to be legislated as ‘’stop smoking aids’’ and therefore only available under prescription, - because already they have proven that people can move entirely away from conventional tobacco cigarettes and onto electronic cigs or other vaping devices as a complete alternative. Legislated the way the EU is currently proposing however, - they too will be difficult to get hold of, they will come with pressure and they will come with a time limit. How very beneficial to the tobacco companies! How much more beneficial to the pharmaceutical industries and those with a vested interest in the sale of nicotine replacement therapies or stop smoking products – such as patches and gum…!

I hope we have this clear: electronic cigarettes and vaping products are ‘smoking devices’- some people have managed to put an end to their nicotine consumption altogether using these products, - and that is great for them. For the rest of us, they are simply the new, safe way to ‘smoke’-exactly what we've been waiting for. They are absolutely not any form of NRT or 'quitting aid'.

What’s not yet clear is what the outcome will be in 2016 if the EU proposal wins out. Well, one thing we can predict with certainty is that half of all those who cannot quit their nicotine addiction -will die, I repeat; half of all those smokers will die if this alternative is taken from them. That much we know already to be fact. Now that the tobacco companies have jumped on the bandwagon in order to recuperate lost revenue they are now also manufacturing electronic cigarettes. I hate to say it, as I would rather not give them any of my hard-earned money, but this is actually a good thing, - because at least it means that we now have their billions of pounds of lobbying funds behind us, to keep electronic cigarettes in the market as the consumer product they are designed to be. And that has the potential to save millions of lives.

So put that in your pipe and smoke it, Brussels.