The precautionary principle and vaping
The precautionary principle has been extensively applied to vaping.
After more than a decade of studies, including multi-year studies looking at the impact on lung health, the best available science in the UK estimates vaping is at least 95% safer than smoking.
Yes, there are studies that say there is some risk. But have you seen some of those studies? For example, burning a coil and forcing huge amounts of vapour into a tube stuffed with a rat does not invalidate the findings of British scientists.
Why tobacco control is a vile industry #2594 https://t.co/oVz8099oHe
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) March 6, 2021
Where and when vaping has flourished, it has coincided with a huge fall in smoking rates.
Many of the people who switch from smoking to vaping don’t just quit smoking – they end up quitting nicotine altogether.
Conversely, bans and restrictions on vaping have led to an increase in smoking.
We know that smoking leads to an early death for an estimated 1 in 2 people, and that an estimated 1 billion people will die from smoking this century.
Yet the precautionary principle prevents governments from allowing people the freedom to vape.
This application of the precautionary principle to vaping can only work if you ignore the risks from smoking.
As Professor John Britton says:
“Those who cite the precautionary principle as justification to discourage or prohibit electronic cigarettes ignore the fact that for the great majority of users, the counterfactual is premature death from tobacco smoking. Smoking kills. So does denying smokers opportunities to quit.
Or as prominent anti-tobacco campaigner David Sweanor put it:
Rather than the unattainable standard of ‘safe’ we should be thinking in terms of ‘safer’.
Despite the risks associated with soccer, I would, for instance, prefer my children play soccer rather than play with live hand grenades.
The mis-application of the precautionary principle, the multitude of bans and restrictions – not to mention deliberate misinformation to stop the spread of vaping – has devastating consequences.
It’s removing the freedom of people to make a rational choice to choose harm reduction. It’s unnecessarily devastating the health of millions.
And, without a doubt, it will lead to the unnecessary early deaths of millions of people.
