ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES

That this House notes the opinion of leading world public health experts, including Professor Robert West of University College, London, that e-cigarettes have the potential to save hundreds of millions of lives across the world; believes that, if regulators treat low-risk nicotine products as traditional tobacco products, they are improperly defining them; regrets the decision of the EU to regulate e-cigarettes in strange and contradictory ways and believes that such inappropriate constraints upon the labelling and sale of e-cigarettes will have the perverse effect of reducing the rate at which cigarette use is declining; further notes the potentially enormous health benefits that e-cigarettes could bring to developing nations; accepts the health and economic benefits which e-cigarettes can bring to the least well-off; urges public authorities to regard e-cigarettes as a positive and not as an equivalent to cigarettes; and further urges the Government to impress upon the World Heath Organisation that encouraging, rather than discouraging, e-cigarette manufacture, sale and use will bring great health benefits across the world.