New Zealand is putting its faith in e-cigarettes as part of the arsenal of quitting tools available to help us reach our target of being smokefree by 2025
As Italy went into lockdown to stop the spread of Covid-19, among the businesses to be closed were vape shops. But then the Italian government did a U-turn and allowed them to stay open, largely thanks to lobbying from one man, respiratory specialist Riccardo Polosa. He pointed out that if Italy’s million or so vapers couldn’t access e-cigarettes, they were going to turn to smoking tobacco instead to meet their nicotine needs, damaging their health even more in the process.
Polosa’s research had shown that among people with smoking-related diseases – in particular COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) – there are harm reduction benefits in switching to vaping.
In New Zealand, where around 12.5 percent of us continue to smoke tobacco daily, we are putting our faith in e-cigarettes as part of the arsenal of quitting tools available to help us reach our target of being smokefree by 2025.
“Cessation rates need to increase a lot if we’ve got any chance of meeting the 2025 goal,” says Janet Hoek, a public health specialist from the University of Otago and co-director of ASPIRE 2025.
“For some people vaping has been a way to stop smoking but the challenge is to give them that option without creating another problem along the way.”
Nicky Pellegrino – Newsroom – June 14, 2020.
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