All electronic cigarettes that are currently on sale in Britain would be banned and removed from the shop shelves under new European Union proposals.

A confidential negotiating document drafted by the European Commission seeks to overturn a vote by MEPs that rejected outlawing them in their present form. Brussels officials fear that there is a “risk that electronic cigarettes can develop into a gateway to normal cigarettes”, according to the paper, and want to include the smoke free alternative under a new EU “tobacco products directive” despite the fact that they contain no tobacco.

The bid to ban e cigarettes drew anger from suppliers in Britain, where some 1.3 million of the current 10 million smokers have switched to the electronic devices.

Fraser Cropper, the chief executive officer of Totally Wicked, an e cigarette supplier based in Lancashire, accused EU officials of wanting to introduce a ban by the back door in defiance of the European Parliament.

“Behind closed doors in Brussels, unaccountable and unelected bureaucrats are drafting proposals that will deny millions of existing and former smokers access to a safer alternative to tobacco cigarettes,” he said.

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The proposal came as a town in northern France became the first to impose an electronic cigarette ban in public buildings.

Francois Digard, mayor of Saint Lo in La Manche region of Normandy passed a decree this month outlawing electronic cigarettes, after receiving several complaints from residents.

France, which has an estimated 1.5 million e cigarette users, is currently mulling a ban but the mayor apparently decided to jump the gun after several non smokers said they were unhappy about the devices being smoked in public libraries.

“The e cigarette is not neutral in the immediate environment. With it emitting odour and a bit of smoke it can really bother some people,” Mr Digard told local radio station France Bleu Cotentin.

In Britain, the pub chain JD Wetherspoon and some train operators have already banned the devices.

As cigarette smoking has been increasingly stigmatised and banned in public places, the sale of electronic cigarettes has risen dramatically.

E cigarettes consist of a battery, a cartridge containing nicotine, a solution of propylene glycol or glycerine mixed with water, and an atomiser to turn the solution into a vapour.

The nicotine is delivered without a flame and without tobacco or tar and e cigarette users describe the experience as “vaping” rather than smoking.

They are widely considered a healthier alternative to their tobacco counterparts, though some health officials have begun to question that assumption.

The Dutch public health institute on Wednesday published a policy paper claiming that electronic cigarettes are as harmful as ordinary cigarettes, warning they are addictive and contain poisonous substances.

Because the products are new and do not contain tobacco, they are outside EU law and are more or less unregulated in Britain and across Europe.

But officials in Brussels want that to change, saying the devices “normalise the action of smoking”. “Electronic cigarettes are a tobacco related product and should be regulated within this directive. They simulate smoking behaviour and are increasingly used and marketed to young people and non smokers,” said the commission negotiating paper, seen by the Daily Telegraph.

The commission proposals would ban, by 2017, e cigarettes that produce levels of nicotine above 20 mg per ml, those with refillable cartridges or those designed to taste like tobacco. Suppliers say that all e cigarettes currently available would fall foul of the prohibition.

“Only flavours which are authorized for use in nicotine replacement therapies can be used in electronic cigarettes, unless such a flavour is particularly attractive to young people and non smokers,” said the commission document.

According industry estimates, if current growth rates continue, by 2017, when the EU ban would come into force, there could be nearly five million former people using electronic cigarettes rather than smoking tobacco.

“Forcing e cigarettes off the shelves would be crazy. It would remove a valuable support for people desperate to stop smoking and thus could potentially lead to needless deaths,” said Martin Callanan, a Conservative MEP.

“The commission failed to get their way in their first attempt to put the squeeze on e cigarettes. This attempt is not acceptable either.” The EU legislation will also ban the sale of cigarettes in packets of 10 and outlaw menthol flavoured tobacco as well as requiring graphic health warnings, including colour photographs of tumours, to cover 65 per cent of packaging.

“I never comment on leaked documents,” said a commission spokesman.

E-cigarettes: separating fiction from fact – webmd

Camel, marlboro, winston, salem cigarette lighters

By Serena Gordon

HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Jan. 3, 2014 (HealthDay News) It’s the new year, a time when a smokers’ thoughts often turn to quitting.

Some people may use that promise of a fresh start to trade their tobacco cigarettes for an electronic cigarette, a device that attempts to mimic the look and feel of a cigarette and often contains nicotine.

Here’s what you need to know about e cigarettes

What is an e cigarette?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) describes an e cigarette as a battery operated device that turns nicotine, flavorings and other chemicals into a vapor that can be inhaled. The ones that contain nicotine offer varying concentrations of nicotine. Most are designed to look like a tobacco cigarette, but some look like everyday objects, such as pens or USB drives, according to the FDA.

How does an e cigarette work?

“Nicotine or flavorings are dissolved into propylene glycol usually, though it’s hard to know for sure because they’re not regulated,” explained smoking cessation expert Dr. Gordon Strauss, founder of QuitGroups and a psychiatrist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “Then, when heated, you can inhale the vapor.”

The process of using an e cigarette is called “vaping” rather than smoking, according to Hilary Tindle, an assistant professor of medicine and director of the tobacco treatment service at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She said that people who use electronic cigarettes are called “vapers” rather than smokers.

Although many e cigarettes are designed to look like regular cigarettes, both Tindle and Strauss said they don’t exactly replicate the smoking experience, particularly when it comes to the nicotine delivery. Most of the nicotine in e cigarettes gets into the bloodstream through the soft tissue of your cheeks (buccal mucosa) instead of through your lungs, like it does with a tobacco cigarette.

“Nicotine from a regular cigarette gets to the brain much quicker, which may make them more addictive and satisfying,” Strauss said.

Where can e cigarettes be used?

“People want to use e cigarettes anywhere they can’t smoke,” Strauss said. “I sat next to someone on a plane who was using an e cigarette. He was using it to get nicotine during the flight.” But he noted that just where it’s OK to use an e cigarette indoors, for instance? remains unclear.

Wherever they’re used, though, he said it’s unlikely that anyone would get more than a miniscule amount of nicotine secondhand from an e cigarette.

Can an e cigarette help people quit smoking?

That, too, seems to be an unanswered question. Tindle said that “it’s too early to tell definitively that e cigarettes can help people quit.”

A study published in The Lancet in September was the first moderately sized, randomized and controlled trial of the use of e cigarettes to quit smoking, she said. It compared nicotine containing e cigarettes to nicotine patches and to e cigarettes that simply contained flavorings. The researchers found essentially no differences in the quit rates for the products after six months of use.