Chris Bostic notes: *The ideal policy would be one that allowed access to e-cigs only for current adults who smoke."
Indeed it is clearly logical that e-cigs should ideally be available only on prescription by a healthcare provider, as a prescribed treatment for smoking cessation. All efforts *should* have been made to prevent marketing and sale to children and adolescents.
It's interesting that not a single country in the world (to my knowledge) has implemented this policy.
Why have governments failed to implement this? Has the public health and tobacco control community been too slow or insufficiently effective to make e-cigarettes available by prescription only? Or have policymakers been insufficently informed about the consequences of allowing direct marketing and sale of these products? Have the tobacco companies (which are by far the largest manufacturer of e-cigarettes) used their considerable financial influence and ability to misinform? Perhaps all of these.
It is an indictment of the public health community that a medical product (e-cigarettes) with serious side effects (addiction, lung disease...) is now easily available to almost everyone without prescription.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org
