EDITORIAL: E-cigarettes, smokeless tobacco can save lives

The number of smokers continues to drop in the United States. But health officials estimate that cigarette smoking-related illnesses still kill upwards of 480,000 Americans each year.

The problem is, anti-tobacco zealots are making things worse.

Rather than admit that e-cigarettes or smokeless tobacco can be useful tools to help smokers quit or to minimize health risks, too many activists insist on total prohibition. And that might be killing people.

For instance, a National Institutes of Health study released last week found that smokers who vaped were more likely to give up the habit. “It’s absolutely clear that e-cigarettes help smokers replace cigarettes,” said Peter Hajek, a lifestyle expert at London’s Queen Mary University.

The study is in line with previous research. Yet so entrenched is their hatred toward tobacco that many Nanny Staters continue to seek to impose punitive regulations designed to cripple the e-cigarette industry.

In fact, “If every smoker was to change over to e-cigarettes completely,” Chris Bullen, a professor of public health at the University of Auckland, told The Associated Press, “there would be a dramatic and almost immediate public health benefit.”

The same is true for smokeless tobacco. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that tobacco companies are urging regulators to endorse smokeless tobacco as a safer alternative to cigarette smoking. But, the paper reported, health officials aren’t budging from their insistence on abstinence even though many scientists acknowledge that products such as chewing and dipping tobacco are significantly less harmful than smoking.

In fact sheets published on their respective websites, the Journal notes, the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Cancer Institute outline numerous health risks associated with smokeless tobacco. They make no mention, however, that using smokeless tobacco is less harmful than smoking cigarettes.

“There is no safe form of tobacco,” the institute warns on its website.

But, as some academics and public-health experts point out, those U.S. health agencies aren’t telling the full story. “The ‘not safe’ message is not enough,” Lynn Kozlowski, a public health professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, told the Journal. “The risk of tragedy from keeping people in the dark is much greater than the risk of tragedy from informing people.”

As the Journal points out, tobacco companies are prohibited from making health claims without prior approval from the FDA. But several smokeless tobacco companies have petitioned the agency to consider allowing companies to tout the comparative safety of their products on labels and marketing materials. A decision is expected next year.

Allowing consumers access to such information makes sense and would save lives and lower health care costs. If it’s all about the “science,” the tobacco prohibitionists no longer deserve to carry the day.