Vaping – a means of reducing the harm of smoking and impact on the environment
Vaping offers smokers an alternative that is significantly less harmful than traditional smoking. This fact has been highlighted by several regulatory bodies such as Public Health England, the Royal College of Physicians, the Federal Drug Office in Germany, the French Economic, Social and Environmental Council (CESE) and the RIVM.
In the late 2010s, after a historical review of the available evidence, Public Health England concluded that e-cigarettes represented at least a 95% reduction in harm compared to traditional cigarettes. Legislators in Canada and New Zealand are following the same principle, encouraging smokers to switch to e-cigarettes. In 2016, the Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom reported that the health hazard arising from long-term inhalation of vapor from e-cigarettes was unlikely to exceed 5% of the harm from smoking tobacco.
It raises the question of whether vaping can cause nicotine addiction in those who have never smoked or among youth. A recent study of e-cigarette use among young people in the UK found that "most experiments with e-cigarettes do not progress to regular use, and levels of regular use among young people who have never smoked remain very low". Vaping is also much more environmentally friendly than traditional cigarettes. Recent statistics show that non-degradable cigarette residues are responsible for around 25-50% of all waste collected and are the largest source of ocean pollution, surpassing plastic.
Vaping can reduce the amount of discarded cigarette residue significantly compared to traditional cigarettes and does not have as much of an impact on the environment. The latest models of e-cigarettes are also rechargeable devices and have e-liquid refill systems, which reduces the amount of waste.
Smokers in Bulgaria should be encouraged to switch from traditional cigarettes to proven less harmful alternatives such as vape devices, following the successful examples of the governments of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada.