The government’s position on vaping (Editorial, January 30) is hopelessly confused, aided and abetted by a similar ambivalence among British doctors who view vaping as both good and bad. We are not well placed to convince our young people that vaping is highly addictive and potentially toxic, while enthusiastically promoting it as a smoking cessation tool for adults – the track record of which is poor, except as part of an interactive quitting program with smoking. program. Meanwhile, we are in bed with big tobacco, which is presiding over an explosion of vaping in our schools that is now out of control because users are addicted to nicotine.
We have managed to extend nicotine addiction and disease into another generation (the tobacco industry’s holy grail), at the very moment in history when smoking began to be ‘denormalized’ and discredited. As physicians, we bear a heavy responsibility, and there is no end in sight.
Doctor Philip Barber
Consultant respiratory physician
Simon Jenkins appears to argue (Whisper it, but in opposing Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban, Liz Truss may be right, January 29) that because the government has caved to the food and drink lobby, it should do the same for the tobacco lobbyists . Obesity and diabetes cause great harm, but smoking leads to premature death in 50% of people who consume the product. His analogy with cannabis is just as perverse. Smoking cost my mother her life and raised three young orphans. It is not without consequences for others.
Chris Rennard
Liberal Democratic, House of LordS