It has been a long road travelled to reach what many would have said was straight-forward logic, but the UK government department, MHRA, is finally starting to admit the potential benefit that electronic cigarettes or e-cigs may have in reducing the numbers of people smoking tobacco.

Even at this point though, they are still wavering to sucumb to drug company pressures to classify the new technology as a medicine. The same drug company lobby that has effectively been ripping off smokers with NRT treatments like patches and gum that have been shown to be expensive and completely ineffective in helping people stop smoking. (The effectiveness of these NRT treatments has been gauged at 4-5%, a level lower than that of the human will to stop smoking on your own with no aids, which was measured at 10%!)

The race is on in a lucrative market, (Tabacco sales amounted to over 12.6 billion pounds (2007) and amongst the myriad of companies currently selling electric cigarettes in the UK, there is only one company, inLife LLC , who manufacture refills in any sort of controlled enviroment.

The fact that chinese manufactured cigarettes have flooded the market with a lack of labelling has raised concerns over what the cartridges from China may contain. Recent scares with Chinese milk and lead in toys meant that a product such as electronic cigarettes must have some sort of regulation to stop a similar catastrophe.

inLife, whose Marquee electronic cigarette uses refills manufactured in an FDA registered laboratory seem to lead the way to the future of the industry and their launch in the UK at the beginning of the year is seen as a stepping stone to wider expansion across Europe.

In any event, now that governments are beginning to see past the mis-information put forward by Tobacco and drug company fronts like ASH the acceptance of the e-cig as a logical alternative to smoking tobacco may start to see the use of the devices becoming more widespread

Original Post AMLASpain – The Spanish News Blog