Smoke without ire: Doctors may be allowed to prescribe electronic cigarettes

2 Mar 2013

Nicotine chewing gum tastes like something the cat dragged in and patches make you look as if you’ve been shot

Today’s smokers know just how Elizabethan adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh must’ve felt, writes Nigel Nelson in the Sunday People.

When he first brought tobacco back from America and was sitting happily puffing on it, a servant threw a pail of water over him thinking he was on fire.

Now smokers must stand outside in the pouring rain to satisfy their craving. So much for progress.

More times than I care to remember I’ve extinguished the weed with all the determination of a rural fire brigade, promising myself – and my children – never to light up again. But, like those other shame-faced secret smokers David Cameron and Nick Clegg, I find myself slipping back.

Don’t even talk to me about nicotine replacement therapy. The gum tastes like something the cat dragged in and patches make you look as if you’ve been shot.

Then there’s those ridiculous little white plastic inhalator thingies with their nicotine cartridges to suck on like a baby’s dummy. And everyone thinks you’re the dummy.

My problem with kicking tobacco is that it’s not just the nicotine I want but the smoke as well. That’s where electronic cigarettes have the advantage.

You still have to put a silly tube of plastic in your mouth. But the sensation is much the same as the real thing and water vapour creates convincing smoke.

You can legally “smoke” them in public places like bars, restaurants and offices, too.

The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency has been researching e-cigarettes for the past two years and will announce this month whether they can be classified as medicine. That would mean doctors could prescribe them.

But for now they cost around £7 each with a puff power lasting the equivalent of 30 cigarettes.

An Italian study of hard-core smokers showed nearly a quarter quit with the help of e-ciggies and a bigger New Zealand trial reports in September.

But are they safe? Canada and Australia are not sure and bans them. There are some toxins but levels of carcinogens are 1,000 times lower than in real fags.

So I’ll take my chances with them – until someone throws a bucket of water over me. And before George Osborne cottons on an taxes them up to the hilt and down to the butt.