A recent report from the main physician group in the United Kingdom recommends the use of e-cigarettes over tobacco for smokers, doctors, and for public policy. While e-cigarettes are not healthy, they state that the long term health risks of them would probably not exceed 5% of the long term health risks from tobacco. From their report:

• E-cigarettes are not a gateway to smoking – in the UK, use of e-cigarettes is limited almost entirely to those who are already using, or have used, tobacco.
• E-cigarettes do not result in normalisation of smoking – there is no evidence that either nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) or e-cigarette use has resulted in renormalisation of smoking. None of these products has to date attracted significant use among adult never-smokers, or demonstrated evidence of significant gateway progression into smoking among young people.
• E-cigarettes and quitting smoking – among smokers, e-cigarette use is likely to lead to quit attempts that would not otherwise have happened, and in a proportion of these to successful cessation. In this way, e-cigarettes can act as a gateway from smoking.
• E-cigarettes and long-term harm – the possibility of some harm from long-term e-cigarette use cannot be dismissed due to inhalation of the ingredients other than nicotine, but is likely to be very small, and substantially smaller than that arising from tobacco smoking. With appropriate product standards to minimise exposure to the other ingredients, it should be possible to reduce risks of physical health still further. Although it is not possible to estimate the long-term health risks associated with e-cigarettes precisely, the available data suggest that they are unlikely to exceed 5% of those associated with smoked tobacco products, and may well be substantially lower than this figure.

Promote e-cigarettes widely as substitute for smoking says new RCP report ^[1]

Smokers Urged to Switch to E-Cigarettes by British Medical Group ^[2]

UK Doctors’ Group Comes Out In Support Of E-Cigarettes ^[3]

Thanks to Judee for the tip!