Electronic cigarettes, also called “e-cigarettes” or “e-cigs” are the most known electronic nicotine delivery system. An e-cigarette is an electronic device commonly shaped like a cigarette and de signed to vaporize a mixture of nicotine, propylene glycol and other chemicals that heats the vapor via a battery activated by puffing. Interest in e-cigarettes has been growing recently among smokers, manufacturers, including leading cigarette companies, and also among tobacco control health professionals, researchers and advocates who are concerned with their various risks at the individual and public health level.
e-Cigarettes have been marketed aggressively by companies, which now include transnational tobacco companies. With their increasing popularity, experts, media and governments have raised many questions about their risks and benefits, including threats to re-normalize or re-socialize smoking or their potential to prolong smokers dependence of tobacco and to hook adolescents to nicotine addiction.
The aim of this symposium is to review the existing evidence on e-cigarettes toxicology, potential for harm from secondhand exposure to vapour and use, and their efficacy to help quit smoking. The symposium will address these and other current challenges that e-cigarettes poses for global tobacco control and review possible regulations to solve some of these challenges.