Cigarettes are sold everywhere and unregulated. So hey, let’s do that with e-cigarettes?

Simon Chapman AO

In a recent Medical Journal of Australia Insight blog on e-cigarette regulation, vaping promoter Colin Mendelsohn responded to a comment, writing “ecigs are consumer products. Medicines regulation is not appropriate. Why should they be regulated more strictly than cigarettes which can be bought at every corner shop?”

Then, without pausing for breath, in his very next sentence he goes on to tell us about how effective in smoking cessation they are, compared to nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), as one recent study reported them to be.  In case you missed it, NRT is a medicine regulated by the  Therapeutic Goods Administration, not a “consumer product” , whatever that might mean.  (see my previous blog and here for comments on the major limitations of the evidence that Mendelsohn cited)

Excitable News Corp journalist Joe Hildebrand puts it this way “How come it’s legal for me to walk into a convenience store and…

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