Ms Claire Gordon:

I wish to make a distinction between e-cigarettes and heat-not-burn. They are two separate kinds of products. In the context of cessation, e-cigarettes are very popular in Ireland and are used by a lot of people who quit. I will explain the two ways e-cigarettes can be considered from a risk-benefit analysis, and I will refer to heat-not-burn products afterwards. This Bill prohibits the sale of e-cigarettes to young people. For a young person who is not a smoker, there is a risk with e-cigarettes because they are not harmless and there is no benefit to a young person who is not a smoker. For smokers, as I have mentioned in the briefing material, there is no consensus about the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes but there is general consensus that they are less harmful than tobacco cigarettes. Let us consider a risk-benefit analysis for a smoker. In this case, the risk of e-cigarettes is lower than the risk of tobacco cigarettes. If a person can go on to use e-cigarettes and get off tobacco cigarettes, it is generally agreed that it is better for him or her. The person will be in better shape as a result. I have said there is no consensus on this. There is huge disagreement across the scientific community about e-cigarettes, particularly because it is a new product with multiple types on the market so no one can say what the long-term health effects might be. From a risk-benefit point of view, from our understanding of the evidence, if a person is a smoker, it is better to go on to e-cigarettes. That is something we would welcome.

Heat-not-burn products are slightly different. E-cigarettes contain an e-liquid chemical that has nicotine in it. Heat-not-burn products contain tobacco. There are some interesting devices that look like a mobile phone into which what looks like a little cigarette can be inserted, which is then heated. The reason they are considered a harm reduction product, relative to tobacco cigarettes, is tobacco combustion does not occur. Much of the harm caused by smoking cigarettes comes from that moment of combustion and the tar. That does not occur in the heat-not-burn products, although that assertion is up for grabs because some scientific papers argue that with the level of heat achieved is similar to combustion. The bottom line on heat-not-burn products is that there is not as much evidence for their harm-reduction value as there is for e-cigarettes. The WHO stated that it is not clear at present whether heat-not-burn products are less harmful than tobacco cigarettes. E-cigarettes are used in Ireland. There are no heat-not-burn products for sale in Ireland at present.