Abstract

Among children, experimentation with e-cigarettes is now more common than experimentation with tobacco cigarettes. E-cigarettes have the potential for benefit and harm, the nature and scale of each being uncertain in the absence of much evidence. One potential benefit comes from providing a safe delivery mechanism for nicotine and an effective cessation aid. Evidence is accumulating to suggest that e-cigarettes can successfully be used as cessation aids by smokers. Of concern, however, is their potential to make attitudes towards tobacco smoking more positive (i.e., to renormalise it) through, for example, marketing of objects that appear very similar to tobacco cigarettes that appeal to both adult and children non-smokers. In my talk I will present a series of experimental studies in which we are trying to solve the puzzle of how e-cigarettes may affect tobacco smoking in children.