WHO recommends banning e-cigarette sales to minors

Governments should ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors, the World Health Organisation said Tuesday, warning that they pose a ‘serious threat’ to foetuses and young people. The UN health body also recommended that the cigarette-shaped electrical devices be banned from public indoor spaces ‘until exhaled vapour is proven to be not harmful to bystanders’. ‘The existing evidence shows that (e-cigarette) aerosol is not 'merely vapour' as is often claimed in the marketing of these products,’ WHO said. The devices, which have grown in popularity in particular with youths, function by heating flavoured nicotine liquid into a vapour that is inhaled -- much like traditional cigarettes, but without the smoke. The WHO acknowledged that e-cigarettes were ‘likely to be less toxic for the smoker than conventional cigarette s’. But it stressed that very little research had so far been done to prove the safety of the devices or to boost manufacturers' claims that they can help smokers quit traditional cigarettes, according to AFP.