By Jessica Rowe
The electronic cigarette debate has reignited.
Known as e-cigarettes, the mock cigarettes contain nicotine and are banned from being sold in New Zealand.
But Auckland University is embarking on a major study to find out whether they can help people quit smoking.
Dean Smith was a smoker for 30 years, but then he discovered e-cigarettes and gave away the real thing.
“I haven't touched tobacco in over a year and a half, so I have all the benefits of being a non-smoker but I'm still enjoying all the sensations of smoking,” he says.
It looks like a cigarette and even lights up when you take a puff, but instead of inhaling damaging smoke, you breathe in vapour.
Because it contains nicotine it's banned from sale here.
Auckland University has launched the worlds largest study into whether e-cigarettes are effective in helping people quit.
“We are going to recruit 650 people in New Zealand for this trial, so we think at the end of this study, the evidence will suggest one way or the other, do they help people quit smoking,” says the university’s Chris Bullen.
Anti-smoking campaigner Dr Murray Laugeson has carried out his own tests and is convinced e-cigarettes cause less harm than tobacco cigarettes.
“All around the emissions score for e-cigarettes is less than 1 percent of what it is for an ordinary Holiday or Marlborough cigarette,” he says.
Medsafe has ruled that "nicotine for inhalation is a medicine", and insists that more research needs to be done, before they can be sold in New Zealand.
But Dr Laugeson and the ex-smokers who are using them are convinced that e-cigarettes are significantly safer than tobacco cigarettes, and that they should be made available to smokers who want to quit.
3 News