The advertising watchdog’s probe into the advertising of e cigarettes has been welcomed by British American Tobacco (BAT), the biggest tobacco company to show a TV ad for e cigarettes in the UK.

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) last week kicked off an eight week consultation which will look at introducing new rules to clear up “concern” and “confusion” in this area.

The consultation could lead to new rules protecting under 18s and it follows criticism over an e cigarette ad broadcast during ITV’s I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! which attracted more than 1,100 complaints to the advertising watchdog.

Adverts for e cigarettes are currently subject to the general rules under the advertising code, such as whether they are harmful or offensive, in which case they could be banned.

But the advertising watchdog believes there needs to be specific rules in place in light of public concern over issues such as children taking part in “vaping”, the inhaling of vapour from e cigarettes, along with uncertainty among advertisers about the rules.

The watchdog is also mindful that e cigarettes also carry an obvious association with tobacco advertising, which has been banned on TV since 1965.

Des Naugton, managing director of BAT owned Nicoventures which makes e cigarette brand Vype, said “In the light of the differing rules today, we are supportive of the e cigarette advertising consultation which is being led by the Committees of Advertising practice (CAP and Broadcast Committee of Advertising).

“We hope that it will result in clear and consistent rules for advertising e cigarettes across all media to ensure that they are marketed responsibly, whilst giving appropriate marketing freedoms to allow this important product category to develop further.”

Shahriar Coupal, secretary of CAP which is a sister body to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), said “The market for e cigarettes is fast growing and the existing rules haven’t been able to give advertisers the clarity they need. By proposing new specific rules, we’re providing a clear framework for responsible advertising. Given the potential association with tobacco products and the fact that many e cigarettes contain nicotine, it’s important we put in place strong responsibility rules to make sure that the public and particularly children are protected.”

The ASA recently banned an ad from e cigarette maker VIP, which featured a woman saying “I want you to get it out. I want to see it. Feel it. Hold it. Put it in my mouth.” The ad led to 1,156 complaints.

The introduction of new rules comes as the European Union also considers the future of e cigarette advertising. It has passed rules which mean that EU member states have to decide if e cigarettes are tobacco or medicine products.

According to Mintel, the market in e cigarettes ballooned by 340% to 193m in 2013. Last month, BAT launched a campaign for its Vype electronic cigarettes the first time a big tobacco company has marketed products on TV since cigar ads were banned in 1991.

To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email media or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”.

To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook.

Two cheers for e-cigarettes – nytimes.com

Buy cheap cigarettes online fast shipping – buy cigarettes online australia

Now imagine that an alternative comes to the market, an innovative device that can help people wean themselves from the deadly product. It has the same look and feel as the lethal product indeed, that s a large part of its appeal. It, too, is addictive. But the ingredients that kill people are absent.

This, of course, is no imaginary scenario. The lethal product is cigarettes, which use nicotine to addict and combustible tobacco to kill. And the alternative is electronic cigarettes, which deliver nicotine without the tobacco, and emit a vapor that almost instantly evaporates. Yes, users can be hooked on nicotine, which is a stimulant. But people who vape are not going to die, at least not from inhaling their cigarette.

You d think that the public health community would be cheering at the introduction of electronic cigarettes. We all know how hard it is to quit smoking. We also know that nicotine replacement therapies, like the patch, haven t worked especially well. The electronic cigarette is the first harm reduction product to gain serious traction among American smokers.

Yet the public health community is not cheering. Far from it groups like the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids are united in their opposition to e cigarettes. They want to see them stigmatized like tobacco cigarettes. They want to see them regulated like cigarettes, too, which essentially means limited marketing and a ban on their use wherever tobacco cigarettes are banned.

Thomas Farley, New York City s health commissioner, trotted out most of the rationales against e cigarettes the other day at a City Council hearing. (The City Council is considering a bill, strongly supported by the Bloomberg administration, that would forbid the use of an e cigarette anywhere that cigarettes are banned.) E cigarettes, he said, are so new we know very little about them. Thanks to e cigarettes, smoking is becoming glamorous again, and could become socially acceptable. The number of high school students who have tried electronic cigarettes doubled from 2011 to 2012. He made a particular point of showing how closely e cigarettes resembled old fashioned tobacco cigarettes.

The reason to fear this resemblance, say opponents of electronic cigarettes, is that vaping could wind up acting as a gateway to smoking. Yet, so far, the evidence suggests just the opposite. Several recent studies have strongly suggested that the majority of e cigarette users are people who are trying to quit their tobacco habit. The number of people who have done the opposite gone from e cigarettes to cigarettes is minuscule. What the data is showing is that virtually all the experimentation with e cigarettes is happening among people who are already smokers, says Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Health.

Siegel is a fierce critic of tobacco companies, but he s also not afraid to criticize the anti tobacco advocates when they stretch the truth. When we got to talking about the opposition to e cigarettes in the public health community, he said, The antismoking movement is so opposed to the idea of smoking it has transcended the science, and become a moral crusade. I think there is an ideological mind set in which anything that looks like smoking is bad. That mind set has trounced the science.

Another person who considers e cigarettes promising is David Abrams, the executive director of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies. It s a disruptive technology, he said, that might give cigarettes a run for their money. In his view, the anti tobacco advocates had spent so many years arguing from a total abstinence framework, that they haven t been able to move from that position. Yet, he noted, the country has long tolerated many similar harm reduction strategies, including needle exchanges and methadone maintenance.

None of this is to say that electronic cigarettes should be free of regulation. But they should be regulated for what they are a pharmaceutical product that delivers nicotine, not a conduit for tobacco poison. Let them make health claims which they can t now do so long as they are backed up with real science. And, most of all, use e cigarettes to help make real cigarettes obsolete.

At that recent New York City Council meeting, one of the fiercest critics to testify was Kevin O Flaherty of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck and it sounds like a duck and it looks like a duck, it is a duck, he said.

Is this what passes for science when you oppose electronic cigarettes?