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Advertising regulators in the United Kingdom recently decided to ban several electronic cigarette ads. The list of reasons was fairly numerous, but the main points were that the ads reglamorized smoking, encouraged vaping among non-smokers, and appealed to children despite the product only being for those 18 and older. Despite what the regulators think, none of these arguments are reasonable and nothing they’re doing is actually protecting the public.

Here’s a version of one of the ads that was banned. A tamer version appeared on television, but still ruffled some feathers.

It’s no surprise that a sexy ad for an electronic cigarette or vapor product sends up red flags among advertising regulators. While electronic cigarettes and the companies behind them aren’t guilty of anything just yet, the past sins of the smoking industry are easily seen in their actions. Making e-cigs look cool immediately makes family, anti-smoking, and public health groups cringe. But the understandable knee jerk reaction to complain and demand the ads be banned — and possibly that the advertisers be fined or penalized — is not based at all on actual reason or evidence.

Though electronic cigarettes look and act like smoking, evidence suggests they are about 99% less harmful than tobacco cigarettes. It even appears that they make traditional cigarettes obsolete by offering a more customizable and reliable experience without the harm. At a national or global level, the existence of electronic cigarettes on the market appears to reduce total cigarette consumption. This reduces the impact of secondhand smoke and first hand use.

In fact, according to a supplier in the UK, the National Health Services’ smoking-related costs have gone down since electronic cigarettes entered the market.

All this matters because advertising freedom should allow e-cig and vapor product suppliers to demolish the antiquated, out-dated, and deadly tobacco market. The product already pushes out tobacco use. Even in consumers that use both electronic cigarettes and traditional cigarettes, their use of traditional cigarettes declines substantially — usually by half or more (again, reducing the overall harm caused by the user’s addiction). Add the ability to make the products more competitive through advertising and marketing freedoms, and we could see the end of the tobacco industry as we know it.

If banning e-cig ads is what advertising regulators are going to do anyway, they might have a bit of a fight on their hands. At a minimum, they may need to come up with better justification for the restrictions. As is, they’re saying we regulate smoking ads this way, e-cig use looks like smoking, so we’ll do them the same too. If this were true, advertising for orange juice, soda, beer, whiskey, and liquid cleaning agents would have to be treated the same way too. Without evidence that electronic cigarettes are due the same restrictions as tobacco cigarettes, there is no justification for treating them the same way. We already know that e-cigs are more likely to replace smoking than reglamorize it, and that they don’t act as a gateway to smoking for non-smokers.

Meanwhile, squashing e-cig advertising efforts only prolongs the traditional cigarette market’s ability to compete with it. It also sends the message to the public that e-cigs use and smoking are the same thing. This might even further drive those that could quit using e-cigs to remain smokers.

More than on the regulatory front, the battle over advertising for electronic cigarette and vapor products may be the true decider of how and when the tobacco market falls.