This vote confronts the British Government with something of a dilemma. The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) recently announced that e-cigarettes in this country will be licensed as a medicine from 2016. Since these devices do not contain tobacco and are, therefore, not harmful to others – unlike passive smoking – it is hard to understand why they should be controlled in this way. Health campaigners believe e-cigarettes make it harder to give up cigarettes because they replicate the act of smoking. But it isn’t smoking – so why should these pressure groups have a veto on such behaviour simply because it looks like it?