Should electronic cigarettes be as freely available as tobacco? Yes

At last smokers have a safer alternative to tobacco. The law in most countries allows the presence of nicotine only in tobacco and in drugs (for example, nicotine replacement therapy patches and gum), effectively prohibiting competitors to tobacco and drug companies from entering the drug market. Because drugs that contain nicotine are unattractive and not very effective,1 people addicted to nicotine tend to use tobacco. Arguably, the laws regulating nicotine cause millions of deaths and unjustifiably protect existing nicotine suppliers at the expense of more innovative competitors, who could devise safer products.

However, electronic cigarettes are about to change this. These products are very successful: sales of e-cigarettes in the United States have doubled every year since they were introduced in 2007.2