I WAS astonished and more than a little angered to learn that the NHS is to hand out millions of free vaping kits to encourage people to stop smoking tobacco products.

There have been no studies, to date, on the long-term effects of vaping – although many researchers have expressed concerns that they could be just as bad, if not worse, than those resulting from the use of tobacco products.

Vaping is a ‘gateway drug’ that puts people on the slippery road to drug dependence.

A recent survey in Scandinavia found that teenagers and young adults who took to vaping were far more likely to progress to smoking cigarettes than those who had never vaped.

More worryingly, other studies have shown that far from releasing harmless water droplets into the air , as manufacturers claim, the levels of nicotine absorbed by passive inhalers of vaping ‘smoke’ are much the same as those absorbed by second-hand cigarettes smokers.

What the NHS is doing with this latest short-sighted, ill-thought through ‘initiative’ is persuade people to poison themselves in a different way.

ROBERT READMAN

Norwich Avenue West, Bournemouth