The debate continues to rage on… should e-cigarettes be legalised in Australia?

The electronic devices provide smokers with the nicotine they’re addicted to but without the harmful chemicals that come with tobacco cigarettes.

Chairman of the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association Doctor Colin Mendelsohn believes Australia is falling behind the rest of the world.

“There’s about 40-million users in the world,” he tells Michael McLaren.

“In England there are about two million vapers who have now quit smoking and 770,000 who have quit both smoking and vaping.

“We know people are using it, we know they’re quitting smoking. But in Australia, it’s still officially illegal and strongly discouraged.”

Dr Medelsohn says the health benefits are significant.

“They have only a fraction of the chemicals that tobacco contains.

“Tobacco smoke is poisonous because of the 7,000 chemicals, mostly caused by burning tobacco.

“E-cigarettes don’t have tobacco, they just have nicotine, which is actually relatively harmless in spite of what people think.

“So if they can get the nicotine without all those other chemicals they can switch from tobacco to something much safer that satisfies them and doesn’t kill them.”

Click PLAY below for the full interview