I posted a few months ago about e-cigarettes being a trojan horse to encourage new people into the heady world of nicotine addiction in this post.. There was resistance to this idea from the tobacco industry who market vaping as a safe alternative to smoking.
However there is now evidence that e cigarettes are indeed bringing new smokers into the arena.
Evidence in this study suggests that new young smokers are being enticed into addiction by using e-cigarettes. Despite strong assurances from the industry that vaping is only an alternative for the established smoker, it looks like the all important new customer is being brought into the market.
This is good news for the tobacco companies who are looking to sustain their business model and have cleverly introduced vaping as the acceptable face of nicotine addiction. If it doesn't do any harm then what's the problem?
How many kids will start on e-cigarettes and then progress to tobacco products? It is too early to tell but once a smoker starts to crave it is likely that nicotine in any form will be the goal.
Selling addictive substances on the high street makes good business sense all round, why not have your customers really crave your product?
The new TV ads for e-cigarettes have just started, maybe it is time to think again about the mass marketing of a product that creates addicts out of its customers?