Should Pharmacists Sell E-Cigarettes?

8 Comments

  • nikki from mars - 10 years ago

    I don't think that they should be sold by people who have a vested interest in getting them licensed as medical products and who are unable to provide decent advice about the products because they have no personal experience of using them. The best sellers in the market are all vapers themselves and they know what is likely to work for different people through their connections with other current vapers. I would much rather be able to buy from someone who can offer me an informed opinion through their own experience than from someone who is only interested in making a profit out of me and will happily sell me a product they know nothing about and have no experience of using and no interest whatsoever in my preferences and what will actually work best for me.

  • Ray - 10 years ago

    Being a simple yes/no poll ,i had to vote 'no'. I would only support the sale of vaping products by any medical body if it were to run side by side with the rest of the vaping world. I doubt if the pharma' industry wants that though but instead would rather step in & seize control of vaping. That would be a very very bad day for public health & i see no reason why they should have any part in what is essentially an activity evolved from an independent source & is evolving purely via social networking & good will on the part of the vaping community. Electronic cigarettes (if you must call it that) will continue to evolve without the intervention of any other industy including the pharmaceutical industry & the tobacco industry, the latter of which has their days numbered.

  • dampheaven - 10 years ago

    no, i actually don't think they should sell them. I think the vendors of today should stand for selling the products. BC, they are the ones with the experience on the products. They are the ones guiding every new vaper how the most effective way to go, they have the variety and time to integrate with the customer and let the customer tryout different types of batt. and e-juice products.
    You don't buy cheese in a shop for clothes, so you should not be selling ecigs as a medicine in a pharmacy.
    If the pharmacies are going to sell ecigs, the variety of products will lack(cigalikes) and therefor the gateway to go back to cigarettes will be huge. To assure smokers and keep them off cigarettes(that has been there everyday substance for MANY years) they need the variety. Its not a one product sell item. Every smoker and every vaper is different.
    Most of the vendors of today are well educated, they know what works, its there living and to be honest, the success rates they have EVERYDAY is massive. Most of the vendors are connected to forums and work hard to help ppl in need, so even if the customer is in doubt, there is help provided on the forums.
    You don't see that with the pharmacies. Smoking and vaping has always been a social thing… and when the pharmacy ends his shop day…… the door is closed.

  • R.C. - 10 years ago

    I really dont have a problem if they want to sell e-cigarettes. Otherwise I dont see any reason why pharmacists (in general) should sell them. First of all, e-cigarettes are no medical product. Therefore they will end up on some shelf in the pharmacies like all the other non-medical products, like e.g. tooth pastes etc. And there is not the right place for them. E-cigarettes are coming in a wide range of variations, and are sensitive, consumer specific products, who need special care and knowledge to introduce and sell the right e-cigarette to the right customer. And how many pharmacists have the knowledge, the required variations in stock, and/or the time to offer all that neccessary to an interested customer? And we all know-once made a bad experience due to a lack of specific care, the consumer will lose every interest in this product forever. But in case of the e-cigarette this would be a crucial outcome. Because its not a matter of e.g. have choosen a wrong tooth paste flavor. E-cigarettes can save the lifes of millions of smokers...and this is a matter we cannot afford to handle lightly. And the solution is not to sell those disappointed customers useless and in the most cases dangerous e.g. nicotine-patches, what is the usual outcome at a pharmacy.
    Every lost client for the e-cigarette is a lost possibility of saving the life of a smoker!

  • Robert Innes - 10 years ago

    Apologies. my post did not copy out as a poem. Administrators please delete.

  • Robert Innes - 10 years ago

    It is time some humanity was injected into this debate. All the pharmaceutical industry want to do is to protect their interests. All the charities want to do is protect their interests. All the professional medical associations want to do is protect their interests and all of their interests are tied up with the interests of the pharmaceutical companies.

    This is what your decisions mean.........

    ‘Not enough research,’ they said

    ‘They are a gateway’

    And these and other grey excuses

    Are written as the epitaph

    By those

    Who did not pity

    The dying and the dead

    She did not cry

    The tears had dried up so long before

    His last creaking breath

    Had crept from his disease ridden lungs

    She had though, held his hand as life slowly left

    And after,

    Long after, when sorting out his things

    She had come across

    An antique of sorts

    And she remembered the few short years of joy

    When he seemed to grow young again

    When the fear had lifted

    But the joy had been short lived.

    ‘Not enough research,’ they said

    ‘They are a gateway’

    And these and other grey excuses

    Are written as the epitaph

    By those

    Who did not pity

    The dying and the dead

  • Robert Innes - 10 years ago

    It is time some humanity was injected into this debate. All the pharmaceutical industry want to do is to protect their interests. All the charities want to do is protect their interests. All the professional medical associations want to do is protect their interests and all of their interests are tied up with the interests of the pharmaceutical companies.

    This is what your decisions mean.........

    ‘Not enough research,’ they said
    ‘They are a gateway’
    And these and other grey excuses
    Are written as the epitaph
    By those
    Who did not pity
    The dying and the dead

    She did not cry
    The tears had dried up so long before
    His last creaking breath
    Had crept from his disease ridden lungs
    She had though, held his hand as life slowly left

    And after,
    Long after, when sorting out his things
    She had come across
    An antique of sorts
    And she remembered the few short years of joy
    When he seemed to grow young again
    When the fear had lifted
    But the joy had been short lived.

    ‘Not enough research,’ they said
    ‘They are a gateway’
    And these and other grey excuses
    Are written as the epitaph
    By those
    Who did not pity
    The dying and the dead

  • Norbert Zillatron - 10 years ago

    I'm at a loss on how to vote.

    As a happy vaper for more than two years and menber of a fast growing community i know that e-cigs really can work. But not necessarily as a tool for total cessation, but as an alternative way to consume nicotine that is about as harmless as drinking coffee for caffein.

    Would selling them at pharmacies give the false impression that their main purpose and use might be as an unlicenced NRT, which in turn would seem to support the the claim of some the tight medicinal regulation would be for the benefit of the users?

    What kind and variety of e-cigs would the pharmacies sell?
    Propably--at first--those cig-a-likes, that most people still associate with "e-cigs"--things that look like cigarette with a little light at the end.

    Those were the first generation. Where it all began. They work for some, but the real success started with the developement of the next generations: Refillable, bigger tanks, longer lasting batteries and--very important!--a wide range of available flavours. In my experience the main reason, why today's e-cigs work for many somkers, is that using them can simply be more pleasurable than smoking. But the individual tastes and preferences of people are different. There is no "one size fits all". Will pharmacies be willing and able to provide a vast variety or at least advise their customers of existing alternatives?

    Applying a restrictive regulation similar to NRT's will eliminate the neccessary variety and render the remaings products mostly useless, since only few people will find them pleasurable enough to switch.

    Incidentally the lastest decission of the EU is extremely restrictive. Wth many "regulations" copied from the medicinal product directive. The net result will be, that most of the new generation devices will be effectively banned and the variety of flavours severly curtailed. Most of the huge number of small businesses who provide the variety of devices and liquids won't be able and rich enough to cope with all those demands. Is it pure coincidence that these "regulations" massively favor first generation based cig-a-like disposables? Well, the tobacco industry has already started to swamp the market with this kind of mostly useless crap.

    The question remains: Will selling those in pharmacies give people an opportunity to discover this vastly less harmful alternative to move on to find the right combinations to provide enough pleasure to switch permanently? Or will it promote the fatal impression that tighter regulation might be appropriate?

    I certainly won't be satisfied for long with that stone age technology and severely reduced choice. So after years of enjoying more pleasure and better health I'll have to resume smoking, when these "regulations" are enacted and my stock pile is depleted. All in the name of Health and Safety.

    the only hope i see now to get a sensible regulation based on reason and real science, not spurious assumptions, is the European Citizens Initiative EFVI that i have given as my webadress.

    Once reason is restored, I won't see a problem with selling e-cigs in pharmaciess, too.

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