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The public needs to have a greater awareness about nicotine as a way of encouraging smokers to use safer forms of the substance, says the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH).

The statement comes after research by the RSPH revealed that 90 per cent of the public regard nicotine itself as damaging to health when in fact it is the dangerous chemicals such as tar and arsenic in cigarettes, which cause significant health problems.

In its report Smoking cessation: taking a harm reduction approach, the RSPH aims to address this confusion and calls for measures to reduce the harm caused by toxins in cigarettes by promoting safer forms of nicotine-containing products, such as e-cigarettes and nicotine replacement therapy (NRT). This includes the greater utilisation of e-cigarettes by smoking cessation services.

Shirley Cramer CBE, chief executive of the RSPH said: €Clearly we would rather people didn't smoke, but in line with NICE guidance on reducing the harm from tobacco, using safer forms of nicotine such as NRT and e-cigarettes are effective in helping people quit.€

She added: €Getting people onto nicotine rather than using tobacco would make a big difference to the public's health €“ clearly there are issues in terms of having smokers addicted to nicotine, but this would move us on from having a serious and costly public health issue from smoking-related disease to instead address the issue of addiction to a substance which in and of itself is not too dissimilar to caffeine addiction.€

Other measures called for by the RSPH include an extension of the smoking ban to the outside areas of pubs, bars and restaurants and schools €“ allowing only e-cigarettes in these exclusion zones €“ and renaming e-cigarettes nicotine sticks or vapourisers to distance them from cigarettes.