UK doctors urge wide promotion of e-cigs to help smokers quit

By Kate Kelland LONDON (Reuters) - E-cigarettes are likely to bring benefits for public health and should be widely promoted to smokers to help them quit tobacco, Britain's Royal College of Physicians (RCP) said on Thursday. In a report likely to further fuel a debate over electronic cigarettes, the influential British doctors group stressed that tobacco smoking is both addictive and lethal, and concluded that e-cigarettes are "much safer than smoking". E-cigarettes are not a gateway to smoking, the RCP said, and do not lead to the normalisation of the habit - two issues often cited by critics who fear the devices can lure children and young people into smoking habits.