In the moral panic over vaping, we risk forgetting that cigarettes kill | Martha Gill

Bans and taxes on the most popular and effective aid for giving up smoking could lead to a major health crisis

Imagine we'd found a way to get millions of people to switch from alcohol, which in this country kills 10,000 people a year, to another kind of substance: still addictive, still not risk-free, but when compared with the booze, pretty harmless. Coffee, say.

A public health miracle is hailed. Liver units are empty. Heart surgeons spend more time on the golf course, and costly government prevention programmes close. Millions chink into NHS coffers.