IT’S very difficult to criticise any employer who brings work to East Lancashire. And manufacturing jobs in particular are much-needed in these recessionary times.

But I do have a problem with the e-cigarette industry which has a strong presence here. Makers are angry that the government plans to re-classify e-cigarettes as medicinal products so that their manufacture and sale would subject to the same regulation as other ‘healthcare products’.

E-cigarettes turn nicotine into vapour which can be inhaled. But makers claim that because they do not involve the use of tobacco, people will not get the potentially deadly health problems that come from smoking real cigarettes.

Last week in Blackburn, one e-cigarette manufacturer’s products received an endorsement from North West Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies who toured the factory and described e-cigarettes as ‘a complete game-changer when it comes to saving lives.’ It may be true that the health risks associated with e-cigarettes are nothing like as bad as for people smoking tobacco. But people who use them say they do so because e-cigarettes are a sort of half-way house. They believe they are unable to make the complete break and stop putting any kind of cigarette in their mouths.

This suggests to me that they have a craving for nicotine which could be termed an addiction. It therefore follows, surely, that any product which continues to feed that addiction cannot at the same time claim it is purely recreational and not a medicinal aid.

Millions of pounds of public money have been spent trying to highlight the risks of smoking. Surely it would be foolish indeed if this comparatively new industry selling products that provide a nicotine fix was left totally unregulated as if it was retailing jelly babies.

Last week it was also reported that in the United States the three companies which control 85 per cent of the real cigarette market have each announced that they will be selling e-cigarettes by the end of the year.

The involvement of the tobacco industry in e-cigarettes is another reason why they need to be regulated by people with medical knowledge.

It should also underline the message that if you want to give up smoking, you should do just that and quit altogether.

If you can’t, then you should accept that you have an addiction and anything that meets your needs has to be regulated. It may not be easy, but as a heavy smoker for more than 20 years, I know facts have to be faced.