There are renewed calls for an outright ban on electronic cigarettes today, as news emerged that a Southport man was injured whilst trying to light one on his gas hob.
Apparently, Kevin Rimmer, a 43 year old bus driver from Ainsdale, leaned over a gas cooker with the ecig in his mouth after an initial unsuccessful attempt to light it with his zippo. When he did eventually manage to set fire to the lithium ion battery within the device, Rimmer sustained serious burns to his nose and a total loss of eyebrows.
Bryan Eyre, a spokesperson for MIST, an anti-ecig campaign group, told us that they should be withdrawn from sale immediately.
“We understand that millions of people are giving up smoking because of ecigs.” Eyre conceded. “But accidents like this show how intrinsically dangerous they are.”
When pressed about the funding MIST received from governments and tobacco companies, whose revenue has been decimated by ecigs, Eyre told us that it was, “Completely unrelated,” to their campaign for a ban.
