The costs of vaping should be reduced for smokers in developing countries as an urgent “human rights issue”, researchers have told a pro-tobacco conference in London.

Addressing a 300-strong audience of tobacco and vaping industry representatives, Helen Redmond, an expert in substance use at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work, said people in poor countries should not be priced out of nicotine-based products that could potentially help them to quit smoking.

Redmond compared the medicinal qualities of nicotine with cannabis and stressed “the need to get vaping to the poorest, who need it most”.

“It’s a human rights issue – as a harm reduction device, prices need to come down,” she said. “Nicotine is not a dirty drug, it helps with depression and anxiety.”

Academics at the 2018 global tobacco and nicotine forum called for more research into the possible medical benefits of nicotine and a focus on the development of innovative nicotine-based products that will provide a “smoke-free society” and reduce the harmful effects of cigarettes.

Viscount Matt Ridley, an author and member of the House of Lords, joined the chorus of experts promoting vaping as a form of harm reduction, arguing that subjecting e-cigarettes to the same workplace restrictions as smoking could be viewed as an infringement of an individual’s human rights.

“We should treat vaping in the same way that we treat access to mobile phones,” said Ridley. “The best way to get people to give up [smoking] is to innovate with technology”.

Ridleytold the conference that, despite the industry’s continued focus on promoting nicotine-based products as a form of harm reduction, public opinion was moving away from vaping because of media “scare stories”. He compared the industry’s plight, in particular in the US, to that faced by “bootleggers and baptists during prohibition”.

Clive Bates, director of advocacy group Counterfactual, described the views of anti-tobacco campaigners as “hostile and focused”, accusing them of having rival commercial interests with a goal of “annihilating” the industry. Warning of the damage caused by “those with a vested interest in causing alarm”, he said that while critics laboured to produce evidence to “maintain the narrative of harm”, technological advances meant the transition to vape-type products was likely to become mandatory rather than voluntary.

There are 1.1 billion smokers worldwide and 6 million die each year as a direct result of smoking. A further 890,000 people a year die prematurely as a result of second-hand smoke, according to the World Health Organization.

A single cigarette contains more than 200 carcinogenic chemicals, as well as the addictive stimulant nicotine. Scientists and academics have so far failed to reach agreement on pros and cons of long-term nicotine use.

At a plenary session, clinical psychologist Karl Fagerström called for research into the positive benefits of nicotine, which he believes can aid people suffering from Alzheimer’s and depression. He also advised that the industry should move from combustible to nicotine-based products.

“No one is interested in establishing what the benefits of smoking nicotine are,” Fagerström said.

Martin Jarvis, professor of health psychology at University College London, saidthe US was moving towards prohibition-type enforcement, with the Food and Drug Administration eager to reduce the level of nicotine in cigarettes.

“Society doesn’t understand nicotine,” said Jarvis, “because they think it is particularly bad.”

But Jarvis said “describing nicotine as being addictive is justified”, adding that “80% of smokers wished they never started”.