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Research Shows E-Cigs Might Be As Good For Quitting As Nicotine Patches
"Taking a drag from an e-cigarette may be just as safe and effective as slapping on a nicotine patch for smokers struggling to quit, according to the first physician-run trial to compare the two products." That's according to research recently published in The Lancet (PDF) and reported by Bloomberg. Why is this significant? From the article: "If European and U.S. regulators treat e-cigarettes as medical devices, yet leave cigarettes on general sale, tobacco makers 'will retain their market monopoly, and we will never learn whether e-cigarettes would replace traditional cigarettes if allowed to continue evolving and competing with smoked tobacco on even terms,' [wrote clinical psychology professor Peter Hajek]. The results will also be presented today at the European Respiratory Society’s annual meeting in Barcelona.
E-cigarettes have taken Europe and the U.S. by storm. In France, there are more than 1 million regular users, according to a government-commissioned report published in May. Sales worldwide will probably approach $2 billion by the end of this year and top $10 billion by 2017, according to a forecast by Wells Fargo & Co."
yummy, I always like breathing in someone else's medicated ethylene glycol.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Anecdotal evidence: Myself and many of my friends switched to ecigs with success. Many of us tried and failed with other methods. Now I have a roaring ecig addiction that tobacco just can't satisfy. So that's not quite a successful quit yet, but in terms of harm reduction it's looking good so far. Since I can control the strength of the liquid by mixing it myself, I'm working on a very long, gentle taper down.
Caffeine and nicotine got me through all nighters cramming for exams but quitting smoking was one of the hardest things I've ever done. It took me 9 years of trying and failing to quit to finally kick the habit. I think I just got too embarrassed to once again claim to be quitting. I don't know the neuroscience but caffeine and nicotine are powerful stimulants. I might go for E-cigs if there's no bad health side effects.
bullshit, a real libertarian would say if someone wants to use something less dangerous to themselves and others to get their nicotine, let them pay for it, let companies sell it
As someone who got into e-cigs relatively early (2009) and still vapes, it's important to note that they are NOT really meant for quitting. Sure, it's possible to quit using them, but they are more intended to be a replacement device. It's only quitting in the sense that you're not using traditional cigarettes anymore.
Why are they catching on?
1. They are (likely to be) healthier. Sure, some will say that e-cigs contain ingredients present in anti-freeze. These same ingredients, though, are also found in rescue inhalers, fog machines, and Twinkies. Mostly, though, they don't contain all of the tar and poisonous substances we all know are present in other cigarettes.
2. You don't smell like burnt paper, and don't make you smell like burnt paper for the rest of the day. Pretty self-explanatory.
3. (Or 2a) You can vape indoors, and stealth-vape. Smoking outdoors is fine eight months of the year here in Upstate NY. The other four months - and all of the days it's raining - having to go outdoors sucks. Not only in homes and apartments, but at bars. Also, if I'm in a place where I don't want people to know I vape, I can just go into the bathroom or a toilet stall, and nobody is the wiser. Not the same for a cigarette.
4. Much easier to maintain a constant buzz. I recently had the charger I've had since the start decide to stop working, so I switched back to traditional cigarettes. I absolutely hated that I felt like hell or got enough of a buzz to make my legs weak.
Too often I've seen people claim to have "quit using terrible analogies", which is like saying stopped driving a Ferrari and started eating porridge for breakfast.
I started smoking at age 20. Deliberately. Of my own volition. Primarily for the stimulant effect and secondarily to defy the goddamn anti-smoking meddlers... their disingenuous, logical fallacy-laden TV commercials really induced my rage.
I collected approximately nine pack-years of cigarette smoking.
I broke the nicotine physical addiction several times over those years (zero nicotine intake for 3+ weeks); however, what kept dragging me back to smoking was the fact that I mentally identified myself as a smoker. Smoking was part of my identity, which meant that cessation was always in dichotomous tension between "health" and "self". To put it in perspective, I likely self-identified more strongly with the term "smoker" than the term "American".
I quit my smoking habit permanently the day I had my first e-cig delivered in 2009. A few months later I tried a single cigarette, found the taste revolting, and haven't smoked since then. Smoking is unwieldy and a serious inconvenience during the winter (I never smoked inside my domicile). Downsides of quitting smoking included having my sense of taste/smell return... the world is revolting and ignorance is bliss.
Notwithstanding, after several years of "vaping" e-cigs inside our home no one has ever been able to tell—my life partner would tell me, because she hates the smell of cigarettes and always comments whenever we are near someone who recently smoked.
I have given e-cigs to all my smoker friends and relatives. All of these people have subsequently quit smoking (some of these smokers had been engaged in the habit for 30+ years). In fact, they all quit using nicotine altogether, leaving me as the sole remaining individual in my monkeysphere who cultivates a nicotine addiction.
E-Cigarettes aren't "as good as" the patch - they are much, much better. I smoked 1-2 packs a day for 28 years and was finally able to quit due to e-cigs. My lungs sound better, I feel better, and I don't stink anymore.
The patch left me with a rash on my arm.
I just find it strange when people recharge them in the USB port of their laptop.
I'm not so sure about that.
So I'm in a bar this morning to watch some football (Out here in LA, football starts at 10:00AM). Since it's my first time here, I ask the bartender where I should go to smoke--or, more precisely, should I go out onto the patio. She asks if I'm smoking e-cigarettes and I say no. She says the patio is fine. I asked her about e-cigarettes, as there are a few signs around saying that there will be no smoking e-cigarettes on the site.
Well, according to her, there were people bringing in THC e-cigarettes. It was prevalent enough that they had to ban it--I assume one of those lawsuit-type things.
It wasn't really my intention to stop smoking altogether I just found I didn't need to anymore.
Probably took about 3 or 4 months until I realised I could taste and smell better, they really do work although I think a lot depends on the quality of the liquid used.
I'd go as far to say that they have almost certainly extended my life and I couldn't have stopped without one.
For a moment there I thought you were writing about a oral fixation with Swedish Nuns, and I was about to say I've seen that movie too :)
Good thing you don't get any second hand smoke from ecigs.
Conclusions: For all byproducts measured, electronic cigarettes produce very small exposures relative to tobacco cigarettes. The study indicates no apparent risk to human health from e-cigarette emissions based on the compounds analyzed.
It's easy to find a bunch of "what if" that says it's harmful second hand. People that bother to test find levels so low (if at all) that it's not a problem.
I'll agree to your controls. They can't be used where scientific evidence shows they will harm others. Better get used to the smell.
“For more than 25 years Smokefree Pennsylvania has been advocating indoor smoking bans. Based on the results of this study I see no reason for e-cigarettes to be included in smoking bans.” - Bill Godshall of Smokefree Pennsylvania.
“Most vapers believe e-cigarette vapor is not harmful to those around them, but it is reassuring to finally have scientific evidence confirming those beliefs.”- Spike Babaian, President of National Vapers Club
This is the first study to cover such a wide range of toxins, however previous studies, which have evaluated a smaller number of toxins, have shown similar results.
“The results of this study confirm the findings of my last 4 years of research. E-cigarettes pose no discernible risk to public health." - Dr. Murray Laugesen - Public Health Medicine Specialist, Health New Zealand
source
As I recall, nicotine patches are actively bad for quitting, compared with not using anything. What they perform better than is "placebo" patches which, of course, actually contain small amounts of nicotine. On the grounds that if they didn't you could smell the difference and they wouldn't be a proper placebo. The exact amount of nicotine is not disclosed, last I heard, but the interesting thing is that nicotine addiction appears to be highly responsive to even small amounts of nicotine getting in your system; it's only completely cutting it out that seems to actually help people shake the addiction. (That, and stuff like buproprion, which can short-circuit the addiction mechanism.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
After 22 years of smoking up to 2 packs per day, increasingly bad health and high prices ... and many previous attempts to quit smoking, I used Chantix plus an e-cig.
Chantix alone was OK at first, but then I started cheating, grabbing a puff or a half cig. I quickly learned it was the physical habit of taking a drag from a cigarette that was really hitting me. I grabbed a low nicotine e-cig and used it for those cravings (zero nicotine wasn't available locally). An "equals two packs" e-cig lasted me 2 to 3 months and after 9 months I just stopped using that too.
I've been smoke free for 18 months now. And yes, I had the weird dreams with Chantix ... I liked them!
I understand that e-cigarettes may be able to be used to kick an addictive habit that has horrific health risks. However, it is another addictive pastime that probably has health risks of its own.
It has the potential of becoming a fad which would hook millions who believe it to be safe into a dangerous and expensive habit. Something the corporate powers would relish being that they consider this a real cash cow and anyone hooked a mere crop to be cultivated.
If I didnâ(TM)t have morals and I controlled an evil tobacco company I would endeavor to gain control of the e-cigarette market so that I could manipulate the price of both products. That way if tobacco sales started to fall off I could raise the price of e-cigarettes enough to drive customers to the more affordable tobacco products. Back and forth I would cultivate my crops.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Caffeine is pretty addicting and routinely targeted at kids and sold most everywhere in one form or another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
The two clinical trials on ecigs in 2013 have been conducted using 3.3V batteries that resemble the appearance of tobacco cigarettes. These deveices are often refferred to "cigalikes". Four major Big Tobacco companies have invested in the electronic cigarettes with the automatic function. The patent for this technology is owned by the orginal makers of electronic cigarettes, Ruyan. The automatic function uses piezoelectronic sensor, and Ruyan has been successful in defending it's patents. Blu Cig had to had to settle with Ruyan prior to being purchased by Lorrilard. You can be sure that RJR's Vuse, BAT's Vype and Phillip Morris' MarkTen have or will have to go through similar licencing of the technology. Recently, Imperial Tobacco have considered buying Ruyan's patent.
However, the major threat to Big Tobacco (and ecig companies specialising in 1st generation cigalike devices such as NJOY and E-lites), are the second generation electronic cigarettes.
A review of this recent clinical study even made a point about this: http://tobaccounpacked.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/e-cigarettes-versus-nicotine-patches/
"one issue to be clear on is that the results of the study only really applies to the brand that was tested (which was a fairly low-performance and basic e-cigarette model). E-cigarettes take many different forms and improvements in technology are rapid. If a higher performance ‘second generation’ device that provided better nicotine delivery or better consumer experience were used, results could be different. Hopefully following this study, others will design research looking at this."
Most second generation electronic cigarettes have the simple button click function, variable voltage/wattage, functioning, far longer charge time, and come with refillable tank systems. An example is the eGo model, orginally designed and patented by Janty, but through Chinese manufacturing, the eGo has been copied, rebranded numerous times, and has now essentially become a generic name for one of the most popular electronic cigarette devices. They look nothing like a real cigarette, and so these products will always have a defence against the extremist anti-smoking group claims that electronic cigarettes undermine efforts to denormalise tobacco smoking. The products offer much more to vapers over the 3.3V cigalikes that Big Tobacco have been investing in, and most long term vapers will recall their initial and 'single' purchase of a cigalike device as a mere introduction to vaping, before quickly moving to 2nd generation devices and refillable tank systems.
Even if Big Tobacco decide to start gobbling up companies that specialise in 2nd generation electronic cigarettes, it wont be hard for people to simply redesign a battery, have it maufactured in China, and sell them in competition with whatever Big Tobacco are trying to flog. Basically, Big Tobacco's days are very much numbered.
The only way Big Tobacco will survive is if Bad policy prevails, such as regulating ecigs and nicotine liquids as "medicines", which would raise the barrier to market entry into the millions of dollars, ensuring that only Big Tobacco and Big Pharma can afford to enter the market and acquire sale authorisations. Unfortunately, in the US and EU, polticians who are easily persuaded by Big Pharma and Big Tobacco lobby groups are more than happy to bow to their special interests.
The nicotine market is very messy right now.
I really, really welcome them.
I frankly don't care if you want to kill yourself, now or over time with smoking. But you are poisoning the same air I am breathing and that bothers me. And anything that can solve that is fantastic.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I think e-cigarettes *could* be as good as nicotine patches for smoking cessation *if* they were promoted and regulated in the same way. But they're not. At least not yet. I expect most countries will crack down on them in due course.
Thanks for pointing that out, I'm not yet familiar with all the new features of HTML5.
Most of the people I know that smoke have switched to e-Cigs, not to quit, but because its not as disgusting as using traditional cigarettes. I know someone that decided to start smoking specifically because he found e-Cigs was not as hard on his lungs as a regular cigarette.
I don't think these things were created to stop smoking, they were created as a modern 21st century way to get your tobacco fix in a way that doesn't make you smell like a stale ashtray, which might actually cause smoking to increase again which will bring more profit to the tobacco industry.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.