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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."
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.
There's an e-cig kiosk at my local mall. In Ottawa, Canada. You can't smoke real cigarettes anywhere. Not in any workplace (including restaurants and bars), I think the one exception being hotel rooms, but that's only in designated smoking rooms, and not in common areas. You can't even smoke in public parks. Anyway, the people selling the e-cigs were smoking them at the kiosk. I didn't notice any odour, and it definitely didn't bother me. But I do kind of wonder if there are any effects anyway. If completely safe, I wouldn't mind this coming into general use for people who wish to smoke. It's much nicer than stepping into an elevator with a person who just came in from smoking, or even an elevator that was recently used by a smoker. The smell tends to linger quite a while. I used to not think it was such a bad thing, but since they've just about outlawed it everywhere, I've started to get bothered by it more and more. Also, can't say I'd miss having tons of cigarette butts left on the ground at the entrance to every building.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see 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.
yummy, I always like breathing in someone else's medicated ethylene glycol.
It's propylene glycol. But besides that, second hand nicotine was never an issue (and propylene glycol is recognized as safe, and even used in many asthma inhalers). The harm from second hand smoke comes from the smoke particles, something that's not present in e-cig vapor.
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.
Is it? Is there any *real* evidence that pure nicotine, in these sort of doses, is actually harmful for you, when not associated with tars, benzene, and all the other nasties in cig smoke? Or is it more like caffeine, where it might exactly be "healthy", but the real risk at typical usage levels is miniscule.
TODO: Something witty here...
Huh. I thought the real point was to at least avoid the harm of smoking tobacco. Even if I never quit the ecig, I think I've still done something very, very good for my health.
Your post is very disingenuous. The article itself says "3 out of 10" are found to contain acrolein and formaldehyde. For 10 bonus points, explain why they contain it and the others don't. I find it very odd that some ecigs are able to synthesize these two chemicals from the 3 main ingredients of eliquid and others don't. Perhaps what you mean to say is "A study found that if you put similar levels of formaldehyde and acrolein in you liquid mixtures as found in regular cigarettes, then they will contain similar levels of..." you get the point.
After playing link telephone, since the actual study is stupidly deep in a chain of 4 links, as far as I can tell it's a "study" conducted by a consumer research group in France called "60 Million Consumers" (translated). The entire text of the study is about 3 paragraphs long, and has approximately zero details (i.e. how much was in the samples, or what the deviation was) ascertainable through Google Translate.
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 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.
Chantix was great. I was able to quit after a week of taking it. I was smoke free for a few years.
I started smoking again when my wife passed a few months ago. I tried using Chantix again but the nightmares were terrible. It got to the point were I was terrified to go to sleep. I'm going to try again when things are less "fresh."
It is amazing how quickly smoking has effected my breathing this time around. I don't remember the effects being so quick last time.