Those who are trying to impede the spread of the reduced-harm nicotine delivery device known as the e-cigarette will find their task at least a bit harder henceforth. One of the pseudo-arguments against smokers using this technology to help them quit is that young people who are non-smokers might find the devices attractive, try them, and become hooked on nicotine sort of like becoming a vampire after one bite on the neck. The FDA s website continues to promulgate such alarms.
Two studies should help to quash those hypothetical and now baseless concerns. The first (actually first published last year) was a survey of 3,240 respondents, asked about their tobacco and nicotine use. Among those, the authors were able to identify only 6 nonsmokers who had ever tried what they called ENDS: electronic nicotine delivery system. Not exactly honey to a bee.
A brand-new survey done by the UK s Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) came up with similar information. Among 2,178 youngsters aged 11-18, awareness of e-cigarettes was high, about two-thirds of younger teens and five-sixths of older teens had heard of them.
Here are the key conclusions of this large and well-controlled survey:
Among children who have heard of e-cigarettes, sustained use is rare and confined to children who currently or have previously smoked ¦.Of those who had never smoked a cigarette, 99% reported never having tried e-cigarettes and the remaining 1% reported having tried them once or twice . We found no evidence of regular e-cigarette use among children who have never smoked or who have only tried smoking once.
ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross had this perspective: Given the dramatic decline in cigarette sales over the past two years, contemporaneous with the amazing increase in e-cigarette uptake sales have doubled each year for the past three years, with millions of vapers switching from cigarettes in the U.S. and Europe it is an ongoing mystery as to why public health officials here and abroad continue to stonewall on harm reduction. They use any excuse to deceive and distort data supporting the benefits of these products, whose replacement of deadly cigarettes should be the public health miracle story of the 21st century. The FDA and the CDC are in the forefront of this propaganda smokescreen, ably abetted by the large nonprofits, many of whom are generously supported by pharmaceutical companies marketing ineffective cessation products.
In this regard, nothing has changed since I called this scandalous, shameful situation to attention last year.