Search

Our Northern neighbor, Canada, has faced the same problem with the use of e-cigarettes among teenagers, banning their sale on a provincial basis between 2015 to 2017 and nationally in May 2018. Canada also has data of e-cigarette use from before these laws went into place, making for a natural cause and effect experiment, reported in JAMA Pediatrics. 

The analysis looked at the differences in the use of e-cigarettes by people younger than 18 or 19 in provinces with and without the ban; the key assumption, motivation to use these vaping devices, was the same or similar across them all. The study made use of nationwide biennial surveys on tobacco, alcohol and drug use in Canadians over the age of 15. [1] It provided data of use, source of vaping products and harm perception. Since...

If somebody invented a device that could save the lives of millions of smokers, should society encourage its use? Yes, absolutely, the Parliament of the United Kingdom just concluded in a new report on e-cigarettes.

Published by the Science and Technology Committee, the report does not mince its words. It claims that the UK's National Health Service (NHS) is "missing [an] opportunity" to save lives by overlooking the benefits of e-cigarettes.

The report summary begins...

E-vapor ArrayA new survey of smoking, tobacco and nicotine use by American adults underwritten by Reuters and Ipsos revealed that about one in ten of us vape use e-cigarettes or one of the 2nd or 3rd generation vapor products to reduce their consumption of cigarettes, or quit smoking entirely. (Ipsos is an international market research firm).

The poll was conducted between May 19 and June 4; respondents numbered 5,679 adults. Among those under the age of 40, 15 percent were vapers. (The most...

She Loves to VapeA long article in Saturday s New York Times covered a lot of ground in the complex discussion ongoing about electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes, or e-cigs), but did not shed much light on the issue which is already subject to too much heated distraction.

The piece, cleverly (not) called The E-Cigarette Industry, Waiting to Exhale, gave a brief but satisfactory history of the...

Heart testing

A pilot study of 60 subjects seems to show a distinct lack of adverse effects of e-cigarette use ("vaping" as its called) on coronary artery blood flow and vascular resistance, as well as on blood levels of carbon monoxide (CO), while regular cigarettes had significant adverse effects on all measured parameters. The report was presented at the European Society of Cardiology and has not yet been published.

Dr. Konstantin Farsalinos of the Onassis Surgery Center in...

Vaping-NOT-Smoking-225x148The Family Smoking Prevention Tobacco Control Act, passed in 2009, gave regulatory authority over tobacco products to the FDA. One of the law s edicts was that the agency had to figure out how to deal with novel (newer) products, especially including e-cigarettes. Earlier this year (April 25th), the FDA announced that henceforth, e-cigs were to be deemed a tobacco product even though they contain no tobacco and emit no smoke. Further, they determined that products introduced into the market after a grandfather date of 2/15/07 would have to apply to remain on the market via something...

The popular press regularly botches its science reporting. Not a week goes by without an exaggerated headline about the so-called “vaping epidemic” or a news story erroneously warning that an innocuous pesticide causes cancer.

Fact checking the media's...

The research involved 26 healthy "occasional cannabis users" [1] in a double-blind study. Each participant acted as their own controls, along with vaping cannabis combinations, and then let loose on the roads for a 100-km ride. Not to worry, the car had duel controls and a safety officer to take over if necessary. The participants vaped either THC-dominant, CBD-dominant, THC-CBD equivalent, or placebo mixtures. THC has all the psychoactive properties, while CBD is believed, especially by the supplement community, to provide a host of non-psychoactive but useful cannabinoids (presumably to reduce stress and anxiety). Both THC and CBD were given at specific doses, although the amount inhaled versus the amount absorbed varies with how long you retain the inhalation.

Forty or 240...

richard-hortonThe latest issue of the British-based medical journal The Lancet has an editorial entitled, E-cigarettes aid to smoking cessation or smokescreen? Readers of this mindless repetition of anti-harm-reduction dogma will soon conclude that the ? at the end is not to be taken seriously: the editorialist has drawn his own conclusions based on his own pre-ordained beliefs.

I am pretty sure that the author is the journal s long-time editor-in-chief, Richard Horton. Long before he decided to take an axe to the concept...

Vaping, NOT SmokingMillions (or is it billions?) of people worldwide will be watching the Super Bowl this Sunday evening, among whom will be many millions of smokers. Our nation alone has over 40 million of these troubled souls, most of whom want to quit, but can t, as only about one-in-twenty succeed in escaping the addictive pull of cigarettes. Still, the cold-turkey method quitting without medicinal help is more successful than the abysmally-ineffective FDA-approved drugs and NRT patches, which fail about 90 percent of the time. These depressing stats lead to this even more depressing...