Vaping is catching on. The number of American smokers who have tried e-cigarettes doubled in just a year, from 10 percent in 2010 to about 21 percent in 2011, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
Among former smokers, the number grew from 2.5 percent to 7.4 percent, according to the report in the journal Nicotine & Tobacco Research.
E-cigarette use is growing rapidly, says CDC Director Thomas Frieden. There is still a lot we don t know about these products, including whether they will decrease or increase use of traditional cigarettes.
smoking cessation
Get ready to hear more about electronic cigarettes except about how they can possibly help people quit smoking. Some e-cig manufacturers are gearing up for an expensive ad campaign, the New York Times reports. Scottsdale, Ariz.-based NJoy Inc. is spending $12 to $14 million to promote its NJoy King, while Lorillard s BlueCigs has hired actor Stephen Dorff to promote their product. There have even been ads on cable stations, although no network has agreed to run the spots.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has just unveiled a new website, BeTobaccoFree.Gov, and as usual those in charge have chosen to keep on demonizing reduced risk tobacco products such as smokeless, and electronic cigarettes. E-Cigarettes may contain ingredients that are known to be toxic to humans. Because clinical studies about the safety of e-cigarettes have not been submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), you have no way of knowing ¦ if they are safe [or] which chemicals they contain, the website says.
An Inhalation Toxicology study found that very few chemicals in very low concentrations were detected.
As I mentioned on Monday, the Chairman of the New York Senate Health Committee recently proposed a ban on e-cigarettes in New York. I was disturbed that such a counterproductive measure would actually be considered. I sent a letter to the members of the Senate Health committee, which while expressing support for the proposal to ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors explains why a total ban would be antithetical to public health:
Dear Senators:
Speaking for The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH, www.acsh.org), a consumer education and advocacy nonprofit devoted to sound public health policy based on science, we most strongly opposed any consideration of a ban on the sales/marketing of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes, or ENDS--electronic nicotine delivery systems) in the State of New York. This proposal, by Sen. Hannon (S07635), is not only NOT a benefit to public health, it is in fact directly counter to it.
On the other hand, ACSH fully supports Senator Johnson's bill, S02926B , which would bar sales of ENDS (e-cigarettes) to minors.
Don’t let the Lexington-Herald Leader headline, “Madison County health board bans electronic cigarettes,” fool you. The Madison County Board of Health has actually added electronic cigarettes to their list of indoor smoking restrictions, perhaps due to an FDA warning in 2009 cautioning that the nicotine-delivery devices supposedly contain “toxic” ingredients. The amendment will go into effect in 60 days. “Their health board clearly does not understand what e-cigarettes really are,” says ACSH’s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan.
My mother smoked while she was pregnant with my sister and me. I used to light her cigarettes while she was driving. One time I handed her a lit Benson & Hedges backwards, burning her lip and nearly causing a huge freeway accident. Swerving wildly, she managed to avoid the car in front of her — and quickly grabbed for the cigarette, which had flown out of her hand. Puffing rapidly, she got the cherry back up to a glow, and a look of calm passed over her face as she blew out her first inhale.
ACSH s Dr. Elizabeth Whelan comes to the defense of actress Katherine Heigl s decision to use e-cigarettes as a safer, more effective method of kicking her smoking habit for good. In her op-ed published Saturday in The Daily Caller, Dr. Whelan underscores the stagnant rate of smoking among adults over the last five years and emphasizes how e-cigarettes provide a safer alternative to the harmful combustion products of real cigarettes:
Last Monday, “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Knocked Up” actress Katherine Heigl promoted e-cigarettes (electronic cigarettes) as her most effective smoking cessation option on the
Committed cigarette smokers demonstrate that where there’s a will, there’s a way. In order to continue smoking but also circumvent the recent tax hikes on cigarettes, people have come up with a novel solution: roll-your-own cigarette machines. Found in about 150 tobacco outlets in 20 states, these machines produce a carton of cigarettes in about eight minutes and cost about $21, which explains why people wait up to an hour on some days to use this service.
ACSH staffers were excited with the overwhelming response we received over the weekend via e-mail and Twitter to our question asking readers whether they or someone they know used electronic cigarettes as an effective method to successfully quit smoking.
Numerous people wrote in testimonials describing how, thanks to e-cigs, they have kicked their cigarette habits for good:
I have been using e-cigarettes for 13 months. I smoked 2 packs a day for 35 years. I only bought my first e-cig to try it, but quickly learned that I liked it better than a regular cigarette and switched almost instantly. —Janet Andersen