Should I take up e-cigarettes in order to stop smoking?

The medical community is divided on the matter of e-cigarettes, but they can't be as bad for you as the real thing.

Cheryl Cole, Robert Pattinson and Kate Moss have all been seen "vaping". Puffing on e-cigarettes, which produce vapour instead of smoke has been tried by up to 35% of smokers, according to the public health charity Ash (Action on Smoking and Health).

The number of UK users rose from 700,000 last year to 1.3 million this year. Smokers seem to use them on top off their normal cigarette intake, or to help them quit.

But are e–cigarettes much less damaging than the real thing? These battery-operated devices contain a cartridge filled with a liquid solution of nicotine, propylene glycol (used in special effects to create fog) and flavourings that range from traditional tobacco to candy floss. Puffing activates a heating element that vapourises the liquid in the cartridge, producing a mist that is inhaled.

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E-cigarettes raise new questions about smoking

When a friend sitting at my kitchen table pulled out what looked like a cigarette, I was about to direct her to the front porch. But then I realized that what she was blowing was an odorless vapor, not smoke. It was an electronic cigarette.

Electronic cigarettes come in a variety of shapes and models, but most consist of a battery, a heating element, and a liquid that

contains nicotine, propylene glycol and flavorings. The heating element warms and aerosolizes the liquid, turning it into a vapor the user inhales. Smoking an e-cigarette (called “vaping”), gives users a nicotine hit without exposing them, or those around them, to tobacco smoke. The lack of odor is one of the biggest selling points, says Craig Weiss, chief executive of NJoy electronic cigarettes.

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Crystal Canyon Vapes: Ecto Cooler Review

Eliquid Review of Crystal Canyon Vapes Ecto Cooler by VipVape

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Study supports e-cigarettes superiority over nicotine patches

Ground-breaking study supports e-cigarettes superiority over nicotine patches

Posted on September 7, 2013 by ACSH

In the first head-to-head comparison between e-cigarettes and nicotine patches (NRT) for helping smokers quit, a significant win for e-cigarettes was found in every measured parameter. Led by Dr. Chris Bullen of the University of Auckland, New Zealand, the researchers recruited 657 smokers who said that they wanted to quit. They were randomized into 3 groups: 289 into an e-cigarette group, 295 in the NRT group, and 73 into what they called a “placebo” group: zero-nicotine e-cigarettes. The selected marketed e-cigarette delivered a fairly low-level nicotine dose, 16 mg., while the NRTs were 21 mg. per daily patch. The study period was for 13 weeks, and the primary outcome measured was abstinence from tobacco confirmed by carbon monoxide breath testing at 6 months follow-up.

The results showed a clear win for the e-cigarette group, with 7.3 percent of that group smokefree, while the NRT group had a success rate of 5.8 percent (the placebo group had a 4.1 percent abstinence rate at 6 months). Due to the unexpectedly low success rate among the entire group, these results, while demonstrating a clear positive trend for e-cigarettes, did not achieve statistical significance. There was no advantage to any of these treatments in terms of adverse effects.

Another important finding was the likelihood of staying on the treatment throughout the study period,  even among those who did not quit completely, and the reduction of cigarette use in those non-quitters. Among those who had not managed to quit after six months, cigarette consumption was markedly reduced in the nicotine e-cigarettes group, compared to the patches and placebo groups: well over half (57%) of the participants in the e-cigarettes group had reduced their daily consumption of cigarettes by at least half after six months, compared to just over two fifths (41%) of the patches group.


In both the nicotine and placebo e-cigarettes groups, a third of participants were still using the devices after six months, compared to under one in ten (8%) of those in the patches group.  When asked whether they would recommend their allocated product to a friend one month after finishing the course, around 9 out of 10 participants in both the e-cigarettes and the placebo groups said they would, compared to just over half (56%) in the patches group.

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E-Cigarettes May Be as Effective as Patch to Help Smokers Quit

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.

About one in 20 people who used either patches or e-cigarettes managed to quit completely six months after the test started, according to research published today in The Lancet. Meanwhile, users of electronic cigarettes -- battery-powered devices that deliver vaporized nicotine -- were more likely to have cut their use of the real thing in half even if they didn’t quit entirely.

Enlarge image

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. Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

The 657-person trial wasn’t big enough to draw definite conclusions about whether e-cigarettes are better than nicotine patches, researchers said. Still, the results should be a signal to the regulators in the U.S. and Europe now weighing restrictions on e-cigarettes, Peter Hajek, a professor of clinical psychology at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, said in a comment published alongside the results.

“Health professionals will now hopefully feel easier about recommending e-cigarettes to smokers, or at least condoning their use,” Hajek wrote.

Sales Growth

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,” he wrote.

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.

That success has brought scrutiny. The French government said it planned to ban e-cigarettes from public places. The U.K. has moved to treat them as medicines. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration may announce potential restrictions as soon as next month.

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Kids use of e-cigarettes increasing?

Health officials worry it will lead to regular smoking

From The Republic By Mike Stobbe:

ATLANTA — Children — like adults — are increasingly trying electronic cigarettes, according to the first large national study to gauge use by middle and high school students.

About 2 percent of the students said they'd used an e-cigarette in the previous month, according to a survey done last year. That was up from 1 percent in 2011.

More kids still smoke traditional cigarettes than the new electronic ones, and it's not clear how dangerous e-cigarettes are. It's also not clear from the report how many are using them on a daily or weekly basis.

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E-cigarettes on the rise, but still unregulated!

Expert says e-cigarettes could be effective in quitting cigarettes or even more addictive, depending on how regulated

TOPEKA — Four years ago, when Rick Hasan first started selling electronic cigarettes, they seemed destined to be little more than a novelty, he said — the same as compact pipes and other smoking accessories available at his store.

"People were curious, but few kept buying. They would go back to the real cigarette," said Hasan, owner of Payless Smokes, a convenience and tobacco shop in Topeka. Now, "the e-cigarettes are taking up quite a bit of market share."

These days, e-cigarettes account for 15 percent of his sales, he said. Nationwide e-cigarettes are booming, with annual sales projected to reach $1.7 billion by year’s end.

The battery-operated devices — which vaporize liquid containing nicotine — have yet to be regulated by the federal government, though officials have pledged for two years now that they ultimately will be.

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Electronic cigarette firm ordered to give back online address

The boss of an electronic cigarette firm has seen his plans for an online address go up in smoke after web watchdogs ordered it be given back to a Welsh anti-tobacco charity.

Action on Smoking & Health Wales Ltd - or ASH Wales - used ashwales.co.uk as its homepage until April, 2011, when it developed a new site and forgot to renew its registration on the old domain.

Earlier this year, the Cardiff-based charity - a branch of the anti-smoking health group set-up by London's Royal College of Physicians in 1971 - discovered the domain had been bought by Surrey businessman, Brett Horth.

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Some employers penalizing workers for e-cigarette use

By Steven Ross Johnson 

A growing number of employers, including UPS and Wal-Mart Stores, have decided that electronic cigarettes are an unhealthy habit rather than a stop-smoking tool and are imposing tobacco-use penalties on employees who use them.

Ivette Lopez, a spokeswoman for UPS, confirmed the company's health plan would begin charging a monthly fee of $150 in 2014 to employees who used tobacco products, including e-cigarettes that carry liquid nicotine.

“FDA testing has determined that various samples (of e-cigarettes) have carcinogens and other toxic chemicals,” Lopez said. “They're just not proven to be safe.”

Wal-Mart spokesman Randy Hargrove said the company considers e-cigarettes a form of tobacco use, and as such, charges employees who use them higher premiums than their nontobacco workers. “We have nontobacco and tobacco rights,” Hargrove said. He used the term “rights” for describing the two separate plans the company offers to tobacco and nontobacco users.

Hargrove declined to comment on how much more Wal-Mart employees who are tobacco users have to pay in premiums compared with nontobacco users. But some tobacco users around the country may pay as much as $2,000 a year extra because of the surcharge. 

Employers that have such policies on e-cigarettes, including Wal-Mart, generally offer exemptions from the surcharge if workers participate in smoking cessation programs, but switching to e-cigarettes is not considered by these firms as participation in such programs.

The percentage of employers that have tacked a monthly surcharge on premium contributions for employees identified as tobacco users has increased from 35% in 2012 to 42% in 2013, according to an analysis conducted by the benefits consultant firm Towers Watson and the National Business Group on Health. That analysis projected the rate to rise to 62% by 2014.

Tower Watson Senior Consultant Michael Wood said he has advised clients who have asked what stand they should take on e-cigarettes to include them among products considered to be tobacco use.

“E-cigarettes have not been tested for safety,” Wood said. “Nobody knows what the ingredients really are and they have not been approved as a recognized and safe method for cessation like nicotine replacement therapy patches have or nicotine gum.”

Wood said no data have been collected yet on the number of companies deciding to include e-cigarette users among those hit with the premium surcharge. But he found among his clients that the initial reaction was in favor of penalizing them.

“They're just too many question marks about (e-cigarettes),” Wood said. “And if they're being manufactured by tobacco companies, they don't exactly have a stalwart track record of being forthcoming about what's exactly in their products.”

Employers application of surcharges to e-cigarette users is challenged by those who say standard cigarette smokers have been able to quit smoking through the use of e-cigarettes, which they claim are free of the harmful health effects of standard cigarettes.

“This is basically what I would call a harm reduction strategy,” said Michael Siegel, a public health professor at Boston University. He compared the use of e-cigarettes to help smokers quit tobacco with using methadone to wean addicts off heroin. “The whole idea of harm reduction is when you have a product that is not safe, but is a lot safer than the drug that's being used.”

Despite such claims, Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, said using e-cigarettes is still tobacco use and should be treated as such by employers. “Somebody could say if they smoked six cigarettes a day instead of 25 or 30, because they're smoking less and they're using it to taper down, they should not be penalized for using tobacco,” Darling said. “It's the same principle.”

The Food and Drug Administration is expected to come out with a proposed set of regulations on e-cigarettes in October. If the agency labels use of e-cigarettes as “tobacco use,” it could open the door for health insurers under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to charge users up to premiums as much as 50% higher than non-smokers.

Originaly published by Modern Healthcare

Companies spend huge sums on TV ads...

Companies spend huge sums on TV ads, sponsorships to boost e-cigarette sales

NEW YORK: Electronic cigarettes may be a creation of the early 21st century, but critics of the devices say manufacturers are increasingly borrowing marketing tactics that are more reminiscent of the heady days of tobacco in the mid-1900s.

With US smokers buying e-cigarettes at a record pace — annual sales are expected to reach $1.7 billion by year's end — e-cigarette makers are opening their wallets wide, spending growing sums on TV commercials with celebrities, catchy slogans and sports sponsorships.

Those tactics can no longer be used to sell tobacco cigarettes, but are readily available to the ecigarette industry because it is not covered by the laws or regulations that affect the tobacco cigarette industry. The e-cigarette industry is also spending lavishly on marketing methods that are also still available to their tobacco brethren, including promotions, events, sample giveaways and print ads.

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