Tag Archives: ecigs

No smoke. Why the fire?

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From The Economist

The world should welcome the electronic cigarette
SOME inventions are so simple, you have to wonder why no one has come up with them before. One such is the electronic cigarette. Smoking tobacco is the most dangerous voluntary activity in the world. More than 5m people die every year of the consequences. That is one death in ten. People smoke because they value the pleasure they get from nicotine in tobacco over the long-term certainty that their health will be damaged. So it seems rational to welcome a device that separates the dangerous part of smoking (the tar, carbon monoxide and smoke released by the process of combustion) from the nicotine. And that is what an e-cigarette does. It uses electricity from a small battery to vaporise a nicotine-containing solution, so that the user can breathe it in.

E-cigarettes do not just save the lives of smokers: they bring other benefits too. Unlike cigarettes, they do not damage the health of bystanders. They do not even smell that bad, so there is no public nuisance, let alone hazard, and thus no reason to ban their use in public places. Pubs and restaurants should welcome them with open arms.

Read full article at http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573986-world-should-welcome-electronic-cigarette-no-smoke-why-fire

Study: E-Cig Vapor ‘Less Injurious’ Than Cigarette Smoke

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Independent research continues to support electronic cigarettes as safe alternative
from CSP Net
BUFFALO, N.Y.– A newly released independent study of the chemical constituents of electronic cigarette vapor shows that e-cigarettes drastically reduce a user’s exposure to various chemicals found in tobacco cigarettes. Titled “Levels of Selected Carcinogens and Toxicants in Vapour From Electronic Cigarettes” and published by Tobacco Control, the study concluded that e-cigarettes could be a promising harm-reduction tool.

“The results of this study support the proposition that the vapor from e-cigarettes is less injurious than the smoke from cigarettes,” wrote the report’s lead author, Maciej L. Goniewicz of the Buffalo, N.Y.-based Roswell Park Cancer Institute. ‘Thus one would expect that if a person switched from conventional cigarettes to e-cigarettes the exposure to toxic chemicals and related adverse health effects would be reduced.”

Goniewicz and his fellow scientists analyzed levels of selected carbonyl compounds, volatile organic compounds, tobacco-specific nitrosamines and metals found in the vapor of 12 different e-cigarette brands, comparing the results to the levels found in both tobacco cigarettes and in a medicinal nicotine inhaler.

The report found that “levels of selected toxic compounds found in the smoke from a conventional cigarette were 9-450-fold higher than levels in the vapor of an e-cigarette. … Exposure to acrolein, an oxidant and respiratory irritant thought to be a major contributor to cardiovascular disease from smoking, is 15 times lower on average in e-cigarette vapor compared with cigarette smoke. The amounts of toxic metals and aldehydes in e-cigarettes are trace amounts and are comparable with amounts contained in an examined therapeutic product.”

There was still some risk associated with compounds found in e-cigarette vapor, particularly an exposure to carcinogenic formaldehyde. The study found similar amounts of formaldehyde in tobacco cigarettes, e-cigarettes and medicinal inhalers–although the amount of formaldehyde found in the 12 different brands of e-cigarettes ranged from 3.2 micrograms per 150 puffs (comparable to the levels from the nicotine inhaler) to 56.1 micrograms per 150 puffs.

In his “Tobacco Analyses” blog, Michael Siegel theorized that the formaldehyde could be the result of the heating of propylene glycol or the oxidation or hydrolysis of glycerin and advocated further research.

Even with the formaldehyde findings, the study–which was not funded by e-cigarette companies, but by the Ministry of Science & Higher Education of Poland and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)–provides strong evidence in support of e-cigarettes.

“Our findings are consistent with the idea that substituting tobacco cigarettes with e-cigarettes may substantially reduce exposure to selected tobacco-specific toxicants,” the report said. “E-cigarettes as a harm-reduction strategy among smokers unwilling to quit, warrants further study.”

Perceived efficacy of e-cigarettes versus nicotine replacement therapy

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Perceived efficacy of e-cigarettes versus nicotine replacement therapy among successful e-cigarette users: a qualitative approach

from Adiction Science & Clinical Practice ASCP Journal

Background

Nicotine is widely recognized as an addictive psychoactive drug. Since most smokers are bio-behaviorally addicted, quitting can be very difficult and is often accompanied by withdrawal symptoms. Research indicates that nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) can double quit rates. However, the success rate for quitting remains low. E-cigarettes (electronic cigarettes) are battery-powered nicotine delivery devices used to inhale doses of vaporized nicotine from a handheld device similar in shape to a cigarette without the harmful chemicals present in tobacco products. Anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that e-cigarettes may be effective in helping smokers quit and preventing relapse, but there have been few published qualitative studies, especially among successful e-cigarette users, to support this evidence.

Methods

Qualitative design using focus groups (N = 11); 9 men and 2 women. Focus groups were conducted by posing open-ended questions relating to the use of e-cigarettes, comparison of effectiveness between NRTs and e-cigarettes, barriers to quitting, and reasons for choosing e-cigarettes over other methods.

Results

Five themes emerged that describe users’ perceptions of why e-cigarettes are efficacious in quitting smoking: 1) bio-behavioral feedback, 2) social benefits, 3) hobby elements, 4) personal identity, and 5) distinction between smoking cessation and nicotine cessation. Additionally, subjects reported their experiences with NRTs compared with e-cigarettes, citing negative side effects of NRTs and their ineffectiveness at preventing relapse.

Conclusion

These findings suggest tobacco control practitioners must pay increased attention to the importance of the behavioral and social components of smoking addiction. By addressing these components in addition to nicotine dependence, e-cigarettes appear to help some tobacco smokers transition to a less harmful replacement tool, thereby maintaining cigarette abstinence.

See complete article and download PDF at http://www.ascpjournal.org/content/8/1/5/abstract

Hi-tech, safe ‘cigarette’ may soon be up in smoke

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Good balanced article (apart from the headline!) in today’s Examiner

By Jason Walsh

It’s Nov 1, the traditional day for quitting bad habits, but e-cigs, which look real but are harmless, may soon be banned, says Jason Walsh

IT’S been years since smoking was cool, but neither that nor a ban on smoking in public buildings has stubbed out the habit. Electronic cigarettes might, if they aren’t banned, and it’s Nov 1, the day designated for quitting bad habits.

Invented by Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik, e-cigs use a battery to atomise a liquid solution and deliver a smoke-like vapour to the lungs of the user.

The users, or ‘vapers’, inhale a compound of propylene glycol — the base used in asthma inhalers — food flavouring and, optionally, nicotine, getting the throat hit and psychological fix of a cigarette without smoking. No tobacco is involved, nothing burns and the exhaled vapour is odourless — it doesn’t smell of burnt leaves.

Vapers can flout the smoking ban — for now. E-cigs are popular with smokers tired of standing in the wind and rain on a night out, and with smokers for whom other methods of quitting were unsatisfactory.

Vaper Shane Dowling, from County Clare, previously smoked 40 cigarettes a day. “I started smoking 30 years ago, when I was nine. I tried everything to quit: patches, gum, Champix twice, willpower, and nothing worked,” he says.

Vapers did, and Dowling organised Vapefest Ireland, a meet-up for vapers held in Abbeyleix in September. Three hundred attended and Dowling hopes it will go annual. “I can’t stand the smell of being around smokers, my stomach turns,” says Dowling.

Celebrities are vaping. Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton, David Letterman, Dennis Quaid and Katherine Heigl have all been snapped vaping. As has Lindsay Lohan, though that may not be an endorsement.

In Ireland, vaping was a fringe activity but may soon be mainstream. A specialist shop, Ovale, has opened in Dublin’s Gardiner Street, Londis sells starter kits, and many convenience stores sell disposable units that last a day.

Gerry Feehily, from Bundoran, lives in Paris and started vaping when a friend sent him a starter kit. At first, Feehily was dubious.

“I secretly hoped the delivery would be delayed. But the ‘transfer’, if I can call it that, was almost immediate. During the next two days, I smoked an occasional real cigarette, but I actually found I preferred vaping on the virtual one.”

A two-packs-a-day man who’d cut down to 15 cigarettes, Feehily found the transition “miraculous”.

Read more……….

Are E-Cigs the Wave of the Future?

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from http://www.cspnet.com/news/tobacco/articles/are-e-cigs-wave-future

NEW YORK — Use of electronic cigarettes could overtake consumption of traditional cigarettes within 10 years, Bonnie Herzog, New York City-based managing director of beverage, tobacco and consumer research for Wells Fargo Securities LLC, speculated in a research note.

“While difficult to predict, we think it is possible that consumption of e-cigarettes could outpace traditional cigarettes over the next decade, especially given the rapid pace of innovation and consumers’ demand for reduced harm products,” Herzog said.

She drew a parallel between e-cigs and energy drinks. “We think e-cigs are to tobacco what energy drinks are to the beverage industry; therefore, we think Big Tobacco needs to wake up and recognize the potential opportunity of the e-cigarette category and not make the mistakes of the large beverage companies that overlooked the potential of the energy drink category when it was in its nascent stage.”

Herzog’s bottom line: “We believe e-cigs are more than just a fad and most of our industry trade contacts agree. Considering both [Lorillard and Reynolds American] have dipped their toes in the e-cig waters, the next move is [Altria's], and we expect it to be big.”

In the spring, Lorillard Inc. acquired U.S. e-cigarette manufacturer blu ecigs for $135 million (see Related Content below for previous CSP Daily News coverage).

While the segment is currently small compared to the rest of the tobacco category–Lorillard estimates it generates about $300 million in revenue and the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association cites 2.5 million e-cig users–based on the responses to Wells Fargo’s “Tobacco Talk” surveys and a meeting with an e-cig leader, Herzog believes it won’t be long before electronic cigarettes represent a substantial portion of tobacco sales.

Retailers’ high level of enthusiasm is just one of the reasons Herzog believes e-cigarettes could surpass traditional cigarettes in upcoming years. When asked if e-cigarettes will become the new way to smoke, Tobacco Talk respondents offered many positive sentiments, including “as cigarettes decline in volume, e-cigarettes … will help pick up volume,” “it will eventually be the way to smoke since many areas are banning smoking in public areas” and “e-cigs are the new era of smoking.”

read more

RJ Reynolds to Launch eCig

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In yet another sign that electronic cigarettes are becoming more mainstream, RJ Reynolds the second largest tobacco company in the USA and owners of Camel and Winston cigarette brands are launching their own disposable e-cig, called the ‘Vuse Solo’

 

Reynolds have said “We believe there is significant growth potential in these new product formats, and we believe that our expertise and proprietary technology will give us a competitive edge.”

I wonder which of the well known manufacturers this side of the pond will be first follow suit?

 

Dr. Whelan and Dr. Ross ask the FDA to reconsider e-cigarettes

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Came across this letter on The American Council on Science and Health website which was also published on the Electronic Cigarette Forum Although directed at the FDA in America, I feel that the points raised are equally applicable both here in Ireland and elsewhere. See end of letter for some serious credentials of the people heading up ACSH!

LETTER
Publication Date: May 29, 2012
To: Center for Tobacco Products,
Food and Drug Administration

From: The American Council on Science and Health
Elizabeth M. Whelan, President
Gilbert Ross, Executive Director and Medical Director

Re: Electronic cigarettes

The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a consumer education and advocacy nonprofit devoted throughout our 34-year history to the promotion of sound science in public health policy, urges the FDA to reconsider their current, hyper-precautionary position on electronic cigarettes. The truth is, e-cigarettes have the potential to help the 20 percent of Americans who remain addicted to smoking.

The FDA website states that “e-cigarettes may contain ingredients that are known to be toxic to humans, and may contain ingredients that may not be safe.” Our question, however, is: safe compared to what? Those smokers who turn to e-cigarettes are already deeply addicted to smoking tobacco cigarettes. Ideally, e-cigarettes ease the transition from smoking to being tobacco- and nicotine-free. However, even former smokers who substitute e-cigarettes for their tobacco cigarettes make a choice that is far more beneficial to their health than continuing to smoke. While the FDA cautions that e-cigarettes may contain ingredients that are unsafe, we point out that tobacco cigarettes undeniably contain ingredients that are not safe. For someone who is strongly addicted to nicotine, that difference is crucial.

We at ACSH are in favor of truthfully communicating with smokers about the benefits of a harm reduction approach and promoting this as a new paradigm to deal with the unacceptable toll of smoking. The methodologies comprising tobacco harm reduction (THR) have significant potential benefits in terms of reducing the serious toll of cigarette smoking; these methodologies supply addicted smokers with the substance they crave — nicotine — but at a much reduced cost in terms of adverse health effects.
While we are in full agreement that no form of tobacco use is entirely “safe” (i.e., without an increased risk of adverse health effects), and that therefore all tobacco use should be discouraged, it is still necessary to acknowledge that there are 46 million addicted adult smokers in our nation. The problem remains that, while almost three-quarters wish to quit, and almost one-half do indeed attempt to quit each year, well under ten percent succeed. One reason for this abysmal “success” rate is that the methods approved by the FDA (including the nicotine patch, gum, inhalers, and pharmaceuticals such as Zyban and Chantix) and promoted by the official public health authorities and the large nonprofits, are simply not helpful to the majority of those who try them.

E-cigarettes do help people quit. The increasing evidence from anecdotal reports and clinical studies shows that addicted smokers are significantly more likely to quit cigarettes when they are aided by e-cigarettes as opposed to those cessation products approved by the FDA[1]. Furthermore, the FDA’s warning that the chemicals in e-cigarette vapor may be “unsafe” or “toxic” is not backed by evidence that trace amounts actually cause any harm; in fact, similar traces of these same “carcinogens” have been detected in other FDA-approved cessation products such as nicotine patches and gum. The difference seems to be that e-cigarettes actually succeed in getting people to quit smoking.

A product that can end a smoker’s exposure to the carcinogenic products in tobacco smoke is not one that can be dismissed lightly. It should not be rejected based upon ideology or unscientific extrapolation and insinuation. This is why, instead of warning the public about unlikely risks associated with e-cigarettes, the FDA should also consider their benefits: taking steps that encourage further study and better regulation of these products will be more advantageous to everyone involved. At the very least, the FDA’s position should be expectant, neutral, rather than dismissive.

We at ACSH firmly believe that the more comprehensive the investigation, the more likely it is that reasonable people will come to understand that the official policies of adhering to a current attitude of “quit or die” does little to affect the continued toll of over 400,000 smoking-related deaths each year. This is no longer an acceptable position from a public health perspective, which is why we ask you to reconsider your negative stance toward e-cigarettes.

Thank you for your consideration.


Elizabeth M. Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.

President, The American Council on Science and Health

Gilbert Ross, M.D.
Medical Director, Executive Director, The American Council on Science and Health

Nigel Bark, M.D.
Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Sir Colin Berry, D.Sc., Ph.D., M.D., M.B, FRCPath
Professor of Morbid Anatomy and Histopathology
Director, Institute of Pathology, Royal London Hospital

Emil William Chynn, MD, FACS, MBA
Attending Surgeon and Resident Instructor
New York Eye & Ear Infirmary

Laura C. Green, Ph.D., D.A.B.T.
Senior Scientist and President
Cambridge Environmental Inc

Clark W. Heath, JR., M.D.
Vice President Emeritus
Epidemiology and Surveillance Research
American Cancer Society

James D. Herbert, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences
Drexel University

William M. London, Ed.D., M.P.H.

Professor, Department of Public Health

California State University, Los Angeles

Albert G. Nickel
Chairman (ret.)
LyonHeart

Bill D. Roebuck, Ph.D.
Professor of Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth

Marvin J. Schissel, D.D.S.
David E. Seidemann, Ph.D.
Professor of Geology
Department of Geology
Brooklyn College, CUNY

Michael Siegel, MD, MPH
Professor
Department of Community Health Sciences
Boston University School of Public Health

[1] Polosa, R. et al. (2011). “Effect of an electronic nicotine delivery device (e-Cigarette) on smoking reduction and cessation: a prospective 6-month pilot study.” BMC Public Health. 11: 786