New study counters health arguments against e-cigarettes

New study counters health arguments against e-cigarettes

A new study about popular E-Cigs is saying they are generally safe.

Many people have actually quit or cut down substantially from smoking without the usual withdrawals and/or medical treatments.

We have also seen big efforts to knock the E-Cigs as dangerous.

Estimates have sales between 1 and 2 billion dollars a year, and as high as $10 billion in a few years from now.

Those sales numbers are certainly fuel for fires to be set by the current "non owners" of the products like the tobacco companies who sell traditional tobacco, and the drug companies who sell the cures.

OKLAHOMA CITY – A new paper from the R Street Institute, a national research group, aggressively defends e-cigarettes.

E-CIG RESEARCH: A new study from the R Street Institute makes the case of e-cigarettes a tool in Tobacco Harm Reduction strategies for public health.

Dr. Joel Nitzkin’s analysis broadly counters attacks on e-cigarettes, which have mounted in recent months. Time will tell if the study’s conclusions offset or ameliorate the impact of those attacks.

Nitzkin calls the e-cigs a tool in tobacco-harm reduction and pointed criticism at some of the most often-referenced events or studies assailing the safety of “vapor” devices.

Release of Nitzkin’s analysis for R Street Institute comes in the midst of discussion here in Oklahoma of e-cigarette bans in public settings, including parks. Such ordinances have passed in the communities of Ada and Shawnee, but a proposal in Tahlequah was pulled from the city council agenda last week.

New study counters health arguments against e-cigarettes

'Bout the only thing that could be dangerous about 'em is letting the heating element get too close to the fibers. Still probably safer even if one did. Pay attention to the additives, too, but cigs have a BUNCH more generally. Cigs are obviously the lesser choice.

Good OP.

You have to understand that anti-cigarette mentality is only partially based on actual health concerns.
A lot of it is an emotional bent that allows no alternative.
A safe way to smoke is offensive to people who have become emotionally conditioned to hate smoking.

Social conditioning rarely allows leeway for an individual to make personal decisions.

reply to post by xuenchen


Thankyou for that. I smoked a pack to pack and a half for about 35 years. Got onto ecigs 8 months ago. Have my breath and better health and fitness. Cost is also minimul. Feeling much better and fitter. No more phlegm or hacking coughs. No odour, ashtrays, smelly breath, complaining children. Can spend my earnings elsewhere. Car no longer smells of nicotine. The benefits I have experienced since making the switch go on and on. If they are proven to be a hazard then from my experience it is a lesser evil. I am no scientist but as an alternative to a packet smoking tobacco addiction the ecigs are the way for me.

Also I still comply with tobacco regs/laws. I do no use an ecig in public and still puff away outdoors at home. My only real enjoyment is being able to puff and drive when on long trips without lighting up. Ecig is handy in my top pocket or on the console charging. No need to empty the car ashtray either.

Cheers. Bally.

reply to post by bally001


Same experience here, almost exactly, 8 months and never looking back except to wish I found them sooner, smelling SO much better, got them pearly whites back, but even more...I used to take 50mg of metropolol and 40-25mg of benicar-HCT a day to control high blood pressure. Since I switched 8 months ago, blood pressure has not only been low, but also my resting pulse rate dropped dramatically - so much that doctors have reduced my doses the last two visits (now 12mg and 20-12mg - bare minimum) and promise to remove it completely by the end of the year (dam getting off the meds is harder than the tobacco!!!). My resting pulse rate used to be about 70 - last two visits it was 47 and 52! And I can walk and even RUN again without fearing the reaper!

I am courteous to others, but have puffed at my desk...someone walked in and asked where was the chocolate pie, damn that smells good! That would not happen with a Marlboro. I was outside with a friend and he smarted off about my 'smoking' - I pointed out the smoking area behind us - he comments "just picking on ya, that stuff actually smells good".

We can't let big pharma, big tobacco, and misguided children's advocacy groups, as well as the anti-everything zealots take this away. We are a minority within an abused minority (smokers) that have been pushed out into the cold and treated like deviants. We must STAND UP and be counted, and fight for our rights, for us and for the remaining smokers that may want a different and safer option some day.

Frankly, the vapor from my vanilla nut flavor is probably less dangerous than the vapor coming off the coffeepot, and DEFINITELY less dangerous than the popcorn in the microwave at lunch! And a factor of thousands of times less dangerous than the cancer sticks I smoked since age 16.

Hell if any of these idiots trying to pass these laws actually cared about people's health, they would be PROMOTING this and advocating its use everywhere, to ADD INCENTIVE to smokers for an option that gives them their freedom back without hurting those around them.

Compared to patches and gum, this is not a treatment, nor some type of method that is accepted begrudgingly to get away from tobacco - instead this is an upgrade (in my experience) that is a great improvement over the 'joy' of smoking without the dangers, and the offensive trash and smell! Put me on an island with a carton of Marlboros, and I will happily swim back to the mainland to get my e-cig. No cravings AT ALL - with these, any thought of wanting some cig is so rapidly replaced with disgust, that I can never imagine picking one up again.

And I didn't even intend to quit smoking when I tried them! It just HAPPENED, it was THAT EASY. For a two-pack-a-day smoker, that says a LOT.

Don't take my e-cig away!

reply to post by lakesidepark


Its different aye LSP. I'll gladly support ecigs to addicted smokers. Its a preferable choice. And...like you said, I wish I had made the switch sooner. I just smoke a tobacco flavour. Tried the sweet stuff for a while but went back for the flavour of cut tobacco. Good on you.

reply to post by xuenchen


I`m so glad of this news. I`ve not smoked since January this year and its all down to the e-cigs.

OK i`ve had a sneaky few draws here and there but i smoked a horrendous amount and it was clearly damaging my health. The e-cig has literally been a life saver for me, i can tell because my cough has gone i can smell and taste things again and i can out walk my dogs if i have too.

The health worries over these e-cigs is far far outweighed by that of the normal cigarette, plus the money i`ve saved, my house and clothes don`t smell of old smoke no more etc etc.

Thanx for the heads up OP.

Same as the other posts here, I started using e cig on June 29 2012 and I have not touched a cigarette since, so I'm at 17 months and I use it less now than I did when I started , same results as everyone else house smells better cloths breath and everything else smells better, it is a very valid way of quitting smoking. I'm living proof it works to get you off cigarettes , cause the truth was I didn't want to quit smoking, I enjoyed it but once I made it I realized I would nerve go back to cigarettes.

I've got a few of my ex smoker friends on the ecigs. Same results for them. I really guess that perhaps the word should be spread. Again, I emphasise that I have no scientific background other than being a "subjective expert" after making the switch.

And yes, I puff less and less as mentioned. The benefits of a switch from tobacco products outweigh the misconceptions regarding using ecigs.

Bally

reply to post by bally001


Nothing wrong with the tobacco flavors, I still try a tobacco flavor now and then, kinda like 'smoking' a pipe or good cigar at the end of the day. But...the benefits are still the same whether you like pedigo flavor (pipe tobacco) or mountain bean (coffee) or whatever.

Still just vapor, even if it does taste like tobacco...without the carbon monoxide, the benzene, the tar, the ammonia, the....thousands of other things in them.

But even if you like the tobacco only....hey thats what freedom is all about. You get what you want. I get what I want. No worries!

FYI I have one flavor that has caffeine in it, and hardly any nicotine...replaces a lot of coffee, without the added sugar and cream...there are more advantages and choices here than you can shake a cancer stick at!

That's what eats at the anti-smoking zealots (especially the ex-smokers turned activists)....there is a joy here that they feel we shouldn't have, so it eats at them that quitting smoking can now be FUN. No, we should suffer, and if we look like smokers, they wanna treat us like smokers.

Its funny how our society no longer accepts prejudice against race, gender, or sexual orientation, but anyone can disparage a smoker without any considerations of their rights, and be cheered on! This is the new prejudice, one that is justified by the zealot's righteous attitudes!

They get too much joy from having a pet group they can attack with inpunity and fear losing this if the e-cig is publically known as a safe option.

Of course the profit motives of big tobbaco and big pharma add fuel to the public fire pushing the opposition to electronic cigarettes. Let them die and go away (to paraphrase one famous prejudiced misinformed celebrity).

How many smokers will die from the glut of bad information about e-cigs being pushed out there, scaring them away from an option that could make quitting safe and FUN?

My rant. Maybe two cent's worth, but maybe not.

reply to post by lakesidepark


Excellent rant there LSP. Can only say I agree..

reply to post by xuenchen


S and F.

I used to be a cigarette smoker. I quit at the beginning of 2013 with the purchase of a high end, DIY e-cig. The e-liquid i use is nothing but vegetable glycerin and distilled water, along with flavoring.

It's hard to fathom this would even be half as bad for your health as cigarettes...it's like breathing in the air from your hot shower, really tasty air lol.

The thing that surprises me the most is that the anti-ecig groups haven't jumped on the "OMGZ it's ANTI-FREEZE!!" wagon...because many of the e-liquids use a base dilution material known as Propylene glycol, same stuff that your 100,000 mile anti-freeze has in it haha.

1Providence1
The thing that surprises me the most is that the anti-ecig groups haven't jumped on the "OMGZ it's ANTI-FREEZE!!" wagon...because many of the e-liquids use a base dilution material known as Propylene glycol, same stuff that your 100,000 mile anti-freeze has in it haha.

If they say that to me, I blow a big vapor cloud in their face while I explain "its also a sanitizer, keeps your skank from infecting me"....well, I 'might' not be THAT rude. Unless its in the morning. Then best not to say anything to me haha.

Really I've considered keeping clouds of vapor around my desk just because people love to come into work with their cold and flu. I am curious if it may reduce the incidence of airborne respiratory infections for e-cig users as it is used to sanitize air in closed places like hospitals. Being more suspectible to it as a smoker, it would be a bonus to be less suspectible as a vaper.