Sunday, February 22, 2009

E-cigarettes mimic smoking, but are they safe?

From CTV News:
What if you could get your daily nicotine fix without also inhaling the hazardous chemicals found in conventional cigarettes?

Chinese manufacturers have solved that problem by creating an electronic cigarette, which delivers nicotine in a cigarette-like package but without the tobacco and chemical additives that are linked to cancer and other health problems.

But while these products are slowly growing in popularity around the world, including Canada, they are not approved for use as smoking-cessation aids such as nicotine gums and patches, and it is still unclear if the amount of nicotine they deliver is safe.

"I think that things that help people to quit are very good, like approved products that help people to quit," Prof. Kelli-an Lawrance, a tobacco researcher at Brock University's Community Health Sciences department, told CTV.ca.

"I think that these particular devices are being marketed with the intention of keeping people smoking...They're not smoking them to try to quit. And so I think that that's a really big issue." ...more

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

As Andrea Janus said the e-cigarettes are not approved by the FDA to be a smoking cessation product. Therefore, no company would advertize it for legal reasons. Although, I do have personal experience with the http://smoke51.com electronic cigarette, and I found that most people who switch to it with the intention to quit smoking- do quit smoking. They do it gradually. AND, even those who don't have that intention, do reduce their smoking- since they don't feel obligated to finish the cigarette. They can stop when they please.