Excellent new article - Nicotine control: E-cigarettes, smoking and addiction

[Bill Godshall]

Nicotine control: E-cigarettes, smoking and addiction
by Kirsten Bell, Nelen Keane
International Journal of Drug Policy
February 23, 2012
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0955395912000072

Abstract

Background
Over the past year or so, electronic cigarettes, more commonly known as ‘e-cigarettes’, have achieved widespread visibility and growing popularity. These products, which deliver nicotine via an inhaled mist, have caused no small amount of controversy in public health circles, and their rise has been accompanied by energetic debate about their potential harms and benefits.

Methods
Interspersed with an analysis of current media coverage on e-cigarettes and the response of mainstream tobacco control and public health to these devices, this article examines the emergence of nicotine as both as an ‘addiction’ and a treatment for addiction.

Results
We argue that by delivering nicotine in way that resembles the visual spectacle and bodily pleasures of smoking, but without the harms of combustible tobacco, e-cigarettes highlight the complex status of nicotine as both a poison and remedy in contemporary public health and tobacco control.

Conclusion
In consequence, e-cigarettes jeopardize the carefully drawn distinctions between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ forms of nicotine.

The last paragraph of the full text article is:

E-cigarettes expose the artificial boundaries placed upon 'good' and 'bad' nicotine and their hostile reception needs to be understood in relation to this. They also challenge the equation between addiction and harm, suggesting the potential for nicotine addiction without the harms of smoking and many of its pleasures. By unabashedly foregrounding pleasure, these products contest its construction as the 'enemy' of public health and make explicit the moral underpinnings of contemporary notions of health, disease and addiction.

 

[wv2win]

From your summery, Bill, it appears that that the authors are supportive of vaping as a means to provide a much more effective path to avoiding the use of tobacco. But the wording seems to be "couched" in verbage that might elude the causal reader. Maybe a simpler synopsis would be helpful. Or maybe it's just me, lol.

 

[DC2]

Wow, sounds like they really dug right down to the nitty-gritty of this whole battle.
That must be some excellent and thought-provoking work, and I'd sure love to read it.

$19.95 is a little steep though.


I'll bet there is a lot of useful information in there that we could use to great effect.

If someone buys it, can they share it on the forum?
I'm guessing not.

 

[Bill Godshall]

DC2 wrote

That must be some excellent and thought-provoking work, and I'd sure love to read it.

Just send me an e-mail requesting it to smokefree@compuserve.com

 

[DC2]

Email sent.

 

[Eric A. Blair]

The last paragraph of the full text article is:

E-cigarettes expose the artificial boundaries placed upon 'good' and 'bad' nicotine and their hostile reception needs to be understood in relation to this. They also challenge the equation between addiction and harm, suggesting the potential for nicotine addiction without the harms of smoking and many of its pleasures. By unabashedly foregrounding pleasure, these products contest its construction as the 'enemy' of public health and make explicit the moral underpinnings of contemporary notions of health, disease and addiction.

Bill, you have been running with the wind at your back. Like being a backup on teams like the 1985 Bears, 1992 Dallas Cowboys, 1977 Pittsburg Steelers for too long. Big PhRma didn't bankroll Smoke Free PA/NJ/NY/WA out of the kindness of their own heart and their altruistic concern for the health of their fellow man.

They saw billions of dollars to be made by selling NRT.

You don't know what it's like to play for the 1989 Cowboys, 1962 Mets.

It's not fun.

I switched sides and quit smoking with ecigs but the opposition hasn't changed.

 

[rolygate]

I'm glad you showed the full conclusion here Bill, because the Abstract seems to indicate that it's just another one of those 'we don't know what's in them so a lot more research is needed, and you are better off with NRTs if you want to quit' type of scam research article.

It does seem to highlight a major issue for TC at the moment: too much proof that long-term nicotine use is relatively harmless and too little reason to abandon the old tobacco-is-bad mantra; and the way the source of funds can poison the entire output of a 'scientific community'.