Gee, Elwin. Did you go look at the other poll? The problem is not that I wasn't getting the results I wanted -- I had no preconceived ideas regarding how many numbers would land in which category. The problem is that I had included dates in the future. I did this so that, as time went by, we could grab the dates for newcomers who joined us. Unfortunately, that turned out to be confusing. Some people selected that they had quit smoking in the latter half of 2011 or in 2012, which is still in the future. Since nobody has a time machine sitting on their back porch, those responses can't be right. There is no way for people to change their answer once it is stored.
So when I said that
the poll question was not working as well as I hoped, what I meant was that the poll question was not working as well as I hoped it would work. I said what I meant, and I meant what I said.
I am not trying to determine the relative percentages of those who quit, versus those who cut down, versus those who still smoke as much as they ever did. We already have that data from two different surveys as well as from a poll question here that has been around for about two years:
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/polls/6470-e-cig-success-rate.html
The Percentages are
The Tobacco Harm Reduction Survey: 79% replaced all their cigarettes, 17% replaced some, 4% still smoke the same number.
The CASAA Survey: 74.7 % now use no tobacco products at all, 19.6% still some some # of cigarettes, 3.7% use snus, 2.6% smoke cigars, and some other tobacco products are used by even smaller percentages.
E-cig Success Rate Poll Question: 83.35 completely quit, 16.07 cut down on number smoked, and 0.58% only use e-cigs when they can't smoke.
The questions are all worded somewhat differently, and the results are not identical; but we do see a fairly consistent pattern in these percentages.
All I am trying to gather is a count. Damn near anything you use to help you stop smoking works better than nothing in the short-term. The pharmaceutical companies like to brag about supposedly high success rates. But their clainical trials only lasted for 12 weeks. I quoted the long term statistics for NRTs (when used as directed) in the first post.
I'm looking to see many of us have managed to STAY quit for six months, over a year, two years (longer, as time goes on). I'm not trying to compare these numbers to anything else. Just to establish that we have a significant number of people for whom these devices seem to be working more or less permanently.
Is it statisticaly valid? No. Can I get it published in scientific journal? No. But it would be great to be able to say that we have counted up over a thousand e-cigarette users who have stayed abstinent from smoking for over a year. Maybe someone who is a real scientific researcher will see that and decide to do a full-blown population study on the question of how well e-cigs work.
Yah, it does seem offensive when people tell me what my motives are. Kind of like reading the the model legislation put out by the Americans for Nonsmokers Rights. They tell the world that the only reason people choose to use an electronic cigarette is to "circumvent" anti-smoking laws.
If you want to know what my motives are, just ask. I have no hidden agenda. I am retired, living on Social Security and a small pension. I don't get paid for any of the activist work I do.
