This is what I was going to post, if I can ever get an account set up. I can't figure out what the problem is. It's very long though. I don't know if they have a word limit.
This article leaves out a few pertinent facts.
“Nearly 8 percent of Utah's sixth-, eighth-, tenth- and twelfth-graders reported they had experimented with e-cigarettes”
According to a 2010 report, about 16% of Utah’s 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th graders at the time of the survey had, at some point, tried real cigarettes. At the time of that report 6.4% of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders were REGULAR users of cigarettes. Perhaps some of the youth who were ALREADY smoking and (presumably) addicted to regular cigarettes tried switching to electronic cigarettes instead. This article implies that these are youth that never would have tried nicotine in any form if it weren’t for electronic cigarettes.
“Among 19- to 24-year-olds, 25 percent reported having tried e-cigarettes and 9 percent continued to use them, according to the health department.”
Again, the 2010 Utah
tobacco Use report lists current smokers broken down into various age groups. They don’t have 19-25, but they do list use for the age group of 18-34, which is shown as 11.3%. Those 9% of 19-25 year olds who continue to use e-cigarettes very well might be composed of former smokers of real cigarettes or young adults who have attempted to cut back their cigarette consumption by
supplementing with an electronic cigarette.
“"There is no safe level of tobacco smoke," said David Neville, spokesman for the Tobacco Prevention and Control Program at the Utah Department of Health.”
While I would not argue that e-cigarettes are ‘100% safe’ I would argue that the evidence very much suggests that they are orders of magnitude safer than real cigarettes, because e-cigarettes do not produce ‘smoke’. They do not burn plant materials, from which most of the harmful effects of smoking originate. They heat a solution of nicotine, propylene glycol (GRAS by FDA), vegetable glycerin, and food safe flavorings. This mimicks the actions of smoking, but does not produce smoke.
“In smoking a cigarette, he said, a user generally knows how much nicotine is being consumed. "They know if they are a half-a-pack-a-day smoker. When it comes to an electronic cigarette, you just don't know. You just keep on smoking," Neville said.”
I would very much doubt that the average smoker knows how much nicotine they are getting from a real cigarette. If you asked the average smoker what their cotinine level was I don’t think they could tell you. I don’t think they could even tell you how many milligrams of nicotine a cigarette contains or delivers. You might know you are a half a pack a day smoker, but someone who uses electronic cigarettes knows how many cartridges or mls of nicotine liquid they are using and usually knows what strength that liquid is.
“But Neville argued that the device is not compatible with a step-therapy program because it delivers a specific level of nicotine to the user and can be refilled when emptied.”
This is entirely false. Nicotine liquid comes in a variety of levels of nicotine. You can even purchase liquid with no nicotine. You can easily implement a step down program for nicotine with an electronic cigarette if that is what you want to do. Electronic cigarettes can’t legally be marketed as a cessation tool, so sellers have to be very careful as to how they market this sort of thing.
“"It's confusing to a smoker or someone who is trying to quit," he said, noting that nicotine gums and patches are offered in varying nicotine levels and help people kick the habit.”
As I mentioned above, nicotine liquids do come in varying strengths or levels (with an even greater variety of levels than the gums and patches). Neville, while touting ‘approved’ quit medications, also failed to mention the abysmal success rate of gums and patches. What is confusing to me, as a former smoker, is why patches and gum continue to be thrown in my face as effective quitting methods, when current research (and my own personal experience) clearly shows that they are not.
While I am also ‘concerned about the children’ I think that these people are focusing their energies in the wrong direction. I would never want to see a child start smoking or using any tobacco product. I also support a ban on sales of electronic cigarettes to children. That just makes
sense, but to ban use of a product that research is beginning to show might be a very viable option for smokers who want to reduce the harm they are doing to themselves (and indeed even quit smoking in many cases) to ‘protect the children’ is just insanity. There is just not enough evidence here to suggest that electronic cigarettes are luring naïve youth (children who have never tried tobacco at all) into nicotine use.
