Electronic cigarettes: A safe substitute?
* 11 February 2009 by Helen Thomson
I HAVE never been a smoker, so as I sit at the bar, chin resting on one hand, I try to remember how Audrey Hepburn did it. I take a gentle drag and exhale. A white mist wafts around my face as I wait for the rush of nicotine hitting my brain. People start to stare. Then the inevitable happens: "Hey, you can't smoke that in here." Only in this case I can, because I'm not really smoking.
I've just "lit up" an e-cigarette, a battery-powered electronic device that I bought for $60 from a UK website. It looks just like a real cigarette - the tip even glows red - and with every drag a few micrograms of nicotine from a disposable cartridge (I got six with my purchase) should reach my lungs. My e-cigarette even produces puffs of "smoke", but it isn't burning, and so it's not banned. I'm not the only one smoking these sticks. In the growing number of public places worldwide where smoking has been banned, a new breed of smoker has appeared puffing on similar gadgets.
The e-cigarette is not burning anything and so doesn't produce any of the toxic products of combustion
E-cigarettes may help smokers evade the ban, but do they also help them evade the health consequences of smoking or give the habit up altogether? In September 2008 the World Health Organization issued a statement warning smokers that there was no evidence to back up claims that e-cigarettes could help them quit. So what do we know about them and is there any evidence that inhaling the chemicals they contain may be harmful to your health? Could they genuinely help people to kick the habit?
E-cigarettes were invented by Hon Lik of electronics company Ruyan in Beijing, China. Ruyan sold its first electronic cigarette in May 2004, and e-cigarettes have been growing in popularity ever since. Accurate figures are hard to come by, but Ruyan - the world's biggest manufacturer - claims to have sold over 300,000 in 2008. Smart Smokers, one company which sells Ruyan's cigarettes in the UK, says sales are rising exponentially. In the US, hit TV show The Doctors featured the e-cigarette in the top 10 health trends of 2008. In a world where smoking is increasingly socially unacceptable, the e-cigarette looks like a success story in the making.
The device itself is pretty simple. It resembles a normal cigarette in shape and size but instead of containing cured tobacco it is mostly full of battery and an LED. The disposable filter holds a cartridge containing nicotine dissolved in propylene glycol, the liquid that is vaporised in nightclub smoke machines. When you take a drag, a pressure sensor switches on an electric heating coil that vaporises the PG and releases the "smoke" (see diagram). The strongest cartridge contains about the same amount of nicotine as a regular-strength cigarette, but lasts for about 300 puffs in comparison with a regular cigarette that lasts for about 15. The cartridges don't "burn down" but deliver a puff whenever you choose to take one. Cartridges come in high, medium, low and zero-nicotine strength and cost around $1.50 each.
However, on a per puff basis, the strongest cartridge only delivers around one-third the amount of nicotine delivered by a puff on a normal cigarette, says Murray Laugesen, a public health researcher who campaigned against tobacco smoking in New Zealand and is now studying the impact of smoking e-cigarettes.
Legal loophole
So far so good. But are e-cigarettes really less harmful than the real thing? Given they contain nicotine, an addictive drug, and are touted as an alternative for smokers, you might think an independent organisation would have tried to substantiate such claims. Far from it. In most countries e-cigarettes escape regulation. "If you make a health claim about a product, it becomes a drug and comes under drug regulation and approval," says John Britton, a lung specialist at the University of Nottingham, UK, and chair of the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group. "If it's a burnt tobacco product, it's a cigarette." The e-cigarette is not classed as either, giving manufacturers free rein to develop and distribute it with little more than an easily obtainable general hygiene certificate.
To complicate matters, some companies claiming that e-cigarettes can help you kick the smoking habit even went as far as to falsely cite the approval of the WHO. News of this led the WHO to recommend in September that all e-cigarettes be banned until proved safe.
So what precisely is the evidence for and against e-cigarettes? Laugesen is one of the few researchers tackling this question. In early 2007, his company - Health New Zealand - began a research programme to investigate what hazards e-cigarettes might pose. The research is funded by Ruyan but Laugesen insists it is independent, a view backed by the WHO. "Dr Laugesen is a respected tobacco control researcher," emphasises Raman Minhas, technical officer of the WHO's Tobacco Free Initiative.
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Electronic cigarettes: A safe substitute? - health - 11 February 2009 - New Scientist
