There are two aspects to this:
1. Refuting the lies spread by agents of those who will be financially hurt by the success of electronic cigarettes.
2. Providing genuine information.
Firstly, there is a lot of misinformation in circulation about e-cigarettes, because some corporations will lose vast sums as
tobacco use decreases, and as the need for
tobacco cessation drugs decreases in parallel, and their publicity machine has been far more successful than that of the e-cigarette trade and community.
The main losers will, at first, be the pharmaceutical industry, since no one will need their expensive and virtually useless drugs when smoking is no longer harmful. The success rate of NRTs (smoking cessation medicines) is at best 7%, and some research indicates 2% - so the failure rate is
at least 93%. They don't work very well, they are costly, and if everyone used e-cigarettes then they wouldn't be needed in any case. They are the prime example of a useless, expensive product that soon won't be needed and that the makers are fighting desperately to save.
This is a billion-dollar industry and will shrivel and die over time, as more people convert to e-cigs. As they stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars, the pharma industry have understandably financed a frenetic attempt to smear e-cigs and/or have them banned - and truth to tell, they have been quite successful. They have set up or taken over and financed various front organizations that sound like respectable health interest groups, but are no more than channels for pharma industry propaganda.
In addition, their most successful investment has been to have the FDA promote their agenda too. While in theory the FDA is an independent government agency that protects public health and regulates the pharmaceutical industry, in practice it seems to do exactly the opposite. Their actions often make it look as if it works for the pharma industry, and it never seems to take any action that hurts pharma income in any major regard, even if this adversely affects public health. This seems to be a common issue with government pharmaceutical regulatory agencies (the UK's MHRA is exactly the same).
Doctors have had to start taking action against the FDA in court in order to protect their patients, and, along with some e-cigarette businesses, many have been successful. The wonder is that that the courts have remained independent in the face of so much obvious financial influence.
So some of the most common things heard about e-cigarettes are that "They are worse than cigarettes", or "They contain carcinogens" - the result of successful pharma industry propaganda. While the absolute truth is that no one really knows exactly how safe e-cigs are, and any kind of meaningful research is at least 20 years away, the things that we do know are that (a) they are likely to be 1,000 times safer than tobacco cigarettes (because both independent medical experts and genuine doctors' associations, not pharma front groups, say so); and (b) they are most unlikely to cause any of the diseases associated with smoking, since none of the ingredients can cause that type of harm, and since it is mainly the smoke that causes injury.
Dr Laugesen, recognized as the leading medical authority on e-cigarettes, has said: "It is impossible for e-cigarettes to cause lung cancer". Nicotine, it should be noted, is about as harmful as caffeine. Using an e-cigarette may therefore be about as harmful as drinking coffee.
We cannot, in all truth, say that e-cigarettes are safe; but compared to tobacco cigarettes they are several orders of magnitude safer. That we do know.
The next stage in helping someone to receive correct information and not pharma spin is to point them toward some of the excellent resources available that present independent doctors and doctors' groups' responses to the pharma industry propaganda. For example, here are two, a doctor's website and a CASAA PDF:
The E-Cigarette
http://www.casaa.org/files/CASAA Medical infograph(4).pdf
The tobacco industry, at this time, seems to have accepted the rise of the e-cigarette as inevitable. At least they are realists. And as as tobacco comes under more and more pressure, what better way to regenerate income than a Marlboro E-Cigarette? After all, they control the nicotine supply, the distribution channels, and have the manufacturing experience and the marketing skills.
The final loser as e-cigarettes gradually take over will be government treasury departments, as tobacco tax generates billions, and this will gradually evaporate. This is probably the most serious issue, and to be honest it will have a global economic impact, and probably not a good one. The only answer will be to levy higher and higher rates of tax on e-cigarettes and refills - but even this will probably not compensate. In addition, 25% of the smoking population won't die young and will thus now require pensions, health services and social support resources. More old people living longer is unfortunately not good economically for a country.
It's extremely important to the individual concerned, though.
Lastly: electronic cigarettes can't possibly be entirely safe, as that defies all logic. But compared to cigarettes they are like soda pop compared to whisky. Most people would admit that it's best to drink a pint or two of bottled water a day, if you're going to drink anything. But if you have to drink something else, then a pint of soda a day is going to be better than a pint of whisky. Unless you sell whisky cessation medicines, of course.
