Thanks for the link. I posted a comment. Hope everyone else does, too.
I one-uped that; I emailed her, I'm not really a student at that school, I just thought it would help get her attention. Here was my email:
Hi Alexandria,
I'm a Sophomore at the University of Arizona, and I enjoy reading your articles. However, there was a recent article of yours that had me scratching my head. Earlier today I was reading your article about electronic cigarettes, and as an ex-smoker and an owner of one I wanted to talk to you about that article.
One of the first things I noticed is that you said it "emits puffs of smoke," however, there is no smoker produced by these products. A heating coil heats a nicotine solution to it's boiling point, which causes it to become a vapor; no combustion is carried out by this device at all, which is one of the main reasons why it's less damaging to the body then traditional cigarettes.
You also mention that the
batteries will not be recycled properly and leak mercury into landfills, yet these batteries contain no mercury. These are lithium batteries like what's used to power your cell phone; they are rechargeable and last many months. When they do die, some companies will send you a new one in exchange for the old one, and the old one gets properly recycled by the company. Even if they all ended up in landfills, think about how many terrible products of combustion are released into the air with regular cigarettes, and how many cigarettes filters, which are not biodegradable, are disposed of or littered and even end up killing birds and small animals that sometimes mistake them for food.
And as I said before, I've been an ex-smoker for weeks thanks to this device, and have no desire to return to cigarettes, so I have to disagree with you about them not being a smoking cessation device. And out of my 4 friends who have tried this, 3 of them quit, despite not being able to quit in the past with other smoking cessation products.
Towards the end you go on to ask "who knows what types of poisons could be in this liquid nicotine cartridge?" And the answer to that is - "anyone who wants to find out". The liquid contains propylene glycol (which is the main ingredient in anti-perspirants, and is also found in many foods cosmetics, toothpastes and medicines), flavorings which have long been used in food products, and finally nicotine. And unlike normal cigarettes, these ingredients are not chemically altered into other compounds by the product of combustion; they either enter your blood stream in the same form that they would as if ingested, or they are expelled by the lungs.
Because no smoke or known carcinogens are emitted by this device, it is most likely that it will not cause lung cancer or other smoking-related diseases. Essentially, it is no more harmful then the nicotine patch, gum, or inhaler.
It definitely has improved my health also, which is another thing which contradicts your article, I can breathe more easily, I don't get winded walking up a flight of stairs, I'm no longer hacking up phlegm in the morning, and I just feel much better in general. My doctor has even noticed my health improvements and after explaining to him what an electronic cigarette was, he encouraged me to continue using it and asked if I could give him the web addresses of some websites which sell these products so that he could inform his smoking patients about them.
I would really appreciate if you would take the time to respond to this email, so I look forward to hearing back from you soon.
Sincerely,
Daniel Crist
This was her response, just a few minutes after I sent the email:
Mr. Crist,
Thank you very much for taking the time to get my facts straight. I was basing my article off of the products' advertisements etc. that said that they emit smoke so that they look like a cigarette. My concern about them was that they were not yet thoroughly evaluated by the FDA because they are so new and it seemed a little shady since who knows what is really in them? But apparently you do! I value your response. You should send your e-mail to
letters@wildcat.arizona.edu so it can be published in our mailbag, or post it as a comment to the article at
wildcat.arizona.edu. I think that people would benefit from hearing your response. Thanks again,
Alexandria Kassman
Arizona Daily Wildcat
