"...e-cigarettes have been marketed as smoking-cessation tools."
It depends upon how you define "smoking cessation." Do you mean "nicotine cessation?" Then you are wrong - very few (if any) companies claimed to be nicotine cessation tools. As far as "smoking cessation," so long as you define it as something that you do INSTEAD of smoking and not as nicotine cessation, then it's a no brainer. THINK. If you use an e-cigarette INSTEAD of smoking, then you have, in fact, quit smoking! But the FDA says the companies cannot "prove" they are smoking cessation tools because they haven't been proven as NICOTINE cessation tools. What
sense does that make? Whether you quit nicotine or not, if you're using e-cigarettes and not tobacco cigarettes, you've quit smoking! Nicotine does NOT cause cancer!
It's "possible" that inhaling the vapor is way better for you than inhaling cigarette smoke??
Are you kidding? Three of the ingredients in e-cigarettes are recognized as safe by the FDA and the fourth - nicotine - while also in cigarettes is also approved for use in Nicotrol Inhalers. Compare that to the thousands of deadly chemicals in cigarettes!
A "gateway to real cigarettes??"
Let's think that statement through. Would someone who is using a relatively safe product, which tastes good, doesn't smell, is affordable and doesn't make them unhealthy suddenly decide to use dangerous, smelly, expensive and foul-tasting (to someone who has never smoked) cigarettes instead? Where is the logic in that? Why do people have this false idea that all nicotine use will lead to smoking - especially when all scientific research shows the exact opposite?
"...we don't know the answers is that these e-smokes are relatively new to the country and thus not yet well studied."
As Vocalek points out - there IS a lot we know about e-cigarettes. Even the FDA testing showed that the brands they tested didn't contain toxic levels of any chemicals and carcinogens were so low (the same as the FDA-approved nicotine patch) that they wouldn't cause cancer. We don't know the long-term effects, but the fact that there hasn't been anything dangerous found in them and no one has gotten sick or died using them since 2003, how likely is it that they'll suddenly be deadly in 20 years?
"...it's not clear that the vapor from e-cigarettes creates the same foggy effect."
Did you do any of your own research for this article or just copy and paste from previous news reports? It's common knowledge that the vapor dissapates quickly and doesn't linger in the air among users. Maybe talking to an actual e-cigarette user or two would have made it more clear for you.
"Whether I want to be sitting next to the person "smoking" one is a different question."
Again - how about meeting an actual user and experiencing the vapor for yourself before writing about it? It's like writing a movie review based on other people's comments rather than seeing the movie yourself!
