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E-Cigarettes No Better Than Regular Cigarettes

You’ve probably seen those ads for the E-cigarette, which promise to allow you to get your nicotine fix while leaving you sans-ash try smell.  In one commercial for Blu E-cigarettes, Stephen Dorff tells you how you can “stop feeling guilty” when you want to light up, stop “smelling like an ashtray”, and that you can even enjoy your E-cigarette at a basketball game.  Dorff also casually mentions that he’s been a smoker for 20 years, which is what I find most problematic about this commercial, and apparently so does the Food and Drug Administration.

FDA Ponders the Regulation of E-cigarettes for Three Years

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that heat nicotine solution and create an inhalable vapor.  The FDA has discussed the possibility of regulating E-cigarettes since 2010, and rightly so.  The cigarette companies are likely trying to attract a new slew of smokers by first hooking them to a slightly less harmful E-cigarette with the hopes of getting them to move into the full-blown addiction.  In fact, some countries have even banned E-cigarettes because they view them as a device that delivers a drug with no use, even if E-cigarettes allow you to “take your freedom back” like Dorff claims (i.e. smoke when and where you want without the smell).  Any benefit of E-cigarettes remains unproven, and some cities have even banned their use indoors.  Indeed, studies have found at least three toxins in E-cigarettes (including the one of the same chemicals in anti-freeze) and suggest that quitting E-cigarettes may be as difficult as quitting the real thing.

New York City and California Pondering Ban

New York City’s Health Committee is turning its attention to E-cigarettes.  The committee is considering classifying E-cigarettes as tobacco products.  California has also discussed the possibility of  banning E-cigarettes and would limit the use of the product at “residential dwelling units, school campuses, public buildings, as defined, places of employment, day care facilities, retail food facilities, and health facilities”.  In the meantime, sales of E-cigarettes continue to rise, with an estimated $1 billion in profits to the E-cigarette industry.  It won’t be long before we learn of the FDA’s next move on E-cigarettes, however–the agency said that it would release its proposed regulations in October.

4 Comments

  1. Gravatar for Carla Hile
    Carla Hile

    I have seen my entire family quit smoking with the e-cigarettes. The nicotine level was reduced over a very short period and now they are all smoke free. The e-cigs are a safe effective way to stop smoking. As safe as Nicoret, the patches and worst of all Chantex.

  2. Gravatar for Steven Janiszewski
    Steven Janiszewski

    The latest study out of Virginia Tech shows that nicotine is equally as dangerous as tar. E-Cigarettes are just another way for tobacco companies to make money off of nicotine junkies. Do not be deceived.

    If you want to kick the nicotine monkey off your back, get Stop Smoking and Lose Weight: A Buddhadharmically Enhanced Alchemical Transmutation Process, by Tharpa Lodro, available at:

    http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Smoking-Weight-Buddhadharmically-ebook/dp/B00E55R8F6/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374761933&sr=1-1#

    And just do it.

  3. Gravatar for Steven Lawrence
    Steven Lawrence

    I have used e cigarettes to quit smoking completely. It was overnight and made it easy to scale back the nicotine level. E cigs are not harmful and propose no risk even close to the real thing. I prey the e cig industry stays away Fromm the greedy and blood thirsty tobacco industry. Currently the majority is owned by companies against tobacco. Lets keep it that way.

  4. Gravatar for John
    John

    Its really about the tax income being lost because of people switching to a non-tobacco product. What the FDA keep harping about is a couple of Chinese-made substandard eCig cartridges containing harmful additives and trying to make that their case that all eCigs are bad for you. How many times have we imported toys with lead paint from China? If any regulation needs to be done, it should be on the import side to ensure ALL products are safe that are brought in from other countries.

    If they regulate eCigs like tobacco, then they have to regulate nicotine gum and other nicotine delivery methods the same way.

    But just as they took flavored cigarettes off the market with a stoke of a pen, the FDA can do whatever they want because people don't speak up until its too late. I found it odd that menthol cigarettes were still allowed, but my favorite Clove cigarette was removed from the market. Politics and money...

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