Electronic Cigarettes Can Actually Save Lives

There have been a lot of questions asked in relation to electronic cigarettes and whether they should be regulated in a similar vein to standard tobacco products. That means emblazoning them with the types of health warnings that are prominently displayed on the packaging of cigarettes and loose tobacco. This is a dilemma that is facing the Food and Drug Administration as it prepares to make a decision on how it should handle the growing popularity of electronic cigarettes in the USA.

Anti-smoking groups including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the American Lung Association (ALA) have been campaigning for more extensive and far reaching regulation of electronic cigarettes. These bodies are concerned that there has not been enough testing of the dangers of e-cigarette usage, especially amongst the young.

However, electronic cigarettes are seen by many as the perfect way for people to actually kick the habit once and for all, especially as the current figures relating to the amount of people smoking in the United States shows no signs of shifting from its current rate of 18%. This figure is much higher than the target rate of 12% that the American government is aiming for by 2020, so maybe we should not only accept electronic cigarettes but actually promote their use.

Despite the fact that critics of electronic cigarettes want more research carried out on the health dangers of using such a device, it is obvious that e-cigs are much less likely to be harmful to health than normal tobacco products. This is due to the fact that there are no tobacco leaves being burned, so there is no harmful gases and tar, things which are linked to causing cancer and other smoking related diseases, being inhaled.

There are certainly encouraging signs that e-cigs can be an effective way to get people to give up smoking altogether, although there has not been any definitive research on the matter. Yet a recent report in the medical journal, The Lancet, stated that e-cigs, whether they contain nicotine or not, were just as effective in helping smokers quit as gum and patches. Washington Post covered these reports more in-depth.

It might be difficult for anti-smoking campaigners to embrace the use of e-cigs due to their existing views on all tobacco products. However, if the use of electronic cigarettes is embraced as a method of helping smokers to quit, they have the potential of helping many more people quit for good.