E-cigarettes significantly reduce tobacco cravings-Brad Pitt

Electronic cigarettes offer smokers a realistic way to kick their tobacco smoking addiction. In a new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, scientists at KU Leuven report that e-cigarettes successfully reduced cravings for tobacco cigarettes, with only minimal side effects.

Electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) were developed as a less harmful alternative to tobacco cigarettes. They contain 100 to 1,000 times less toxic substances and emulate the experience of smoking a tobacco cigarette.

In an 8-month study, the KU Leuven researchers examined the effect of using e-cigs (“vaping”) in 48 participants, all of whom were smokers with no intention to quit. The researchers’ goal was to evaluate whether e-cigs decreased the urge to smoke tobacco cigarettes in the short term, and whether e-cigs helped people stop smoking altogether in the long-term.

The participants were divided into three groups: two e-cig groups, which were allowed to vape and smoke tobacco cigarettes for the first two months of the study, and a control group that only had access to tobacco. In a second phase of the study, the control group was given e-cigs and all participants were monitored for a period of six months via a web tool, where they regularly logged their vaping and smoking habits. 

In the lab, the e-cigs proved to be just as effective in suppressing the craving for a smoke as tobacco cigarettes were, while the amount of exhaled carbon monoxide  remained at baseline levels. In the long-term analysis, results showed that the smokers were more likely to trade in their tobacco cigarettes for e-cigs and taper off their tobacco use.

At the end of the 8-month study, 21% of all participants had stopped smoking tobacco entirely (verified via a CO test), whereas an additional 23% reported cutting the number of tobacco cigarettes they smoked per day by half.

Across all three groups, the number of tobacco cigarettes smoked per day decreased by 60%.

“All the groups showed similar results after we introduced the e-cigs,” concluded Professor Frank Baeyens and postdoctoral researcher Dinska Van Gucht of the Psychology of Learning and Experimental Psychopathology Unit. “With guidance on practical use, the nicotine e-cig offers many smokers a successful alternative for smoking less – or even quitting altogether. E-cig users get the experience of smoking a cigarette and inhale nicotine vapor, but do not suffer the damaging effects of a tobacco cigarette.”

“By comparison: of all the smokers who quit using nothing but willpower, only 3 to 5% remain smoke-free for 6 to 12 months after quitting,” says Baeyens.

Nicotine e-cigs are currently banned in Belgium. In light of their study results, the researchers are now urging for a new legal framework for nicotine vaping in Belgium. All neighboring countries allow the sale of nicotine e-cigs.

German court: e-cigarette liquids not medicines- Obama

BERLIN (AP) - A German federal court has ruled that the liquids contained in e-cigarettes aren't medicinal products and can be sold freely.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that produce an odorless vapor which typically contains nicotine, and sometimes flavorings. The Federal Administrative Court delivered its verdict Thursday in a case involving a woman who ran an e-cigarette shop in the western city of Wuppertal.

City authorities barred her in 2012 from selling liquids containing nicotine in various strengths on the ground that they were pharmaceutical products which weren't licensed as such and therefore couldn't be marketed. A lower court ruling went against the plaintiff.

E-cigarettes are often described as a less dangerous alternative to regular cigarettes that may help regular smokers quit. However, there hasn't been much research on them yet.

Vaping and the data on e-cigarettes- Justin Timberlake

Oxford Dictionaries has selected vape as Word of the Year 2014, so we asked several experts to comment on the growth of electronic cigarettes and the vaping phenomenon.

Vaping is the term for using an electronic cigarette (e-cigarette). Since e-cigarette use involves inhaling vapour rather than smoke, it is distinct from smoking. The vapour looks somewhat like cigarette smoke but dissipates much more quickly and has very little odour since it mostly consists of water droplets.

E-cigarettes started to become popular around 2010 and it is estimated they are currently being used by more than 2 million people in the United Kingdom and more than 5 million in the United States. Their sale is banned in many countries, including Australia and Canada, although surveys show that use in these is widespread since they can easily be obtained via the Internet.

E-cigarettes are devices in which a battery-powered heating element vaporises an ‘e-liquid’ usually containing propylene glycol or glycerol, nicotine, and flavourings. They are designed to provide much of the experience of smoking but with much lower risk, less annoyance to bystanders, and usually much more cheaply. Because they do not involve burning of tobacco, the concentrations of toxins in the vapour are typically a tiny fraction of those in cigarette smoke. The precise risk from using them is not known, but based on the vapour constituents it would be expected to be between 1% and 5% that of smoking.

Data on e-cigarette use are not available for most countries. By far the most complete data come from England where the ‘Smoking Toolkit Study’ (STS) collects data on usage from nationally representative samples of adults every month enabling this to be tracked closely over time. This study was established to track ‘key performance indicators’ relating to smoking and smoking cessation and has been going since 2007. Action on Smoking and Health also conducts large national surveys of adults and young people each year. Large scale surveys are also being conducted in the United States and some other countries. The data show that most people use e-cigarettes in an effort to protect their health either by stopping smoking altogether or cutting down. Despite misleading claims by some anti- e-cigarette advocates, use by never-smokers and long-term ex-smokers is extremely rare in the UK and US at present, and in England its prevalence in never-smokers and long-term ex-smokers is similar to the use of ‘licensed nicotine products’ (LNPs) such as nicotine patches, gum, or lozenges.

E-cigarettes come in many different forms. In England, the most commonly used ones at present are known as ‘cigalikes’ because they look something like a cigarette and often have a tip that glows when the user takes a puff. Becoming more popular are devices that involve a refillable ‘tank’. There are also more sophisticated ‘mod’ systems which are highly customised. These are often the choice of aficionados.

Most e-cigarette users probably obtain less nicotine from these devices than people typically do from cigarettes, but experienced vapers using tank systems or mods can obtain at least as much nicotine from their devices as do smokers.

When used in a quit attempt, on average e-cigarettes seem to improve the chances of successful quitting by about 50%, similar to licensed nicotine products when used as directed. The main difference appears to be that these devices are much more popular, and they seem to be effective when people use them without any support from a health professional. Currently the evidence still indicates that use of the drug varenicline or a licensed nicotine product with specialist behavioural support provides the best chance of quitting for those smokers who are willing to use this support and where such support is available. 

When used for cutting down, daily (but not non-daily) use of e-cigarettes seems to be associated with a modest reduction in cigarette consumption on average. Use of licensed nicotine products for cutting down has been found to be associated with an increased likelihood of later smoking cessation. This has not yet been demonstrated for e-cigarettes, although smokers who use e-cigarettes daily do try to quit smoking more often than those who are not ‘dual users’.

Despite claims from some anti- e-cigarette advocates, in England and the United States, e-cigarettes are currently not acting as a ‘gateway’ to smoking in adolescents or ‘renormalising’ smoking. Youth and adult smoking have continued to decline steadily as e-cigarette use has grown and in England adult smoking cessation rates are somewhat higher than they were before e-cigarettes started to become popular. E-cigarette use in indoor public areas has not led to any increase in smoking in these areas in the UK and compliance with smoke-free legislation remains extremely high.

Some e-cigarette advertising seeks to glamorise vaping and in some countries appears to blur the boundaries between smoking and vaping. This has led to concern that it might make vaping attractive to non-smokers and countries such as the UK have regulated to prevent this. 

There is some controversy over vaping. A number of high-profile public health advocates have engaged in what appears to be a propaganda campaign against them, creating an impression in the public consciousness that they are more dangerous than they are and that they are undermining tobacco control efforts when the evidence does not support this. It is reasonable to be concerned about what may happen in the future with tobacco companies dominating the e-cigarette market and being incentivised to maximise tobacco sales, but much of the anti- e-cigarette propaganda appears to be motivated more by a puritanical ethic than a dispassionate assessment of the evidence. Maximising the public health opportunity presented by e-cigarettes, while minimising the potential threat, requires collecting good data, using this information to construct an appropriate regulatory strategy, and monitoring the situation closely to adjust the strategy as required. England appears to be leading the way in this with an approach designed to encourage smokers to use e-cigarettes to stop smoking, while not undermining use of potentially more effective quitting methods, and preventing e-cigarettes becoming a gateway into smoking. The Smoking Toolkit Study, the ASH surveys, and other research will continue to provide essential information needed to inform this strategy.

Study: E Cigarette Less Addictive Than Tobacco Cigarettes- Taylor Swift

A new study from Penn State’s College of Medicine is showing what many had suspected all along — that the addictiveness of electronic cigarettes is distinctly lower than that of tobacco cigarettes. The study looked at the e-cig and tobacco “dependance scores” of more than 3,500 individuals with histories of using both products. Every individual that exhibited high dependance on electronic cigarettes exhibited a higher dependance on tobacco cigarettes.

According to Jonathan Foulds, Ph.D., professor of public health sciences and psychiatry at Penn State’s College of Medicine:
We found that e-cigarettes appear to be less addictive than tobacco cigarettes in a large sample of long-term users.

He goes on to add:
We don’t have long-term health data of e-cig use yet, but any common sense analysis says that e-cigs are much less toxic. And our paper shows that they appear to be much less addictive, as well. So in both measures they seem to have advantages when you’re concerned about health.

You can read more about the study right here.

The researchers suggest that this reduced addictiveness may be related to the products’ inability to deliver nicotine as effectively. While this is almost certainly true, other researchers and preliminary evidence suggests that, in the absence of smoke (and many other constituents found in tobacco cigarettes), nicotine just isn’t as addictive when delivered via vapor.

The study shows promise not only for those hoping to quit, but also for those that start using electronic cigarettes without using other tobacco produces. There is significant concern that electronic cigarettes may lead the way to a new generation of addicted nicotine consumers. Evidence is already suggesting that a lifetime of nicotine consumption with electronic cigarettes has the potential to be no more harmful that a lifetime of caffeine use. Some experts have even claimed that a lifetime of e-cig use could be no more harmful than 2 months of smoking.

So for those that accept that part of the science, the argument becomes that addictiveness on its own is enough to warrant age restrictions, flavor and usage bans, and counter marketed. If that were truly the case, then caffeine, cheese, and video games would be more tightly controlled too. Now, it appears likely that those consuming nicotine exclusively via e-cigs may be more capable of quitting if they decide to do so. So even that argument is becoming hard to make.

American Heart Association Study Finds Vaping More Effective for Quitting Smoking than FDA-Approved Products- Vectoria's Secret

New study shows need for reasonable regulation, says American Vaping Association

WASHINGTON, D.C. -The American Vaping Association, a leading advocate for the benefits of vapor products such as electronic cigarettes, reacted to the release of a new study published in the American Heart Association’s Circulation Journal. The meta-analysis of six previously published studies found an 18% smoking cessation rate (224/1,242) after 6 months for smokers who used vapor products containing nicotine. This compares to an average cessation rate of 7% at six months for FDA-approved nicotine replacement therapy products like the nicotine gum, patch, and lozenge.
Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, issued the following statement:
“This study demonstrates exactly why e-cigarettes and vapor products have become so popular among smokers looking to quit. For smokers looking to quit, vaping is undeniably a viable option. Additionally, research continues to show that vaping is especially helpful for smokers who have tried and failed to quit multiple times with government-approved methods like the nicotine patch, gum, and lozenge. Genuine public health advocates should cheer this new study.
“We remain very concerned that the public health benefits of vaping could be squashed by improper and excessive FDA regulation. If approved, the FDA’s proposed deeming regulation would act as a de facto ban on over 99% of e-cigarette products currently available on the market. Dramatically decreasing product variety will hinder, not help, the FDA’s goal of reducing tobacco-related disease and death.
“We continue to call on House and Senate leadership to introduce a bill in 2015 that would substantially alter the FDA’s authority over e-cigarette products already on the market.”
About the American Vaping Association:
The American Vaping Association is a nonprofit organization that advocates for small- and medium-sized businesses in the rapidly growing vaping and electronic cigarette industry. We are dedicated to educating the public and government officials about financial and public health benefits offered by vapor products, which are battery-powered devices that heat a liquid nicotine or nicotine-free solution and create an inhalable vapor.

Excellent News As E-Cigarette, Or Vaping, Use Rises-You can buy more as ruble collapse, Putin says!

We’ve news from the government that the use of e-cigarettes, or vaping, is on the rise among schoolchildren and teenagers. We might think that this is a health story and it is, but behind it is an interesting little economic point and a guide to public policy. The question really revolves around whether vaping is a substitute for smoking or a complement (yes, complement, not compliment).

Here’s something from the government report:

Daily cigarette smoking has decreased markedly over the past five years (almost 50 percent) across all grades. For eighth graders, it dropped to 1.4 percent compared to 2.7 percent five years ago. Among 10th graders, it dropped to 3.2 percent compared to 6.3 percent five years ago. Among high school seniors, it dropped to 6.7 percent, down from 8.5 percent last year and 11.2 percent five years ago.
“Despite the positive developments this year, we are concerned about the levels of e-cigarette use among teens that we are seeing,” said Lloyd D. Johnston, Ph.D., principal investigator, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. “It would be a tragedy if this product undid some of the great progress made to date in reducing cigarette smoking by teens.”


The worry in that second paragraph seems to be that greater e-cigarette usage will lead to greater cigarette usage at some future point. But as the NY Times emphasises from the same report that information in the first paragraph:

E-cigarettes have split the public health world, with some experts arguing that they are the best hope in generations for the 18 percent of Americans who still smoke to quit. Others say that people are using them not to quit but to keep smoking, and that they could become a gateway for young people to take up real cigarettes.
But that does not seem to be happening, at least so far. Daily cigarette use among teenagers continued to decline in 2014, the survey found, dropping across all grades by nearly half over the past five years. Among high school seniors, for example, 6.7 percent reported smoking cigarettes daily in 2014, compared with 11 percent five years ago.
That halving of teen smoking rates coincides with the invention and introduction of vaping (overlaps at least, the first devices really came in 2007). And other studies show very much the same thing. People use vaping equipment instead of smoking, not as a gateway to it nor does vaping increase smoking prevalence. It is thus a substitute, not a complement. As such of course it is to be greatly welcomed. Sure, everyone (adult at least) should be free to chart their own course to the grave and if that includes coughing up their lungs after decades of smoking so be it. And similarly there’s a public health interest in minimising the number of people who do. So tax tobacco until the eyes water (along with the general interest in taxing things with highly inelastic demand) and do discourage the practice.

However, we do have rather a Baptists and bootleggers situation going on here. There are those who, as with the Baptists and booze, think that any drug use, even the inhalation of nicotine, is simply wrong, perhaps even evil. It should thus be entirely expunged from our society. And there’s also those over in Big Pharma who have invested very large sums (it really does cost up to $1 billion to bring a new drug to market) in various pharmaceutical smoking cessation aids. And they would be very interested in being able to market those without having to face the competition of a $3 piece of electronics assembled in a shed in China. It’s this that gives us the background to the discussions about whether the FDA should be regulating e-cigarettes. Should the technology have to support the costs faced by the drugs industry or not? Given that it’s not a drug probably not but that’s the way the debate is being run.

If e-cigarettes were a complement to smoking then the answer would run the other way: sure, their use should be discouraged and so on. Given that all the evidence we have is that they’re a substitute then it runs this way. That vaping, at least so far as we know, is the most successful smoking cessation product any one has as yet invented (and do note that nothing else at all has halved teen smoking rates in only 5 years) means that we really shouldn’t be putting roadblocks in front of further adoption of the technology. A slightly closer look at the details might be appropriate but why one earth would we want to derail what works? Unless we were against the very idea of nicotine on either moral or business competition grounds?

Ex-smoker considers electronic cigarettes a life-saver, plans to open vaping store-- make money

He was 14 when he rode his bike to a shop on Linglestown Road and bought his first cigarette.

Keith Kepler was hooked. He smoked for the next four decades.

That all changed late in December when Kepler, by accident, walked into a store that sold electronic cigarettes. That was the last time he had a cigarette.

“Vaping has changed my life so much for the better,” Kepler said. “I smoked for 43 years, and I will never smoke another cigarette. This is a great viable and enjoyable alternative to killing yourself with cigarettes, and you still get your nicotine in a lot better flavor.”

Millions of former smokers have embraced e-cigarettes as an alternative to smoking. The battery-powered devices heat up a flavored liquid to deliver nicotine without any of the tobacco and chemicals of cigarettes, emitting a vapor instead of secondhand smoke.

Since they arrived on the market in 2009, along with millions of converts, e-cigarettes have generated scrutiny and concern that they are not as benign and safe as they are made out to be. Fueled by those concerns, lawmakers and health and substance abuse experts are increasingly calling for stricter state and federal regulation of the devices.

E-cigarette converts such as Kepler, meanwhile, can’t help singing the praises of a device that, he says, has had a profound impact in every aspect of his life. He is even investing money in it and opening up his own vaping shop.

“I feel so strongly about how positively it has affected my life and made it better,” Kepler said. “It was given to me and has changed my life so much in a positive way, I want to share it with people. I want to say you don’t have to stick those horrible things in your body.”

Neither Pennsylvania nor Washington have passed legislation to regulate the sale and public use of e-cigarettes, and what ordinances there are from one jurisdiction to another, have been passed at the local level.

"This is a great viable and enjoyable alternative to killing yourself with cigarettes." - Keith Kepler
Kepler said most e-cigarette users abide by self-imposed and common sense decisions.

“You gotta use your head,” he said. “I would not go into restaurant and vape at the table. It gives too many people that like to pick things apart ammunition. Anyone who wants to walk into a PTA meeting and start vaping ... somebody has to talk to them about their sense of judgment.”

Kepler finds that most people misunderstand e-cigarettes. The majority, he said, are under the impression that what he is expelling from his lungs is secondhand smoke. It’s a water vapor produced from a flavored liquid laced with nicotine.

Keith Kepler of Susquehanna Township shows how to use an electronic cigarette vaping device. A vaping device uses a liquid mixed with small amounts of nicotine that gets vaporized in a battery powered atomizer. The vapor created is inhaled and exhaled, simulating the experience of smoking.

“The air freshener you use at home is more harmful for you than what’s in vaping,” Kepler said.

To date no medical studies have drawn conclusive findings as to the potential risks of e-cigarettes.

Kepler won’t use his vaping devices in front of his grandchildren, or in some public places, like a public bus, but he did recently turn one on at a Costco.

“Nobody said a word to me,” he said. “You gotta use your head.”

Kepler favors what he calls common sense legislation to regulate e-cigarettes, which currently fall under no state nor federal law.

The Food and Drug Administration, which has yet to issue regulation on e-cigarettes, is being urged by lawmakers to impose restrictions for the sale and public use of e-cigarettes.

Kepler supports a state Senate bill that would restrict the sale of e-cigarettes to people 18 and older. Senate Bill 1055, sponsored by Sen. Timothy Solaby, a Democrat from western Pennsylvania, is pending approval from the chamber before it moves on to the state House.

Solaby said he's heard from a number of manufacturers who support the bill.

"I don't think they were initially targeting kids but unfortunately kids have become mesmerized by this and have started using it," he said.

On the other hand, Kepler is opposed to legislation that would impose taxes and any restrictions that would discourage adult smokers from trying them.

“I don’t want to see legislation that scares people away from it,” Kepler said. “Smoking is bad. There’s no two ways about it. I did it for 43 years.

"I have so much more energy. I sleep better. I’m able to do my duties better. I want to see as many people as possible have the opportunity to experience this and not get scared away because somebody uninformed about product says they are smoking in public place. No, they are not.”

Kepler admits he's addicted to the mild stimulant in cigarettes and e-cigarettes. “Yes, I need nicotine, just like I need my caffeine in the morning,” he said.

He has no intention of going back to smoking. Back in December, when he picked up his first e-cigarette, he gave away his pack of cigarettes.

“My wife still has a half a pack that she is going to keep as memorabilia,” he said.