Sunday 15 February 2015

Questions to which the answer is "no": "Are e-cigs a gateway drug"

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This should be seen as brilliant - only 4% of US teens now report having smoked. This is a dramatic switch and the reason for it is vaping, the e-cig. Yet the people reporting on the finding are now trying to suggest that somehow children vaping will, once their hooked on nicotine, switch to good old-fashioned cigarettes:

Twice as many teenagers are using e-cigarettes than conventional smoking with fears this could potentially lead to an addiction to nicotine.

The findings have raised concerns that e-cigarettes - widely viewed as harmless to health - might act as a 'gateway' to tobacco.

The study, based on surveys of 50,000 students in 400 secondary schools in the US, is the first sign among this age group the use of e-cigarettes has surpassed the use of traditional tobacco products, researchers claim. 

Let's be clear about one thing here - there is precisely zero evidence to support the suggestion from these 'researchers' that e-cigs "might act as a 'gateway' to tobacco", In fact the evidence tells us that the reverse is true - people who have used tobacco are switching to vaping.

Almost one-fifth of smokers who try ECs once go on to become regular users. ECs may develop into a genuine competitor to conventional cigarettes. Government agencies preparing to regulate ECs need to ensure that such moves do not create a market monopoly for conventional cigarettes.

There's no reason to believe that the situation with children will be markedly different from adults. But even if children are opting for vaping rather than smoking this has to be significant in terms of general health benefits. So why is it that researchers - and newspapers like the Daily Mail - persist in trying to suggest that e-cigarettes and vaping are somehow a gateway to smoking smoking? Even when Action of Smoking and Health (ASH) tell us this ain't so?

'Nicotine can be harmful to the growing brain so it's best if young people avoid it. But if they're going to experiment it's better to use e-cigarettes as vaping is far less dangerous than smoking and much less addictive.

'So far in the UK and the US, smoking rates are going down more than e-cigarette use is growing. This would not be the case if vaping really were a gateway into smoking.'

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1 comment:

gotsteam said...

Governments, health agencies and anti smoking groups are so terrified of EC's because EC's are going to very quickly dry up a source of revenue that they are so heavily addicted to.

They MUST push for the regulation and taxation of EC's or they MUST eliminate EC's as SOON as they possibly can in a coordinated effort to offset the ever growing deficit of tobacco taxes that they are and will lose in a very short period time.

Forget about the fact that nicotine is not a carcinogen and is no more dangerous than UNTAXED caffeine. Forget about the fact that e-cigs, while not entirely safe are in fact 99% (nothing in this world is 100% safe) safer than smoking tobacco. The fact that billions of dollars are being diverted from mega corporations and government coffers is the ONLY reason that EC's are under such a barrage of attacks from so many different agencies and groups.

The government, the AHA, the ALA, big tobacco, big pharma and anyone else that screams and preaches that smoking kills do not give ONE SPIT about your health or mine, they ONLY care about the money they receive from the sale of tobacco and tobacco cigarettes, plain and simple.

If anyone says anything differently to you regarding EC's and health and why they need to be regulated and taxed or eliminated, they are lying, and you can take THAT to the bank.