Electronic cigarettes: New route to smoking addiction for adolescents

[Logical]

Nov. 26, 2013 — E-cigarettes have been widely promoted as a way for people to quit smoking conventional cigarettes. Now, in the first study of its kind, UC San Francisco researchers are reporting that, at the point in time they studied, youth using e-cigarettes were more likely to be trying to quit, but also were less likely to have stopped smoking and were smoking more, not less.

"We are witnessing the beginning of a new phase of the nicotine epidemic and a new route to nicotine addiction for kids," according to senior author Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, UCSF professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at UCSF.

E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that look like cigarettes and deliver an aerosol of nicotine and other chemicals. Promoted as safer alternatives to cigarettes and smoking cessation aids, e-cigarettes are rapidly gaining popularity among adults and youth in the United States and around the world. The devices are largely unregulated, with no effective controls on marketing them to minors.

More at: http://esciencenews.com/articles/2013/11/29/electronic.cigarettes.new.route.smoking.addiction.adolescents

[Comrade Grumpy]

1. Again? Can you explain your issues with e-cigs?

[Logical]

2. I guess unless I allow you to use them anywhere, you will not be happy. Tough luck. n-t

[HappyMe]

4. You 'allow'?

You have nothing to say about what I do.

[Logical]

6. LOL, no but businesses do. nt

[HappyMe]

8. Yes, and...what?

[Comrade Grumpy]

5. You're not empowered to allow or not allow me to do anything. Tough luck.

Feeling ornery today? I suggest relaxing with a nice e-cig.

[Logical]

7. I don't need it. Sorry you do. Try to quit. n-t

[spin]

32. I think you just admitted that you are an authoritarian. ...

That can be a frustrating thing to be in a free society.

At one time authoritarians banned alcohol in our nation and that didn't work out well. More recently they banned many drugs and our War on Drugs appears to be a total failure.

I fully support your right to suggest that e-cigs should be banned but I personally feel that they are far less harmful than cigarettes and my experience shows that they can significantly reduce a smoking habit.

[Logical]

34. I dont want them banned. I just don't want them being used where regular cigs cannot be used? Why...

do you think that is authoritarian?

I think people quitting real cigs is great. I do not want ecigs being used where real cigs cannot be used.

Find one place I said to ban anything!

[spin]

35. Perhaps you are not as authoritarian as I suspected when I read your post ...

in which you stated:

I guess unless I allow you to use them anywhere, you will not be happy. Tough luck. n-t

I feel you might have worded that better but I will admit that I overreacted to that comment.

Still I will argue that if they can be used in places where cigarettes are banned, they will become more popular and more people will be able to quit.

I know few long term smokers who are not trying to at least reduce their smoking. Usually they are unsuccessful in the long run. It appears that smoking e-cigs makes quitting far easier for many people and is more healthy for those who do not quit. Obviously more research needs to be done but it needs to be independent research free of control by the government who is looking for something new to regulate as well influence by the tobacco industry and the e-cig manufacturers.

I do see a danger in the attraction teenagers see in e-cigs. Still despite all our efforts, young teenagers still obtain cigarettes. It does appear e-cigs would be less harmful for them in the long run as possibly not as addictive.

[Logical]

37. Yes, I understand how you took that to mean I wanted them banned.....

I just mean I do not want them being in restaurants, bars, etc.

But if smokers might quit real cigs if they can use them in bars, etc, then maybe I am wrong.

[HappyMe]

3. Every store I have seen them in

they are behind the counter or in a case that only the clerk can unlock. It's up to the stores to card them.

[murray hill farm]

10. I smoked a pack a day..plus

for over 45 yrs. Tried to quit many times without luck. 6 years ago, quit smoking using E-Cigs in just 3 weeks. Still not smoking and never will again. Thanks E-Cigs! Some people just have to feed their "better than thou" egos...with such a reminder that they have never smokes, etc. In itself, it can become an addiction.

[War Horse]

11. I've so far reduced my consumption of analog cigs by at least 25 %

by using e-cigs. Aiming for another 25 % reduction, and the goal is zero. Before I became a smoker I was extremely anti smoking. And I've since realized that I could be somewhat of a jerk about it.

If e-cigs really increases nicotine consumption among the young that is indeed a huge problem.

But to dismiss them as a quitting aid is just... I dunno. Something that someone who has never tried to quit smoking would do.

[meow2u3]

12. E-cigs helped me stop smoking

I haven't have a cigarette for two weeks, thanks to e-cigs.

This idea that e-cigs is a gateway to smoking for teenagers is a crock of shit. If anything, e-cigs, or personal vaporizers, is a gateway away from smoking, at least for adult smokers. This study is junk science which must have been bankrolled either by Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, or both. They don't want competition from e-cigs, which really work to help kick the smoking habit.

[HappyMe]

15. I know 3 people that quit smoking

using those ecigs.

All of them raved about how they eased the way to quitting.

[meow2u3]

16. E-cig manufacturers and vendors explicitly market them to adult smokers

as an alternative. They get the nicotine, which hooked them on cigs in the first place, without all the tars and other crap that gets in the lungs.

So why all the hubbub about teens using e-cigs as a gateway to smoking? Sounds like propaganda designed to outlaw e-cigs for adults to me.

[HappyMe]

18. It sure seems like a load of crap

to outlaw ecigs altogether.

The ecigs are always behind the counter anyway, so it's not as if a kid can just grab them. You have to be 21 in NY to buy real cigs or ecigs. Seems like more 'what about the children!1' nonsense.

[meow2u3]

22. You also have to be 18 to buy them online or in smoke shops (or vape shops)

"What about the children" my ass! The attitude of anti-vaping zealots is more "let's protect the children by keeping them out of the hands of adults."

[HappyMe]

25. Yup.

[Kurska]

13. What people don't seem to get is nicotine in and of itself isn't more dangerous than caffeine

E-cig contain 1/100000 the harmful chemicals that cigarette smoke does, which means it is arguably not much worse than breathing the air in LA.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. I quit smoking after 42 years of smoking with e-cigs. And, my doc lists me as a non-smoker.

And, he recommends e-cigs to his smoking patients.

[Logical]

17. I agree! 100%. but I hope kids do not think that they can use them if not current smokers. n-t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

19. Can kids legally buy them?

[Logical]

20. No and they cant buy beer either. n-t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

24. Then what do you propose?

[HappyMe]

21. That's up to their parents to worry about.

They are behind the counter here, so they aren't sold like candy.

[Logical]

23. Neither is beer. And we know kids never get that. n-t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Then, what do you propose?

[Logical]

29. Nothing will stop kids form getting it. I didn't propose banning anything. n-t

[HappyMe]

31. Responsible store owners will prevent it.

If they don't, there are consequences for it.

[HappyMe]

27. That's not my problem.

There is a store here that closed because they sold to an underage kid.

What do you propose? Make everything illegal because some stupid kid might do it.

[SomethingFishy]

28. I am also using the e-cigs to quit.. and it's working.

Plus it's a bit cheaper too...

Are you using a re-fillable or a cartridge brand? I have been using the Blu, I tried a couple others but this seemed to be the one that best curbs the urge for a regular smoke...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

30. I use GreenSmoke.

Their cartridges can be refilled (though not specifically designed to) with a tiny bit of effort. I occasionally do it just for a change in flavor but usually just smoke them as they come.

Good luck!!

3 years since I've smoked a "real" cigarette...and I don't even miss them.

[cthulu2016]

33. Unwholesome Obsession isn't just a river in Egypt

[PeaceNikki]

36. Do you know you can alter the nicotine levels and/or have none at all?

I have non-smoking friends who vape without nicotine.

And I've whiddled down to almost none.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

38. -.-

[Glassunion]

39. So the gist of what I took away from this article

That prior to 2008 when the e-cigarette devices were first introduced, use amongst Korean youths was at 0%, and then after their introduction a total of 9.4% of Korean youths have ever used an e-cig.

I believe that I found a correlation. Prior to 2008 the sales of Tesla automobiles was at 0%, and then after their introduction Tesla now holds 8.6% market share in the plug-in all EV category.

Boo e-cigs and Boo Tesla motors for bringing this plague upon us.

[LadyHawkAZ]

40. And the Misleading Headline of the Day Award goes to...

E-cigarettes have been widely promoted as a way for people to quit smoking conventional cigarettes.

Not by the manufacturers, they haven't, because that would place them under FDA regulations for drug delivery devices (Sottera v. FDA). The closest companies have come to this is in the ads promoting them as a way to puff indoors- an indoor alternative, not a cessation device.

Despite industry claims that it markets only to adults, e-cigarettes have achieved substantial penetration into the youth market.

So has alcohol, which is emphatically not marketed to kids. For that matter, so have cigarettes.

In the U.S., the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported that the majority of adolescent e-cigarette users also smoke regular cigarettes,

76.3% to be exact, in spite of the fact that analog cigarettes aren't being marketed to kids and are illegal for minors to buy in every state.

and that the percentage of middle and high school students who use e-cigarettes more than doubled from 2011 to 2012.

which indicates that either the number of kids smoking also rose, or that most of the new e-cig users were already existing smokers, in spite of the fact that analog cigarettes are not marketed to kids and are illegal for minors to buy in every state.

Among students who used e-cigarettes, eight percent were concurrently smoking conventional cigarettes. After adjusting for demographics, current cigarette smokers in the study were found to be much more likely to use e-cigarettes than non-smokers.

Ah, finally, the heart of the matter. Headline reads: "New route to smoking addiction for adolescents", so which one did the kids start using first? The rest of the article suggests they were existing smokers trying to quit, which would mean the headline and premise of the article is incorrect. The study in the Journal of Adolescent Health is, unfortunately, behind a paywall, but here's a quote from the abstract:

As elsewhere, in South Korea electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are marketed, in part, as a smoking cessation aid. We assessed the prevalence of e-cigarette use among Korean adolescents and the relationship between e-cigarette use and current (past 30-day) smoking, cigarettes/day, attempts to quit conventional cigarettes, and ceasing to use cigarettes.

The study was done on use as a cessation aid, not as a gateway device, in a country which allows marketing as a cessation aid, which the US does not. This article is junk.