Posts Tagged ‘Smoking’
Are E-Cigarettes Safe?
An “e-cigarette” is an “electronic cigarette” that looks like a real cigarette but produces no smoke. It has a glowing red tip, to simulate the look, but is really just a stainless-steel tube that delivers nicotine to your system. When you puff on the ecigarette, the system delivers a mist that contains some flavoring and nicotine to simulate the “smoke” of a real cigarette. Just as there are menthol cigarettes, there are various flavors for ecigarette “smoke” like various fruits or even the mint of menthol.
Why do people use them?
They’re marketed a lot in airplanes (we were pitched one while flying Aer Lingus) because they produce no smoke, so smokers can enjoy the rush of nicotine while traveling on a plane, where most are non-smoking. With so many places banning smoking, from bars to hotels to airports, e-cigarettes offer an alternative way to get your nicotine without the smoke. You’re allowed to smoke an ecigarette indoors because there’s no smoke.
Also, since it’s water vapor with nicotine, it has none of the harmful effects of smoking. There is no tar because there is no smoke. There is still the risk of nicotine addiction but none of the smoke related carcinogens. In that respect it’s better than a regular cigarette.
In this way, it’s really no different than other nicotine delivery mechanisms like gums and patches. However, claims that it can help you quit smoking haven’t been backed up with data. Just as you can abuse gums and patches, you can abuse ecigarettes. The FDA has yet to make a ruling on ecigarettes, which are classified as drugs because they are a drug delivery system. Very recently, a federal judge ordered the FDA to stop the blocking of ecigarettes from China because they should be a tobacco product and not a drug device.
Are E-Cigarettes Safe?
In this Marketplace Money report, they take a closer look at ecigarettes, which cost around $100 a piece, and confirmed that there really isn’t enough information yet to make a decision on its safety. What we need is the FDA to take a long look at them, at the data, and issue a ruling on them.
If you want to learn more about e-cigarettes, this ebook has some more information.
Subscribe to the comments for this postHow to Quit Smoking
Everyone knows smoking is dangerous for you the same way that everyone knows that eating a McDonald’s every day is dangerous for you, yet people continue to do both. It’s not that people are dumb, it’s that smoking is very addicting because your body craves nicotine. Nicotine enters the body by hitching a ride with the tar in cigarette smoke and gets absorbed into the bloodstream in your lungs, leaving the tar behind. It takes about tne seconds to feel the effects of nicotine, another ten before it reaches the rest of your body.
Cold turkey, patches, sprays, gum, and all sorts of home remedies have been made to help people quit smoking but so many don’t work because they don’t focus on the reasons why we smoke, they only focus on our biological need for nicotine. While it’s important to focus on that, you didn’t start smoking because you craved nicotine, your body hadn’t learned that yet. You smoked because you thought it would make you look cool or you thought it would relieve your stress. You continued because you were worried that quitting would make you fat or you felt depressed without the social connections you made with other smokers.
That’s why this program on how to quit smoking is so powerful. In addition to tackling the biological aspects of smoking, the program offers information on how to overcome the other reasons we smoke like weight loss and stress reduction.
Take a look and let me know what you think!
