# Column: For many, e-cigs are an elegant solution



## Alex (20/12/14)

Opinion
*Column: For many, e-cigs are an elegant solution*
By Mike Hanks
December 19, 2014 at 12:40 pm





*by John McClay*

*guest columnist*

During the last few years, electronic cigarettes have quietly become the most effective smoking cessation method available.

As e-cig use – “vaping” – has increased, smoking prevalence has decreased nationally from 21 percent in 2005 to 17.8 percent in recent years, which translates into millions of former smokers. This is the fastest decrease in smoking rates we’ve ever seen, both for youngsters and adults.

But wait, e-cigs cannot be marketed for smoking cessation because tobacco corporations lobbied the FDA to regulate e-cigs in 2009 as a “tobacco product.” If e-cigs were known by any other name – vaporizers, atomizers or inhaler – perhaps municipal officials would not conflate vaping and smoking. The Bloomington City Council recently overreached by prohibiting vapers from sampling in vape stores, thus “protecting” vapers from vapor.

The vast majority of vapers are adult former smokers, and most e-cig stores discourage non-smokers from trying e-cigs on site, now moot in Bloomington. Naturally, some adolescents experiment with vaping, because they’ll try anything that feels “cool.” But few will graduate to smoking – why spend 10 times more for a demonstrably more harmful, detectable and socially unacceptable product?

I am only one of the millions who have stopped smoking (a pack-a-day for 55 years) thanks to e-cigs. I started as a teen because it was cool, but as the research came in, I tried to quit many times – cold turkey, gum, lozenges and Zyban. All my efforts failed, and until last year I’d resigned myself to continue smoking until my last breath.

But since May 2013, resignation has turned to relief. I quit smoking and have zero desire ever to smoke again. Both my lungs (no congestion) and nicotine receptors are happy. E-cigs are not for everyone, but for many they are an elegant solution. I loved to smoke, and e-cigs work because they mimic the smoking experience, holding them, inhaling and watching the exhaled vapor, which looks like smoke.

Ah, there’s the rub, vaping looks like smoking. But things are not always as they appear.

First, e-cigs have no combustion, no smelly smoke, no tobacco and no carcinogenic tar. The exhaled water vapor is harmless to bystanders, according to studies thus far. Second, tobacco cigarettes contain at least 4,000 ingredients, some carcinogenic, added over the decades to enhance taste and increase addictiveness. By contrast, e-cigs contain just four ingredients — vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, nicotine (which is flavorless) and flavoring.

But what about nicotine, in and of itself? It is a mild stimulant and, like caffeine, powerfully addictive, but not especially harmful and not carcinogenic. It has a temporary, mild constricting effect on blood vessels, which may raise blood pressure slightly. But if nicotine per se were harmful, it would not be available over the counter in gum or lozenge forms.

So in this big, messy, complicated world, we do what we can. This issue is about harm reduction – like seat belts, air bags, condoms and vaccinations. There are degrees of harm, and sometimes the best we can do is to take what we know, trust the unbiased research, weigh the costs and benefits, then massage the odds in a healthy direction, until something better comes along. Vaping is a significantly less harmful alternative to smoking.

Recalling the old days when ashtrays were ubiquitous and nonsmokers had to tolerate stinky tobacco smoke almost everywhere indoors, I applaud the Clean Indoor Air Act. But sending vapers outdoors, as if they were smokers, may turn out to be overkill.

Even if e-cigs are overly restricted by alarmist, but well-meaning, city or state officials who lump them together with tobacco cigarettes, they will continue to play their unadvertised but leading role in reducing the known harm of smoking.

_McClay, of Bloomington, is a retired psychologist and professor._

Filed Under: bloomington, columns

Reactions: Like 4


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## free3dom (20/12/14)

Excellent piece...so well written, it states clearly what I think a lot of us vapers think and feel but don't always have the right words for 

Thanks @Alex

Reactions: Agree 4


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## Arthster (20/12/14)

Excellent, Really like the article.


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