Jan 12
2
Anti Smoking
Is E – Cigarette an Alternative to Smoking? by Christopher Wilson
The ‘e-cigarette’, an electronic cigarette that has been growing in popularity as an alternative to smoking, has come under fire after ministers were urged to restrict sales of the product as concerns were raised that they could be harmful. The ‘cigarettes’ look like the real thing but are in fact usually made of stainless steel and are battery powered. They contain liquid nicotine and when heated, users inhale vaporised droplets of the drug and breathe out mist.
While the devices were mostly being sold on the internet after they were developed in China, they are increasingly popping up in markets and shops as consumers seek to get around the smoking ban at around £40 for a starter pack. However trading standards discovered that the concentration of nicotine they contained merited the label ‘highly toxic’. They have been banned in Australia. The body that advises the government on regulation, Lacors, have called for greater regulation of sales, expressing especial concern that young children may swallow the cartridges with fatal consequences. Trading standards is also advocating that sales of the product be restricted to over-eighteens and that the packaging carry health warnings.
The anti-smoking lobby group Ash have warned against the device and in October their director Deborah Arnott said, “At the moment we don’t know enough about this product. The electronic cigarettes fall into a regulatory gap and they haven’t been chemically tested”. In 2008 the World Health Organisation released a statement repudiating the claims of marketers that the device was a good aide to smoking cessation, as there was “no scientific evidence whatsoever that would confirm the electronic cigarette is…safe and effective”.
There is a big market for products to help smokers quit, many of which are widely prescribed on the NHS. Commonly known as Nicotine Replacement Therapies, these include nicotine patches, nicotine gum and nicotine inhalants. When those fail, medication is often advised, both to reduce the withdrawal symptoms and help the quitter deal with nicotine cravings. There are two medications that are licensed for prescription, Champix and Zyban. The latter was originally marketed as an anti-depressant but its effectiveness as a quitting aid was discovered when smokers taking it for other reasons discovered they lost interest in smoking. Medically known as buproprion hydrochloride, it lessens the agony of smoking withdrawal. Champix, or varenicline, works in two ways. First it reduces the cravings for nicotine by blocking the brain’s nicotine receptors, so withdrawal is lessened. Then it reduces the satisfaction a smoker feels when they light up. Both drugs are only prescribed when a patient has tried all other means of quitting. Doctors have estimated that when someone tries to quit using any of the above methods, whether patches, pills or inhalants, they are four times more likely to succeed than someone going cold turkey.
On the face of it, the e-cigarette should seem like the perfect tool to help people quit, or even act as a permanent substitute for cigarettes. Nicotine Withdrawal is by no means all that is experienced when someone quits; they miss having something to do with their hands, the action of lighting up; and the role that cigarettes played in their daily routine. E-cigarettes allow them to retain all that while still cutting out the cancer-causing tar, smoke and burning tobacco. Nonetheless they are totally untested, their manufacture is unregulated and their safety utterly unknown. Until extensive tests are done and UK regulators bring in some kind of standard, they are unlikely to garner support from the major anti-smoking bodies in the UK as an acceptable smoking cessation tool.
About the Author
Christopher Wilson is a well-known pharmacist based in UK. For more information related to smoking cessation and Champix he recommends you visit http://www.theonlineclinic.co.uk/
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