More on E-Cigarettes

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By Associated Press, Published: February 15PENSACOLA, Fla. — A Florida man trying to kick the smoking habit was puffing on an electronic cigarette when a faulty battery caused it to explode in his mouth, taking out some of his front teeth and a chunk of his tongue and severely burning his face.

On a recent front page of the PBPost was an article on e-cigarettes. The main jest was that e-cigarettes are an alternative to regular cigarettes and will not have harmful effects, but no one knows this for sure.  It talked about the celebrities smoking electronic cigarettes and how delighted people are of all ages to have this cool device. Very little emphasis was given to the dangers.

The subject interests me because we have such a store right in the heart of our downtown. Those that push this stuff say that E-cigarettes don't contain tobacco but there is liquid nicotine that is heated up by some sort of mechanism and you exhale nicotine vapors. No one really knows if this is dangerous or not and some regulatory agencies and  health experts have a lot of questions about the possible side effects of inhaling nicotine vapor. They want to know if there are any bad side effects to this latest trend both to users and to the public. Proper research trials have not been conducted and there is no prove that they are safe.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and some doctors are concerned that the side effects of inhaling pure nicotine have yet to be adequately studied. According to the FDA  it is concerned about what sort of ingredients make up these e-cigarettes. The FDA has not evaluated any e-cigarettes for safety or effectiveness. When the FDA conducted limited laboratory studies of certain samples, it found significant quality issues that indicate that quality control processes used to manufacture these products are substandard or non-existent. FDA found that cartridges labeled as containing no nicotine contained nicotine and that three different electronic cigarette cartridges with the same label emitted a markedly different amount of nicotine with each puff. Experts have also raised concerns that the marketing of products such as e-cigarettes can increase nicotine addiction among young people and may lead kids to try other tobacco products.

Here is what IS known about e-cigarettes:
they contain toxic chemicals
kids and teens can buy them
they come in all sorts of flavors that kids like
e-cigarette companies are spending millions on advertising
Can be used where smoking is banned--restaurants, beach, etc.
People think they can quit cigarette smoking by using e-cigarettes but there is no proof
Aimed at the young

The British Medical Association and the World Health Organization are wary of the trend and warn of the dangers that may be associated with the smoking devices. In 2013, 4.3% of middle school students and 12.1% of high school students had tried e-cigarettes and 1.8% of middle school students and 5.4% of high school students had used e-cigarettes on one or more occasions during the past 30 days (current e-cigarette use).

How can an electronic cigarette that contains unknown or possibly toxic chemicals be legal? Due to tobacco lobbies, it took centuries before the government had definitive studies that proved tobacco is injurious to your health.  How can anyone, with any degree of certainty, be confident that they are not injuring their health by doing something that they consider "cool" but not tested?

The effects of E-cigarettes must be studied. How does anyone know if inhaling these vapors is not dangerous?