Are e-cigs as safe as you think?
If you’re trying to kick a smoking habit—or have watched someone try to quit again and again—e-cigarettes could seem like a magic potion.
The devices have been around for years in other parts of the world, but recently have started gaining popularity in the United States.
Dr. Tim Cline, senior director of training and clinical development for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Health Plan, says the jury is still out on just about every question surrounding the effects of e-cigarettes.
What’s Inside
E-cigarettes look and feel similar to regular cigarettes, providing the smoking experience without the tobacco and smoke.
But while most e-cigarettes work in the same way—a battery heats a cartridge of liquid nicotine packed with vegetable fat and flavoring, warming the liquid into a vapor—the chemicals they contain aren’t always the same.
Experts agree the process creates fewer cancer-causing particles than lighting up a regular cigarette, but they say the cartridges are still packed with some nasty—and for now, unregulated—chemicals that could be harmful to smokers and those around them.
Dr. Gary Giovino, chairman of the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior at the University of Buffalo School of Public Health, says the uncertainty surrounding the chemicals in e-cigarettes and the amount to which they circulate in the air, are reasons for concern.
“I don’t want to breathe the stuff, and I’m an ex-smoker,” he says. “When it comes to carcinogens, any exposure is a risk.”
Breaking the Habit
Researchers say it’s far too soon to know for sure if e-cigarettes can help smokers break their habit, or if the new devices only make the problem worse.
“Some reports say it can be effective for cessation, while others argue that it will support the maintenance of smoking behavior,” Cline says.
“The bottom line is, until the manufacturers of the products and the amounts of the ingredients (are regulated), all of these arguments are moot.”
Giovino and Cline say it’s hard to tell whether e-cigarettes could help someone quit—at least on any scale larger than a case-by-case basis—in part because the products don’t come with a clear explanation of how they can help you quit.
“There are no instructions or guidelines to how they can be used,” Cline says. “Whether they can somehow help you lose your dependence on nicotine and the other kinds of chains that bind you to smoking behavior is just a big question mark at this point. We don’t know.”
Normalizing Nicotine
Giovino also says there are concerns about e-cigarettes attracting new, younger smokers. Many of the products are marketed with unusual flavors, like bubble gum and even Cap’n Crunch.
“They’re still promoting a product that looks like a cigarette, and they’re promoting it in ways they used to promote cigarettes,” he says.
“We’ve worked really hard to de-normalize tobacco, and if they’re going to re-normalize inhaling a product with nicotine, that could end up being problematic.”