If it sounds too good to be true, it mostly is…

I was skeptical about e-cigarettes and vaporizers right from the start. I smoked the old-fashioned, unhealthy cigarettes for 35 years, so just the idea of a modern looking, slim electronic device as a replacement for my “good old friend” seemed to be just bizarre. Who knows, maybe the fact that I am middle aged might have something to do with it as well. Although, I don’t think I am one of the older dogs that can’t learn a new trick –now and then.

For some it might seem like I am on a crusade against e-cigarettes -this is not the case. I do understand why especially younger people are drawn to it.

It’s not about being right or wrong, actually I would prefer to be wrong. But there is just more and more disturbing news about e-cigarettes and it makes me angry, knowing that so many younger smokers switched to the electronic device, in the hope to make smoking healthier. The modern cigarette of the 21^st century a healthy solution, for an unhealthy addiction! An oxymoron isn’t it?

In 2004, a Chinese pharmacist named Han Li helped develop the e-cigarette, which was then sold through his company, Beijing Ruyan. Other manufacturers soon followed, and by 2009, as e-cigarettes became more popular in the United States and Europe, more factories opened.

The boom has made China the breeding ground for a new, and some would say innovative, product. And yet the Chinese government has played no role in the development of the industry or in regulating it. As for the rest of the world, they have has been caught off guard by a product that is neither a food nor a drug and perhaps not necessarily even a tobacco product.

This year, Chinese manufacturers are expected to ship more than 300 million e-cigarettes to the United States and Europe, where they will reach the shelves of Wal-Mart, 7-Eleven stores, gas station outlets and so-called vaping shops.  Ninety percent of the world’s e-cigarettes are made in China. Experts warn, however, that poorly manufactured devices can vaporize heavy metals and carcinogens alongside the nicotine.

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has just begun to move toward regulating e-cigarettes, working on rules that would force global producers, in China and elsewhere, to provide the agency with a list of ingredients and details about the manufacturing process. We need to understand what e-cigarettes are made of and the manufacturing process is a critical part of that understanding. Analysts say setting rules and new manufacturing guidelines could take years. In the meantime, Chinese factories are quickening the pace, hoping to build profits and market share before regulatory scrutiny arrives and most likely forces many e-cigarette makers to close.

“We’ve found on the order of 25 or 26 different elements, including metals, in the e-cigarette aerosols,” says Prue Talbot, a professor of cell biology at the University of California, Riverside, and co-author of several of the studies. “Some of the metal particles are less than 100 nanometers in diameter, and those are a concern because they can penetrate deep into the lungs.”

Health advocates say they are troubled by a history of food and drug safety scandals in China, such as when manufacturers substituted diethylene glycol, an industrial solvent, for the sweetener glycerin when making toothpastes and cough medicine. That led to reports of more than 350 deaths in Panama, China and other countries in 2006 alone.

The risk of diethylene glycol showing up in e-cigarettes is real. In 2009, the F.D.A. issued a warning about the potential health risks associated with e-cigarettes, saying laboratory studies of some samples had found the presence of toxic chemicals, including diethylene glycol, which is used in antifreeze.

Please read the full article at the New York Times >>>here<<<

If it sounds too good to be true, it mostly is…

I try to remember what I heard in my 35 year smoking career. The tobacco industry  represented, first filters, then low tar cigarettes, both was promised to be less harmful. This turned out to be a terrible lie. Many suffered smoking related diseases thinking they were reducing harm. The burden of proof is to show that e-Cigarettes are less harmful. There simply is not enough data on the long term effects of smoking cigarettes to conclude that they are safer than regular ones.

Some might think that I don’t understand the problem. Most smokers have tried to quit at least once or twice. A lot tried even more often…that’s when the search for an alternative begins.

I do understand the problem. I quit after 35 years of smoking and this is going to be my first Christmas as a non-smoking adult. Don’t tell me it can’t be done.

Just quit and find something more enjoyable and productive to do with your money. Don’t jeopardize your health with the use of a newer product, that in the end will cost you harm. Just quit!