people who switch to e-cigs are not looking to quit..but to cut down how many cigarettes they smoke per day

Yes, I know there are people who use e-cigs and don't particularly want to quit, but I believe the bulk of the people who use them do, in fact, want to quit smoking.

and that he should start smoking cigarettes again.

The point is we can't just make shit up to disprove studies that say things we don't agree with

People who switch to e-cigs have by definition quit smoking.

Smoking is not vaping, vaping is not smoking, no matter how similar they might look to those to ignorant or too invested in a puritanical belief, to see otherwise.

Tobacco is incredibly dangerous. Nicotine is not.

personally, but if somebody wants to do harm reduction instead, I certainly don't object in the slightest.

That could be said in some cases, but in many cases people are looking for a way to totally quit smoking for good. Even those that don't go into it with the expectations of quitting smoking find the side effect of vaping is quitting smoking.

I certainly wasn't intending to quit when I tried my first e-cig, but I liked it so much on the very first drag that I never smoked again. Almost 3 years now.

No. The study was of people who were not trying to quit. As a result, e-cig usage was moot.

The sample was of people who were not trying to quit. Then they filtered on e-cig usage. They had already excluded "trying to quit" people.

I'm unable to read the article (long story, suffice to say my software won't deal with it and there's no way to make it work). I'm reliant on the reading ability of strangers here.

But they were studying people who were NOT trying to quit? Is this correct?

If so, I can believe it and my objection fades. E-cig users may be relying on harm reduction, in which case a slightly lower than median quit rate is believable.

But to say they don't help you quit is, at best, disingenuous--and at worst, lying through your teeth. The study was then looking at incidental quit rates of people who didn't want to quit.

Call me when they actually do a study on people trying to quit.

Intention vs "trying" is another complicated nuanced conversation. If 85% of e-ciggers claim they are smoking them to quit (according to their cited internaitonal study), the 85% of 94% of the e-cigg group may have already been in the process of "trying" to quit at the start of the study.

In any case, what you are claiming is not true.

And someone who uses both is probably not really interested in quitting - there's no reason for them to turn to e-cigs unless they are so addicted that they need a fix in a 'non-smoking' environment.

If you're turning to e-cigs for harm reduction, you stop smoking the real thing. Same if you turn to e-cigs to quit.

someone who uses both is probably not really interested in quitting

Those specific users were asked if they intended to quit. 94% of those specific dual-users said they intended to. And you are claiming they are lying? The users?

You are also trying to fabricate a new group of people (just e-ciggers). Those people already "quit" smoking according to the bar set in this study. They are non-entities as much as those who are chewing gum and quit. If any of these people reached the point they were just vaping, they are in the 10.2% who quit quit. Once you are just vaping, you already suceeded. This study is trying to determine how vaping impacts the smoking behavior of SMOKERS, not quitters.

Oh, I'll quit. Really I will!!

And then they don't. Because they're so addicted they are using e-cigs to get around smoking bans.

Actually, that's the entire fucking point of my objection to this POS study.

As long as they're using nicotine, they should be considered "smokers". Throwing out the 100% e-cig users means you aren't evaluating e-cigs. You are evaluating e-cig and regular cig vs regular cig.

As long as they're using nicotine, they should be considered "smokers".

We conducted a longitudinal analysis of a national sample of current US smokers to determine whether e-cigarette use predicted successful quitting or reduced cigarette consumption.

Look, if you disagree with it you can counter their premise with your own dissertation. But for the sake of the study, and in the general argument of "harm reduction", all that we should be interested in knowing is if a single variable can significantly predict the reduction in first and second hand harm among a population.

There is no reason to study pure e-ciggars. They have already successfully quit. The only interest in studying them is to see how many non-former smokers who use e-cigarettes become cigarette consumers (but that is a tangent) or relapse.

This study does EXACTLY what it intended to do. It shows how this variable (vaping nicotine) among a population (smokers) predicts cessation of smoking. In the end, such behavior among this particular population in this particular study predicts a reduction in quitting, despite a signalled increase in the desire to quit.

And you threw out the majority of people on one side of that variable.

The point of smoking is not to light something on fire. The point of smoking is to inhale nicotine.

100% e-cig users may be still inhaling nicotine. Some have cut down to 0% liquids. The 0% liquid people are the ones who should be excluded.


Yes, it does. It skews it's sample in order to get the result they wanted.

Vaping is not smoking. Vaping only is the successful cessation of smoking. How can you study pure vappers (who do not smoke) to predict if they will quit smoking? They already have (or didn't in the first place)!

Yes, it does. It skews it's sample in order to get the result they wanted.

No, it just didn't produce the results you wanted. It offends you. You are making up things about it at this point.

Despite what you want to post, among SMOKERS, the act of vaping is a predictor of cessation of smoking after a 1 year period. You may not like that, but that's that until we get some more data we can weigh together.

There is no reason to be a flat-earther about this

The only people you can consider smokers are people who light up a plant & smoke it.

You wanna show your disdain for people who like nicotine? Use the right terminology, then.

It is clear that they help people quit or reduce smoking. I have one in my pocket right now. It replaces about half the cigarettes I would have smoked, and I aspire to replacing all of them with it.

They don't emit the dread evil smoke, and there appears to be little evidence they emit anything that harms anybody. Applying smoking bans to e-cigs or other vaping devices seems to be based more on bigotry than evidence.

I would be fine with limiting them to adults. As a smoking cessation device, they are great; as a teen nicotine initiation device, not so much.

with restricting sales to adults. The whole "Marketing to CHILDREN, think of the CHILDREN" line is a transparently dishonest argument.

And you are correct, a lot of folks are hiding behind the "THINK OF THE CHILDREN" argument to rationalize their dislike of e-cigs.

I thought it was just me who was seeing it as hysteria.

And like all zealots, they don't operate rationally.

i look forward to the day cannabis fully legal everywhere, if for no other reason to see what the anti-smoking zealots come up with then.

The zealots won't listen to science or reason, so they come up with "studies" that confirm their prejudices against flavored, nicotine-infused propylene glycol/vegetable glycerin juice, which they magically equate with a combustible, carcinogenic substance.

the dangers of getting cancer from the smoke - both first and secondhand varieties? Now, we know that for some of them, that was a lie. And it's not about nicotine for some of them, either. There are people who want to ban or restrict the use, by adults, of e-cigs that contain zero nicotine.

Smokers (and former smokers) enjoy vaping, therefore vaping is bad. That's really all there is to it.

The attitude of nicotine prohibitionists, a.k.a. ANTZ (anti tobacco and nicotine zealots) can be summed up like this: If I can't have fun, no one else will. Sheer envy IMO.

And the pharmaceutical industry.

Consider. You smoke, you go to a medication to quit. You have about a 5-10% chance of quitting with a very high chance of relapse within a year. So you smoke for a while and try to quit again...

Neither industry wants to see a product that actually keeps people off their drugs and the cigarettes and doesn't seem to do measurable harm.

there wasn't much hoopla about the e-cigs until Big Tobacco started seeing it effecting their profit margins. You can rest assured they did studies then and now are floating negative propoganda everywhere they can.

is that nothing irrevocably damning has come out about the e-cig. You know durned well Big Tobacco studied these to death, and if they'd found anything it would have been released to the sound of trumpets. They gotta keep those profits.

The best anybody can do is make snide commentary and intimate that something might theoretically be an issue...usually ignoring the fact that it's also in the cigarette in quantities an order of magnitude higher or more.

that suck on purpose, hoping that everyone who tries them will hate them and give up on the idea of using e-cigs altogether. They'll just continue smoking. I believe that's why their e-cigs are so inferior. It's intentional.

The rest are either shopping for one or developing their own.

Certainly not for any length of time, once they figure out there's much better (and less expensive) hardware and liquid available.

I suspect the tobacco companies know their e-cigs are shitty. They're intentionally selling shitty e-cigs knowing a lot of people will try them, dislike them, decide e-cigs won't work for them, and continue smoking.

Even if Big Tobacco is trying to get into e-cigs, the profits aren't as huge. They'd rather people keep smoking analogs. I tried one of the crappy disposable they put out just to test whether I liked it but A) it died within a day and B) I found much better, cheaper stuff online.

If that's the three-part to ditto.

I tried a Blu disposable, but had already read about them and fully expected the short battery life, poor vapor, and flavor that resembled a burning electrical wire. All those were true.

I moved on from there. A lot of us do, and no harm done.

that Blu is the crap de la crap of e-cigs. They imagine that all e-cigs are like that and give up on the idea.

I spent a couple of months reading before I ever purchased. The information is more easily available now than it used to be, but a potential user has to 1) know the information exists, 2) find it and 3) read it.

I started with the crappy disposable ecigs and went back to smoking. They just didn't satisfy enough. Then a family member introduced me to the online world of vaping, and never looked back. The hubster and I have been smoke-free for 7 months now. Two other family members have also quit and a brother who smokes 75% ecig 25% cig.

The tobacco company version of ecigs are designed to send you back to smoking. A cigarette has 60 mg. of nicotine and their ecigs have 20 mg. at most. People aren't getting satisfied if they're trying to quit, and probably explains why I went back to smoking. When I tried the bigger, better vapes, I started with the 36 mg. eliquid and I felt completely satisfied with that. Now I'm at 0 mg. of nicotine but still enjoy vaping.

....from a plethora of small businesses who manufacture the devices and liquids that end up cutting into corporate profits.

One designed to demonize them so most will accept the same restrictions (and most importantly, the same tax rates) on e-cigs as rgular tobacco cigs.

The state/federal governments stupidly funded non smoking programs with cig taxes (childrens health programs among them), which should NEVER have been funded on a sin tax thats designed from the start to degrease usage, which decreases tax income at the same time.

a belief that they're getting something that the antis don't, in this case enjoyment, I guess. You see, smokers were supposed to suffer by being forced to quit enjoying nicotine, so since those clever devils found a way that doesn't contradict laws or regulations against smoking to still enjoy nicotine, they must have that take away, too, so they suffer.

But these idiots, and I mean that because this is beyond the scientific pale, sought to determine whether e-cigs help people quit who are not trying to quit.

Un-fucking-believable.

Here is the study from these "idiots":

One randomized trial comparing e-cigarettes with and without nicotine with a nicotine patch found no differences in 6-month quit rates.2 Population-based, longitudinal studies have also not shown associations between e-cigarette use and quitting.4,5 A longitudinal, international study found that, although 85% of smokers who used e-cigarettes reported using them to quit, e-cigarette users did not quit more frequently than nonusers (P?=?.52).4 Among US quitline callers, e-cigarette users were less likely to have quit at 7 months than nonusers.5 We conducted a longitudinal analysis of a national sample of current US smokers to determine whether e-cigarette use predicted successful quitting or reduced cigarette consumption.

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1846627



Reread your OP. Check out the study. Yes, intention to quit was considered, in many ways.

Stop reading sensational headlines before digging your heels in. Its all there

Not blaming you, but whoever said, "85% of smokers who used e-cigarettes reported using them to quit" is being intentionally deceptive.

Half of that 85% said they had no plans to quit in the next six months.


The researchers are, in fact, morons for stating the conclusion they stated. The sample parameter is guaranteed to achieve a useless result, whether by design or incompetence.

And they are testing a proposition nobody even claims—that having ever used an e-cig but not having quit when you started using an e-cig makes you likelier to quit in the future. The underlined part is a definitional requirement of the sample of people who have used an e-cig in the past but currently smoke cigarettes. And in the case of this sample, a LOT of cigarettes, since their usage is listed as higher.

Do you recognize that this study starts out by excluding every person who ever quit using e-cigs? That is is limited to people who used e-cigs but kept right on smoking?

Why would a person study the quitting efficacy of something by first removing every person who had shown quitting efficacy?

Firstly, its likely the 85% statistic is from a separate international study (note the citation included in the abstract) and not included in their data rollout. In their sample data, 94% of the e-cig users intended to quit (and only 87% of non-users did).

In terms of their study data, 40% of e-cig users intended to quit in 6 months vs 30% of non users. 54% of e-cig users intended to quit, but not in 6 months, vs 57% of non-users. And the e-cig users who wanted to quit in 30 days was 8% vs 6% among non-users.

Clearly, e-cigarette users were more likely to say they wanted to quit earlier when the study started and those intending to quit were a larger portion of the group.

After 1 years, 10% of e-cig users quit vs 14% of non-users.

Come on now....Let's not be overly obtuse here. You are showing confirmation bias.

You also ignored this:

Among US quitline callers, e-cigarette users were less likely to have quit at 7 months than nonusers

Do you recognize that this study starts out by excluding every person who ever quit using e-cigs?

It also isn't including everyone who already quit cold-turkey or with patches. This is a longitudinal analysis of a main population (smokers) subdivided into two groups. I don't have a clue on why they would look at past smokers in a longitudinal study. That's absurd, crazy science.

Do they or do they not consider people still using their e-cig after the elapsed time period to be smokers? Patch users? Gum/lozenge?

If they don't then they would say I haven't quit smoking...which is patently untrue. There's no ignition of tobacco going on here. You will not find smoke being generated by me. Period.

But I need that definition to decide whether said study is crap or not.

Right in the abstract, they are studying whether or not the users quit or reduced cigarette consumption. Cigarettes. Not patches, vaping, gum, etc. So that's the bar. If they still were smoking cigarettes after a year, they did not quit.

Despite 94% of the e-cigarette users intending to quit at some point, after a year only 10.2% of them quit cigarette consumption

And while only 87% of non-e-cigarette users (the other sub-group) intended to quit at some point, after a year 13.8% still managed to quit.

I don't have access to the full study to look at "reduction" vs "cessation" (and thus to determine harm reduction). In any case, people are trying to unread things out of this. Its pretty clear the researchers were not idiots. This study is not as ambiguous as people would like it to be.

Now I don't think they're incompetent, I think they're lying. It's running way too counter to the New Zealand research and the Drexel research and...

Wait a second and let me research....

Oh. Those people. Yeah, they're honest, all right.

Now I want to see their funding stream.

This is called confirmation bias.


The bottom line reality is that any and all NRT have been proven by science--many times over--to be ineffective at increasing the cessation of smoking above cold-turkey methods. The real shocker would have been if this was effective and an exception to what we are seeing as the rule. Are scientists lying about patches and gum too?

But since you yourself stated that you can't read the entire thing--nor can I--that would be difficult to determine. I'll be forced to wait until somebody who can breaks it down. As are you; neither of us are competent to determine the truth of this without reviewing all available data.

The difference being that you trust them and I don't. Oh, wait...both are confirmation bias, aren't they? Oh, dear!

Until then and given their past history? Lying for Dollars. Much like it's not confirmation bias to not trust a dog that's bit repeatedly.

When you are done shooting this down, you can tell me about how we got it all wrong over climate change

http://whyquit.com/studies/2002_Pierce_JAMA.pdf

Oh, wait...both are confirmation bias, aren't they?

No, considering the validity of a published scientific study is not confirmation bias. Discounting it because you don't like its results is.

The burden of proof is on the claimant. If they claim it's correct, said data will now be analyzed repeatedly and in light of other studies that hopefully include more than an inadequate population of past-users, future-quitters.

Until then, I'll go with the fact that *I* quit, Mom quit, and 9 other relatives and friends quit using these. One failed. Anecdotal? Sure. But not to us, now, is it?

When data flies in the face of common sense, it's time to criticize the data and see if it stands up. I doubt this will.

"Common sense" is just a convenient way of saying "what makes sense to me". If "common sense" had any value universally, we wouldn't have any use for studies (which often flip common sense on its head).

Yes, this data contradicts what makes sense to you, so you have discounted it and tried to obfuscate its results (which are pretty straight-forward to anyone who spends 5 minutes looking at the table and abstract). And that is confirmation bias.

From what I've observed, many people addicted to this drug have some type of religious adherence to the efficiency of this new NRT which is supposed to be a huge exception to the rule of NRTs (which is not "common sense" to me); and such emotions make them lash out and attack anything that tells them that vaping nicotine isn't God's gift. Its as ridiculous as transparent

As I mentioned, as visually impaired, I cannot read the study.

Post Jeff47's comment, if that's correct and they were studying those with no intention of quitting, then either the researchers were lying when they claimed it doesn't help people quit (um, that's not the point of the study, but to track habits), or the media is having a seriously fallacious field day with it (which is not atypical).

So I do apologize and understand where confusion would come from.

And yes, I saw that comment about studying people with no intention to quit. 94% of the e-cig users were intending to quit at start of study. 10.2% succeeded at the end of the year.

Pot, kettle, we notice the same with the anti-nicotine and tobacco zealots.

Conversation ends, I have better things to do than be insulted, and better things to do than try to decipher a group of researchers with a stated bias. I already did that with Regnerus.

I cant tell you what the funding stream was for New Zealand research, but I cant tell you what the funding stream was for the Drexel research, that was done with donated money from e-cigarette users. It was headed up by CASAA.

I'll discard that from consideration as well in the future.

No one knows yet what that is.

Everything is there.

People calling this "junk-science" simply cannot or refuse to read simple graphs and data.

See above. Are people on nicotine replacement via e-cig considered smokers or not? And I need to see that quoted from the paper.

I can't. I'm visually impaired and can't work with this easily, it's not translating over well.

So you may not have noticed the graphical table as well in hindsight which is in image format

you printed it on very, very large paper and gave me a magnifying glass.

It does cause issues that I'm reliant on the reading abilities--and reporting abilities--of strangers. Sometimes I can work with a PDF. This time, it won't go.

However, I really didn't appreciate the implied and direct insults and I'm sorry, but I do not believe I wish to discuss this with you further.

Good day, sir.

No, the people calling this "junk-science" figured that out before reaching the graphs and data.

You have a group of people who do not intend to quit smoking. You then decide to see how well they quit smoking. That's moronic.

If you want to see how effective they are, you start with a group that intends to quit.

(vs 87% of the non-users).

You have a group of people who do not intend to quit smoking.

Reread the study and the included table. This is not true. This is wishful thinking.

They have dual-users. Who overall did not intend to quit. They also had 88, nowhere near enough to be a reasonable sample size.

Their data states 94% of these specific e-cig users intended to quit.

Its right there in the graph.

Yes, their sub-group sample is not very large. Though it is not in itself miniscule. I don't think the margin of error is enough to do anything but close the difference in cessation.

They have dual-users. Why would someone use both?

Because they are so addicted they need to smoke in a "non-smoking" environment. Those people are going to do the absolute worst on quitting.

And you skipped over the problem with 0 e-cig users.

They have 0 gum only users. They have 0 patch only users. That's because those groups are not SMOKERS. They are QUITTERS.

We conducted a longitudinal analysis of a national sample of current US smokers to determine whether e-cigarette use predicted successful quitting or reduced cigarette consumption.

They can not deliver the same "nicotine rush". Usually they can't put as much nicotine in the bloodstream either. E-cigs can.

As a result, gum and patch users usually still smoke, initially. Normally they only completely cut out cigarettes late in their quitting process.

E-cigs are full replacements. You've already done the expensive part of buying the e-cig unit. Liquid is cheaper than cigarettes. They have the same "feel". They give the same "rush". There's really no reason to keep using "the real stuff"....unless you are only using e-cigs to get around smoking bans.

Which means they selected for people least likely to quit, and discovered they were least likely to quit. Shocking.

Seriously? You are just pulling things out of nowhere now.

Look, they CANNOT just study people using e-cigarretes because those people are not SMOKERS of cigarettes. That is why they studied SMOKERS who use e-cigarettes. And 94% of that sub-group of SMOKERS who vape intended to quit (more than the non-vapors).

Now those "conclusions" are simply straight from the study. You don't need to further obfuscate this and make up excuses for why this study is not valid.

Which means they selected for people least likely to quit, and discovered they were least likely to quit.

They studied smokers. That's what they studied. At the end of the day, certain characterstics of those smokers indicate a better or worse chance of quitting at the end of 1 year. According to this study, you can pick two smokers out of a population, and if 1 of them uses an e-cigarette, they are less likely to quit smoking 1 year later. Ironically, that e-ciggar has a higher likelihood of intending to quit too.

Now, those are the numbers, despite any further pretzel logic.

Even if you aren't literally lighting something on fire. You're inhaling nicotine. That's the point of cigarettes, electronic or otherwise.

Then you're not studying e-cigs. You are studying e-cig AND regular cig versus regular cig.


Which threw out the main group of people they needed to study, if they wanted to study e-cigs.

OTOH, if they wanted to claim e-cigs are terrible, they studied exactly the right people.

Even if you aren't literally lighting something on fire. You're inhaling nicotine.

Interestingly enough, I've been told over and over that the immediate harm of cigarettes to people and others around them isn't the actual nicotine, but the tar and chemicals added to it. So to be clear, its just the nicotine?

Then you're not studying e-cigs. You are studying e-cig AND regular cig versus regular cig.

They are studying smokers and creating sub-groups to predict behavior.

Which threw out the main group of people they needed to study, if they wanted to study e-cigs.

Studying QUITTERS was never their intention, as it is declared in their abstract.

OTOH, if they wanted to claim e-cigs are terrible, they studied exactly the right people.

They aren't claiming that. They are claiming that among SMOKERS, e-cigarrete usage predicts a reduction in cessation of smoking after 1 year.

It doesn't matter if you actually light something on fire. The entire reason you do so is to inhale nicotine.

Tar and other chemicals come along with the tobacco and the smoke. But the point of smoking is to inhale nicotine.

Nicotine itself is actually pretty safe. Has a slightly higher LD50 than caffeine, and has not been shown to cause lung cancer or other "smoker" diseases.


And if you want to study e-cigs, you have to include users of e-cigs. There's no reason to throw out the e-cig users that are still using nicotine from the study.

The fact that they don't light tobacco on fire does not mean they are no longer inhaling nicotine. And inhaling nicotine is the point of cigarettes, electronic or otherwise.


Read it again. Their "quit rate" was lower for the dual-users than the traditional cigarette users.

It doesn't matter if you actually light something on fire. The entire reason you do so is to inhale nicotine.

Yes, there is no such thing as harm reduction. This has never been an argument for e-cigarette usage at all.

Tar and other chemicals come along with the tobacco and the smoke. But the point of smoking is to inhale nicotine.

Look, if you can't admit that there is a significant difference in the administration of nicotine via vapor and cigarettes, in terms of public health, then any conversation with you is a no-go. I think you are being purposely obtuse.

And if you want to study e-cigs, you have to include users of e-cigs.

They aren't studying "e-cigs". They are studying SMOKERS of cigarettes, and how e-cigarettes usage among smokers is predictive. You CANNOT include just e-cigarette users because they aren't SMOKERS of cigarettes. It would be stupid to. It would be pointless to. I'm not even sure what the hell you would be studying (if people who quit will quit what they already quit?)

Their "quit rate" was lower for the dual-users than the traditional cigarette users.

Yes, a "reduction in cessation", as I stated.

quitting isn't a one-time thing. You quit one day at a time.

And... the big problem... the structure of the study eliminates people who e-cigs work for.

If you tried an e-cig in the last month AND you didn't quit, you can be in our study to show that e-cigs don't help you quit.

On the other hand, if you tried an e-cig and promptly quit, you don't get to be in the study.

We only want to study people e-cigs don't work for.

the structure of the study eliminates people who e-cigs work for

No, it simply only studies SMOKERS. Not quitters.

Among SMOKERS, if you don't e-cig, 13.8% of them quit after a year when 87% of them intended to.

Among SMOKERS, if you do e-cig, 10.2% of them quit after a year when 94% of them intended to.

Doing medical related research.

"This causes cancer. That causes cancer. This MIGHT cause cancer. This might prevent cancer. This gene is linked to this form of cancer. You should do this. You should do that. Eat this. Don't eat that. Drink this. Don't drink that. Our study refutes the study from last year."

Back when journals were published in paper form, the journals would care about their reputation. It cost a lot of money to subscribe, so you'd want to make sure your journal was considered trustworthy. As a result, poorly designed studies would not be published.

Now? Pixels are cheap. Just dump everything out there. There's still some gatekeeping at the "respectable" journals, but you have to be within a particular field to know which ones are respectable, and which aren't.

e-cigs are just another delivery system for their drug. Granted there is no second-hand smoke effect, so in that regard it is better. It certainly is not a way to kick their habit though.

I've gone from 22 mg/ml to 5 mg/ml. My mom's done the same, but from 12 to 2.

Both of us hope to hit 0.

If they switched to lots of vegetables instead of cake we would not say, "They are still eating lots of food and thus are just the same as before."

We would say, "vegetables, unlike cake, are no very bad for you."

And we would also say, "This person will live a lot longer, even if in a perfect world they would eat fewer pounds of vegetables."

The fact that nicotine is addictive is what makes people smoke, but it is not the bulk of what is wrong with smoking.

something that some people do not understand.

It's the TAR in cigarettes which causes most of the health problems involved with smoking and NOT the nicotine.

Defensive are we?

I don't know if I'll go down to 0mg but I might give it a try once I finish getting used to the reduced levels, or I might buy two bottles of the same flavor at 6 and 0 and mix them to make 3mg. You can't do that with analog smokes, the amount of nicotine is predetermined by big tobacco and I wouldn't be surprised if they upped the nicotine on the "light smokes" to compensate for the reduced drag caused by the air-holes in the paper.

That's no way to kick your habit!

(Insert cool dripping sarcasm graphic here as well)

Ditto. It worried me that I needed 22 mg/ml to quit ultra-light cigarettes until I figured out that I'd probably been finger-blocking the air holes for years.

I'm now down to 5 mg/ml (I DIY so oddball numbers are easy). I'm about to drop to 4.

I'm not sure why people are so up in arms about yet another NRT being found to be ineffective at increasing long-term cessation. Honestly, the big news of the day would be if vaping was an exception, and actually worked.

Now, as far as these devices being allowed to be marketed in that manner, its pretty much bullshit.

As it is, they're being marketed as a pleasure device, a smoking alternative, and it's working just fine. People who want to use it to quit, are. People who want to use it instead of cigarettes, i.e. smoking without the secondhand smoke and toxic chemicals, are. It's working fine as is, and fuck the naysayers.

They are ineffective at cessation, just like vaping. They are just another delivery device that people are cashing in on by exploiting other's desire to quit. I think that's wrong. All these things should simply be marketed as "pleasure devices" for morons who think that the poisoning effects of nicotine are pleasant. Personally I'd rather huff gasoline to get high (but before any desperation, I'm smart enough to hit the bud).

also contains tar and carcinogens and genotoxic compounds. Make sure to eat it. At least that reduces the carcinogenic issues to...well, about the same as the e-cig compared to smoking.

Not to mention the mild hallucinogenic effect, which I'd consider unpleasant...y'know what, I'll keep my nicotine and there's more bud for you.

I know several people who have quit smoking, thanks to vapes.

So you're anecdote is wrong!!!!!

The question isn't whether or not vaping or any other NRT can be used effectively as a quitting regime. The question is if doing so is more efficient than cold-turkey or placebo. And if it isn't (or is less effective), then let's not fool ourselves folks--they may have simply gotten lucky.

Again, I recognize that different strokes work for different folks.

And I also want to be clear that this study in general wasn't studying e-cigs usage as specifically part of a quitting routine, but merely if its usage had predictive power (and it did). Though, one could draw the conclusion that a large number of the users were in the process of quitting at the start of the study, from another established study that says 85% of users do so in an effort to quit smoking.

But with all that said, I'm not going to pretend your anecdote doesn't exist as long as you pretend this study doesn't.

And they're smoking again. So you're wrong all the way around. For my husband and me, we both smoked for forty years and were finally able to give up cigarettes, cold turkey. We have never been able to do that before. My husband quit cigarettes cold turkey for close to three years and then started smoking again. We've been smoke free for seven months since we started vaping and I've been able to take nicotine out of my vaping experience. My husband is still using nicotine but at a very low dose. Two of our sons have also quit smoking thanks to vapes and I have a brother who is vaping 75% of the time and intends to quit cigarettes completely. I won't even mention the several friends we have who were also able to quit cigarettes thanks to vapes, but I won't bore you with the details because you strike me as the type of person who thinks they're always right, and everyone else is wrong. You keep on hanging on to this bogus study if it makes you feel righteous.

You keep on hanging on to this bogus study if it makes you feel righteous.

After all the hysteria, there is nothing really bogus whatsoever about this study. It does exactly what it sought out to do. Most people attacking it are pretending it meant to study things it didn't. It merely shows that among smokers, the usage of e-cigs are a predictor of a decrease in cessation of smoking after 1 year.

Headlines writers trumped it up a bit. Hysterical pro-e-ciggers reacted and dug their heels in without even reading the straight-forward details.

since there's no smoke at all.

Now let's discuss caffeine addiction.

I mean, honestly, as addictions go both are pretty harmless. I don't see either e-cig users or coffee drinkers knocking over 7-11s to get their fix. Ever. Poor side effects are rare (but do happen with both). It doesn't impinge on your ability to function (studies prove the opposite, actually).

There are plenty that reduce their nicotine down to 0mg and continue to vape. Also how about all those that use nicotine for other medical conditions?

Where did I say "nicotine is so bad"? Please quote back to me.

The huge issue with tobacco cigarettes is the particulate smoke inhalation, the spiked nicotine levels and the carcinogenic additive chemicals.

And the second hand smoke.

Tobacco cigarette smokers may want to quit nicotine, taper off or not.

16 months cigarette free thanks to ecigs.

And, no, I no longer use ecigs either.

I tried patches (allergic to the glue), lozenges (useless and tasted AWFUL) and gum (gum sticks to dentures!) and was completely unsuccessful at quitting smoking.

My first attempt with ecigs convinced me they would be useful for quitting and I stuck with it, through the same stages and dosages used in the nicotine patch - 21-11-4mg.

As near as I can tell they want only crappy flavors. The liquid must be made in a pharmaceutical setting and each batch must go through clinical trials before being sold. The e-cig and e-cig liquid must never actually be seen by non-smokers. The e-cig and the liquid must be stored in the sacred temple that only Indiana Jones can enter if he knows the right path to avoid children encountering them.

Anything else?

You forgot that one.

Good thing I am a natural.

From what it looks like, they took a cross-section of smokers. This would include people who are trying to quit, people who have no interest in quitting, people who would like to quite but aren't actively trying, etc. So, to use the job analogy, this would be like looking at the civilian-to-employment ratio, which counts everyone of working age as a potential employee, rather than the unemployment ratio, which counts only people who are actively looking for a job but can't find one.

Also, you're getting this part wrong:

Umm, people who quit smoking during the year that the study took place were smokers at the start of the study, and non-smokers at the end of the study. So studying people who smoke and waiting for a year to see how many still smoke, is precisely "studying that systematically".

Moreover, according to the few paragraphs available of the study linked here, 85% of the people who used e-cigs reported using them in an attempt to quit. Which means your conjecture that people who both smoke and e-smoke are less likely to try and quit is wrong. And it also shows, again, that the study did include plenty of people who were in fact trying to quit.
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1846627

They did not study whether e-cigs help people quit at all, systematically or otherwise. They studied whether having used e-cigs in he past helped people quit smoking in he future.

In this study, a person who had never tried e-cigs would be in the smoker/no ecig experience subset. So then three months later they try ecigs and quit. It appears that in this study that would count as an e-cig fail because they quit using e-cigs, rather than quitting after using e-cigs and cigarettes simultaneously.

On the other hand, some guy had been smoking and vaping up a storm. Loves e-cigs. Decides to quit cold turkey, with no e-cigs. That would be an e-cig success story.


For this all to mean what it claims to mean requires that people who have used an e-cig in the last month are identical to the general smoking population, and that statements about quitting are interchangeable between the two groups.

The e-cig experienced subset is self-selected. This is a population of, in this case, smokers who have for some reason used an e-cig in the last month.

Does anyone think that group is comparable to all cigarette users?

Most smokers,by a lot, say they would *like* to quit.

Some people who would like to quit try an e-cig to see if they will magically quit. Since quitting takes an effort, they do not magically quit. No surprise.

We have no identified a population who would *like* to quit, but have taken a step in that direction and failed. And surprise! That group is less successful over the following year.

Let me try it this way... I suggest that a study of people who smoke while using nicotine gum (or any other method of quitting) will show a lower quit rate than the general population of smokers.

People who smoke while using nicotine gum are hardcore addicts in trouble who can't quit no matter what.

Would anyone compare them, apples to apples, to ordinary smokers who don't also chew nicotine gum while smoking, and thus conclude that nicotine gum doesn't work?

Almost everyone who has ever used methadone is a serious junkie, not a casual user. Out of the population of people who have ever used heroin but do not use heroin today, I can guarantee you that the group that has used methadone has a higher, not lower rate of heroin use.

But that is because nobody who can quit on their own uses methadone. Nobody who isn't all that addicted to begin with uses methadone.

It is not a sensible way to look at whether X helps people quit Y.

And, as I am sure you know, the populations of users of any addictive substance, from heroin to alcohol to caffeine, etc., are very different. Some people's brains are wired to crave and need shit like you wouldn't believe while others can take it or leave it.

That goes for nicotine as much or more than for cocaine.

And the hardest cases are precisely the people who quit and fail and quit and fail. They have a lot more experience with quiting, with alternatives, with therapies.

If this stuff is not done apples to apples it is an auto-fail.

Which means that it is probably different in certain ways than the population of non-e-cig smokers. The thing is, epidemiologists know about this problem. You're not the first person to think of this.

In fact, this happens all the time in epidemiological studies. Even the studies that originally found that smoking caused cancer had the same problem. The population of smokers, like the population of e-smokers in this study, is self-selected. And yet epidemiologists are able to compare them to the population of non-smokers and draw statistically sound conclusions about rates of lung cancer. How can that be?

The answer is something called multivariate regression. In addition to just collecting the data of whether or not someone smokes/e-smokes, they also collect a whole bunch of other variables that might affect whether they get cancer/quit smoking. If you click on that link to the first page of the study, you will see some of the other variables they looked at. You'll see that intent to quit is there. In fact, not only do they distinguish between people trying to quit and not trying to quit, they in fact have four different levels of trying to quit.

They also collect data about gender, about age, about education, race, and how much a person smokes. Because, for example, it might be possible that e-cig smokers are more (or less) educated than the smokers who didn't try e-cigs, and more educated people are more likely to quit smoking period, for other reasons that have nothing to do with e-cigs. If this were true, then a correlation would show up between e-smoking and quitting, but it would be spurious, and education would be a confounding variable.

Anyway, they take all these potential confounding variables, and they build a statistical model that isolates the effect of each one of them independent of the others. So, for example, if e-cig smokers were more likely to quit, but the entire effect was due to confounding based on education level, they would be able to see that in the data.

Since the paper is behind a paywall, we don't know the details of the multivariate analysis and what controlling they actually did. But it's a pretty good bet that they did at least a reasonable job controlling for confounding variables, because otherwise it's hard to imagine it would have gotten into a decent journal.