I'm guessing it'll take a lot more studies before people who anecdotally decide that they were helped to quit by e-cigs, or people who profit from the sales of e-cigs stop pushing the notion that it does help people quit.

Data coming from the New Zealand studies is much more promising, but they actually chose people who wished to quit, not random smokers off the street.

Choice of device has an impact as well--I don't know anybody who successfully quit and stayed quit on the little cig-alikes. They're too annoying, the batteries are weak and don't last long enough, and they seem to spend their lives on their chargers.

Choice of liquid strength is important as well. Use a liquid that's too low and you'll be smoking again.

At some point, anecdotal data has to incite a better study. Out of the eleven people total I know who tried them, ten quit smoking.

needs burned, after we thoroughly research where the money came for from it.

I'd say I have my suspicions about that, but I really don't. I'm about two steps above suspicion.

Switching entirely to vaping, instead of using tobacco cigarettes.

If that DOESN'T count as 'quitting' then I'd not be surprised if e-cigs are not especially effective. What they are is 'harm reduction', mostly.

Also, myself and 3 co-workers, with about 70 years of smoking collectively between us (all of us pack-a-day for a minimum of 7 years), all went together to get personal vaporizers (not cig-a-likes) and e-juice back last May. ALL FOUR OF US are now using nothing but our e-cigs/don't smoke tobacco anymore. And we all made the switch completely within 2 weeks of buying the vaporizers.

The internet is also literally chock-full of people telling the exact same story as the one I just told.

Ergo, I wouldn't give this story/study the proverbial time of day.

Since I no longer involve fire, smoke, or inhalation of said smoke, I consider that as having quit smoking. I now vape.

Plenty of objectors have told me I haven't quit smoking. They are, of course, wrong. Raising a liquid to the phase change point isn't smoking.

Sounds pretty clear to me. The quit test is the consumption of cigarettes.

Most of the obfuscating mud being slung against this study is ignoring or twisting some very basic and obvious stuff in the abstract.

I don't understand the diff, and this might be useful to some people I work with.

94% of the e-cig users in this study intended to quit smoking at the start of the study.

I really don't understand why DUers would be opposing something that has helped many people quit and that is much healthier than smoking. Not to mention that it eliminates second hand smoke. I mean, what's up with that. Is it a moral thing?

by adults also tend to make OP's about how great anti choice clerical figures are and such.

Oh.. and everything should be banned because, well, children.

See... smokers are teh EVIL!!!! and even if theyre not smoking cigarettes theyre still "filthy" "dirty" underclass people who deserve nothing but ridicule from the high-horse crowd.

Its pretty sad, really.

And should children be DISCOURAGED from smoking?

You know, those two people who are supposed to be raising the child?

No, I'm not a fan of the nanny state.

By all means, ban cigarette sales to children and limit advertising to hours/locales where children won't see it. You won't have any argument from me there. Expand that to include e-cigs and you still don't have any argument.

Attempt to ban the e-cig (or cigarettes) totally on behalf of "the children" and you have a huge argument. We then desperately need to ban all liquid consumption in public because it might be alcohol.

neither should vaping. I'm looking for an articulate reason why E-cigs shouldn't be held to the same standards & laws as regular cigarettes.

leans toward "not as harmful as the Coke people drink in parks."

Mind you, indoors I don't mind if it's banned. Public parks, open air? I'm surprised they got away with banning cigarettes.

Can I blow smoke in your face in the park?

Can you spray perfume on yourself in the park? Can you bring lunch that smells terrible? Cook it (in some places)? Can you drive an ATV (in some parks)?

OIC, your right to do these things is greater than my right to do something else. Gotcha.

No, they don't...the majority does not rule in this country. Nice try, though.

But given your "arguments" below, this conversation isn't worth my time to have. It ends here as I don't like to waste my time on somebody who just ducked the question.

cigarette smoke is way stronger than perfume or one's lunch. And parks have various rules about bringing BBQ/grills.

It's hard not to engage in shoddy premise when confronted by the argument you used. My bad, too bad, so sorry. But the conversation is most definitely quite over with; I don't argue with zealots. It tends to give me a slight headache.

or the store stocks up on the food you buy with their cancer-causing-chemical-emitting trucks, but everyone makes excuses for the 200 million of those that spew pounds and pounds of their poison every day into our parks, homes, offices.

But let 2 million people find a safer substitute that vaporizes a nearly infinitesimal quantity of the same vegetable oil that is on their stove, that everyone who cooks with oil breathes every time they heat it up, and everyone goes into hysterics. It might also be propylene glycol which is pet safe anti-freeze, as opposed the the ethylene glycol, highly poisonous in small amounts that you are vaporizing in the radiator of your car and vaping when it (or the hundred around you) overheats, or that you or your kid walked through in the parking lot and tracked into your car where it can be vaporized by your heater - I wouldn't EVEN vape that stuff.

It might have distilled water or perfumes as well. And most have some nicotine, though not all, especially if they are vaping pipes and not e-cigs.

I digress here,. and it is not pointed at you...In my experience many people don't want a safer substitute. They just want to sit on their high-horse and sneer at everyone. They are too stupid and lazy to intervene at the point in life that the person reached for the addictive substance the first time, perhaps in reaction to a bully at school or abusive parents, schoolteachers, others. They would rather complain because it makes them feel more self-righteous, feeds their inadequacies. Most seem to think they know something about, but are totally incompetent at dealing with addicts, which is what we are talking about.

But on the subject of your question, I wouldn't blow smoke in your face. Why would want to do that to me?

you won't be understood by that one.

And who, exactly, is encouraging children to smoke?

to acknowledge that some people might not wish to expose themselves to the trace amounts of nicotine being thrown off (comparable to boiling an eggplant), nor to the wee bits of propylene glycol and fair clip of vegetable glycerin and water vapor.

While a few people are sensitive to propylene glycol, they won't be sensitive to it at that level...or they'd never be able to set foot in a hospital, night club, and so on.

As such, I don't vape where smoking is banned just out of common courtesy.

However, guests to my home will be expected to put up with my vaping. I have to put up with their colognes, perfumes, and so on.

Colognes, perfumes etc.

I was in a multi-stall bathroom at a baby shower not long ago and there was so much perfume and spray in the air my friend and I were choking. Literally. But the women doing all the spraying didn't give a damn. She just kept right on. Whatever. We dealt with it.

Yet the SAME woman walked out the door past a couple who was outside smoking and had the audacity to fake a cough. All I could do was SMH.

Im fucking tired of the hypocrisy. Like the anti-vapers NEVER EVER EVER put anything toxic into the air?! Gimme a fucking break. We all have to deal with each others "filth". Funny how that works.

I quit smoking after 27 years (dipping for 25) through vaping. She still smokes. She complained when even a minute amount of e-liquid contacts her skin, clothes, purse, you name it. Turns out ALL of her perfume is full of PG and VG. Since layed that one her; she doesn't utter a peep about it. There is something about vaping that that triggers a psychosomatic reaction in certain people.

ON EDIT: I am taking part in a long-term study of cessation rates, over time, through the use of person vaporizers. I receive a new questionnaire every quarter. When the results from that study are released we will have a more accurate picture.

on that study?

And yep, PG is used in perfumes, toothpaste, and practically everywhere else. It's a great solvent with an incredibly low toxicity. VG is also used everywhere as it's a good skin moisturizer, humectant wherever required (including baking), and so on.

I think it's a year-long study. IIRC, I received my first questionnaire Q3 of 2013.

Here's another thing PG is in...

My dad & his 2 sister's worn born without any oil's in their skin. The 3 of them had to use pure glycerin over their entire body every day of their lives, including their face.... They all passed away in their 80's... I'm a strong believer in the state's losing to much tax revenue from my not buying cigs anymore & the tobacco company's not getting my money either...

25 plus years smoking and quit first day of vaping. Have CT scan proof of lung disease regression.

when Ronnie Raygun asked her hand in marriage.

Your from California and you are worried about second hand vapors?????? REALLY????? You have bigger problems, my friend.

second, at least the smog pipes aren't being force fed in people's mouths. when people smoke near non smokers it's like being force fed.

It is worse to have all those fumes from the car.

oh my...

literally no idea. force fed in people's mouths?!! the fuck?

and I've never smoked

In addition to 88 being too small, this is coming from the Regnerus of the anti-e-cig studies. About the only worse reference would have been to have Prue Talbot as primary researcher on the thing.

Study smokers who wish to quit, give them good equipment and training, and see what happens. I had to step up from the cig-alikes to a larger, more powerful unit and fiddle with liquid strengths--but I didn't have anybody to ask. Fortunately, I'm the sort who doesn't mind working things out on his own.

Bottom line, governments are dependent on people NOT quitting smoking for revenue. E-cigs are a threat to that revenue stream.

The reason I am so pissed about this is that I do some volunteer work with diabetics/those who are genetically prone, and smoking is a severe risk to them. People who have not been able to quit seem able to quit with the e-cigs, and so I view the anti-e-cig wave as a direct threat to this vulnerable population. And, btw, it is genetically determined.

smokers. This is a specious study. It is going to face much derision from people who know better.

I wonder why they didn't study "vapers"? Doesn't sound like they did much of a study, just created another check box on a form when they found there were 88 "e-cig" users, whatever that is, in their smoking study.

not proven by the data. This data might be sufficient to create a follow up study investigating more factors, expanding the sample, refining the parameters, etc... the problem is there's a huge leap of faith that is being made between the data and the conclusions being drawn.

is supposed to know better. Maybe it's low standards at the school.

One other thought - the tobacco companies appear to be spreading around the $$$ to keep the competition down. Maybe it was just paid for.

This is the same place that's found horrible, horrible things in vapor that nobody else can locate. At no point can they find anything positive about e-cigs, which runs counter, again, to everybody else.

Look, I'm not saying it was aliens but...it was aliens.

It doesn't say what the study was specifically intended to look at, just that this was one of the things their data showed. If this study was specifically designed to do that, though, it looks like they created a study with a specific outcome intended, or at the very least negligently leaving out critical factors. In that case, I'd agree it's junk science.

If the study were simply looking to track ecig use among the general population, and this was something that they happened to notice in their data, then maybe the problem is just the conclusion that others are drawing from the data, not the study itself.

It's not really that uncommon for reporters to draw their own conclusions based on data from scientific studies that even the researchers are not willing to draw. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether its the scientist or the reporter that has the agenda.

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.

It is plausible, in fact, probable, that many of these 88 smokers were not actually interested in quitting or trying to quit with electronic cigarettes

Most of the arguments against this study are unfounded and total crap, starting with the claim that the people studied had no intention to quit (when ~90% of the total sample did intend to) or that pure e-cig users are ignored (when they aren't even considered "cigarette smokers" in the first place).

That thread is a silly knee jerk reaction.

The study leaves us with a solid conclusion: Among a population of SMOKERS (who intend to quit), the usage of e-cigarettes for whatever reason predicts the reduction in smoking cessation after 1 year.

That's it in a nutshell

too weak to draw a conclusion.

Thousands of people who have taken up vaping and stopped smoking stand in direct contradiction to it, unless one doesn't want to believe what is around them.

I would like to read it, see more of how they constructed it.

But I think it's just bs, perhaps paid for by big tobacco.

I am saying, based on this evidence, e-cig usage among smokers is a *predictor* in the reduction of cessation after 1 year.

Newpaper men draw conclusions. Knee-jerkers smash science when headlines scare them. Its all stupid, all around.

Thousands of people who have taken up vaping and stopped smoking stand in direct contradiction to it, unless one doesn't want to believe what is around them.

Don't need a study to see the results. All those products are being sold to someone. When I talk with other vapers, it is quite rare to find one that still smokes tobacco cigarettes any longer. (note - They said e-cigs and I said vapers - two different products). Some do, but most don't that I have met, which is an admittedly small sample. I don't know any that started vaping before they started with cigs. I'm sure they are out there, but perhaps they stand out because of their difference.

There is a woman who run a small store not far from here, sells e-liquid, vaping pipes. She has a personal mission to stop people from smoking tobacco cigs. She converts person after person, working with their nicotine level and vaping pipe to make it easy. And those people return to buy liquids, and keep her up to date on how long it has been since they had a tobacco cig. They have no motivation to lie, and she has several hundred regular customers at the one small store.

It wasn't clear in what I read that these people had any intention of substituting e-cigs for their regular cigs, but that they had picked them up and tried them. The e-cig isn't going to jump up off the table and beat them over the head to stop them. It has to be easy to use, tasty, and have the right amount of nicotine to satisfy their addiction. From what I could read of the study they addressed none of that.

There is no economic incentive to put the products through the extensive and expensive testing to prove they do what they already do, and I am not sure they should. It possible that it is nearly as profitable to just sell them as a substitute.

I would like to see a large study in which these are used, properly and by someone who understand how to manipulate the nicotine level for results, where we have placebos, and other methods of stopping, and see who is off tobacco cigs after a year, and 5 years. But unless someone along the lines of George Soros funds it, I don't know who would have that much discretionary cash. I'd really like to see the same thing with vapers, who are qualitatively different and with a different experience.

I would bet almost anything that vaping pipes, and possibly e-cigs, used properly, have a higher rate of people getting off of tobacco than any method out there.

Mine is just an opinion, of course, but I am not going to change it based on that somewhat questionable "study", when I can see the evidence all around me every day.

Well, that trumps science.


And this isn't suggesting that people cannot quit with the help of e-cigarretes. Rather, that their usage predicts less smokers will quit after 1 year than if they didn't try them.

Mine is just an opinion, of course, but I am not going to change it based on that somewhat questionable "study", when I can see the evidence all around me every day.

Confirmation bias and personal perception are not always wrong.

Ignaz Semmelweis proved that, even to snobs who would rather sneer at everyone from their high horse instead of coming up with a solution.

Science is just science.



In this study, the groups were not studied to see what methods they employed to quit smoking; it was never meant to determine how helpful any NRT was. It was simply trying to see if a single variable (the degree, usage, or intention notwithstanding) had a predictive outcome after 1 year. It did.

in them

So it most certainly is a way to quit, by definition.

It does NOT appear that the study considers 'switching entirely to vaping instead of smoking' ... to be 'quitting smoking'. When in reality, it IS ...

If someone says that e-cigs are 'the best way to quit nicotine altogether', then I would question that claim. But AFA quitting SMOKING of TOBACCO, I don't think they can be TOUCHED for efficacy by any other known means.

I can't even TELL YOU how many benefits I've noticed since quitting tobacco, and only vaping. Not the least of which being it's $1/day habit instead of a $7/day habit. Do the math over a month and that comes out to $180/month I can contribute to the local economy instead of the evil tobacco company's profits. If that was the ONLY one, it'd be enough for me. But there's SO MANY others.

The study is only considering if this activity is predictive regarding cigarette consumption after 1 year. Its doesn't ambigiously state "smoking". Read the abstract

I also thought they were invented as a sa
fer way to smoke.

I haven't used tobacco since April 2013 (from the first day I picked up an e-cig), and I haven't used an e-cig since June 2013. The best part is that I rarely get cravings for tobacco, and when I do, they are nowhere near as bad as I remember them from the 1990's (the last time I quit - for more than 4 years).

My wife, who has COPD, didn't achieve the same results from e-cigs that I did, but she has quit smoking tobacco after more than 40 years. She still uses her e-cig occasionally, but her breathing is much better than when she used tobacco.

I know of several (4) people at work who have transitioned from tobacco to e-cigs. One of them quit completely, the others are still using e-cigs. They tell me that they are breathing better, which agrees with what I found. I personally know of 2 people who tried e-cigs but weren't able to quit tobacco.

So, my personal findings are:
8 subjects
2 quit completely
4 quit tobacco but still use e-cigs
2 still use tobacco

That's a 75% success rate in quitting smoking tobacco, and a 25% success rate in quitting completely. I think that both these numbers are better than other programs, but that is only my opinion.

Edited to add: these are all people who wanted to quit smoking tobacco. I'm not sure how many of them wanted to quit using nicotine in all forms, but for the sake of simplicity I will assume that we all were.

I first restricted where I could smoke (not in house, the car, or anywhere public - because it's prohibited anyway; and never in front of my children, because I don't want to pass it on as "acceptable&quot . So, that left the back porch, and usually at night after the kids' bedtime. Just by those restrictions I went from 20 cigarettes a day to more like 5 or 7. After doing that for about a year, I just switched over to e-cigs, and now I don't even use them every day. It absolutely helps to WANT to QUIT.

And I wasn't even intending to quit. I stopped in August 2013, and still have a carton of cigarettes in a cabinet that I haven't touched once.

I know at least 3 other people who quit tobacco entirely like this; and I don't know many people who still smoked. It is way more effective than gum or the patch, imo.

It took me three months and some struggle to make the full change, but I wasted a month on the little cigarette look-alikes.

Mom went over in a single afternoon and never looked back.

The electronic cigarette forum features loads of people, many who quit in one day, many who took more time than I did.

I guess the key takeaway here is that we all quit--and the forum is open to those who are working on it, thinking about it, or just exploring their options.

For every fad, there are anti-faddists.

-- Mal

it's affecting their bottom line. the best thing about e cigs to me, a nonsmoker, is no stinky smoke to smell up a person's clothing, house, car, etc. what's not to like about that?

and her cigarette smoking friends envy her.

Jenny says "Look for the "sexy" blue display" kids...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12kffv_introducing-the-starter-pack-with-jenny-mccarthy_people

I didn't hear her say or mention anything about kids. How does this ad market to kids?

Perhaps if they had an 89 yr old unshaven obese man telling you the ecigs are shitty and you should go buy them today, that would equate to NOT marketing to kids?

Can you enlighten us on how that commercial markets to children?

Silly me, I still think of my son and his friends as kids even though they are in their 20's and they are the targeted group in this ad, they are the single demo...not the 40+ crowd.

Millenials are #1 group to embrace e ciggies.... teenagers are #2. With teens e ciggies usually lead to smoking rolled cigarettes.

Her anti vaccine garbage appeals to millenials too.

After the age of 18, they can choose to do what they like with the exception of drinking alcohol.

But this "Millenials are #1 group to embrace e ciggies.... teenagers are #2. With teens e ciggies usually lead to smoking rolled cigarettes" is totally baseless. Do you have a link for any of those assertions? They're simply not true.

As far as an actual teenager under the age of 18 picking up a vape, that's the parent's job to stop them. It's the cashier's job at the convenience store not to sell them to a kid. It's a cops job to take them away if found. What if they have sex? What if they drink alcohol? What if they watch porn? Those items are all meant for adults and there are laws in place to keep them away from kids. Do kids do them anyway? Yup, and they will in the future. Period.

So what should we do? Follow Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority and and try ban all things "sinful" just so the kids don't get their hands on them?

And you still didn't address how Jenny McCarthy, regardless of what a celeb dimwit she is, is peddling ecigs to kids in that commercial. What type of ecig commercial do you feel would specifically market to adults and not kids?

and then he won't get the harmful chemicals involved in combustion.

There are countless fruit flavored alcohols out there, I guess those appeal to kids too? Vs the crappy tasting alcohol like whiskey?

And there are Angry Bird vibrators and anime porn too, but I guess those don't appeal to kids. Like regular cigarettes, sex, guns, driving cars, there are countless adult items that appeal to kids. Tell a kid "this is for adults, not you" and it's a sure fire way to get kids interested in doing it.

We have sex ed now in public schools (where they're graded, mind you) to teach kids about pregnancy and protection from STDs, does that stop the countless thousands of them yearly from getting pregnant and getting STDs?

Sexy images appeal to kids? I hope you didn't let them watch regular TV, or commercials, or movies, games, etc or else they'd likely be interested in sex.

The FDA is currently considering who to pass ecig technology onto, Big Tobacco or Big Pharma. Laws will be passed based on the highest bidder who's padding the pockets of CongressCritter sell outs. None of that has anything to do with the fact that ecig technology is saving smoker's lives and is not harmful to anyone else.

I'm very glad your son quit smoking, how many other moms are currently wishing their sons would quit right now? How many of them are quitting thanks to ecigs? Thousands at least.

Thanks for your lecture on parenting in regards to raising everyone else's kids. "Millenials are #1 group to embrace e ciggies" and all that.

I say, as always, leave the parenting to the parents. Adult items are for adults, they don't belong in the hands of actual kids. If/when they inevitably do end up in the hands of some kids sometimes, it's the adults/parents job to do something about it.

For example, the next time Jenny McCarthy comes on the TV machine telling kids ecigs are cool and they should get hooked on nicotine, there are parental controls on the cable box, you can block her altogether.

Let them go, mom.

I've been watching the carpenters, painters, gardeners who are fixing the house next door.

The last tenants were 5 grad students 26 - 29 years old who left the house in shambles.

In one short year they managed to turn a lovely home into a wreck. Not once did they water the lawn, shovel the snow, cut the grass, and their idea of compost was to toss garbage under a tree. They broke doors and window coverings. The weeds jumped over to our yard making it hard for my husband to keep up.

They knew I walked with a cane and yet days would go by before they'd move their cars in snow and ice. Neighbors cleared a path so the older dog walkers wouldn't slip/fall on the sidewalk. The owner was in prison for mortgage fraud and the house went into foreclosure.

Was ever so glad to see these decision makers leave the neighborhood.

And here's a little bit of news for you, apropos of your irrelevant story: Renters don't care for a property the way owners do. It's something homeowners get nervous about whenever there are houses for rent in the neighborhood. Sounds like this is your first experience with it.

and will post any negative story available.

I worked for over forty years to rise to this position just to engineer this study.

...if the smoker is motivated to make the change. Otherwise, it's easier to stay with what you know.

Let's face it, they do tend to be more fiddly than cigarettes. Sometimes much more fiddly depending on what you choose.

Of the eleven people who I've personally converted (including myself) so far, all eleven asked for my help. Ten have converted fully. One is struggling with it, but he's a bipolar alcoholic who struggles with everyday issues.

Of the ten successes, four have cut their nicotine intake severely. Six aren't interested in doing that.

I'm one of the four and never even noticed I was cutting it back when I did so.

I have been cutting down the nic and each time was worried it would be hard. I have gone from 24mg to 6mg in 6 months and have yet to even recognize the change. It was so easy each time I sort of wonder if I could have just dropped from 24 to 0.

I am so glad to be rid of the analogs and I love my mods . At this point I almost think I am more addicted to fiddling with all the cool mods than anything else lol.

They might not for everyone but I quit smoking after a 20 year habit with them. Same result with a couple friends of mine.

I keep the e-cig with some liquid in a drawer for the occasional vap. Once a week or so I may pull it out for a draw.

This study is shite

On edit: The key is getting a good one, not those cheapies at 7-11. Those will make you run straight back to the chemical laden shit from Philip Morris.

My SO picked it up just to see if I'd like it. I tried it and liked it. The disposable lasted less than a day but it did give me the incentive to order a proper one (which arrived this morning). It's been eight hours since I filled it, in which time I would normally have smoked about 20 roll-ups. Instead, I've had three and been huffing cherry-flavoured vapor for the rest of teh day.

That is good stuff!

I cant recommend enough going to a brick and moarter store if there is near you with a little time on your hands and sitting down and tasting the juices to find something you truly enjoy, In my experience the hardest part is finding that juice you really love. After that it s dead easy to quit.

Best of luck! And don't forget to stay hydrated. The pg in the juice can dry you out quickly.

I normally smoke around 50 a day (roll-ups). I got my e-cig kit in the mail at about 9am this morning. It's now just after 5pm here (UK) and I've had only three ciggys today.

If you find the kit is not sufficient (I don't know what you got) consider stepping up to a larger or variable-voltage device if you decide you want to quit completely.

Even if not, at least you've reduced the harm you're doing to yourself.

But I had completely forgotten about that until you mentioned it. Thanks!

Something like the eGo Twist or Vision Spinner?

I've recently purchased a number of Volt Spinners (like the eGo one, except the screw is different to accommodate the old style threads I still use years after they're really completely obsolete). I like them!

At this point, I've moved from 22 mg/ml nicotine to 5 mg/ml, so it's not like my exposure is all that much any longer. Shortly, I'll make myself some 4 and take the next small step downward.