Beware electronic cigarettes

Keith Mizzi

Aug 1st 2012, 19:08

It is very interesting how the British Government is encouraging the use of such devices for committed smokers who wish to cut or stop smoking. Please see the below link for the full article. A bit different from the articles we are getting in the Maltese Islands I must say.

Extracts from the Article:

''If alternative and safe nicotine products can be developed which are attractive enough to substitute people away from traditional cigarettes, they could have the potential to save tens of thousands of lives a year.''


''David Halpern, the unit's head, said that its approach to behavioural change was gaining ground in Whitehall. 'As with seatbelts and the smoking ban, these ideas were unpopular at first but after a while when you explain them to people, they understand and say, 'Yeah, all right then',' he told the newspaper.
'A year in we're much more confident about how well this can work, and the early trials have also made us much more confident about public acceptability. There's no doubt it can save many lives and hundreds of millions of pounds.''


Read more:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2037616/Fancy-lighting-smoke-Puff-smokeless-nicotine-cigarette-says-government.html#ixzz22Jaux9SN

Keith Mizzi

Aug 1st 2012, 14:04

If you want the truth about Electronic Cigarettes make your own research and do no believe everything you hear or read. One of the websites I personally use to make my research is this:

http://www.casaa.org/Electronic_Cigarettes.html

Justin Camilleri

Jul 24th 2012, 23:33

What in the world does smokeless tabacco have to do with an e cigarette!? Smokeless tabacco is tabacco all the same, you just dont smoke it. Commonly used as snuff or chewing tabacco.

E Cigarettes use a VG, PG, or VG/PG Mix containing 0-48mg Nicotine depending on preference and smoking habit and food safe flavouring.

which is safer to inhale?
Both VG and PG are used in a variety of foods that you consume on a daily basis, and are deemed quite safe. However, in some small cases, people have experienced allergic reactions to propylene glycol, the most common is skin rash. However this is not a big deal and there is nothing a little bit of skin moisturizer cannot solve.

A skin rash from smoking cigarettes is called skin cancer, not a harmless skin reaction few people get with smoking pg base in e cigarette.

So on to the bigger point, E Cig VS Real Cigarette:

PG/VG found to be safe and commonly used in a variety of foods and drinks - compared to the 4000+ plus chemicals that can be found in a real cigarette 69 of which are positively known to cause cancer! Follow this link if your interested to know what these 4000+ chemicals can include: http://www.tricountycessation.org/tobaccofacts/Cigarette-Ingredients.html

Government quick to start Anti E Cig propaganda but why? Answer is to obvious, where will all their trillions of $$$$'s go if everyone is smoking E Cig's and finally using something that will actually help to quit smoking those Highy Toxic & Carcinogenic Dynamite Sticks! For every false and propaganda study you will find 10 more studies proving that E Cig's are at least if not anything 250-750 times less Toxic then smoking an actual cigarette. True, more long term studies must be done but open your eyes and see the truth and don't buy into the Governments propaganda!

E-Cigarette study is just amateur propaganda: http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsid.3305/news_detail.asp

Dr. Polosa On Electronic Cigarettes As Cessation: http://www.ecigadvanced.com/blog/dr-polosa-on-electronic-cigarettes-as-cessation/

Effect of an electronic nicotine delivery device (e-Cigarette) on smoking reduction and cessation: a prospective 6-month pilot study: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/786/

Italian Non-Smoking Association Positive About Electronic Cigarettes: http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/ashtray-blog/2011/09/italian-non-smoking-association-positive-about-electronic-cigarettes.html

New Study Suggests E-Cigs Less Harmful Than Tobacco Cigarettes: http://www.cspnet.com/news/tobacco/articles/new-study-suggests-e-cigs-less-harmful-tobacco-cigarettes#.UAFhY6aVcyk.facebook

E Cig's are the future! & I'll smoke one any day over smoking a tube containing 4000+ chemicals with a 'filter' on it.

Matt Zuke

Jul 18th 2012, 04:34

""Health experts say smokeless tobacco can cause cancers of the mouth, throat, oesophagus and pancreas. The concern was that people would perceive smokeless tobacco to be safer than cigarettes."

Because smokeless tobacco IS safer than cigarettes. Oral cancers are modestly rare, with fatalities in the US roughly 10,000 or so, with 75% of those being smokers. The Relative risks are about 1x for moist snuff, 2x for dry snuff, and around 10xfor cigarettes. Giving oral sex has roughly the same risk of oral cancer as using smokeless tobacco. If the risk of oral cancer from smokeless tobacco was equal to cigarettes, representing ~1.8% of the fatalities/year, this would be a huge win. But it's not, it's tons lower.

Not including the statistics is a form of intellectual dishonesty, and this dishonesty costs lives.

And yes, this is a problem for health agencies promoting pharma products. A smoker must try to quit 8-11 times (Tobacco Free Florida), each time relapsing to the most deadly product. Based on figures by the AAPHP, smokeless tobacco represents a 98% reduction in harm, meaning what kills off roughly 1% of it's userbase in year would kill off roughly 1% of it's user base in 50 years. For those who can't quit can switch. Relapsing to cigarettes should be avoided at all costs.

http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/NewsEvents/UCM232147.pdf

As for electronic cigarettes, they've been on the market for 5 years and the only injury you can point out is someone who bought aftermarket CR123 batteries that failed. These batteries are common in cameras, smoke detectors, children's toys, you name it. Heck, a person in China was killed when his cell phone exploded, and dozens of electric toothbrushes in Canada exploded as well. But I don't see you trying to ban tooth brushes, flashlights, or smoke detectors. People with critical reason skills understand the difference between a faulty battery and a faulty product, and faulty batteries should be removed from the market.

laura camilleri

Jul 16th 2012, 12:30

to your knowledge eletronic cigarettes are much less harmful than a normal cigarettes does,if everyone knows exactly the damages caused by normal cigarettes,no one will ever touch them again,just compare an extray when you smoke normal cigarettes and do an extray when you smoke an eletronic cigarettes,and you will see the difference in both of them,you can still feel the difference.everything in life has the positive and the negative side.you cant be blind and see the negativity in everything.

Trace Dibble

Jul 14th 2012, 16:11

"It must be remembered that anything inhaled must be exhaled and if you are within a certain air space that is passed on to you."

Absurd on its face. Were that so, we'd exhale all the oxygen we take in with each breath, and suffocate within minutes.

"Research showed that electronic cigarettes produce a fine mist that is absorbed in the lungs (contrary, as you will be aware, to the physiology of the lungs, which is the interchange of gasses, that is oxygen)."

Oh. Well then you DO recognize the O2 in/CO2 out interchange. How is it you can't observe the obvious: the airborne liquid particles present in the air even on a dry day, abundant on a humid day and condensing on anything solid in a sauna bath?

"...national newspaper reported that an electronic cigarette blew up in a smoker’s mouth in Niceville, Florida and the smoker lost all his teeth.The batteries in the cigarette ignited. "

The Florida idiot is known to have stacked multiple, unprotected lithium-ion batteries. That said, why is it that similar explosions involving the Li-Ion batteries within cell phones or LED batteries aren't a concern to you?

"Obviously, the Maltese health authorities are right to point out their unproven safety."

No one has said e-cigarettes are safe in an absolute sense. The phrase is "Harm Reduction." Inhaled vapor which contains nicotine—by its lonesome, a chemical no more toxic than caffeine—is very, very arguably safer by orders of magnitude than the incinerated-tobacco alternative and its 4000+ toxic chemical content.

Final observation: the author of this article is a dangerous intellectual lightweight.

Jocelyn Erskine-Kellie

Jul 13th 2012, 21:36

What those people in their ivory towers at the WHO and Tobacco Control don't seem to acknowledge is that people enjoy 'vaping' electronic cigarettes, just as there are people who enjoy smoking tobacco. These are among life's simple pleasures. People have always partaken of these things, have been doing so for centuries. Everything in life carries some risk, but come on, we're all adults here, and perfectly capable of making our own free choices taking into consideration the risks and benefits. Nanny Statism is rampant in the western world and people are getting fed up with these 'experts' and quangos interfering in our personal lives. I think electronic cigarettes are a brilliant invention. They taste like the real thing and they have helped a lot of people cut down on cigarettes or stop completely - unlike all those patches and gums which don't work. And certainly they're safer than tobacco cigarettes as there is no combustion, and as there is no odour they won't irritate others. I think the real reason the health authorities disaprove is because Tobacco Control gets a lot of funding from the Pharmaceutical companies who make NRT products, so the pharmaceutical companies stand to lose. Electronic Cigarettes shouldn't be classified as a pharmaceutical product, but as an ordinary consumer product. And they are tested for sabetter over time. Perhaps another reason Tobacco Control doesn't like them is because they look like 'the real thing' , and being the puritanical 'quit or die' prohibitionists they are, they dislike anything that gives people pleasure.

Joe Scicluna

Jul 13th 2012, 12:15

Its just tobacco company's and governments trying to put people off these as they will lose out on there outrages tax`s
there is still some side effects but not as bad as normal smoking with all the thousands of chemicals they put into them but dont tell us about.
there is no diethylene glycol in them as some people say,
it is now PG (propylene glycol), VG (vegetable glycerin) or a mixture of the both with nicotine.

A. Caruana

Jul 13th 2012, 11:38

And electronic cigarretes are NOT smokeless !!

Mr Duncan Scerri

Jul 13th 2012, 11:25

Here we go...

"The Environment Health Directorate...are absolutely right to note that their safety has not yet been established."

Nor their danger. It matters not though since it's pretty obvious that this is not going to help you gain an Olympic Gold.

"I first became interested in electronic cigarettes when I travelled on a Ryanair flight to Brussels from Prestwick in Scotland. These were being sold as safe on that flight. I asked to see a packet of cigarettes being sold and noted the information on nicotine and the fact that they were manufactured in Gibraltar."

Ryanair do not sell electronic cigarettes on their flights. They sell "smokeless cigarettes". These are completely different. They are sold as being permissible to use on flights, where one is not permitted to light a regular cigarette.

Finally, they are made in Germany and exported from Gib. The following link will provide some information:

http://bit.ly/OC8ULs

"Quite out of the blue, I came across an article in The Times, dated April 16, 2010 entitled Smokeless Tobacco Use Rising Among Teens, by Donna Smith. The article said that the source of such influence could be major league baseball players. Experts were worried about the growing use of smokeless tobacco influencing young people to take up the cancer-causing habit."

You just cannot stop jumping from one area to another and trying to hide among the smoke. Smokeless tobacco use in baseball players has been of the dipping tobacco type. This has been shown to have a link between use and various oral cancers. More information in the following link:

http://bit.ly/NlNOS1

It should be noted that the American dipping/chewing tobacco is vastly different to the Scandanavian snus. This product has no carcinogenic properties and is regulated in Sweden as a food product and the warning that snus may cause cancer has now been removed from snus, being replaced with a warning that the product is addictive. More information in the following link:

http://bit.ly/NlO1EQ

"Health experts say smokeless tobacco can cause cancers of the mouth, throat, oesophagus and pancreas. The concern was that people would perceive smokeless tobacco to be safer than cigarettes."

You have just mixed all smokeless tobacco products together. There is no evidence that this is the case with many smokeless tobacco products. I will agree that American dipping and chewing tobacco do fit this particular accusation though. Please try to be accurate in your accusations.

"A national newspaper reported that an electronic cigarette blew up in a smoker’s mouth in Niceville, Florida and the smoker lost all his teeth.The batteries in the cigarette ignited. Red hot flying debris also set fire to the study of his home. The 57-year-old was rushed to hospital with part of his tongue missing."

And of all the e-cigarettes that have been sold and used, this is a one-off case. Goodness knows what really happened here. Perhaps the device had been tampered with? Perhaps this Good Ol' Boy decided to connect up his e-cig to his Chevy alternator and fill up the reservoir with some moonshine? Perhaps he forgot it was an e-cig and tried to light it with a blowtorch? We just do not know.

"This came as no surprise to me"

Oh, because you've seen exactly how many explode?

"...especially as further investigations I conducted demonstrated that fluid in cartridges leaked out of most e-cigarettes. It is difficult to assemble or disassemble ENDS without touching nicotine containing fluilds."

Yeah, but I've only know people to fill their e-cigarette reservoirs with glycerol and not nitroglycerin, so the associated risks of detonation are much lower for them. Perhaps you need to change brands?

A. Caruana

Jul 13th 2012, 11:21

Ryain Air do not sell electronice cigarretes. They sell smokeless ones.

Mr Tony Gatt

Jul 13th 2012, 10:46

Recently an electronic cigarette set off some alarm on a coach on an English motorway. Within minutes the coach was surrounded by armed police and the passengers were made to come out and sit at the side of the road for hours until the cause was found.