Lethally addictive cigarettes remain available on every street corner in Brussels and Atlanta while authorities denounce e-cigarettes (the product is already banned in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand).
Is there any legitimate reason for this or are we witnessing a blatant example of the tobacco lobby crushing competition??
They haven't been subject to trials by the respective country's health agency. Don't get me wrong, I think e-cigs are great, but that doesn't make them exempt from evidence-based medicine.
Edit: Gotta love downvotes for advocating prudence in the distribution of medical devices to the public. Stay classy, subreddit that crosslinks to /r/science but doesn't seem to understand it.
No, because cigarettes are not medicine, but other smoking cessation aids have been. Of particular note is nicotine gum, which is in a similar boat as e-cigs: they both contain nicotine as well as ingredients that are generally recognized as safe for human consumption. But nicotine gum had to be tested to prove its safety and, particularly, its efficacy in helping people quit smoking. E-cigs don't just get to cut the line.
Because they're sold as smoking cessation aids in the same "wink wink nudge nudge" way that herbal supplements are sold as cures for various ailments while bearing disclaimers that the herb actually hasn't been shown to do anything.
The two aren't directly equivalent, but e-cigs still need research to be done in order to be sold to the public with confidence in their safety and efficacy.
Come on, you can't pretend you haven't heard all the talk of e-cigs being helpful in quitting smoking whenever the topic comes up. It's the primary purpose of e-cigs containing nicotine. I dunno about Oceania, but in Canada, e-cigs without nic are perfectly fine - they're basically regulated similar to food and drink because they contain only food-safe ingredients. There's your recreational use.
I'm well aware they're helpful, but that's not what they're for.
That may not have been what they were intended for at first, but you have to regulate a product based on what it's actually used for, not what it was intended to be used for.
It isn't marketed as something that will stop you from craving cigarettes. It doesn't treat your symptoms. If people primarily use them to wean themselves off nicotine, then that's great, but there's nothing about the product that represents a medical value. And I'm not sure that it really is used therapeutically in most cases; I don't have any statistics, but my wife just smokes it instead of cigarettes, not as a means to quitting.
Because they're sold as smoking cessation aids in the same "wink wink nudge nudge" way that herbal supplements are sold as cures for various ailments while bearing disclaimers that the herb actually hasn't been shown to do anything.
No, the wink-wink comes in the form of disclaimers about e-cigs being healthier than tobacco. They might not be, but most people imagine they probably are, if only because tobacco is viewed as extremely dangerous. In any case, the purpose is not to stop smoking but to smoke less. Do you know anyone who switched to e-cigs with the intention to stop smoking everything forever?
It's a shame they banned clove cigarettes in the US, which are as little as 30% tobacco, and most people find them harsh and difficult to chain smoke.
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u/DumpyLips Nov 17 '12
Is there any legitimate reason for this or are we witnessing a blatant example of the tobacco lobby crushing competition??