Posts Tagged ‘Cigarette Smoking’
The electronic cigarette has been on the market for a few years now and has endured a turbulent introduction into society, despite manufacturers and distributors claiming them to be a less harmful alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes.
Governments and health organisations appear to have fought tooth and nail to prevent the wide scale distribution of the e cig, first claiming the product was simply unsafe and later attacking the fact that they contain nicotine, which has of course proven to be highly addictive.
In the early days, many e cigarette distributors and companies, operating mainly on the internet, were marketing them as device to aid smokers to quit smoking and presenting them as a healthier alternative to smoking. Whilst the latter claims still seem to be relevant, (there don’t seem to be many people willing to suggest that the electronic cigarette is not at least a little less harmful than tobacco cigarette smoking) the language has changed to suggest the product is “less harmful”, rather than “healthier”.
Pernickety as this may seem, it’s a price that the e cig distributors have had to pay in order to stay in business, as it became simply unacceptable to market the product as a smoking cessation device or to use the word “healthier” regarding something that still contained addictive nicotine.
In many ways, like the warnings that are displayed on the packaging of regular tobacco cigarettes, so to the electronic cigarette branding is following suit, which is probably no bad thing. Likewise, websites promoting and selling the product should now display the relevant warnings clearly on the site.
Perhaps, ultimately, it’s the smokers themselves that have the loudest voices in this battle and the strongest hope of providing a victory for the electronic cigarette. Those smokers who have been bold enough in their search for something that may satisfy their cravings, yet possibly put themselves at less risk, have often in recent years found themselves knocking on the door of the e cig.
Many smokers who have chosen the e cigarette as an alternative to tobacco smoking have reported that they feel generally “really good” after making the switch.
Despite the struggle and opposition that this potentially remarkable product has faced, the electronic cigarette seems to be here to stay. In fact, the market seems to be growing rather than faltering and with many more distribution websites springing up, it’s not difficult to check them out for yourselves and draw your own conclusions.
There are many people who really are still unaware that a product such as the electronic cigarette even exists. On more than one occasion I have brought them up in conversation only to be met with blank expressions and shoulder shrugs.
Why am I so interested in the future of electronic cigarettes when in fact I am a non smoker? Well, despite the strong opposition the e cigarette (as it’s sometimes referred to) has faced in the several years it has been available on the market and when you consider the destruction that regular tobacco cigarettes cause, then a product that at least on the surface claims to be less harmful than regular smoking methods, surely must be given a chance to prove itself?
Tobacco cigarettes and the smoking of them may have had to endure stricter regulations in recent years but there really is no sign of them ever being outlawed completely, despite the known harm that is caused by them, not only to those that smoke them but those around and about the smoker too.
My father was 53 when lung cancer took his life. Twelve months before he died, he was told by doctors that his cancer was related to cigarette smoking. The scary thing is, he never smoked a cigarette in his life but he had shared every lunch time for over 30 years in builders’ huts, with gangs of builders and labourers who smoked one cigarette after another. The dreaded passive smoking!
I am well aware that electronic cigarettes need to be tested and researched thoroughly and indeed if they are determined to be as harmful as or more harmful than tobacco cigarettes then they shouldn’t be given the green light. But, this is very unlikely when you consider that the electronic cigarette (although it does contain nicotine) contains no tobacco at all and because of this, none of the harmful cancer causing tars either!
I am sure most of us (tobacco companies aside) would in an ideal world love to see the back of smoking forever but if that is not achievable wouldn’t we rather see our relatives and friends, if they absolutely must choose to smoke some kind of cigarette, smoking something that is far less likely to send them spinning towards bad health and an early grave?
Let’s give electronic cigarettes a chance to prove themselves, especially as it may turn out to be a much, much less harmful product than the tobacco cigarettes that have destroyed so many lives the world over.
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