Vaping as a lower-risk alternative than cigarettes is skewed by the media!

In several media outlets, the idea within the past few years is that there is a rising concern that e-cigarettes are affecting everybody more negatively than positively. The general outcry stemming from this notion that cigarettes and e-cigarettes are on the same level of risk is skewed. 

It is true that there are no real safe tobacco products out there, but they all carry different tiers of risk. Within the spectrum of cigarettes and e-cigarettes, cigarettes and other smoked tobacco products are the most harmful whereas e-cigarettes may be lower on the spectrum. 

MUSC Hollings Cancer Center’s Benjamin Toll, Ph.D, Director of the MUSC Health Tobacco Treatment Program and co-director of the Lung Cancer Screen Program says, “It breaks my heart that I’ve met with a lot of well-intentioned physicians who say to me, ‘Vaping is worse than smoking.’ And I say, ‘No, that’s not true”. 

Dr. Toll, is a licensed clinical psychologist and a professor of Public Health Sciences and Psychiatry. He specializes in treatment of tobacco use disorders, alcohol use disorders, and improvement of health behaviors. He has an expertise in the measurement of tobacco use and tobacco related syndromes (i.e. withdrawal). 

In an effort to tackle these misperceptions Dr. Toll teamed with Brian King, Ph.D, a director for the Center for Tobacco Products in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They wrote a commentary that was published in Addiction, a journal dedicated to the study of addiction, that public health professionals should keep two goals in mind. 

The first is to educate adults that smoke about the risks associated with different tobacco products. The second is to continue an outreach effort in preventing youth from using any tobacco products.

Looking for a way out of smoking cigarettes, vaping has become a great alternative. 

At the end of the day, a lot of the ideas surrounding e-cigarettes are hazy, but us at Eliquidstop we know that they can be an improvement for one's life. Especially if you’re choosing to quit cigarettes. What are your thoughts on this publication? Write them below.

References:

1. Hollings Cancer Center article, https://hollingscancercenter.musc.edu/news/archive/2023/08/15/many-adults-who-smoke-cigarettes-wrongly-think-that-vaping-is-worse-for-them 
2. Dr. Benjamin Toll PH.D., https://providers.muschealth.org/sc/charleston/benjamin-a-toll-phd 
3. Addiction journal, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/add.16296