Last updated on June 25th, 2021
A new tobacco and vaping study published in the journal Public Health Management & Practice shows tobacco smokers can live much longer, healthier lives if they quit smoking and start vaping.
Research conducted by a team led by investigators from Georgetown Lombardi Cancer Center supports a policy that encourages replacing cigarette smoking with vaping.
The study's lead author is David Levy, PhD, professor of oncology at Georgetown University.
Levy says there is now proof e-cigarettes save lives. The key is to quit smoking and start vaping.
Even the gloomiest analysis shows a significant gain in years of life if nicotine is obtained from vaping instead of much more deadly amount of toxicants inhaled with cigarette smoke”. In fact, he notes, ”up to 6.6 million cigarette smokers will live substantially longer if cigarette smoking is replaced by vaping over a ten-year period”.
Our Current Anti-Smoking Policy
The Georgetown study, published in the journal Public Health Management & Practice indicates that the current strategy for ending the country's tobacco epidemic has not changed since 2014. Those policies include higher cigarette taxes, smoke-free public places, media campaigns, cessation treatment programs and advertising restrictions.
But Are Those Policies Effective?
Dr. Levy says,
While those policies have been effective over time — their impact has been relatively slow.
Old policies need to be supplemented with policies that encourage substituting e-cigarettes for the far more deadly cigarettes…Together, these policies as well as regulating the content of cigarettes have the potential to drastically reduce the massive harms from smoking cigarettes.
The new study is the first to model public health outcomes if cigarette smoking was replaced by e-cigarettes.
source: Public Health Management
While the FDA appears to be onboard, they still need to address the definition of “Tobacco Products”.
For Example, the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products Released a Smoking & Vaping report in August of 2017 Indicating These Facts:
1. Youth cigarette use (among high school students) dropped by a huge amount from 2011 to 2016.
2. Cigar use dropped substantially from 2011 to 2016.
3. Pipe use dropped substantially from 2011 to 2016.
4. Smokeless tobacco use dropped slightly from 2011 to 2016.
5. Hookah use was essentially the same in 2011 and 2016.
According to the Chart that accompanied the report, (shown below) the use of e-Cigarettes grew dramatically.
Strangely enough, the FDA titled the report “NO SIGNIFICANT OVERALL HIGH SCHOOL TOBACCO USE OVER THE PAST YEARS”.
Why would they do that when the chart clearly shows a direct relationship between vaping and quitting traditional tobacco products?!
According to Dr. Michael Siegel, Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at Boston University School of Public Health the FDA chose to twist the facts.
So how does CTP justify this dishonesty? It plays a trick on the public. It classifies e-cigarette use as a form of tobacco use and includes e-cigarette use in the totals for overall tobacco use. Since there was a huge increase in e-cigarette use from 2011 to 2016, CTP is able to completely undermine the fact that there was a dramatic drop in youth smoking, cigar use, and pipe use by adding youth who experimented with e-cigarettes.
source: tobaccoanalysis/2017/08/
Many feel this is a lethal stumbling block to fair e-cigarette product regulations.
You can read more: Will E-Cigarettes Be Safer When FDA Regulations Take Effect?
What do you think? Please feel free to leave a comment.
