Electronic cigarette: harm or benefit?

According to the French Anti-Smoking Authority, an e-cigarette is almost 100 times less toxic than a regular cigarette*. That is why it is often recommended to be used by those who would like to give up once and for all a bad habit. The smoke, or rather, the vapor of a cigarette, contains only propylene glycol, a substance used to simulate smoke during performances. When smoking an electronic cigarette, no tar, no carbon monoxide, no particulate matter are emitted. Yet the low level of toxicity (although it must be admitted that zero toxicity does not exist) cannot explain why this method of quitting smoking works, while others (patches or chewing gums) have failed. Most likely, the answer lies in psychological conditioning. Very often we smoke, because the cigarette has become in a sense … a conditioned reflex. Most smokers learned from childhood that smoking is pleasant or cool: they saw how their parents or their friends savored a cigarette at parties, how the most important “authorities” smoked at school … Smoke, smell, manipulation with a cigarette – all this often is associated in humans with pleasure, communication. We learn by observing people close to us and those around us, who are an example and a model for us. This phenomenon was discovered by Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura. He called it imitative learning or learning by observation**. But we adopt not only good habits … It turns out that we smoke not only because we cannot live without tobacco and nicotine. The act of smoking is an integral part of the person himself, which is why it can be so difficult for us to get rid of this habit – we have long perceived it as part of ourselves. As for the e-cigarette, it allows us to be ourselves and continue to do the same as always.

Read more:

• Get ready to quit smoking

Pulmonologist Alexander Averyanov believes that with the help of an electronic cigarette, two effects can be achieved at once: get a full-fledged act of smoking with all the attributes – an object in your hand, a puff, exhaled smoke and a tactile sensation of a cigarette in your mouth; in addition, we get nicotine, but not carcinogens from tobacco smoke (and at the same time we do not turn others into passive smokers). True, this situation can also be looked at from the other side. There is a danger that the electronic cigarette as a replacement therapy will become a new habit that did not exist before! In addition, there are two types of electronic cigarettes: nicotine-containing and nicotine-free. For a successful fight against smoking, it is better to immediately use cigarettes with nicotine-free cartridges.

And finally, one more observation. Since the electronic cigarette has been around for a very short time, there is no scientific evidence to support its complete safety and effectiveness. That is, today no one can yet say what is more in an electronic cigarette – harm or benefit. That is why both conventional and electronic cigarettes cannot be sold to those under the age of 18. If you have never smoked, you should not start now, even though electronic cigarettes are less toxic. “Electronic cigarettes are a lesser evil than classic cigarettes, but they are evil because nicotine is a poison,” Alexander Averyanov is sure.

Read more:

• smoke. World history of smoking

* OFTA, more at ofta-asso.fr

** A. Bandura «Social Learning Theory», psychology.stanford.edu/abandura