When it comes to smoking the research is clear. Tobacco smoking can cause a whole host of nasty illnesses, it increases your risk factors for other health concerns and may cause premature death. E cigarettes save lives and allow smokers to enjoy a similar, cheaper, healthier alternative to their smoking habit. We look at why or how e cigarettes save lives and what can be done to promote their use.
The Problem With Smoking
Smoking has been a thing for many, many years. For the past sixty or seventy years however science has been advanced enough to recognise and pinpoint what it is about smoking that is so harmful to health. The World Health Organisation (WHO) have classified a number of the chemicals found in cigarettes and tobacco smoke as being highly toxic and as having to potential to cause cancer. Clearly breathing these in is not a good idea.
Smoking is by its very nature highly addictive, and not just because it contains nicotine. This means that despite breathing in harmful tobacco smoke and knowing the risks, smokers continue to smoke. Quitting smoking is hard.
Other problems associated with smoking include the cost to the NHS (for hospital admissions, treatments and more all linked to smoking-related illness), the personal and financial cost to smokers and to the environment.
Clearly, smoking needs to be stamped out once and for all, but how?
Reducing Smoking Rates
The official smoking rates in England have dropped to the lowest level since these smoking rate records began. This is great news. It means that public health campaigns are working and it means that smokers have found ways to successfully quit smoking. While vaping cannot take all of the credit for this drop in rates, it has certainly contributed to them. Looking at it in this light, it is easy to see how e cigarettes save lives.
Why E Cigarettes are Such a Good Alternative to Smoking
Studies show that smokers looking to quit their harmful habit face a number of challenges. These include:
- Nicotine withdrawal
- Withdrawal from the cocktail combination of the chemicals in cigarette smoke that the smoker’s body has become used to.
- The social aspect.
- The physical habits, i.e. the hand to mouth action, having something in their hands, the inhale/exhale action.
- The reported calming/relaxing effect of smoking.
Vaping helps with a lot of these, without replacing smoking with something harmful. Indeed, Public Health England has publicly announced findings that vaping is at least ninety-five percent less harmful than smoking. Mimicking the smoking action goes a long way towards helping smokers quit, which is why when we say that e cigarettes save lives, we are being serious.
Official Support for E Cigarette Use
As above, Public Health England are keen advocates for vaping, recognising it for the valid, healthier and recommended cessation method it is. While e cigarettes are not currently listed as official cessation devices, which would allow GPs to prescribe them, PHE is working hard to push this through. As part of their 2018 vaping review, they released recommendations which they have taken to the government in which they also push for access to vaping being expanded.
Numerous health agencies, charities, researchers and specialists support vaping, recognising as we do that vaping saves lives.
In Summary
The claim that e cigarettes save lives is not one made flippantly. By offering an alternative to smoking, one proven to help smokers quit when traditional quit smoking methods have failed (NRT, group support, cold turkey), vaping does indeed save lives. It does this by enabling smokers to quit smoking completely.
Many agencies recognise the benefits of vaping and how e cigarettes are a valid, useful, cleaner, healthier and cheaper alternative to tobacco cigarettes. This growing realisation, when shared, is what is enabling more and more people to learn more about e liquids, e cigarettes and so on, so that they can make an informed choice about their health and their future.
Sharing articles like this one will go along way to making more people realise that they can have their cake and eat it, so to speak, as they may enjoy the smoking actions they are used to without the health worries that many smokers face.