I have a friend who has been using an e-cigarette for 10+ years. He doesn’t seem any less addicted to smoking as back when he was using old-fashioned cigarettes.
I understand e-cigarettes are supposed to help you quit… but has anyone actually had success with them? Or, is it more like trading one vice for another?
People HAVE used them to quit successfully though. You can keep lowering the nicotine levels on them slowly in a similar manner as the nicotine gum and patches and it tends to be cheaper.
What I see are anecdotes about people who vaped and then quit. FDA has said they find no evidence that vaping improves outcomes for people trying to quit. There are other proven therapies, too, that don’t have all the health risks.
I also see a lot of anecdotes right here from people who switched to vaping and then did not quit.
The bottom line is that vaping may or may not have played a part in this or that person’s story, but there is no firm basis to hold it up as a quitting aid. So we should stop doing that.
No offense, but as someone from outside of the US, the FDA is not the sole speaker of what is safe or what helps addiction. You guys have a LOT of commonly consumed things that are outright banned in other countries.
While vaping specifically isn’t mentioned as a cessation-aid, my country states that “nicotine is approved for use in nicotine replacement therapies, (e.g. the patch, inhaler or nicotine gum) to ease withdrawal symptoms and help people quit smoking.” Research is ongoing, of course.
I’ll listen to mine, you listen to yours.
I happen to agree with you. I don’t consider the FDA perfect, just several degrees more reliable than internet anecdotes.