Is Electronic Smoking Better Than Smoking? Compared With Smoking

Is electronic smoking better than smoking? Before the pandemic and its many controversies, electronic cigarettes - using electronic nicotine (or non nicotine) delivery systems or electronic cigarettes - were one of the most controversial topics on the Internet. Talking about vaccines will lead to controversy, and talking about raw milk may lead to some hatred, but even the slightest hint about the position of e-cigarettes will immediately overwhelm you by the enthusiastic reply of any party you offend.

There are many reasons for all this enthusiasm, but it is mainly related to uncertainty and how we make public health decisions.

The basic idea behind this discussion is simple: smoking e-cigarettes is a safer way to consume nicotine (and other substances) than smoking.

If we turn people from cigarettes to e-cigarettes, as pointed out in the comments of the World Health Organization on this topic, it is almost certain that their health will improve, because the content of smoke produced by e-cigarettes (as well as e-cigarette pens, cigarette bombs, etc.) is much lower. The most harmful chemicals inhaled when smoking.

But there are several obvious problems.

First of all, e-cigarettes are not a homogeneous intervention - there are huge differences in e-cigarette products and equipment. The market is largely unregulated, which means that the term "vape" covers everything from solid, reliable equipment to things that explode in the mouth.

Although these hazards are real, it is fortunate that they are very rare - even the biggest short-term problem, that is, serious lung diseases caused mainly by e-cigarettes containing specific additives derived from cannabis, have occurred only a relatively small number of times. Yes, they are important, but they are not what we are really interested in when discussing e-cigarette policy more broadly.

No, the real debate focused on a series of incredibly complex issues that continue to split the topic of e-cigarettes today.

On the one hand, switching from smoking to electronic cigarettes (i.e. quitting smoking completely) may be beneficial to your health. Having said that, epidemiological evidence shows that this situation is relatively rare - although some people do use e-cigarettes to quit smoking completely, most people become so-called "dual users", and they smoke e-cigarettes at the same time in different amounts.

The evidence on whether dual use is beneficial (rather than just smoking) is mixed, because the practice itself covers everything from people who rarely smoke and mainly smoke e-cigarettes to people who basically add e-cigarettes to the current smoking system.

In order to add fuel to the fire, an experimental study was conducted. People were randomly assigned to smoke electronic cigarettes or quit smoking cold turkey, which seems to indicate that electronic cigarettes have some benefits. Unfortunately, these studies are often of poor quality and it is difficult to know whether their results are valid outside the clinical setting, although there is some evidence that they will.

In addition, compared with quitting smoking completely, smoking e-cigarettes is obviously more harmful to your health.

Although the long-term problem has not been fully determined - e-cigarettes have only become common in the past decade or so - we certainly have reason to believe that e-cigarettes are not completely harmless, especially considering the wide variety of products that can be used for e-cigarettes.

Most importantly, there is good evidence that smoking nicotine products can form habits and addictions. Epidemiologists are very worried, especially young people who smoke electronic cigarettes will lead to smoking, which is obviously a bad thing. Even this has caused heated debate, because it is difficult to know whether e-cigarettes will lead to smoking, or young people who just start e-cigarettes are more likely to become smokers in the future.