For Health’s Sake Target Tobacco Not Vapes

The American Lung Association’s ‘How to Quit Smoking’ offers tips, secrets, and myriad reasons to help smokers quit. Why? Simple, because nearly all Americans who use tobacco know how difficult it is to quit. Most people who smoke cigarettes want to quit. In fact, many have tried to quit – only to fail.

The public health community should be promoting novel ways to help people quit tobacco. According to the American Lung Association, ex-smokers say quitting tobacco was the most challenging triumph they had ever accomplished. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cites tobacco use as the “leading cause of preventable disease, disability, and death in the United States.” Sadly, far too many Americans who want to quit – but can’t. They die, instead.

Unfortunately, anti-smoking activists and government regulators are fighting technologies and products that could potentially save millions of lives. E-cigarettes are an effective device for smoking cessation; more effective, in fact, than other nicotine replacement therapies. Therefore, if we want fewer people to smoke cigarettes, the public health community should be looking at policies that do not obstruct adult access to vaping.

Is vaping healthy? Should young people who do not smoke pick up a vaping habit? No, of course not. But these are the wrong questions and not the issue up for public discussion. Rather, the more relevant questions are: “Is vaping a safer alternative to smoking?” “Does vaping help smokers quit tobacco?” And here the answer to both questions is the same: an unequivocal, blaring ‘yes’.

Public health policy must be based on sound science, not ideology. What does the science say about smoking cessation? According to the American Lung Association, ex-smokers say quitting tobacco was the most challenging achievement of their lives. Giving up cigarettes is one of the most profoundly difficult things to do in one’s life—and the research backs it up. The data shows that smokers make – on average – 30 attempts to quit smoking before they can kick the habit for good.

However, anti-vaping campaigns have pushed millions of Americans to believe that vaping is as dangerous as smoking – not true. This wrong belief – equating vaping and tobacco – advanced by anti-vape advocates has had tragic consequences. Smokers – desperate to quit tobacco –  are less likely to switch to vaping as a way to quit.

The public health community should set its targets on Big Tobacco. Regardless, health advocacy organizations and politicians continue to target vaping. A crack down on vaping products is not just anti-science, it’s health disinformation. Tobacco cigarettes remain on store shelves yet pose an enormous danger to public health. Vaping, on the contrary, is a known, successful smoking cessation device.

Dr. Sally Satel writing in Sensible Medicine said:

“... instead of rejoicing at the promise of electronic cigarettes, health agencies have fueled a massive campaign of doubt regarding its health advantages to smokers. What are the facts and what explains the resistance to acknowledging the vast benefits of vaping?

Vaping is a form of harm-reduction. E-cigarettes are a replacement for cigarettes, which burn tobacco. The products of combustion – carcinogen-containing tar and other toxins and gases – cause lung disease and cancer and cardiovascular pathology.”

In the health war to save Americans from Big Tobacco, cigarettes are the enemy while vaping is our ally. Public health policy should (must) recognize this reality before it’s too late.

Tobacco kills one American every minute and, yet some in Congress and the public health community continue to play politics with vaping. It is irrational and anti-science … but it’s good politics. It’s past time to put health and smoking cessation over politics.