Want to know how "safe" an e-cig is?

I love the internet - and I love the way past programmes can be re-viewed, otherwise I wouldn't have found this from the Discovery Channel:

Canadian Research on Personal Vapourisers

It's definitely worth a watch.

Ten Must-read articles about Electronic Smoking and Personal Vapourisers

1. FDA smoke screen on e-cigarettes in Washington Times by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan, president of the American Council on Science and Health

2. American Association of Public Health Physicians writes on behalf of Electronic Cigarettes to the Incoming Director of the FDA by Joel L. Nitzkin, MD, MPH, DPA Chair, AAPHP Tobacco Control Task Force and Kevin Sherin, MD, MPH, FACPM, FAAFP President, American Association of Public Health Physicians

3. Disingenuousness of the FDA’s Press Conference is Concerning; FDA and Anti-Smoking Groups are Committing Medical Malpractice on a Massive Scale by Dr. Michael Siegel, Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health

4. FDA’s drug and e-cigarette warnings counterproductive by Jeff Stier, associate director, American Council on Science and Health

5. Technical Review and Analysis of FDA Report: “Evaluation of e-cigarettes” by Janci Chunn Lindsay, Ph.D. from Exponent Health Sciences

6. An Interview With David Sweanor on the E-Cigarette, Tobacco harm reduction, snus and other issues from E Cigarette Direct out of the UK

7. The FDA Crusade Against E-Cigarettes by Brad Rodu, Professor of Medicine at the University of Louisville, holds an endowed chair in tobacco harm reduction research, and a member of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center at U of L

8. Prominent Public Health Physicians and Tobacco Researchers Expose Double Standard in the FDA’s Recent Study of Electronic Cigarettes and Challenge the FDA’s Alarmist Attitude Toward the Devices by Dr. Michael Siegel, Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health and Joel L. Nitzkin, MD, MPH, DPA, Chair AAPHP Tobacco Control Task Force and Brad Rodu, Professor of Medicine at the University of Louisville

9. Electronic Cigarette Association Letter To Congress by Matt Salmom, former Congressmen and President of the ECA

10. American Lung Association Asserts that E-Cigarettes are Designed to Promote Cigarette Smoking; Can Anti-Smoking Groups’ Reasoning Get Any More Absurd? by Dr. Michael Siegel, Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health

So,it's official - well, very nearly...

That's the thing about new science - it has to be reviewed by folks who know what they're talking about. Well, Dr. Murray Laugersen's report into Ruyan Electronic Cigarettes has been submitted for publication in a peer reviewed journal now, and so, very soon, folks who know what they're talking about will make their comments and, hopefully, endorse his findings.

You can read the slimmed-down version and findings here in an easy to digest form.

The really salient point - I quote:

"...e-cigarette users do not inhale smoke or smoke toxicants. The modest
reductions recommended in 2008 by WHO’sTobacco Regulation committee for 9 major
toxicants in cigarette smoke, in line with Articles 9 and 10 of the FCTC (WHO Framework Convention Tobacco Control treaty), are already far exceeded by the Ruyan® e-cigarette, as it is free of all accompanying smoke toxicants.

Absolute safety does not exist for any drug, but relative to lethal tobacco smoke emissions, Ruyan e-cigarette emissions appear to be several magnitudes safer. E-cigarettes are akin to a medicinal nicotine inhalator in safety, dose, and
addiction potential.

E-cigarettes are cigarette substitutes. If they can take nicotine market share from cigarettes, and that is the big question, they will improve smoker and population health. They may also have a secondary role as medicinal nicotine inhaler quitting aids."

Just so you know "several magnitudes safer" means at least 1000 times safer - or 1/1000th the risk of real cigarettes.

This ex smoker welcomes this report, and looks forward to the peer review - I think it will confirm what many of us have suspected for a long time now - and that is that e-cigarettes are much, much safer than traditional tobacco cigarettes, not only for smokers, but especially for those around them.

Interview with Dr Murray Laugersen (from http://www.ecigarettedirect.co.uk/interviews/murray-interview.html)

Scientists have estimated that, based on the evidence available, the risk to health from electronic cigarettes is between 1% and 1/10th of 1% of real cigarettes. You have actually done a product assessment of Ruyan electronic cigarette. What's your assessment of the risks?
ML We would rate the Ruyan electronic cigarette two to three orders of magnitude safer (100 to 1000 times safer) than a tobacco cigarette. We say this because our testing of the Ruyan e-cigarette for nearly 60 major toxicants has not found any cigarette smoke toxicants in any but trace quantity so far. This is not surprising, as the operating temperature of the atomiser of an e-cigarette is 5 to 10% that of a burning tobacco cigarette, so the volatile cigarette smoke toxicants are not created.
Provided each e-cigarette maker has certified good manufacturing practices, plants and uses pure ingredients their emissions should be harmless also. The problem is that most manufacturers do not comply in this respect. Ruyan has taken a risk in publicly testing their product. They come out squeaky clean.
ECD: When we first requested an interview with you several months ago, you suggested we wait, as you might well have some more information regarding the products. There has also been more research conducted in New Zealand since that time. What are the latest developments?
ML: New Zealand researchers at the Dublin conference of the international Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco in late April 2009 presented research showing the Ruyan e cigarette is free of cigarette smoke toxicants, is able to increase nicotine in the bloodstream of users, and relieve cravings.
ECD: The position taken by most public health groups in the US is that these devices should not be used until they have undergone further extensive testing. Is this a position you agree with?
"...nicotine is one of the safest of drugs, and is being sold as the alternative to the most dangerous consumer product – the tobacco cigarette"
ML: With prescription drugs, we would agree. But nicotine is one of the safest of drugs, and is being sold as the alternative to the most dangerous consumer product – the tobacco cigarette. Low risk compared to cigarettes is the real world risk that smokers face. The risk that distributors face is of being sued for defective product – an insurable risk and not huge for sellers of e-cigarettes.
Further “extensive testing” to prove near zero absolute safety in the USA means testing to FDA protocols. In the USA this costs millions of dollars, and several years delay, and implies large price markups on medicinals under near monopoly conditions. There needs to be either a simpler or provisional slate of tests required, short of medicinal registration, or, as in the UK, these devices and refills need clearance to be sold as non-medicines (with the option of some brands later qualifying as medicines).
So my hope would be that the FDA and other regulators will review their stance on e-cigarettes with the aim of how to save the most smokers' lives most effectively, balance this public health imperative against their brief to protect consumer safety, and possibly fashion a new regulatory approach for faster acting nicotine products.
"The product is safe, efficacious, and possibly effective in stopping smoking."
The product is safe, efficacious, and possibly effective in stopping smoking. E-cigarettes have been on sale in the UK since 2007 (classed as non-medicines), and in the USA for over one year without any harm reported in the media or medical journals, or by doctors reporting adverse reactions. It is a product that potentially just might assist smokers to quit and therefore cut the 1 in 2 cumulative death rate in smokers. Further research is needed.
So far the only response from almost every government regulator has been to say that the nicotine in e-cigarettes means they classify as medicines, requiring millions of dollars and years of delay and thousands of pages of paper work to follow the regulatory processes to bring this product to market. This cost is repeated as each new product is patented and tested, for approval. Patents are in dispute, and further patents and improvements in design are in the pipeline.
There is a clash also between the absolute safety of a cigarette substitute (in fact, no drug is 100% safe) and the relative safety of e-cigarettes compared with tobacco smoking. Regulators decree what is good for populations, and this can clash with fundamental rights of citizens to be able to buy any reasonably safe product that will diminish their risks of dying early from continuing use of smoking tobacco.
Government tobacco control agencies could assist by sitting down with medicine regulators, to balance these considerations, and produce relaxed safety regulations for fast acting nicotine products as proposed by the tobacco group of the Royal College of Physicians London recently.
The tobacco control community could assist by working with government health and research agencies, to fast track this product's research and development as the first of a new generation of possible substitutes to replace tobacco smoking. But one thing is clear - smokers need a whole generation of better products to provide their needs for safe nicotine, and the sooner these can be coaxed to market, the better.

The joys of the portable charging case

No matter what, the batteries on the majority of Personal Vapourisers (or e-cigs)tend to have a pretty small amount of electricity in them. Or, to put it another way, a fully charged battery simply isn't enough to get you through the day, if you are an ex 40 a day smoker, or indeed, even an ex 20 a day man (or woman).

The solution - well, for 103 users, it was to carry four fully charged batteries in addition to the one on your atomiser, and buy higher capacity (and therefore longer) batteries.

Same applied to 901 users, but joye510 users (which includes Janty Dura, Tech Titan and the Yeti) have had access to a portable charging case almost from day one.

In effect, the case is - aside from being a case - a little high capacity battery built into a charger. So, your 510 breaks down into battery and atomiser, and the battery gets topped up while it's in the case. Plug in a mini-usb charge lead overnight, and you're ready for the day ahead.

But does it work? Hell yeah, it does. This ex 50 a day man gets through a full day on the PCC with two batteries without any problems - and my 510 is almost permanently on the go. I'll e honest and say that also carry 901 with two spare batteries in another case, and I'm awaiting delivery of a decent PCC for that, too. (In case you're wondering, the 901 usually has a different flavour of e-juice in it - RY4 for the 901 and American Blend in the 510, usually)

Now, I hear, PCCs for the 103 and its derivatives are available - I'll be getting a sample to try very soon, so I'll report back then, but, hopefully, it'll do the job just as well.

I'll tell you what, these electronic smokes are the way forward. Remember Synthahol in Star Trek... well, we're not that far away from synth-o-fags. Cool, eh?!!

As the esmoking market matures - is smaller better??

There's comfort in a familiar habit - that much we all know, and, for a market as young as the esmoking market, there's comfort for those folks who are taking their first steps into using electronic cigarettes in the newest "super-mini" types. In a nutshell, a "super-mini" looks like an analogue cigarette - it's the same size, has a red "cherry" on the end to imitate a real cigarette, and even features a mouthpiece that looks like the filter on a real ciggie.



It's heavier, yes, but otherwise feels pretty familiar in the hand, and handles pretty much the same as the cancer stick we're all used to. So, in some ways, that's a good thing, but miniaturisation brings with it a few problems:

Battery life

It's pretty obvious - a small battery can only hold a small amount of elastic trickery - and I'm here to tell you that this esmoker has at least four on the go all day, and is constantly recharging, even with the higher capacity "superking" batteries. That's fine when I'm either at work (it's my place - I make the rules) or at home - but out and about, if I'm nowhere near a power point or a car 12v socket, four batteries won't get me through a day (bear in mind I was a 60 a day smoker).

She who must be obeyed, however, had a 15-20 a day habit, and finds two batteries more than adequate on her super-mini.

So, I'm looking at obtaining a "901" - that is smaller than a pen-style unit, but larger - and with a much bigger battery - than a super-mini. Indeed, one is on order as I type this, and I'm hoping it will arrive tomorrow, to give me the chance to evaluate it over a busy weekend.

All the joys, none of the death

Sometimes, things come into your life that you’re not expecting. Like some 45 years ago, tobacco entered mine, and stayed with me … until seven weeks ago (as I write this in early July 2009) when the world of Electronic Smoking introduced itself.

Electronic Smoking (or “vaping” as it’s becoming known) removes all of the real reasons why folks would want to pack in smoking – the 400+ known carcinogens in traditional tobacco cigarettes – and leaves the nicotine and flavour.

With an E-cigarette, there is no passive smoking, no ash, no nasty smell lingering around, no “fag breath”, no need to slope off outside in the cold and wet in order to get your fix.

In other words, all the bad things go, and the good things stay – someone once put it to me –“it’s all the joys of smoking, with none of the death!”

So, when I first came across these little cylinders of nicotine-bearing joy, my first thought was “great – they beat the smoking ban, I can have a smoke in a pub, a club, a theatre, a shopping mall – anywhere, in fact” – which, of course you can – and I was going to continue to smoke traditional tobacco cigarettes.

Now, though, I’m over four weeks tobacco-free – I haven’t sparked a normal smoke up. Why? Because my Nucig tastes nicer, it’s cheaper (MUCH cheaper) than smokes in the UK, and, frankly, I quite like the notion that, in five years, I’ll have the same risk of lung cancer as a bloke my age who’s never smoked at all.

Try them out at this web site