Cape Town - Whether it is rising cigarette prices or tightening smoking regulations, more people are turning to electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) to kick the habit, but the debate about their safety and efficacy rages.
Worldwide, e-cigarette sales increased by 240 percent between 2012 and last year, according to figures quoted from the SA Medical Journal. E-cigarettes are battery-powered devices that look like conventional cigarettes, but contain no tobacco. Instead, the devices are filled with liquid nicotine, which is heated and vapourised before being inhaled.
In a recent statement, the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease warned that the safety of e-cigarettes had not been scientifically proven. The union also warned that e-cigarette vapour could still be cancer-causing while there was limited evidence to support their effectiveness as smoking cessation tools.
The international body advocated restricting the sale and use of the electronic devices by, for instance, banning all advertising, prohibiting their sale to minors and outlawing their use in public.
In South Africa, the e-cigarette is regulated under the Medicines and Related Substance Act that classifies nicotine as a schedule 3 drug, requiring it to be sold only at pharmacies and with a doctor’s script. The device itself also falls under the act as it is considered a delivery device for a scheduled drug. Local experts debated the pros and cons of e-cigarettes in the SA Medical Journal in which Dr Brian Allwood from UCT’s Division of Pulmonology argued that the tiny machines might be the lesser of two evils for those who can’t kick the habit, despite obvious dangers.
“It is highly unlikely that e-cigarettes are as toxic to human tissue as conventional cigarettes,” writes Allwood, who adds that e-cigarettes still allow potential quitters to participate in the psychological and social “ritual of smoking”.
He argued that there was also a small but growing body of evidence to support e-cigarettes’ role in quitting smoking. In one clinical trial conducted among 300 people, e-cigarettes helped unmotivated smokers achieve the same levels of cutting down or quitting smoking as a group of smokers who were motivated to quit.
But fellow UCT pulmonologist Dr Richard van Zyl-Smit disagrees and says research has been limited to a few hundred people and also faults the design of some studies.
“The evidence for (e-cigarettes) being an effective method for smoking cessation is unconvincing,” he writes. “Safety has not been proven in large studies of long-term use.”
A cause for concern is also the unregulated manufacturing of e-cigarettes, which have been found to contain poisonous and sometimes cancer-causing substances. Without any regulation, users have no guarantee of what is in their e-cigarettes. - Health-e News Service
THE NUMBERS
* 6 million – the number of people killed by smoking each year and almost twice the number killed by HIV and tuberculosis combined.
* 33 percent – the amount of cancer deaths that would be averted in a world without tobacco.
* 1 to 4 – the number of cigarettes a day it takes to increase your risk of dying by 60 percent.
* 25 – the percentage of smokers who are able to quit.
SA Medical Journal