Study reveals a need to evaluate and regulate 'electronic cigarettes'

Electronic cigarettes should be evaluated, regulated, labeled and packaged in a manner consistent with cartridge content and product effect – even if that effect is a total failure to deliver nicotine as demonstrated in a study supported by the National Cancer Institute and led by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher. The research was published in the Online First issue of the journal Tobacco Control. The article will appear in the February print issue of the journal.

Electronic cigarettes consist of a battery, heater and cartridge containing a solution of nicotine, propylene glycol and other chemicals and have been marketed to deliver nicotine without tobacco toxicants. Despite no published data concerning safety or efficacy, these products are sold in shopping malls and online. Further, "electronic cigarettes" currently are unregulated in the U.S., unlike other products intended to deliver nicotine to smokers such as lozenges, gum and patches.

"Consumers have a right to expect that products marketed to deliver a drug will work safely and as promised. Our findings demonstrate that the 'electronic cigarettes' that we tested do not deliver the drug they are supposed to deliver. It's not just that they delivered less nicotine than a cigarette. Rather, they delivered no measurable nicotine at all. In terms of nicotine delivery, these products were as effective as puffing from an unlit cigarette," said principal investigator Thomas Eissenberg, Ph.D., professor in the VCU Department of Psychology.

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Perhaps the good preofessor forgot to put a cartridge in his e-cigarette! Yes, e-cigs need regulating as they deliver a drug, and yes, this is a ploy by tobacco and pharmaceuticals to barge out of their profitable market an upstart product. They should bring out their own e-cigarettes but, for big tobacco, it would ruin their market and, for big pharma, it would expose the lie that NRT are some kind of medicine rather than just another profitable delivery system of a drug that is otherwise classed a poison. Go figure.