Electronic Cigarette Association

Data Resources

The following international resources have been assembled to make media access to information easier on the public policy, public health, science and legal aspects of the electronic cigarettes topic.

Harm Reduction in Nicotine Addiction: Helping People Who Can’t Quit

Royal College of Physicians

This 252-page report from the Tobacco Control Group of The College concludes that tobacco cigarettes are freely available, medicinal nicotine products are available but regulations restrict availability and effectiveness, and that the combination limits gains in public health by denying smokers the right to choose safer nicotine products.

Interview of Joel Niztkin, MD, MPH, DPA, FACPM

Chair, Tobacco Control Task Force
American Association of Public Health Physicians

“We have every reason to believe the hazard posed by electronic cigarettes would be much lower than 1% of that posed by (tobacco) cigarettes,” says Dr. Nitzkin in this online interview. “The testing guidelines in the current tobacco act (circulating through Congress) would represent a ban on electronic cigarettes, (yet) if we get all tobacco smokers to switch from regular cigarettes (to electronic cigarettes), we would reduce the US death toll from 400,000 a year to less than 4,000, maybe as low as 400.”

Stories from Electronic Cigarette Users
Care2 Petition Site

Lost in a lot the discussion on electronic cigarettes is the voice of the consumer. From firsthand experience, read what thousands of electronic cigarette users think about the innovative products and the importance of not withholding them from the market.

Tobacco Harm Reduction Project
University of Alberta, School of Public Health

Suggesting that smokers have options other than quitting entirely is controversial, but it should not be. Almost all of public health should be devoted to reducing risks and harms, not eliminating them entirely. A good analogy is seatbelts. Instead of telling people that they should just quit driving, cars and roads are made as safe as possible. Similarly, people are not told to quit playing hockey or bicycling, but instead it is suggested they wear helmets. This site offers research, essays and insightful links.

Interview of David Sweanor, BA, JD
Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa
Global Harm Reduction Strategist and Expert

“The vast majority of the harm caused by smoking is from the method of nicotine delivery rather than from the nicotine itself. There would be a parallel problem if people got caffeine from smoking tea leaves rather than making an infusion of these leaves in hot water,” says Sweanor in this online interview. “Everything has risks, so simply pointing out that something is ‘not safe’ shows a person to be either ignorant or disingenuous (because) anyone who believes (tobacco) cigarettes are no more hazardous than electronic cigarettes (needs) a remedial course in basic sciences.”

Tobacco Harm Reduction: The Best Hope for Averting Deaths

Global Health and Innovation Summit at Yale
Carl V. Phillips, MPP, PhD and Karyn Heavner, PhD

This presentation points out that anti-tobacco efforts in the Western World have struggled to reduce tobacco use by more than half, and in the process have vilified nicotine, misinformed the public about its risk, and established mindsets that know resist the a solution that will improve public health.

Not Smoking Cessation, But Tobacco Harm Reduction

Harm Reduction Journal

This article introduces the idea of harm reduction, as an alternative to tobacco smoking and smoking cessation. With millions of people unable, or at least unwilling, to quit smoking, the article recommends that regulatory restrictions on the manufacture and sale of nicotine products be revised, including acknowledging that the use of such products is vastly safer than smoking tobacco.

Smoking and Tobacco Use in the US

Department of Human and Health Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

This section of the CDC web sites provides tables, charts and statistics about the consumption, economics and health effects of tobacco cigarettes in the US.

The Tobacco Atlas

World Health Organization, Tobacco Free Initiative

This section of the WHO web site provides tables, charts and statistics about the consumption, economics and health effects of tobacco cigarettes in the world.

Self-Limiting Action of Nicotine on Brain Reward Mechanisms

M.A. Bozarth,* C.M. Pudiak, & R. KuoLee. Addiction Research Unit, Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260-4110.

Conclusion: These and previous studies suggest that nicotine’s maximum effect on brain reward mechanisms is modest, comparable to caffeine and to several commonly used over-the-counter medicines. This action is distinctively different than the effect produced by highly addictive substances like cocaine. The similarities reported between nicotine and cocaine are superficial, not taking into consideration important differences in the magnitudes of their actions on brain reward mechanisms. Thus, nicotine may activate brain reward mechanisms but not with the efficacy of truly addictive drugs.

Nicotine appears to have a “self-limiting” effect on brain reward mechanisms. Unlike cocaine where increased doses produce increased effects, nicotine’s ability to activate brain reward mechanisms seems to be limited by some neurophysiological process. This “self-limiting” action may actually prevent primary addiction to nicotine. Nicotine’s modest effect on brain reward mechanisms could explain the failure of preclinical models to demonstrate a strong rewarding effect of nicotine comparable to that seen with highly addictive drugs and points to the importance of other factors in human tobacco use.