“Why Some Experts Are Recommending Vapes To Quit Smoking”

A recent article in the Washington Post called attention to the recent JAMA analysis urging the integration of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-authorized e-cigarettes into patient-centered conversations about smoking cessation.

The author of the Post report spoke directly to authors of the JAMA report on the role of smoke-free products helping adults transition from combustible cigarettes: 

Getting people off tobacco cigarettes is a major public health priority, “but quitting smoking is really, really hard,” said Tracy Smith, a professor in the Addiction Sciences Division of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina and one of the JAMA article’s co-authors.

…

Nicotine isn’t harmless — there are concerns about its effects on the brain development of young people, for example, and its effects on the heart (including increasing heart rate and blood pressure) may be risky for people with cardiovascular disease. But when it comes to smoking-related deaths, “nicotine itself doesn’t kill,” Rigotti {a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital and co-author of the article} said. “It’s the burning of tobacco in cigarettes that creates the carcinogens and other chemicals that are the primary killers.”

As Regulate Smarter Chairman Richard Burr observed in his recent keynote address before the Food and Drug Law Institute’s (FDLI) Tobacco and Nicotine Products Regulation and Policy Conference, the groundbreaking nature of the JAMA, one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, report cannot be overstated.  The report leaves no doubt that FDA-authorized e-cigarettes are less harmful alternatives that can serve as legitimate smoking-cessation tools for adults and underscore the need for FDA to accelerate the authorization of more smoke-free, quality-controlled products.

As FDA continues to evaluate ways to modernize its regulatory approaches, it is long past time they adopt common-sense approaches that leave the status quo behind.

Check out the entire Washington Post article here.