Recently Doctor Chris Steele, the U.K.’s resident medical expert came out with a well timed endorsement of e cigarettes on the network’s “This Morning” show. Seen by millions of viewers daily, this is an important milestone reached by the e-cig industry.
Steele, who has run a smoking cessation clinic for over 30 years began his presentation on “This Morning” by running down the list of “nicotine replacement therapies” available to help smokers kick the habit. After a short discussion of patches, gums and inhalers, the doctor shifted his attention to e-cigarettes, calling their use over tobacco cigarettes a “brilliant idea”, and demonstrating their use. Especially impressed by the demonstration and endorsement was “This Morning” host Linda Robson a long time smoker herself who has lost members of her own family to the recognized health hazards of smoking tobacco cigarettes, who termed the e-cig vaping experience as being “Fantastic”.
Nicotine replacement therapies (such as gums, and patches) as has recently been widely reported in this site and elsewhere have an abysmal track record in smoking cessation success. While widely promoted as effective by the medical community in several countries, their general lack of statistical success undermines their overall benefit to the average smoker seeking to quit. The beauty of the e-cigarette and one of the reasons why so many smokers who make the switch to vaping never look back is that vaping mimics perfectly the psychological and social aspects of smoking that are increasingly being seen as part of the perniciousness of the smoking addiction.
Bravo to Dr. Chris Steele for taking a stand on the benefits of e-cigs and endorsing the idea of harm reduction. Vaping may not be the ideal solution to quitting smoking, but based on anecdotal evidence and the fact that the water based vapor lacks the over 4000 harmful chemicals and toxins found in tobacco cigarette smoke, it is still the best bet out there.
