One of the hottest points of debate in today’s stimulus package… up to 75 million dollars for smoking cessation programs. But many in the Tri-State are not waiting for federal money. They’re turning to a controversial way to quit smoking on their own.
Local 12 Medical Reporter Liz Bonis tells us about it in today’s Medical Edge.
With one beautiful daughter and another baby on the way, Kurt Auer says he is determined this is the year he will quit smoking. After several unsuccessful attempts with other methods, Auer turned to a controversial way to quit smoking called the electronic cigarette. You simply order a sample kit for about fifty bucks, which includes a battery operated atomizer, flavor drops, and a nicotine cartridge, which allows you to gradually wean down.
Kurt Auer, Trying to quit smoking: “It basically has a high concentration of nicotine, a medium, or a low or zero content.”
You then smoke it, like you would any cigarette. It has very little scent. It has worked so well for Auer:
“I’m at the medium level.”
He and his friend Paul Noia recently became “the vapor guys”. They now sell and distribute E-cigarettes on line and gave us a free sample starter kit.
We took that sample pack for two reasons, so we could have a smoker try these out and give us an initial impression. The other was to have addiction experts further evaluate and give us some information. Doctor Robert Anthonelli is an addiction researcher who says he didn’t find any double blind journal published studies on the success rates or safety of the electronic cigarette. That is not required, however, to manufacture and market this product.
Dr. Robert Anthenelli, University of Cincinnati: “Nicotine is not regulated by the FDA. It’s one of those drugs that has forgone that kind of regulation, so a product like this does not have to go through FDA testing.”
Anthenelli says quitting smoking is the single most important thing you can do to improve your health, but reminds us:
“We know we can do that safely with the five FDA approved products out there… gums, lozenges, patches and two prescriptions, the nicotine spray and the nicotine inhaler.”
As for our independent smokers opinion, he says since starting on E-cigarettes, he has not smoked a traditional cigarette in almost two weeks.
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