September 7, 2013

expert reaction to new research into the efficacy of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation

A study in The Lancet found electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), with or without nicotine, were modestly effective at helping smokers to quit, with similar achievement of abstinence as with nicotine patches.

Prof Ann McNeill, Professor of Tobacco Addiction, UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies & National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, said:

“Electronic cigarettes are the most exciting new development in tobacco control over the last few decades as we have witnessed a rapid uptake of these much less harmful products by smokers in the UK and anecdotally reports that they are helping smokers to stop. The Bullen study provides new evidence that e-cigarettes are as good as nicotine patches, when offered with minimal support, in stopping smoking, and better for reducing cigarette consumption. Electronic cigarettes have evolved and proliferated since this study was carried out, so it’s likely the findings are conservative. The popularity of e-cigarettes suggests that we now have a product that can compete with cigarettes, thus heralding the first real possibility that cigarette smoking could be phased out and the death, disease, health inequalities and misery that smoking causes become a thing of the past.”

‘Electronic cigarettes for smoking cessation: a randomised controlled trial’ by Bullen et al., published in The Lancet on Saturday 7 September, 2013.