Nicotine and E-Cigarettes - Still Bad news

No one will argue that smoking is bad for you. However new electronic cigarettes, which produce just nicotine and none of the other toxic tobacco chemicals have argued that they are safer and that they help people quit smoking. This, unfortunately, is not the case.

Nicotine is highly addictive, and is the actual chemical that makes cigarettes addictive. So no, the electronically pure is as habit forming and possibly worse.

As well, electronic cigarettes were used at least once by 12% of high school students and 3% of middle school students, with almost 25% of high school students admitting to regular smoking (regular or electronic). In another study researchers found that adolescents who smoked either kind were more than five times more likely to move on to more serious drugs, such as oxycontin and heroine (but not marijuana). So nicotine has become a gateway drug.

We need to continue to monitor and discourage our teens from any kind of smoking; including marijuana since, as I have mentioned in previous blogs, it can cause serious damage to the growing brain.