Commentary
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- Category: Chris Ford
Chris Ford | 15 July 2016
Dr Chris Ford, the Clinical Director of International Doctors for Healthier Drug Policies, recently attended the Global Forum on Nicotine. Here are some thoughts from her and her colleagues afterwards.
The dogma that has pervaded global drug policy over the last fifty years is hard to comprehend. People have been using substances to alter the way they feel for thousands of years and there is no indication that this will ever stop. Like we do for all other potentially hazardous activities, provision of information and tools to reduce potential harms would be the action of a responsible and caring society.
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- Category: Harry Shapiro
Harry Sharpio | 13 July 2016
Having spent over 35 years working in the field of illegal drugs, this was my first foray into the world of tobacco or more specifically the current worldwide controversy over e-cigarettes. What I learnt from my two days at the conference was both fascinating and appalling.
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- Category: Miroslaw Dworniczak
NSP Correspondent - Mirosław Dworniczak | 01 June 2016
Glycerine (glycerol, 1,2,3-propanetriol) is one of the main ingredients of e-cigarette liquid. Most people are familiar with glycerine, as it is widely used in food and pharmaceuticals. It acts as a solvent, humectant and sometimes as a sweetener. Here is a chemical model of glycerine.
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- Category: Riccardo Polosa
"Persisting long term benefits of smoking abstinence and reduction in asthmatic smokers who have switched to electronic cigarettes" - is the title of a study conducted by the research group led by Prof Riccardo Polosa at the University of Catania, and recently published in Discovery Medicine.
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- Category: Neil Mckeganey
Neil McKeganey, Christopher Russell | 28 April 2016
The publication by the Royal College of Physicians of a report “Nicotine without Smoke: Tobacco Harm Reduction” approbating the use of e-cigarettes as a route out of smoking conventional cigarettes affirms a finding that has been highlighted by researchers for a number of years now. This report is welcome nevertheless as an objective contribution to a debate that has become increasingly personalised and divisive with tobacco control advocates repeatedly advising that e-cigarettes should be regulated as least as tightly as conventional cigarettes.
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- Category: Miroslaw Dworniczak
NSP Correspondent - Mirosław Dworniczak | 18 April 2016
Quite frequently the media try to „enlighten” people using information extracted from various scientific publications about chemicals found in the vapour from e-cigarettes. Some of these chemicals belong to the class of volatile organic compounds which are contained in the carbonyl group. Let me shed some light on this subject.
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- Category: Miroslaw Dworniczak
NSP Correspondent - Mirosław Dworniczak | 21 March 2016
Something really awful is happening now. In October 2015 German Federal Office for Chemicals, a part of Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health submitted a proposal to the European Chemicals Agency for a new toxicological classification of propylene glycol.
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- Category: Miroslaw Dworniczak
NSP Correspondent - Mirosław Dworniczak | 7 March 2016
When vapers discuss safety issues, they usually take into account the components of e-liquid and the composition of the aerosol inhaled. Of course this is the most important subject, but we should also be aware of metals of which the coils are made.
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- Category: Neil Mckeganey
Neil McKeganey, Christopher Russell | 27 February 2016
In a commentary piece published in the journal Addiction, Professor Jim McCambridge from the University of York sets out why, in his view, academic journals should not publish any e-cigarette research funded by the tobacco industry. The basis for McCambridge’s view is, not as it turns out, evidence of current misconduct on the part of the tobacco industry with regard to the research which it funds on e-cigarette, but evidence of decades old misconduct revealed in analysis of internal tobacco industry documents analysed as part of the Legacy Foundation (now Truth Initiative).
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- Category: Paul Barnes
NSP Correspondent - Paul Barnes | 25 February 2016
A study in Oral Oncology, performed by researchers from the U.S Department of Veteran Affairs investigated the potential effects of e-cigarette vapour on human epithelial cells, prompted widespread media coverage both on the on-line sites, and in print from The Mirror, Daily Mail , The Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian that did not present all the relevant facts from the study itself. The claims derived from the study, as referenced in the media coverage based on the press release state that the researchers concluded - "Based on the evidence to date," she says, "I believe they are no better than smoking regular cigarettes." - a startling claim that isn't substantiated by the study itself.