AMERICANS SUPPORT E-CIGARETTES

Recently I was in a restaurant, waiting in the bar area for my table, when I noticed a man nearby smoking a cigarette. It was a jarring site at first… only because initially it didn’t register in my brain that it was an e-cigarette, and obviously smoking in public places had been banned for years. I was probably staring, because a few moments later he took the device in his hand and motioned to me as if to show me what it was. Oops.

Now with the polar vortex in town, I could imagine how happy the guy probably was to not have to venture out into the deep freeze to get his nicotine fix. I was curious if that was why he was using the e-cigarette instead of regular cigarettes that night. But I know some people use e-cigs to try to quit smoking as well. I guess I probably could have started a conversation with the man at the bar and just asked him directly, but I figured why not include it in a VeraQuest omnibus poll?

So we recently asked 1,514 U.S. adults about their perceptions of and experiences with e-cigarettes. First, I was surprised to see that one-fifth (20%) of Americans and one-half (50%) of regular cigarette smokers have ever tried an e-cig. I didn’t realize they were that prevalent. That said though, only 17% of regular cigarette smokers say they use e-cigs “sometimes” or “regularly”.

E-cigarette users say that the biggest benefits of using the device (compared to smoking regular cigarettes) are having no smoke/smoke smell, having no second-hand smoke/they are safer to use around others, and the ability to use e-cigs to help quit smoking (each mentioned by 61%). Additional top benefits include being allowed to smoke them indoors (58%), there is no flame/fire involved (56%), and e-cigs do not contain tar (53%). I wonder how usage (and perceptions) of e-cigarettes might change if more cities ban use of the devices in public places (i.e., treat them like regular cigarettes), as was just done in NYC.

In doing some digging online, I was pretty shocked to see that so little testing has been done so far, in terms of understanding the safety of e-cigarette devices. To me, inhaling nicotine vapor certainly sounds safer than inhaling the carcinogens found in regular cigarettes though.

Perhaps that sentiment is shared by the majority of Americans, which would explain why only 41% feel that e-cigs should be deemed illegal until the proper research has been conducted to prove that they are safe. With two-thirds (67%) of Americans believing that using e-cigarettes is better for your health than smoking regular cigarettes, it sounds like the overall thinking might be that even if e-cigs are not good for you, they probably can’t be worse for you than regular cigarettes…so it’s worth the risk to make that substitution, before the proper research has been done.

When it comes to second-hand effects, however, the majority of Americans would rather err on the side of caution. Over half (55%) feel that because inhaling second-hand vapor from e-cigs has not yet been proven to be safe, the devices should be banned in public places where smoking is currently prohibited. I suppose it is not too surprising that non-smokers (63%) are more likely to feel this way than smokers (37%) and, especially, e-cigarette smokers (32%).

Do you feel that e-cigarettes should be treated like regular cigarettes, in terms of their use in public places? As a cigarette smoker, why would you not want to switch to e-cigarettes?