I, like most vapers get really excited to see some good news about tobacco harm reduction since it seems hard to find these days. Yesterdays post in the Michigan newsletter delivered that good news in the form of sensible advice for public health here in the United States when it comes to their outlook on e-cigarettes and their role in treating cigarette smokers’ nicotine addiction.

Kenneth Warner, dean emeritus and the Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, says there is enough evidence to support e-cigarettes’ use as a first-line aid for smoking cessation in adults. He said “Far too many adults who want to quit smoking are unable to do so,”  “E-cigarettes constitute the first new tool to help them in decades. Yet relatively few smokers and indeed health care professionals appreciate their potential value.”

In a study published in Nature Medicine, Warner and colleagues took a global view of vaping, examining countries that promote vaping as a smoking cessation and countries that don’t.

Warner’s previous research has found considerable evidence suggesting e-cigarettes are an effective smoking-cessation tool for adults in the U.S., where hundreds of thousands of people die of smoking-related illness each year.

Warner has always been a believer in the science behind this technology and has been a voice of reason in the past. 

We applaud any and all balanced approaches to using e-cigarettes as an off ramp from a lifetime of smoking. Thank you to Warner and his colleagues for standing up to the misinformation surrounding vaping as a form of tobacco harm reduction.

The question remains…. Is anyone listening?