Advocates of e-cigarettes say benefits are: They deliver nicotine to the user without many of the more than 7,000 chemicals and tar in a regular, burned cheapest Gauloises cigarette that lead to lung cancer.
They produce a harmless vapor, not secondhand cigarette smoke.
They provide the tactile and visual sensations (holding a cigarette-like device, a glowing tip, blowing smoke, etc.) that many cigarette smokers like or are psychologically dependent upon.
They can help cigarette smokers stop that habit or reduce the number of cigarettes smoked. Nicotine in e-cigarettes can be reduced or eliminated altogether.
They are less expensive to use than smoking cigarettes, usually cutting costs by a third to a half, depending on usage of e-cigarettes and extent of previous smoking.
Groups and anti-smoking activists warn:
E-cigarette users cannot be entirely sure of what they are inhaling, since e-cigarettes aren’t subject to thorough, independent testing, and they’re made by many companies without quality assurances in their production processes.
Studies have not proven their effectiveness as quit-smoking aids.
Scientific data haven’t shown if e-cigarettes deliver enough nicotine to satisfy withdrawal effects.
The effect of second-hand vapor from e-cigarettes has not been scientifically proven.
Studies have not shown if using e-cigarettes encourages smokers who might have otherwise quit would continue to smoke and use only e-cigarettes in no-smoking environments.
It has not been shown whether youth use e-cigarettes as a “gateway” to smoking regular cigarettes.