Here is an interesting piece of news reported in the online Health News (Reuters Health) on  26 May 2017.

The headline is the alarming statement: ‘Heat-not-burn cigarettes still release cancer-causing chemicals.’ Shock, horror.

This is according to an investigation by Dr Reto Auer and colleagues of the University of Bern, Switzerland.

The heat-not-burn type of cigarette has recently been put out by tobacco giant Philip Morris International. It has the unpronounceable name of IQOS that some wag has suggested may stand for ‘I quit ordinary smoking’.

If this is what it is supposed to mean it is misleading in the same way that e-cigarettes are misleadingly touted as a way to stop smoking. In both cases what it boils down to is that the user can get his or her nicotine fixes by a different and possibly safer way than through ordinary cancer sticks – and in many cases will carry on using the new gadget, instead of or in addition to smoking, indefinitely. Therefore, it would be clearer, as well as more honest, if IQOS and similar contraptions were promoted, not as a way to stop smoking, but as a way to continue smoking without the smoke.

The Swiss study found that the heat-not-burn devices produced 84% of the nicotine found in traditional cigarettes and they released chemicals linked to cancer including carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons! Not only that, but they also found they ‘released some of these chemicals in much higher concentrations that conventional cigarettes.’ Shock, horror again. And as if even that was not enough, they pointed out the unsurprising fact that ‘there is no safe minimum (sic) limit for some of the chemicals  in heat-not-burn cigarette smoke…and some of these chemicals may contribute to the high mortality rate of smokers.’

So IQOS is not safe. We might have guessed as much. Anyway, thank you, Dr Auer, and a very good morning to you.

But wait! He’s not content with merely underlining the obvious. Now he says, ‘We need more studies to find out about the health consequences of smoking heat-not-burn cigarettes…[and whether they] are safer for users or bystanders.’ Then comes the punch-line: ‘While more studies are needed to determine the long-term health effects of heat-not-burn cigarettes, their use should be restricted until more is known about them.’

What is he expecting to discover with more studies? Yet more ways in which IQOS is not safe? Or perhaps that IQOS is, after all, completely safe? And would Dr Auer be so good as to tell us in the meantime how and to whom the use of IQOS should be restricted.

Furthermore, for nicotine users to swap one way of taking the poison nicotine into their bodies for another, allegedly safer way (assuming they switch completely) implies nicotine use is acceptable or necessary in some circumstances. And what circumstances might those be?

We have an attempt at an answer to this question in a recent issue of the online Vaping Post which clearly shows the confusion about why some people feel a need to keep putting the poison nicotine into their bodies:

Most smokers don’t really want to quit. They say they do when someone with a clipboard asks them, but they don’t really mean it. The fact is most smokers keep smoking because they enjoy it.

This is correct except for the last two words which should be replaced with ‘are addicted to nicotine’.

A little open-minded discussion with smokers will soon reveal that they don’t enjoy smoking. The only reason they feel a need to keep putting nicotine into their bodies by one means or another is because they believe they are unable to stop.

For any kind of nicotine use to be promoted, albeit indirectly, as enjoyable is itself underhand and even dishonest: it’s a false promise.

Here’s a random selection of quotations from e-cigarette-selling websites:

We vape for life: to both promote life and to vape as a lifestyle change for the betterment of society. We’re out to change the world and save lives by making vaping more fun…

Vaping has taken the world by storm in popularity, and the options and accessories have become even more fun and varied.

Our premium quality 100% USA-made e-liquids are offered in a large variety of flavors and are customizable for our customers’ enjoyment.

The NJOY Daily is our newest electronic cigarette that delivers an authentic, satisfying experience. New design, new technology, a whole new reason to NJOY yourself.

Why should nicotine addicts be encouraged to change from a dangerous way of using nicotine to an allegedly less dangerous way? Why use nicotine at all? Contrary to what almost everybody seems to believe, getting free from nicotine addiction is easy – if you go about it in the right way as I describe in the Symonds Method.

Text © Gabriel Symonds