As the beneficial effects of electronic cigarettes to former smokers become more apparent, there are possibilities that these devices could be used in preventive care to ward off the ailments that afflict people once they smoke for a long time.
Just consider this. Every time someone smokes, they get ever so close to the likelihood of developing heart disease, lung cancer and a host of other conditions that are directly related to the use of tobacco cigarettes.
Look at what happens to employers. Productivity reduces each time an employee leaves their workstation to go and take a smoke. Employees don’t work on days when they are ill due to their smoking addiction. Employers pay more in insurance cover for employees that are smokers.
Consider the cost in human life that we have to deal with. Close to two million fatalities each year due to smoking related causes. Hospitals get choked up by the overwhelming numbers of people that check in or are brought by ambulance when they are in need of emergency care when their bodies start to succumb to the ravages of cigarette smoke.
All that can be forestalled by electronic cigarettes, if they are given the chance. Studies indicate that smokers who make the switch invariably never go back to smoking analogs. Compare that to patches, gum and other products geared at helping smokers stop the habit. The success rate of those replacement products is about 12% at best, with remission rates as high as 95% after a period of abstinence.
The beauty of e-cigs is that they are not just providing nicotine; they retain the entire smoking habit and only get rid of the smoke. The removal of that smoke is the equivalent of removing 99% of the danger that the smoker was exposed to so one can imagine how much the health of a smoker is boosted by making the switch.
Nicotine use, via vaping has been said to be relatively harmless to the extent that experts say that a lifetime of vaping can never be equal to smoking for just two months. That is how monumental making the switch to vaping can be.
Is it time to look at electronic cigarettes as preventive care against smoking related illness? Most conditions that smokers suffer from are preventable, and e-cigs can be the tool that prevents those illnesses in the vast population of smokers.
Insurance companies, employers, governments and all who have an interest in cutting down the huge cost that smoking is imposing on society should consider paying for e-cigarettes and handing them to smokers. Anyone can see that the cost of purchasing e-cigs is much lower than the cost of running sophisticated tests on diseased organs as well as the medication that goes into fighting a battle that cannot be won.
To get there, there is need for a bold change of approach in the way electronic cigarettes have been viewed in the past. That paradigm shift isn’t impossible to make but it calls for a clear view of what is happening. They have eyes; will they see the obvious?
