The E-Cigarette Gateway Myth
From: The Wall Street Journal/Opinion
By Michael B. Siegel
Fifty years after the Surgeon General’s landmark report on smoking and health, cigarettes remain the leading preventable cause of death in the U.S., and some 40 million Americans still smoke.
Enter the electronic cigarette, which has enormous potential to improve public health because many smokers can replace the deadly cigarettes that burn tobacco, producing tens of thousands of toxins, including more than 60 known human carcinogens. The e-cigarette is a battery-powered, smoke-free device that delivers nicotine vapor without most of the carcinogens produced by tobacco combustion. Yet it is feared and stigmatized by legislators and health officials, and may even be regulated out of existence.
One reason is the so-called gateway theory, which has been the subject of newspaper headlines and city council meetings, and even prompted a Senate investigation. Last September, in an interview with Medscape (a website for medical professionals) Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that “many kids are starting out with e-cigarettes and then going on to smoke conventional cigarettes.” The same month he was quoted by the Associated Press as warning that e-cigarettes are “condemning many kids to struggling with a lifelong addiction to nicotine.”
