Jenny McCarthy raves that she has finally found a smarter alternative to cigarettes in her recent Blu E-Cig commercial. Dr. Robert Lahita said that while e-cigarettes are safer than paper cigarettes, "when you do inhale it, you get a dose of a drug called nicotine, which as you know is the addictive substance in cigarettes."
The chief of medicine at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center explained that an e-cigarette is a drug dispenser with a puff mechanism in it with Jansing & Co. on Thursday. He contrasted the carcinogenic effects of paper cigarettes that include carbon monoxide, acetone, tars and arsenic with e-cigarettes that only contain nicotine and propylene glycol.
Lahita mentioned how little is known about the health consequences of the e-cigarettes. “There have been very few studies on the use of these cigarettes, but the studies that do exist in journals like Chest and The International Journal of Lung Physiology suggests that five minutes use blocks impedance in the lung, which means the resistance of those little tubes in the lungs called bronchioles, they tighten up with five minutes of use,” he said.
It is for this reason that the FDA may begin to crack down on the currently unregulated and $1.7 billion e-cigarette industry. Lahita said, “Somebody can overdose on nicotine, just like they can overdose on other drugs that are available. The lung happens to be, as well as the mouth and tongue, a great absorber of drugs. Nicotine is going to be absorbed. It is a drug."