Strict E-Cigarette Laws Could Send Smokers Back to the Real Thing
Policymakers see banning e-cigarettes as an easy public health victory. Experts say the plan will backfire.
In July, San Francisco Mayor London Breed put pen to paper, signing an ordinance to effectively ban the sale of electronic cigarettes, making it the first major city in the United States to put stringent regulations on e-cigarettes.
For several years, e-cigarette companies like Juul have been decried by politicians, the media and even the nation’s top doctor, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who last year called e-cigarette use “an epidemic among our nation’s young people.”
While Juul use among young people has increased 78% between 2017 and 2018, some health experts fear that bans like San Francisco’s might protect teenagers, but could hurt adult smokers in the process.
“This policy is going to have very detrimental public health effects that either haven’t been foreseen or are somehow being ignored,” said Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health.
“I think it is going to result in a lot of ex-smokers returning to smoking,” he said, noting that there are at least 2.5 million ex-smokers in the U.S. who have quit traditional cigarettes using vaping devices, but still rely on e-cigarettes to stay off smoking. “These are not just anecdotes. This is a huge segment and their needs are being completely ignored. I think it’s really problematic.”
In July, Duke University’s Lauren Pacek, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral studies, published a report on young adult vaping that included 240 participants between the ages of 18 and 29 who used traditional cigarettes and e-cigarettes simultaneously. The researchers queried them on how they would react to hypothetical e-cigarette regulations: eliminating nicotine, restricting flavors to tobacco and menthol only, and eliminating the option to customize the devices’ airflow.
“There was a proportion of the sample who indicated that in a world where these restrictions were in effect, they would increase their use of regular cigarettes,” Pacek said. “That’s definitely an unintended consequence that we would really…
