E-cigarettes more effective than nicotine patches

The Herald reports:

Electronic cigarettes are more effective at helping smokers to quit tobacco when they contain nicotine, a review of studies has found.

The review by the international Cochrane Collaboration includes two trials in which smokers were randomised to groups using different kinds of electronic cigarettes or quit-smoking therapy. One of these trials was based at Auckland University, the other in Italy.

An e-cigarette is a battery-powered device which, when the user takes a drag, produces a vapour. They can be run with or without nicotine.

Dr Chris Bullen, an author of the Cochrane review and a researcher on the Auckland University trial, which followed participants for six months, said the trial found 7.3 per cent of those using e-cigarettes containing nicotine had quit tobacco. The quit rate was 5.8 per cent in the nicotine patches group and 4.1 per cent among those using non-nicotine e-cigarettes.

If your aim is to reduce smoking rates, then you should support e-cigarettes.

Also of interest:

New Zealand researchers have shown that a low-cost, Soviet-era quit-smoking pill is more effective than nicotine-replacement therapy.

Forty per cent of smokers who took the cytisine pills had been “continuously abstinent” in the month after their nominated quit day, significantly more than the 31 per cent on NRT.

Sounds very promising. Helping those who want to quit, to quit, is a good thing.