A paper published earlier this year <http://ntr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/05/07/ntr.ntt061.abstract> adds to the growing evidence that claims that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking are false.
Study authors collected information on e-cigarette use from people who called state quitlines in Connecticut, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. Nearly one third (30.9%) of respondents reported ever using or trying e-cigarettes; most used for a short period of time (61.7% for less than 1 month). Consistent with what other surveys have found, the most frequently reported reasons for use were to help quit other tobacco (51.3%) or to replace other tobacco products (15.2%). Study findings suggest that both e-cigarette user groups were significantly less likely to have quit smoking 7 months after first calling the quitline compared with participants who had never tried e-cigarettes: Only 21.7% of people who used e-cigarettes to help quit and 16.6% of those who used e-cigarettes to replace other tobacco products had quit, compared to 31.3% of people who did not use e-cigarettes (p < .001).
