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3 June 2009 Health warning:
Precautions required with e-cigarettes
Avoid bottled nicotine. Liquid nicotine
(e-liquid) is commonly sold in small bottles of up to 30 mL or more, on the internet, or from stores in
the USA, often meant to last consumers one month; and often
unlabelled as to nicotine dose. Health New Zealand Ltd does not
recommend sale or use of e-liquid permitting a lethal dose of
nicotine to be accidentally swallowed. Nicotine solution sold in
child-proofed cartridges or un-openable
disposable e-cigarettes or atomisers avoids this risk.
Acute poisoning
risk. For a child, the lethal dose is 10 mg
nicotine. Many bottles on sale contain many times this amount. Even
if the cap of a liquid nicotine bottle is child proofed, the risk
remains if someone else leaves it open. For adults, absorption of
a fatal dose of 40-60 mg of nicotine could rapidly occur due to spilling
the liquid on one’s skin while using liquid nicotine to
(cheaply) fill an e-cigarette – a risk heightened by
inattention (distraction, fatigue, alcohol, drugs). (Wash it off immediately).
Gloves should be worn.
Avoid gravity
feed. E-cigarettes
should not be tipped up above mouth level, as the e-cigarette liquid in
some brands can ooze out and drain nicotine on to the lips.
Avoid child-openable brands of e-cigarette and refill
cartridges.
Some brands can be pulled apart or opened by young children, giving
access to the nicotine solution soaking the wick. Flavours in the
liquid can mask the bitter nicotine taste.
Safety results, April 2009:
E-cigarette
Safety: Ruyan e-cigarette benchtop tests. Poster 5-11. See. www.healthnz.co.nz/DublinEcigBenchtopHandout.pdf
The poster itself is found in the following two Powerpoint
files: http://www.healthnz.co.nz/DublinEcigPoster1.ppt
and http://www.healthnz.co.nz/DublinEcigPoster2.ppt
The mist of the e-cigarette has been
rigorously tested in the laboratory. Of over 60 priority-listed
cigarette smoke toxicants tested, trace levels for some only were
detected in the mist of the Ruyan®
e-cigarette. The results are to be submitted for publication shortly
in a peer-reviewed journal. On the basis of findings to date,
inhaling mist from the e-cigarette is rated some two orders of
magnitude (100 times) less dangerous than smoking tobacco cigarettes.
The nicotine dose per puff is comparable to that of a medicinal
nicotine inhaler. E-cigarette nicotine is apparently not absorbed
from the lung, but from the upper airways.
Update on the
e-cigarette, October 2009
http://www.healthnz.co.nz/ElectronicCigsDarwinOct09.pdf
Efficacy results, April 2010
Health New Zealand Ltd sponsored this
research on behalf of Ruyan, manufacturer
of the Ruyan V8 e-cigarette, and it was carried
it out in Auckland by researchers at the School of Population Health,
University of Auckland. See http://www.healthnz.co.nz/2010%20Bullen%20ECig.pdf The study was published in Tobacco
Control in April 2010.
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TV3 2008 The Ruyan
V8 Classic. An LED lights up the end. The white part is the battery.
The nicotine is housed just upstream of the fingers.
Legal status (New Zealand)
E-cigarettes
and non-nicotine cartridges can be sold in New Zealand, but not nicotine
cartridges.
Nicotine
when sold as a medicine comes under Medicines Act and approval for a
new nicotine medicine is very expensive and takes several years.
Import of e-cigarettes and nicotine cartridges for personal use is
allowed.
About the device
The
e-cigarette nicotine inhaler mimics the smoking experience more
closely than any smokeless product to date and provides nicotine
without causing smokers to cough.
It
looks and acts like a cigarette.
It
gives the pleasure of drawback, and a nicotine effect within 15
minutes. It is likely to be popular as a much cleaner and safer alternative
to smoking, by eliminating the tar and the toxicant gases. More
frequent puffs will deliver more nicotine, which is otherwise much
less than from a tobacco cigarette. Holding the puff in the mouth for
longer may help.
Extended use, misuse of e-cig
The e-cigarette is an inhaler but does
not deliver nicotine deeply into the lung. Its ability with other
drugs is untried. Nicotine by e-cigarette is absorbed from the throat
and upper airways and not from the lung.
Cannabis
People mixed tobacco with marijuana
for smoking long before e-cigarettes, and smoking is the most
dangerous way to consume cannabis or tobacco.
Devices for heating and vaporizing
cannabis long preceded the e-cigarette. Whether or not e-cigarettes
could be used for that purpose, no smoke will be inhaled.
It is not known whether the e-cigarette
would facilitate absorption of THC, the active ingredient in
cannabis. The e-cigarette vapourises liquid
but does not burn plant material such as marijuana or tobacco. If
cannabis is vaped by e-cigarette, rather
than combusted and smoked in a joint, then no smoke is inhaled.
Lung cancer
occurs after many years of smoke inhalation, of either
tobacco or marijuana smoke.
E-cigarette vaping
is likely to be a less harmful way to obtain cannabis than smoking
it, but we have no test results to confirm that.
For example, the illegality of cannabis
makes adulteration possible, and prevents legal controls on its
production. Also research safeguards are lacking. The effect of
inhaling and vaporizing THC in the e-cigarette liquid has not been
tested and researched by anyone to our knowledge.
Note: Health New Zealand Ltd has no financial interests
in any nicotine, tobacco or pharmaceutical company.
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