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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 unopenable 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
always be worn.
Avoid gravity
feed. E-cigarettes
should not be tipped up above mouth level, as the e-cigarette liquid
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.
Efficacy results, April 2010
On behalf of Ruyan,
manufacturer of the Ruyan V8 e-cigarette,
Health New Zealand Ltd sponsored this research carried 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.
Update on the
e-cigarette, October 2009
http://www.healthnz.co.nz/ElectronicCigsDarwinOct09.pdf
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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)
An
e-cigarette can be imported for sale once the device is registered,
but not with nicotine in the cartridges.
Nicotine
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
This
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 and misuse of e-cigarette
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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