Message from Preston – June 2014

Below you will read an article on how some workplaces are starting to include electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) in their tobacco ban, though technically, they don’t contain tobacco.

The jury is still out on e-cigarettes, but there are some disturbing facts coming to light. A recent study by the CDC revealed that the popularity of e-cigarettes among middle school and high school students (the future workplace) is skyrocketing. The study also found that 76.3 percent of middle and high school students who used e-cigarettes within the past 30 days also smoked conventional cigarettes in the same period. In addition, 1 in 5 middle school students who reported ever using e-cigarettes say they have never tried conventional cigarettes. As the study warns, “This raises concern that there may be young people for whom e-cigarettes could be an entry point to use of conventional tobacco products, including cigarettes.”

Cigarette smoking remains the leading preventable cause of dis­ease, dis­ability, and death in the United States, responsible for an estimated 443,000 deaths each year.  And for every one death, there are 20 people living with a smoking-related disease.

It’s difficult to say if the groundswell of employers starting to ban e-cigarettes will grow or not. But the greater concern is whether or not they are, as some have suggested, the launching point to lighting up the real thing.