From nurse education, clinical, or workforce issues through to healthy living, Nursing Review has it covered.

In this issue, my decision to write about electronic cigarettes came from the most personal of motives: someone I care for very much is a smoker. It’s likely that every non-smoker has one, two, or half-a-dozen or so smokers they care about as the last census showed that there are 463,000 adult smokers in New Zealand.

I’ve been nagging my particular smoker to quit on and off since I was a kid. Like most smokers, this individual is far from stupid – stubborn and sometimes stressed maybe – but not stupid. And he is severely addicted to nicotine.

It took me a decade or so to realise that nagging wouldn’t help but that didn’t stop me hoping he would find the space, time and motivation to quit.

Nearly four decades later, my smoker had the kind of wake-up call that his tobacco packs had warned him about daily. His partner, also a smoker, had a quarter of her lung removed. She’s stopped smoking and, thank God, is doing well. My smoker didn’t stop smoking. I wanted to scream. But he is not uncaring, unintelligent or unlovable; he is severely addicted.

Then he found his answer. A quick online purchase and a parcel arrives regularly from China. When he needs his nicotine fix he heads outside with his electronic cigarette and ‘vapes’. He has reduced the nicotine concentration levels he inhales but is not ready to give away his e-cigarette yet. In 18 months he has had just one tobacco cigarette. I am so relieved for him and for his partner.

My smoker is not so sure. He is very aware of how deeply he inhales to get his nicotine fix. He wants to know whether he has exchanged one problem for another. He’d also like to be able to pick up his nicotine replacement therapy of choice from behind the counter in his local pharmacy and not in a plain paper parcel from China.

I went to try and find some answers to his questions and found that few answers yet exist and the involvement of ‘Big Tobacco’ in the e-cigarette market raises yet more questions.

Most agreed, though, that vaping, when compared with tobacco smoking, is the lesser of two evils.

And for me – I’m happier now that my smoker is a vaper. But that doesn’t mean I’d be happy for my teenage son to be one too.

Fiona Cassie
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