MONTREAL — With all the controversy surrounding electronic cigarettes, one thing is certain: the effects of smoking a real tobacco cigarette are devastating to the human body. Walk down the corridors of any hospital and this devastation is a visible reality.
Diagnoses of cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and heart attack have overloaded hospitals across the entire world. According to Health Canada, “Smoking tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death and has negative health impacts on people of all ages: unborn babies, infants, children, adolescents, adults, and seniors. Lung cancer is the leading cause of death due to cancer in Canada.”
Personally, I have seen this devastation first-hand — both as a nurse and as a husband. And I know that quitting tobacco is difficult. It has now been a month since my wife switched from tobacco to electronic cigarettes and the effects have been — no pun intended — breathtaking. I am no longer afraid that our next trip together will be to a hospital emergency room for oxygen therapy and an electrocardiogram because of chest pain and an incessant cough. These symptoms of hers have completely disappeared.
I am no longer afraid to go to work at night because I know an electronic cigarette will not burn our house down if she falls asleep while smoking one. What’s more, my wife looks younger, feels better, breathes better at night while sleeping, and that awful smell of smoke in her hair is gone.
At times, even when she used to smoke outside, cigarette smoke would float toward our daughter, causing many fights of epic proportions, nearly leading to divorce.
In my case, it is starting to look like electronic cigarettes have saved my wife, saved my marriage and made our family’s future brighter for all. I’m sure I am not the only one. I understand the arguments against e-cigs: they might be thought of as “cool” by teenagers, which could encourage them to take up tobacco cigarettes. And nicotine is certainly not great for the human body, either. On the other hand, these negatives seem trivial to me when compared with how electronic cigarettes appear to help people quit tobacco cigarettes.
Nathan Friedland is a nurse at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. He lives in Roxboro.
Opinion: E-cigs can help with quitting tobacco
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