Letters: Let's call a cigarette a cigarette

ISSUE | PUBLIC HEALTH

Let's call a cigarette a cigarette

I applaud the Food and Drug Administration's recent ruling to ban e-cigarette sales to minors and require safety reviews for vaping products ("Thank you for not vaping?" May 17). Like traditional cigarettes, e-cigarettes contain nicotine, an extremely addictive substance. And e-cigarette products have been found to contain harmful chemicals than can cause respiratory disease.

Should we be asking the public to "pick their poison," or should we be educating them that no matter what type of cigarette they smoke, they are putting their health at risk?

Vaping products contain nicotine, and young people are becoming addicted to nicotine through vaping at alarming rates. Since vaping doesn't cause cancer and merely causes addiction, should we be OK with it?

In a career as a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist spanning more than 30 years, I have helped more than 40,000 people quit smoking and beat their addiction to nicotine. It isn't easy, and it isn't without hardship.

Pick your poison? I'd rather opt for picking your health.

|Steven Rosenberg, Huntingdon Valley, drsmrosenberg@aol.com