E-cigarettes show no better cessation rates than patches or placebos

Evidence

In a randomized controlled study, Bullen and colleagues (2013) compared the success of different methods of helping smokers quit the habit. In a six-month evaluation, the quit rates were 7.3% for e-cigarettes, 5.89% for nicotine patches, and 4.1% for placebo e-cigarettes whose vapors contained no nicotine. These miniscule quit rates do not differ significantly from each other. Although the smokers wanted to quit, almost all of those in the e-cigarette condition apparently adopted a dual smoking pattern in which they smoked traditional cigarettes where they are permitted and e-cigarettes in places where the traditional ones are banned. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 1728

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s vault on how industries defray and spread health harms; e-cigarette dual-use resembles ‘harm reduction’ rationalizations discussed elsewhere.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 1728