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Vaping is a disruptive technology that could wipe out smoking the way that
Netflix wiped out
Blockbuster .
A retired anaesthesiologist is now devoting his life to promoting vaping as an overlooked method of smoking cessation in the USA and Canada .
Dr John Oyston says his long career in cancer and vascular surgery has led him to become strongly anti-smoking .
He said he is appalled how influential bodies such as the World Health Organization and America ’ s Centres for Disease Control and Prevention fail to promote vaping as a quit smoking tool .
The Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto is now a vocal advocate for vaping and uses social media and his web page - Dr John ’ s Blog - to get his message across .
In a recent post – ‘ A disruptive technology could finally put an end to tobacco smoking ’ – he wrote : “ I spent 40 years working as an anesthesiologist .
“ Too much of that time was spent caring for smokers while they underwent horrible , disfiguring and disabling operations , such as removing part of a lung or an amputation .
“ These operations were only necessary
because my patients began to smoke as teenagers and were unable to quit in middle age when tobacco smoking started to cause irreversible damage to their bodies .”
He knows first-hand the personal tragedies that lie behind the country ’ s smoking statistics – 15 percent of Canadians still smoke and 48,000 die each year as a result .
The doctor accused Health Canada of having ‘ given up ’ on helping people quit smoking and said their current efforts only succeeded to ‘ chip away at the edges of the problem .’
Dr Oyston wrote : “ Since the 1970 ’ s scientists have known that nicotine gives smokers a buzz and often makes them dependent on smoking .
“ But it is the carbon monoxide and thousands of other chemicals produced by burning tobacco leaves that cause cancer , lung disease , heart attacks and strokes .”
He said vaping allowed smokers to enjoy the nicotine they crave without the poisons present in tobacco smoke and added : “ Vaping is a disruptive technology that could wipe out smoking the way that Netflix wiped out Blockbuster .”
Dr Oyston wrote : “ Scientists have calculated that if all American smokers switched to vaping , this could save 6.6 million lives .
“ Parents should not be worried that teenage vaping will lead to more teenage smoking .
“ Teen smoking rates have declined even more rapidly as some teens have switched to vaping as a safer alternative .”
He pointed out that we already know more about the long-term safety of vaping than the long-term safety of COVID vaccines but added that both can help us avoid millions of unnecessary deaths .
Dr Oyston said : “ Instead of supporting vaping as a safer choice for adult smokers , governments are making it more expensive ( with taxes ), less effective ( with low nicotine limits ) and less enjoyable ( with flavour bans ).
“ The science proves that it is a safe and effective alternative to tobacco use but physicians are not using it as a method to help people quit smoking , health organizations are not recommending it and many smokers are not aware that vaping is a safer option for them .”
You can check out his blog at https :// oyston . com / blog / or his Twitter account @ JohnOyston
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