E-cigarette advertising triggers urge to smoke

Washington, March 13: Television advertisements for e-cigarettes may be enticing current and even former tobacco smokers to reach for another cigarette, new research reveals. People who smoke tobacco cigarettes daily and who watched e-cigarette advertisements with someone inhaling (or vaping) or holding an e-cigarette showed a greater urge to smoke than regular smokers who did not see the vaping.

After watching e-cigarette advertisements with vaping, former smokers feel less confident that they could refrain from smoking tobacco cigarettes than former smokers seeing e-cigarette ads without vaping. “We know that exposure to smoking cues such as visual depictions of cigarettes, ashtrays, matches, lighters and smoke heightens smokers’ urge to smoke a cigarette, and decreases former smokers’ confidence in their ability to refrain from smoking a cigarette,” said Erin K. Maloney from the University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers studied more than 800 daily, intermittent, and former smokers who watched e-cigarette advertising, and who then took a survey to determine smoking urges, intentions and behaviours.

Over 35 percent of the daily smokers who were showed vaping reported having a tobacco cigarette during the study against 22 percent of daily smokers who saw ads without vaping, and about 23 percent of daily smokers who did not see any advertising. (IANS)