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For those of you that don’t know, Dr. Brad Rodu is the Endowed Chair of Tobacco Harm Reduction Research from the University of Louisville, right here in the bluegrass state. He’s a well respected researcher, publishing several studies on smoke free alternatives.

Recently, Dr. Rodu wrote an article for The Atlantic discussing his vision of the future of electronic cigarettes and the sorts of obstacles that stand in the way. Specifically, governmental bodies and and medical organizations that continue to narrowly construe all products with nicotine as harmful tobacco products.

We’ve known for some time that this notion is antiquated, according to Dr. Rodu’s own research electronic cigarettes are “98% less harmful than traditional cigarettes.” Britain’s Royal College Of Physicians (a very renowned medical establishment) concurs ” the consumption of non-combustible [smokeless] tobacco is on the order of 10-1,000 times less hazardous than smoking, depending on the product…. smokers smoke predominantly for nicotine, that nicotine itself is not especially hazardous, and that if nicotine could be provided in a form that is acceptable and effective as a cigarette substitute, millions of lives could be saved.”

Pretty ringing endorsement, wouldn’t you say? Regardless, as long as governmental bodies like the FDA continue to make erroneous statements like “To date, no tobacco products have been scientifically proven to reduce risk of tobacco-related disease, improve safety or cause less harm than other tobacco products” or propose regulations that as Dr. Rodu puts it “require dozens of new studies on minute product details and human effects, which will likely take a decade or more” we’ve got issues.

Perhaps most chilling, is the fact that everyday 1,205 Americans will die from smoking related illnesses. How many more people will die before this witch hunt is put to an end? At least we have folks like Dr. Rodu fighting to restore sanity to this debate.

For the full text of the Atlantic article, click here.