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Opponents of electronic cigarettes have come up with a litany of possible harms electronic cigarettes might present to the public. The number of possible harms they continue to make up has reached ridiculous levels. Even some local and state regulators making decisions on how e-cigs should be regulated in their area have commented that advocates for harsh legislation appear to lack any firm evidence and can’t focus in on any one confirmed harm or purpose to their efforts.

This suggests that they don’t know of any confirmed harms of electronic cigarettes and are just throwing out everything they can think of to support their cause.

One of the most common arguments — one that is difficult to refute because it is so hard to prove true or false — is that electronic cigarettes will re-normalize smoking. The argument is that, after decades of work by tobacco control to make smoking uncool, e-cigs will make smoking look cool and acceptable again and usher in a new generation of smokers. To many, this already sounds bunk.

Among other issues with the argument is that, despite decades of anti-smoking campaigns, often around 15 to 20% of high schoolers still end up addicted to cigarettes. This means that smoking is still fairly “normal.” Getting smoking rates much below 20% has proven to be a battle of significant diminishing returns.

Understandably, this makes career tobacco control advocates worry about anything that might set back gains that have been made in cutting down the smoking rate. So electronic cigarettes become a source of fear rather than an opportunity. And so, perhaps the single most go-to argument for tobacco control against electronic cigarettes is that they may neutralize anti-smoking sentiments and make smoking normal again.

Well now it turns out that there is evidence against this. E-cig advocate Michael Siegel does a very good job of reviewing a new study. The short version is that as the electronic cigarette market in England has spiked over the last 3 years, so too have the number of smokers that manage to quit. In 2011 the smoking cessation rate was 4.6% — meaning less than 5 in 100 smokers managed to quit in the previous year. Figures for the first quarter of 2014 show the rate has jumped nearly 90%. This isn’t the kind of thing that suddenly happens as a result of doing “business as usual” tobacco control (though I won’t be surprised when they try to take credit for it anyway).

The point is that electronic cigarettes are doing far more than providing an alternative to tobacco cigarettes. They are providing a pathway away from smoking and making tobacco cigarettes almost completely obsolete.

In essence, e-cigs are de-normalizing smoking.