E-Cigarettes Are A Gateway Drug, Scientists Say; Nicotine Activates Addiction Trigger In The Brain

E-cigarettes are healthier in some ways than combustable cigarettes but remain a powerful gateway to dangerous addictions, said a pair of Columbia University scientists, including a Nobel Prize winner, on Wednesday.

Their research, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, focuses on the effects of nicotine on the brain. Using the drug is like flicking a neural switch that deepens a person’s susceptibility to addiction. Someone who “vapes” an e-cigarette and then uses cocaine is more likely to develop a cocaine dependency, they say, than someone who has never used nicotine. "While e-cigarettes do eliminate some of the health effects associated with combustible tobacco, they are pure nicotine-delivery devices," said co-author Dr. Denise B. Kandel, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and researcher at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, in a statement.

Their arguments join a long list of others for and against the widespread use of e-cigarettes, sales of which could reach $1.5 billion this year, according to Bloomberg Industries. Earlier this year, the FDA vowed to push for regulation of the product after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that calls to poison control centers about e-cigarettes had skyrocketed. More than half of those calls involved children under the age of 5 who had consumed the nicotine.

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