Nicotine / THR - "I Changed My Mind"
Some of the people listed below were once skeptical of or opposed to one or more lower-risk nicotine products, or to their use as alternatives to smoking. Others did not necessarily oppose these products but had difficulty envisioning how tobacco harm reduction could complement traditional tobacco control in ending combustible tobacco use. People in both groups later changed or substantially revised their views. Their earlier views arose from many sources, including moralistic beliefs, misperceptions about nicotine or particular products, questions about safety and effectiveness, concerns about youth use, and mistrust of industry involvement.
Professional roles and affiliations are included to provide context about each individual’s background, experience, or expertise. They may be current or former and do not necessarily correspond to when the views described were held.
Australia
Dal Gorley, Wife of someone who smoked
"But smoking being a large part of her husband’s life meant it featured heavily in hers, too. “Every outing, every holiday, every family event revolved around cigarette breaks,” Gorley said."
"Then he switched to a much safer, smoke-free form of nicotine use: vaping. Gorley was initially cautious—vapes get a lot of bad press, after all—but soon found that it transformed family life. “He seems more present, more engaged, and enjoys being active in a way that wasn’t as common before,” she said."
"Besides the positive health implications and the absence of secondhand smoke from their house and clothing, Gorley credits her husband’s switch with strengthening their relationship and their family. She particularly values a better quality of time without the cigarette breaks, especially when she and her husband recently became grandparents. “Being able to spend uninterrupted time with our granddaughter has meant the world to us.”
India
Abhijit Chanda, Person who smoked
"Taking a side is harder than I thought. As I said, my first instinct was to wipe vapes off the face of the earth. This would minimise the harm caused to people, but the truth is, it’s quite possibly going to go underground, which may prove to be worse. It’s better to have a phenomenon open to scrutiny and regulation rather than pushing it into the back alleys where it can thrive without oversight. Lifting the ban may be better than what people are subjected to if ENDS become illicit. Those not willing to go underground may just switch over to smoking regular cigarettes, the harm of which we know only too well."
South Africa
Dr. Delon Human, Secretary general of the World Medical Association, Co-founder and director of the African Harm Reduction Alliance
"I realised that smoking cessation, approached from a pure medical point of view, and the available nicotine replacement therapy were simply not good enough. If you look at the global scoreboard we’re still not winning. About 12 years ago I got to understand alternative smoke free nicotine products better – in particular e-cigarettes in the United States.” He says he also spoke to adult smokers and consumers of e-cigarettes. “It was actually a combination of medical frustration and respectful listening to consumers that changed my mind. I realised that the answer lies in tobacco control and harm reduction. Historically I’d also been involved in other fields of harm reduction like drugs and alcohol, and I realised the complementary and synergistic effect of harm reduction science and products in public health prevention and control campaigns,” he added."
UK
Deborah Arnott, CEO Action on Smoking and Health charity (ASH)
2019: Can vapes save the world from smoking? (Story covers Arnott's views from 2008)
"The SuperSmoker device looked like a long cigarette with an orange mouthpiece, a white shaft, and even a "burning" tip. But the tip was an LED light that glowed with each puff, or blinked when the battery ran low. Inside, cartridges contained nicotine in a liquid that turned to vapour when the user activated an element while inhaling. Food additives mimicked the taste of tobacco. The device cost £79 and cartridges were £7.95 for six. Arnott was underwhelmed. The SuperSmoker was one of the first e-cigarettes to hit the U.K. market. But, like Arnott, smokers were initially skeptical."
"Vaping is provably much less harmful than smoking."
Elizabeth "Liz" Fisher, Head of Provider Services, Tobacco Control and Health Check Lead
" Liz Fisher, my head of tobacco control, is someone whose grasp of the science I fundamentally respect. (She authored a systematic review on smoking in pregnancy for her Master’s despite being told it was ambitious. She did it.) And her instincts on safety and clinical governance are at the pinnacle of those I know anywhere in health care. Her gentle coaxing of me to read the evidence – not try to make my mind up for me – and her own complete change of mind has influenced me."
Caz Humphreys, Tobacco Treatment Specialist
"Humphreys recalled an occasion when a woman brought her father into the clinic, an ex-servicemember who had served in the Falklands War. He had spent most of his adult life self-medicating his stress with cigarettes. “This case changed my mind completely about vaping as a method to quit smoking,” Humphreys told Filter."
Jim McManus, Director of Public Health for Hertfordshire and Vice President of the UK Association of Directors of Public Health
"Two years ago or so I still heeded the views of people that e-cigarettes were uncertain on safety more than those saying they had benefit and we should be extremely cautious."
"And so, within the last year, I really have changed my mind. I now feel the benefits of e-cigarettes far outweigh the risks, and that they can have significant benefit for public health."
Michael Mosley, Physician, Science Journalist and BBC Presenter
"Mosley admits that having signed up to vape for a month he was apprehensive about the potential effects, not to mention cynical about their effectiveness as an anti-smoking tool."
"The results left Mosley in no doubt about the effectiveness of vaping as an anti-smoking tool, even though e-cigarettes themselves do not emerge with an entirely clean bill of health."
Louise Ross, Stop Smoking Services
"I hadn’t always thought like that. When our service users, and people at health fairs where I stood, telling people about our service, started showing me their cigalikes and saying they didn’t need to come to us because they’d got the problem licked on their own, I was dismayed, and imagined all the problems that even now are still being used to annihilate better alternatives to smoking. Making smoking normal again, attracting young people to use them, possible harms from using them around others – I wrote an article about my worries for the local paper. An article that I followed up only a month or so later with one saying I had changed my mind."
US
David Abrams, Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the NYU College of Global Public Health
"Scientists change their minds when new evidence is available. I know this first hand: I was wrong about e-cigarettes. I shared the concerns of many here. But as I reviewed the mounting research, the evidence clearly shows vaping—while not harmless—presents a fraction of the risk of smoking. I changed my mind."
Dennis Bruns, DDS
2026: Comment on LinkedIn
"A skeptic by nature and background, but accumulated science evidence has convinced me of merit. I saw that there was a sincere effort by owners of independent vape shop operators to help their customers reach the goal of eliminating their use of deadly combustible tobacco. At first, I thought that Big Tobacco had conveniently usurped the THR mantle, because of Juul’s youth targeting, driven by a financially, opportunistic, motive. I have come to recognize the tobacco companies have made changes beyond, minimal attempts at re-imaging. Nicotine use is not going away and I believe the industries direction is genuine in keeping nicotine product use adult targeted"
Julie A. Casimiro (D), Rhode Island Representative
2019: The Providence Journal We need sensible vaping policies
"As a state representative, when I first heard the stories of severe illness and death thought to be caused by vaping, I initially believed that these products had no place on our store shelves. I believed that the dessert- and candy-flavored vaping products were specifically developed to target our children, a Joe Camel for the next generation. I called for a ban on these flavors because I thought, what self-respecting adult would possibly want to vape cotton candy or apple pie?"
"Yet, after doing some research and speaking with the co-authors of this piece, it turns out that the answer to that question is not only quite a few, but the vast majority of vaping adults. And these adults aren’t vaping these flavors because they have a sweet tooth — they are using these products to quit smoking cigarettes. And, as is now being acknowledged, most of these vaping illnesses and deaths are being caused by black market THC vaping products, not legal e-cigarettes."
Cyndee Clay, Executive Director, HIPS (a Washington, D.C.-based harm reduction organization)
"Clay was a lifelong smoker who “rolled [her] eyes at the tobacco harm reduction conversation” because she was focused on people dying from overdose in the short term. She changed her mind when she realized she could quit smoking herself by switching to vaping."
Jeff Fuhrman, Person with lived experience - smoking and vaping
"He shared personal stories about cigarette smoking and lung cancer and related that he was initially skeptical about vaping. However,he has not touched a cigarette since he started to vape 3.5 years ago. He maintained that the effect of SB 133 will be to close small businesses in Alaska and drive the consumers to online sales. Furthermore, it will make it more difficult for people like him to quit smoking."
Jené Gutierrez, journalist
"But if you’re like me, then you’ve mostly been exposed to negative representations of vapers and their lifestyle online...But, as my tweet succinctly puts it, I did not find the lulz I was looking for at VapeBlast. In fact, the whole event almost seemed to conspire against my judgmental assholishness."
"So here is my humble appeal to my fellow vape-judging brethren: Let’s admit that we were all wrong. Vaping, 95 percent healthier and 40 percent cheaper than smoking cigarettes, helps wean people off of an intense habit and naturally becomes an extension of their identity. So what? If this level of dedication to vaping is what destroys a dangerous addiction, then who cares? Looking down on vapers is basic and boring. They’re just doing the best they can, and are actually a less toxic presence because they vape—whether or not you want to admit it."
Tom Miller (D), Iowa Attorney General
- Also available on LinkedIn
"With a few exceptions, Democrats oppose non-combustible nicotine products, especially vaping (e-cigarettes) and nicotine pouches. It is easy to understand why this became their stance shortly after these products emerged around two decades ago in the wake of a decades-long battle against cigarettes and the devastation cigarettes cause. Non-combustible products, particularly e-cigarettes, share obvious similarities with traditional cigarettes. Both e-cigarettes and pouches contain nicotine, raising very legitimate concerns about youth addiction. And perhaps most important, these products are largely sold by the very tobacco companies that tobacco-control advocates have fought fiercely for decades."
"I once held the same stance. I served as the Attorney General of Iowa for 40 years. I was a strong advocate for tobacco control. I played a major role in the Master Settlement Agreement against the large tobacco companies. I served on the Truth Initiative Board for nine years, two of those years as its chair. Initially I had the same view of non-combustibles products as most Democrats do now. But looking at the science and the public-health concept of harm reduction, I changed my mind. The reasons for this are as follows:.."
Arielle Selya, PhD, Senior Scientist at Pinney Associates. Consults to Juul Labs. Scientific advisor to Global Forum on Nicotine
"I’ve told this story before in broad strokes: A little over a decade ago, I was an assistant professor teaching in an academic public health program and doing fairly standard academic tobacco control research. When e-cigarettes started getting a lot of attention in ~2014, I was initially hostile to them, having only heard negative things about them. I believed that e-cigarettes were a gateway to cigarette smoking because they might be attractive to youth and create dependence on nicotine."
"This is the story of how I changed my mind with my own research."
Dr. Michael Siegel, Visiting professor and researcher in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine
"When electronic cigarettes came on the market in 2007, I thought they were just another Big Tobacco ploy to addict the next generation of youth by marketing a product as being safer than cigarettes when it really wasn't any safer. I thought this was another "light" cigarettes fiasco. My position was essentially the same as that of the opposition groups that spoke last night. However, when the research came out showing that e-cigarettes were not another "light" cigarette fiasco, when I learned that Big Tobacco had nothing to do with the introduction these products into the market (they were not in the act until 2011), and when I talked to hundreds of vapers who explained how nothing on the market was effective in helping them quit until they tried vaping, I changed my mind. My views change as the research evidence changes. These groups seem to be permanently stuck in 2009."