Opening Keynote: Thinking Outside the Box on E-cigarettes

Substantially reducing the number of people smoking combusted tobacco products and minimizing the initiation of their use by non-smokers, especially youth, presents an objective that would have a profound impact on reducing the preventable disease and premature death from tobacco product use. Because their use mimics smoking, delivers substantial amounts of nicotine quickly, and delivers significantly less harmful and potentially harmful constituents during exclusive use compared to smoking, e-cigarettes are a tool that could make a major impact on overall population health. However, to date, e-cigarettes have not met their potential with too many adolescents starting their use and too many smokers either becoming dual users or rejecting e-cigarettes and relapsing to smoking.  This presentation will discuss some of the current approaches and propose some out-of-the-box ideas for consideration that are intended to encourage the conversation of how to maximize the potential benefits of e-cigarettes for reducing morbidity and mortality of tobacco smoking while minimizing the unintended consequences.