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CDC says e-cigarettes won’t help you quit

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest anti-smoking campaign includes a message about the dangers of e-cigarettes.

This is the first time U.S. health authorities have launched a campaign against e-cigarettes, which don’t have the same advertising restrictions as traditional cigarettes and have been criticized for targeting the devices toward children, according to news reports.

The CDC’s 2015 “Tips From Former Smokers” campaign, which launched March 30, includes a series of ads featuring former smokers who suffer from smoking-related illnesses, including Kristy, a 35-year-old mother from Tennessee who tried using e-cigarettes to quit smoking traditional cigarettes, but ended up using both nicotine products instead.

She then suffered a collapsed lung and was diagnosed with early chronic obstructive pulmonary disease before she quit smoking completely.

Nationally, about three out of four adults who use e-cigarettes also smoke traditional cigarettes.

“If you only cut down the number of cigarettes you smoke by adding another tobacco product, like e-cigarettes, you still face serious health risks,” the CDC’s press release states. “Smokers must quit smoking completely to fully protect their health — even a few cigarettes a day are dangerous.”

For more information, visit cdc.gov/tips.