2010 Kcancer Hero: Mr. Hon Lik
Posted Sun, 10/31/2010 – 00:13 by Kcancer
Mr. Hon Lik was elected 2010 Kcancer Hero for his inventing of the revolutionary Electronic Cigarette.
Electronic Cigarette is a small battery powered device that delivers nicotine liquid solution in a vaporized form, fog, when inhaled air activates an atomizer. It has a red light at the tip that lightes up with each drag. Electronic Cigarette performs similarly to traditional smoking. It looks, feels and tastes like a cigarette, and delivers all the pleasures of smoking, but it does not contain tobacco, tar or known carcinogens.
Despite obvious health risks and negative social stigma from tobacco smoking, still for every five people in the world, one is a tobacco smoker. Out of the 6.7 billion people living in this world, 1.2 billion people smoke tobacco. That’s 18% of the world’s population!
Throughout history smoking bans and prohibitions introduced by authorities resulted in minimal quit-smoking outcome. In spite of some harsh punishments including death penalty, smoking and smokers had continued to thrive and spread all over the world. Repressive measures seem to have aroused a spirit of popular rebellion and helped to increase the use of tobacco. The psychological pleasures and physiological satisfaction derived from tobacco smoking proved much more powerful than religious, moral, and legal persuasions. It seems that the senses of excitement derived from a cigarette can’t be obtained from anything else. Food, drink, games, and even sex all seem to lose their appeal without an accompanying cigarette. Some smokers survived so many challenges in life, whose last, largest pleasure and perhaps his most effective way of relieving stress, is the treasured freedom to smoke. Some smokers have had multiple heart attacks, circulatory conditions resulting in amputations, cancers, emphysema and a host of other disabling and deadly diseases. They are fully aware that smoking is crippling and killing them, but continue to smoke anyway. To them, life seems not worth living without smoking. The pleasure miracle provided by the little white paper roll has so much to offer that I can safely predict the cigarette is here to stay. It should point out that this predication is not intended as a eulogy of the habit of smoking, but rather as an objective estimation on why people smoke cigarettes.
Electronic Cigarette will be a great health story. About one-third of total cancer deaths are caused by tobacco smoking in the world. In US alone, more than 200,000 lung cancer deaths are due to tobacco smoking. The Electric Cigarette offers an alternative to smoking tobacco, yet still allows them to have the nicotine they want and to engage in the most realistic mock smoking act available. It will be an effective way to quit or reduce tobacco smoking and to minimize the catastrophic health effects linked to cigarette smoking. We finally have the alternative method of delivering nicotine that is truly enjoyable. With the novel Electronic Cigarette, the tobacco industry will be certainly transformed into a “healthy industry” in near future.
Mr. Hon Lik is vice president of Ruyan, a leading Electronic Cigarette manufacturer in Beijing, China. He is the second Kcancer Hero. The first Kcancer Hero, 2009 Kcancer Hero, is Dr. Ralph W Moss, who made significant contributions on integrative treatment of cancer.
Anthony Hu, MD, PhD
CEO
Kcancer