"10 Things E-cigarettes Won't Tell You"

10 things e-cigarettes won’t tell you – 10 things – MarketWatch

Nov9by John Castle
Note: I’m going to end up fucking swearing a lot and abusing the bold and italics. I do that not to “shout” at you, but because I have a tendency to post the way I would imagine the text would be spoken if narrated out loud. And some of this stuff really demands that kind of inflective emphasis. Okay, go:

10 things e-cigarettes won’t tell you – 10 things – MarketWatch: “”

(Via Marketwatch.)

Wow. Where to even start with stupidity on this level. Well, I suppose it should be at the beginning.

“They may be safer, but they also threaten to upend decades of anti-smoking efforts.”

You know what the first thing is that occurs to me when I read this complaint? Safety was never the purpose of anti-smoking efforts. Had it been, the author of this article would easily recognize vaping, and the millions of people who have quit smoking by switching to it, as an anti-smoking effort, one of the most devastatingly effective anti-smoking efforts in history.

But it isn’t about safety, is it? It seems clear that it never was. And here we have an admission of that, if only by implication. Let’s dig into these ten things:

“1. “We’re Big Tobacco in disguise.”

Simply, flatly wrong. “Big Tobacco”, meaning the three major makers of cigarettes in the U.S., would constitute RJ Reynolds, Philip Morris, and Lorillard. Lorillard made its entry into vaping products by purchasing Blu, an existing company. Philip Morris only justintroduced its first PV, the Markten, this year. RJ Reynolds Vapor still doesn’t have its own PV products, the Vuse Solo and Vuse System, in national distribution at this time. PVs are not “Big Tobacco in disguise.”

“2. “We can’t promise this won’t kill you.”

Anti-smoking advocates and public-health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention alike concede that e-cigarettes have fewer toxins than regular cigarettes and none of the tar. But that’s no guarantee e-cigs won’t give you cancer or kill you the way tobacco-burning cigarettes are known to do. While traditional smoke carries nearly 5,000 chemicals, more than 50 of which are carcinogens, e-cigarette vapor appears to have far fewer deadly toxins, says Michael Fiore, a physician and director of the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. Still, a relatively small study of two leading brands of e-cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration found carcinogens in half of the 18 samples it tested, and one sample contained small amounts of a toxic chemical found in antifreeze. Researchers at the University of California–Riverside recently found that “many of the elements” in e-cig vapor “are known to cause respiratory distress and disease,” and in some cases emitted higher concentrations of the elements than cigarette smoke produced.”

Let’s take these point by point:

First, nobody can promise that anything won’t kill you. I know of a chemical combination that has a 100% mortality rate if breathed for a sufficient duration of time. You call it air. And everyone who has breathed it has or at some point will die. WhoooOOOOOooo!

Second, the study purporting to have found diethylene glycol (the “toxic chemical found in antifreeze”) was a non-repeated occurrence from a scientifically unsound sample size.

Finally, neither of the studies referenced in the above section are cited. That renders that section little better than rumor.

“3. “You didn’t quit smoking.You just think you did.”

Rob Fontano, the owner of an e-cigarette retailer Fort Myers, Fla., says e-cigarettes helped him quit smoking actual cigarettes “cold turkey,” after he’d tried nicotine patches, gum, and prescription Chantix without success. He even says his skin now looks healthier and he can breathe easier at the gym. But his version of “cold turkey” still includes e-cigarettes— which neither anti-smoking advocates nor tobacco companies would call quitting.”

Are personal vaporizers tobacco cigarettes? No, they’re electronics. Do people who use them inhale smoke created through a combustion of tobacco leaves? No, they do not. Does that mean people who no longer smoke combustion-based cigarettes are still smoking combustion-based cigarettes? It does not. What, then, have these people done? They’ve quit smoking.

Finally: How is that not, at least, progress? Even if these neo-Puritan assholes don’t think you quit, shouldn’t they recognize the benefit of you thinking you’ve quit? Of your mental break from the habit of using a burning roll of tobacco and paper? The change in mindset from, “I’m never fucking quitting smoking!” to “I don’t smoke anymore!” as a change in attitude toward the habit of smoking?

I don’t think they do. And you know why? Because they don’t give a shit about you or your health. Not really, they don’t. Not really, they don’t. Know what they’re in it for?Getting you to do what they tell you to.

Fuck them.

“4. “We’re advertising like it’s 1960 — while we still can.”

And since what they’re advertising is less unhealthy and carries with it the potential to save lives, they should. They destroyed the health, lives and families of so many people, it’s only right that these fuckers make up for it by using those same tools to help people get off the deadly product these companies helped addict them to in the first place.

Just don’t use cartoons or otherwise peddle PVs to kids.

“5. “We defy categorization.”

The e-cigarette industry says it welcomes regulation, but it’s also shown some ambivalence: On the one hand, it doesn’t want to be grouped with cigarettes and tobacco, because that would entail restrictions on who can buy them and how they can be advertised and because it has staked its success on being an alternative to those products. On the other hand, it doesn’t want to put its product on the shelf until it can be proven safe enough to get its own category. The industry would have to go through years of trials and FDA approval as a drug or drug-delivery device, effectively taking e-cigs off the market entirely, says Criss, the head of the the ECIG trade group. “I don’t really feel that it’s a tobacco product,” he says, “that’s maybe a compromise position that we maybe don’t think of as ideal.” (Altria, however, says its e-cigarette meets the definition of a tobacco product.)”

Frankly, I don’t give a shriveled rodent scrotum what Altria says. Unless they’re actually stuffing tobacco bits into the electronics, PVs are not tobacco products, any more than Bloody Marys should be put in the produce aisle.

“6. “We look like cigarettes, but please don’t tax us like cigarettes.”

E-cigarettes’ biggest advantage over traditional cigarettes is their price, market analysts say. Regular cigarettes carry high excise taxes of up to about 50% of their retail price; e-cigarettes, for the most part, are currently only subject to sales tax, says Wells Fargo tobacco analyst Herzog.

The price of an e-cigarette, meanwhile, is hard to compare with that of a regular cigarette, as the electronic devices are sold to be either disposable or refillable and rechargeable. But assuming that it takes 1.25 e-cigarettes (or cartridges) to deliver the nicotine in a pack of cigarettes, and the average e-cigarette costs about $7, Herzog estimatesthat e-cigarettes are nearly 8% cheaper than cigarettes.“E-cigs are definitely more affordable than conventional cigarettes,” she says, adding that e-cigarettes’ price per usage falls with greater consumption.”

First of all:



Does that look like a tobacco cigarette to you? See, call me wacky, but I don’t think it does.

Second, vaping should be cheaper than smoking. If, you know, you actually give a shit about health or safety. If you really care about saving lives, then you’ll want to make switching from the more dangerous habit to the less dangerous habit a top fucking priority. You’ll bust your ass to make it easier, cheaper and more attractive.

That is, if you’re not, in fact, just after more money and more control over other peoples’ lives.

“7. “Kids love us.”

If there’s one thing that the e-cigarette industry and the public health community agree on, it’s that e-cigarettes are not for children. Kids, on the other hand, seem to disagree, judging by the surging interest in e-cigs among adolescents and teens. The proportion of middle-school and high-school kids who have used e-cigarettes doubled to nearly 7%, or almost 2 million students, between 2011 and 2012, according to a recent report by the CDC. What’s more, “there’s a substantial concern that e-cigarettes will serve as a gateway product to nicotine addiction for a new generation of young people,” Fiore says. Indeed, more than 76% of students currently using e-cigarettes also reported smoking regular cigarettes. (E-cigarette defenders say the statistic can be interpreted the opposite way, too, illustrating that students who already smoked are switching to e-cigs.)”

This, as I point out in my book, Smokeless, is based on utter bullshit. First, the CDC study measured experimentation, not usage. The author of this Marketwatch article is using the same sloppy, slanted journalism as everyone else. It is at least something of a redemption on her part that she at least acknowledges the counter-argument, however.

“8. “We’re bringing smoking back inside…”

As new bans have pushed cigarette smokers ever further out into the cold — often as far as 25 feet from the entrance of restaurants, bars, and even outdoor spaces like parks and beaches — e-cigarettes have found a haven indoors. The devices, which emit vapor that is less noticeable and odorous than smoke, and don’t use a flame or smoldering butts that could pose a fire hazard, have largely been tolerated if not fully welcomed in places where smoking is banned, including workplaces. Some e-cigarette users reportedly even took drags while attending a recent New York City council meeting about raising the purchasing age of cigarettes as well as e-cigs. Indeed, part of the allure of e-cigarettes is that people can use them discreetly, without having to brave the cold or stink up their home, says Herzog: “There are a lot of smoking bans, and it’s easier to use these in many places that are difficult to smoke. There’s no real smell.”

Anti-smoking advocates, however, argue that observers can’t tell the difference between electronic cigarettes and the real thing. Inviting e-cigs into no-smoking zones threatens to undo public-health progress in making tobacco taboo, says Feinberg of the NYC Coalition for a Smoke-Free City.”

And there again we have that admission. They don’t care that it’s safe. Or, to be generous, they don’t care whether it’s safe or not. They’re pissed that people are rejecting their social conditioning. They’re vexed that adults and making their own personal choices regardless of these legions of dictatorial fucking Mary Poppins wannabes trying to run other peoples’ lives.

I say again: Fuck these bitches. If it poses less risk to me, and none to thee — as at least one study has found — then my habits, and yours, are none of their fucking business.

“9. “… and back into aircraft.”

Lately, airlines have had to chastise not just passengers, but their own flight attendants for smoking — er, “vaping”— e-cigarettes on planes.”

Ms. Wieczner, this is personal, from me to you: Fuck you. You spent time researching the difference between smoke and vapor. You proved that all throughout the body of your article up to this point. You do not get a free pass to deliberately and dishonestly conflate the two and not get called on it. So I say again: Fuck. You.

“10. “E-joints and e-crackpipes are the new e-cig.”

No. the “e-cig” is the “e-cig.” Nothing is the “new” something else. And, I don’t know whether you know this — I rather doubt that you care enough to have done any research — but devices like the “Pax” vaporizer work on an entirely different principle from nicotine-centered PVs.

But all of that is really irrelevant when we stop to consider the killer counterargument here: If you can’t tell that somebody’s high on pot, what fucking business is it of yours?

If somebody does manage to vape cannabis, and the cops can’t tell, exactly what is the fucking problem? There’s no victim. Not only that, but the problem, somehow, is that the crime is undetectable? How is it a fucking crime, then?

So there you have it. Only I think we need to retitle the article now.

I’ve got it:

10 Lies The Control Freaks Won’t Stop Telling You.

Seriously...do you have a financial interest in this shit?

How about you actually use the quote function and not just quotation marks, makes reading the actual article and then your disinformation difficult.

Great. I already knew most of that.

As a faux conservative, shouldn't you be elated if I do? What's your interest in disparaging it? Prefer to see smokers keep smoking?

Yeah, reading "disinformation" in my counterarguments would be difficult, owing to the fact that there isn't any.

It's funny watching you trying to put me into one of the two little binary boxes that exist in your limited world.

And yes, in the other thread you were proven wrong on just about everything you said about vaping...I don't think anyone is going to place a lot of stock in your "rebuttals".

Yep, nothing new that I didn't already know, but it's good to see one of their own admit that it's about control and not health.

Trick I use on my blog, is to color the quotes red, or turquoise, or lime green, so they pop out, and there's no mistaking.

Course, I have a black background, you'd probably want to use darker colors.

And now with the "binary" accusation.

I might do that. I've also expanded the preface a bit to address an issue the staff brought to my attention.

See the edits at the blog; the color change on the quoted text won't show up here.

Red, turquoise and lime green on black? Add a few blink tags and it'll be 1998 again.

0110100101100100011010010110111101110100

So this is just a cut and paste job from some dude's blog? How about some original content? And hopefully the blogger doesn't get wind and sue.

On the rare occasion I've torn apart someone else's shit, I always link to it.

If I'm going to be brave enough to publicly kick their scrotum, I ought to be brave enough for them to hunt me down, and kick back.

Edit- Ah, I see Castle has done that.
Okey-dokey.

I lifted excerpts from a news article and added counterpoints to them. Fair use. And I'm pretty sure the broad who wrote the original article can't sue me for telling her, "Fuck you."

I mean the blogger who rips her to shreds.

Um, I'm the blogger who rips her to shreds.

I've lived and worked for years in a completely smoke-free workplace and apartment: no smoking allowed even outside, and nearly all of my coworkers and neighbors are nonsmokers. So I'm now extremely sensitive to the stench of cigarette smoke and smokers when I travel, and am still baffled by how many people out there still have the poor judgement to smoke.

But I've also been around e-cigarettes, and I think they are absolutely wonderful - hardly any smell. I probably wouldn't even mind if someone were smoking one next to me on a commercial flight - it would be preferable to someone whose clothes reek. If we could get a good portion of current smokers to switch to e-cigarettes by advertising them and keeping them relatively inexpensive and accessible, it would be great not only for the health of the smokers but the noses of nonsmokers like me.

Also, that picture looks like John's holding a sonic screwdriver.

So what? Is your beef with "Big Tobacco" their products or the companies themselves? If these companies can sell a product people want with little or no discernible public health impact, what difference does it make?

The precautionary principle is a poor basis for law and an ever-present threat to freedom. The burden is not on those who want to sell and use e-cigs to prove that they're safe, it's on you--who want to outlaw/regulate it--to prove that they're not.

Again, so what? If someone chooses to do this in lieu of smoking, why is that your business?

The basis for controlling advertising of cigarettes was their health consequences. Similar consequences have not been shown for e-cigarettes so any regulation of free speech is not justified.

Sorry, people don't exist to make regulation easier. These things clearly are NOT cigarettes and if a new FDA category is required--presuming, of course, health consequences justify it--then so be it.

Looking like cigarettes and being cigarettes are not the same thing. Again, the tax is imposed on cigarettes ostensibly because of their health consequences. If this isn't so--if it's just a revenue stream--then own up to it.

If the product carries no known health consequences, then why be concerned about this?

Except there's no smoke. Or smoking. Again, people don't exist for the convenience of the regulators. If it's too big a burden for you to discern between cigarettes and e-cigs in your establishment, then forbid them both.

If there are no health consequences like second-hand smoke, then determining whether e-cigarettes are allowed on airplanes should be a business decision for the airline.

Criminal misuse of a technology--particularly where there is no/little demonstrable harm to others--does not justify denying everyone else the use of that technology.

All of the justification for cigarette regulations, taxation, etc. is built around them being profoundly unhealthy. Having secured a nice revenue stream from the taxation of cigarettes on this basis, the statists are now clutching at straws to maintain that control and power in the face of a technology that threatens to undercut that justification.

I'm inclined to agree with Castle. This is all about control and maintaining power in the face of a game-changing technology.

Like Prufrock, I didn't know a lot of smokers till I joined the Navy and someone had the bright idea to place the underway smoking area right near the most used exit topside of the ship.

Suffice it to say I can't wait for the day that vape and e-cigs can be sold in the ship's store.

Whelp, I used to have a lot of respect for Anna, Diacanu and Prufrock. No more.

I can't believe anyone would be fucking stupid enough to rep all that dreck in the OP.

Also, where is John Castle's chin?

Have you checked the ingredient list of eliquid? I have. All of them have a shorter list than a cup of Starbucks, and none of them cause cancer. Nicotine may mes with insulin production, but no one's getting second hand lung cancer from it.

Unless you mix it yourself from scratch, you really don't know what's in e-liquid. That's because there are no current disclosure requirements for e-cig or e-liquid manufacturers. The only reason you know what's in Starbucks coffee is because they're required by law to disclose the ingredients.

Contrary to all the crap coming from John Castle, there's just too much we don't know about e-cigarettes. They've exploded (pardon the pun as e-cigarettes tend to explode due to their lithium-ion battery) onto the marketplace without much independent study. Those studies that do exist have generally been funded by e-cig companies, industry associations or advocacy groups.

FTFY. I expect you'll stop buying any food or drink at any store or restaurant immediately, yes? No more OTC or prescription medications for you, right?

After so many restraint orders filed against him it makes sense that John Castle would stalk something that can't file a restraining order.

What's interesting is that that's what it occurred to you to make up. Got a preoccupation with restraining orders, have you?

The hell you say...