Ecig Critic

Armstrong Atlantic State University is imposing a new policy that will ban all forms of tobacco including cigarettes, pipes, cigars, chewing tobacco electronic cigarettes and other tobacco products.  This new policy covers not only students but teachers as well.

They have a Tobacco Control Task Force that is made up of Students, Faculty and Staff members.  The policy was put in place by the Student Government Association.

Read the complete article here from Savannah Morning News.

New Mexico has a proposed bill that will increase the taxes on tobacco products other than cigarettes such as cigars and smokeless cigarettes from 25% to 57% of the products value.  This comes on the heels of the bill proposed by Hawaii to massively increase the taxes on its electronic cigarettes.

The worrisome part is it’s possible effect on electronic cigarettes:

Perhaps more significant is the bill’s expanded definition of “tobacco products,” which would be redefined to include “any product containing tobacco that is intended or expected to be consumed without being combusted, unless it has been approved by the United States food and drug administration as a tobacco use cessation product and is being marketed and sold for that approved purpose.”  This could arguably cover electronic cigarettes, which generally contain a tobacco solution that is consumed without being combusted.

This is the trend others have worried about.  Read the full article here from Tobacco Law Blog.

Rachael Ray discusses electronic cigarettes with guest doctor Dr. Ian Smith.  Then Dr Vapor, a pro e-cigarette profile and physician as well, posts and comments on the show.  He does a better job than I in discussing Rachael Ray and her gust doctor, so check it out.

Wired, a popular electronics and gadgets magazine, also has its own Podcast.  This week they covered a variety of topics from the quality of audio according to Neil Young, 3D food printing (wow), Facebook’s big IPO (initial pupil offering or when their shares can be traded on wall street, for those who might not know) and electronic cigarettes!

The hosts, Mike Issac (who is a smoker) and Michael Calore, weigh in on there thoughts on the disposable e-cigarette Square.  Mike Issac is the one who was given the task of reviewing the e-cig and since he was new to the e-cig world, it was refreshing to hear an outsiders perspective.  I’m curious to see how he feels about them in about a week or two or if he continues to use them for that matter.

Heck out the video.

There are times when reading the news makes you take notice and be amazed.  That moment happened for me the morning of February 1st, 2012 when I read about a growing leader in the electronic cigarette world speak out against the slew of proposed e-cig bans and tax increases.  Not only did they speak out, but they did so with well thought out direction and a strong clear tone that left no mistake how they felt about the swirling sea of state legislated discussions that have been taking ever increasing aggressive stances against e-cigs.

The rising tide of unsupported criticism that is building due to this movement seems to have pushed blu Cigs, one of the largest distributors and manufacturers of electronic cigarettes, into putting there proverbial “foot down” and speak out against these stinging allegations.

blu Cigs … is firing back against false broad-based claims, including those that allege all e-cig companies are marketing to minors. As lawmakers use this new tack in an attempt to vilify an entire industry, blu has taken proactive precautions to ensure minors cannot purchase its e-cigarettes – using the same process that alcohol and tobacco companies must mandatorily use to verify age for all online and phone purchases, each and every time.

… blu does not offer flavors with traditional adolescent appeal like fruit punch, bubble gum, or chocolate.

Jason Healy, President of blu Cigs comments, “We maintain the absolute highest standards when it comes to the retailers we choose, so to make these false accusations and call them out as irresponsible when it comes to e-cigarette sales is negligent. Our retail partners operate to the highest standard – and aggressively I.D. all customers for each and every sale. …  Federal and state governments claim that high taxes on e-cigs are designed to price out consumers, but these increases are purely based on fiscal reasons, and completely contrary to consumer health advocacy … If consumer health is their primary concern, as it should be, then premature bans and tax hikes are not in the public’s best interest.”

A 2010 study co-authored by Dr. Michael Siegel of Boston University’s School of Public Health actually concluded that e-cigarettes are safer than tobacco cigarettes, and have the potential to become a smoking cessation device.

Read the article here at marketwatch.com.

Advocates of electronic cigarettes are taking to Facebook to urge Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard to “keep his promise” and veto smoking ban proposal that will be arriving in his office on Thursday morning.  Facebook comments have been mounting as the hour draws near for the Mayor to make his choice.

The proposal will not only expand the current cigarette ban to include bars, but will lump electronic cigarettes in with regular cigarettes and ban them as well from most public places.

Most of the posts listed are actually urging him to pass the bill, while a strong few are begging him to veto it.

Mayor Ballard is taking issue with an exemption for private clubs and veteran halls that can keep their smokey environment if they keep kids off the premises.

A sample from the many pro-signing messages:

I urge you to please pass the smoking ban! As a former bar employee I do not miss waking up with a tightness in my chest, dry eyes, and a cough I did not have before or have had since. Why would you deny so many a healthy working environment just because of the activities of a few private clubs? Look at this ban as a step forward. The private club and e-cigarette issues can be changed in the future if necessary. — Laura Keith.

And here’s one expressing a different view:

Mayor Ballard, please keep your promise to veto proposal 18 as it is unfair to include the use of e-cigarettes with true cigarettes…..I smoked for 35 years, 2 packs a day but new that it was slowly killing me…..my wife and I switched to e-cigs 2 1/2 years ago after trying every FDA approved method that is out there. The e-cig worked for us instantly and we don’t have to ingest the 4000+ chemicals that are in cigarettes….thank you for your time and please veto Prop. 18. — Brian Deel.

Read the entire article here at blogs.indystar.com.

An article at www.policymic.com shows how legislators may be doing more harm than good:

Last week, Hawaii’s state legislature introduced two bills that would ban the sale of e-cigarettes to minors and tax the devices at 70% of their wholesale price, the same rate as tobacco products.

Calling this a misguided effort is as usual an understatement in all of these news articles regarding electronic cigarettes these days.  Hiding this under the umbrella of “Protecting the youth” is typical of politics.  Most smokers of electronic cigarettes do not want these in the hands of the youth of the world.  By waving these fearful ideas at the public, they feel safe from any repercussions from the public if they covertly apply outrageous laws and policies on something.

Now taking into account that they mean the best, hear is my favorite part of this article, and oh is it so true, that is a quote from Michael Siegel:

Boston University public health professor Michael Siegel also highlighted the problem with the legislation’s justification, explaining that “the anti-smoking ideologues would advise victims of a shipwreck not to use the lifeboats because they haven’t been fully tested to ensure their safety. And if thousands of victims of that shipwreck were successfully keeping afloat because of the lifeboats, the anti-smoking ideologues would advise them to abandon the lifeboats and stick to ‘government approved’ survival methods.”

And how about this bit of juicy info:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also concluded two years ago that e-cigs contain far fewer carcinogens than traditional cigarettes.

Hawaii’s proposal to classify and tax e-cigs as tobacco products will also create some dangerous unintended consequences. Much research suggests that taxing tobacco raises its price and discourages its consumption. In this case, however, the state would be discouraging consumption of one of tobacco’s safer competitors. This is very troubling because lower prices relative to cigarettes provide an incentive for smokers to switch to e-cigs. Worse, the impact won’t be restricted to the islands. One of the major suppliers of e-cigs, a company called Volcano, is based in Hawaii. As a result of the tax, retailers around the country supplied by Volcano would be forced to raise their prices — or stop selling e-cigs altogether. The result, then, would be even fewer smokers giving up traditional cigarettes.

Now, keeping these out of the hands of children, I’m all for, as are all smokers I’m sure.  But purposely keeping smokers from them, keeping smokers on, wait how did the author put it:

Given that smoking kills over 400,000 people annually, as proponents of the Hawaii legislation admit, their fear that e-cigs could be harmful is entirely misplaced. Tobacco is clearly the real killer here. The bills’ proponents are doubly wrong on this point because they attempt to associate the risks of tobacco use with e-cigs, which do not contain tobacco. They also claim that e-cigs could serve as a “gateway” to the use of other more dangerous tobacco products, even though the overwhelming effect of e-cigs has been to reduce tobacco use.

Well said, Cameron Science.  Well said indeed.  Then why are they against it?  I truly hope they are just really misguided politicians and not greedy, in-the-pocket-of-big-tobacco law makers that we trust to do whats best for us.  Here is my hope:  Please let them be ignorant and misguided, that hopefully can learn and grow and get back on the right course and not uncaring money hungry, I’ll-let-people-rot-just-so-they-can-make-a-quick-buck types.

Here is an article that is often referred to but not read enough, in my opinion.   It’s an article by John Tierney and it was posted in The New York Times.   It really asks the new question:  why are certain anti-smoking factions warring on electronic cigarettes?  He opens his debate with a solid research example:

Recently, though, experimenters in Italy had more success by doing less. A team led by Riccardo Polosa of the University of Catania recruited 40 hard-core smokers — ones who had turned down a free spot in a smoking-cessation program — and simply gave them a gadget already available in stores for $50. This electronic cigarette, or e-cigarette, contains a small reservoir of liquid nicotine solution that is vaporized to form an aerosol mist.

The user “vapes,” or puffs on the vapor, to get a hit of the addictive nicotine (and the familiar sensation of bringing a cigarette to one’s mouth) without the noxious substances found in cigarette smoke.

After six months, more than half the subjects in Dr. Polosa’s experiment had cut their regular cigarette consumption by at least 50 percent. Nearly a quarter had stopped altogether. Though this was just a small pilot study, the results fit with other encouraging evidence and bolster hopes that these e-cigarettes could be the most effective tool yet for reducing the global death toll from smoking.

Then the real proverbial “other shoe” drops:

But there’s a powerful group working against this innovation — and it’s not Big Tobacco. It’s a coalition of government officials and antismoking groups who have been warning about the dangers of e-cigarettes and trying to ban their sale.

Why in the world is this the case?  Then the FDA released it’s study that:

several chemicals in the vapor of e-cigarettes may be “harmful” and “toxic.”

Which prompts any sane mind to want to know more.

But the agency has never presented evidence that the trace amounts actually cause any harm, and it has neglected to mention that similar traces of these chemicals have been found in other F.D.A.-approved products, including nicotine patches and gum.

How can this missing bit of data be over looked by the anti-electronic cigarette movement?  They keep citing this FDA document but never bothered to question it further?  Luckily, some people have:

The agency’s methodology and warnings have been lambasted in scientific journals by Dr. Polosa and other researchers, including Brad Rodu, a professor of medicine at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.

Writing in Harm Reduction Journal this year, Dr. Rodu concludes that the F.D.A.’s results “are highly unlikely to have any possible significance to users” because it detected chemicals at “about one million times lower concentrations than are conceivably related to human health.” His conclusion is shared by Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.

“It boggles my mind why there is a bias against e-cigarettes among antismoking groups,” Dr. Siegel said. He added that it made no sense to fret about hypothetical risks from minuscule levels of several chemicals in e-cigarettes when the alternative is known to be deadly: cigarettes containing thousands of chemicals, including dozens of carcinogens and hundreds of toxins.

Now this last bit I agree with so much, and bless him for printing it:

Both sides in the debate agree that e-cigarettes should be studied more thoroughly and subjected to tighter regulation, including quality-control standards and a ban on sales to minors. But the harm-reduction side, which includes the American Association of Public Health Physicians and the American Council on Science and Health, sees no reason to prevent adults from using e-cigarettes. In Britain, the Royal College of Physicians has denounced “irrational and immoral” regulations inhibiting the introduction of safer nicotine-delivery devices.

“Nicotine itself is not especially hazardous,” the British medical society concluded in 2007. “If nicotine could be provided in a form that is acceptable and effective as a cigarette substitute, millions of lives could be saved.”

I agree whole heartedly.

Maybe this little fact that has the tobacco industry thinking:

The number of Americans trying e-cigarettes quadrupled from 2009 to 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Its survey last year found that 1.2 percent of adults, or close to three million people, reported using them in the previous month.

“E-cigarettes could replace much or most of cigarette consumption in the U.S. in the next decade,” said William T. Godshall, the executive director of Smokefree Pennsylvania. His group has previously campaigned for higher cigarette taxes, smoke-free public places and graphic warnings on cigarette packs, but he now finds himself at odds with many of his former allies over the question of e-cigarettes.

“There is no evidence that e-cigarettes have ever harmed anyone, or that youths or nonsmokers have begun using the products,” Mr. Godshall said. On a scale of harm from 1 to 100, where nicotine gums and lozenges are 1 and cigarettes are 100, he estimated that e-cigarettes are no higher than 2.

Regardless of aggressive anti-cigarette campaigns, the decline in cigarette use in the past few decades has been slow:

But the sharpest decline in smoking rates in the United States occurred in the decades before 1990, when public health experts concentrated on simply educating people about the risks. The decline has been slower the past two decades despite increasingly elaborate smoking-cessation programs and increasingly coercive tactics: punitive taxes; limits on marketing and advertising; smoking bans in offices, restaurants and just about every other kind of public space.

And I love the hard tactics, lets look at the facts line used next:

Some 50 million Americans continue to smoke, and it’s not because they’re too stupid to realize it’s dangerous. They go on smoking in part because of a fact that the prohibitionists are loath to recognize: Nicotine is a drug with benefits. It has been linked by researchers(and smokers) to reduced anxiety and stress, lower weight, faster reaction time and improved concentration.

“It’s time to be honest with the 50 million Americans, and hundreds of millions around the world, who use tobacco,” Dr. Rodu writes. “The benefits they get from tobacco are very real, not imaginary or just the periodic elimination of withdrawal.

“It’s time to abandon the myth that tobacco is devoid of benefits, and to focus on how we can help smokers continue to derive those benefits with a safer delivery system.”

And, more importantly, I can appreciate his stand point more because he is an ex-smoker:

As a former addict myself — I smoked long ago, and was hooked on Nicorette gum for a few years — I can appreciate why the prohibitionists fear nicotine’s appeal. I agree that abstinence is the best policy. Yet it’s obviously not working for lots of people. No one knows exactly what long-term benefits they’d gain from e-cigarettes, but we can say one thing with confidence: Every time they light up a tobacco cigarette, they’d be better off vaping.

That, is great journalism.  He is pro electronic cigarettes, but he is also not blinded against the other side of the debate.  Why can’t every one who is pro or con give both sides?  That way I at least know where your coming from.

Again, you can read the full post here.

Electronic Cigarettes are stirring up controversy in Canada, specifically New Brunswick according to one article in the CBCNEWS..  In 2009, Health Canada told stores to pull the nicotine-containing electronic cigarettes from the shelf.  The Canadians are now simply buying them online.  This is now having people report to their physicians who are asking the one hard question:  Are they safe?

The New Brunswick Lung Association’s Barbara Walls said she’s just started getting calls about them.

“Recently, I’ve had a call from a physician and a nurse practitioner whose clients are using what’s called vapour e-cigarettes,” she said.

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