I came across an article called “The Deadly Crusade Against E-cigarettes” by Dr. Gilbert Ross, M.D. is executive and medical director of the American Council on Science and Health. In his article he actually takes a long view of the harmful effects of cigarettes on this Century. He calls it the “most important public health problem in the world”.

Experts predict the global death toll of cigarettes will approach a billion lives lost this century. That millions of people in Korea, and hundreds of millions of people around the world, are addicted to cigarettes should be considered the worst global catastrophe in human history.

The long view really puts the damage and death cigarettes bring to humanity in perspective. It’s hard to look at this data and find any reason we shouldn’t be looking for answers, real solutions, to this global epidemic. We know that society as a whole know cigarettes as harmful and dangerous. The government knows they are harmful as well. There are agencies that have been formed specifically for this purpose. They have even endorsed cessation products. But, lets look at how well they fair.

Among America’s 46 million smokers, well over half say they want to quit, and over one-third attempt to do so each year — but less than one-tenth succeed!
Yet, in a triumph of hypocrisy over science, the powers-that-be keep touting ineffective cessation products that fail 90 percent of the time.

What bothers me the most is not the results, but the government’s response to the results.

Despite those sorry statistics, those in charge at numerous government agencies and NGOs chant in unison, “Stick with the approved cessation methods.” This advice can be translated to “Quit, or die.”

E-cigarettes has an unconfirmed success rate of 33% to 40%, depending on who you ask. There are literally millions of e-cig users in America right now, and that number keeps growing. Annually, e-cigs sales about $300 million dollars among 2.5 million users according to data from Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association. Herzog projects this number will climb to $1 billion dollars in a few years.

Next week these bureaucrats will be gathering at a conclave in Seoul for the possible revision of an international tobacco treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), where they’ll be taking up e-cigarettes and perhaps even calling for a ban.

This is where I get more confused. Why jump to ban e-cigs? Now, I’m an e-cig user, so maybe my opinion is bias. So, stepping back, if the cessation devices are not really working as they intended, but e-cigs have a higher success results, why not investigate them further? I believe this would get the anti-tobacco legislators excited about a product they can use against big tobacco. I thought their goal was to get people off of cigarettes. I can see why people will scream “foul”, because it makes no sense. And, what do they believe will happen if they succeed in banning e-cigs?

The irrationality of these “public health” arguments puts into stark relief the blind-spot of the prohibitionist zealots: They fail to acknowledge the inconvenient fact that the millions of smokers in Europe, Asia and America – not to mention the billion or so worldwide – are not going to suddenly accept being regulated off their nicotine. The millions who have succeeded in quitting thanks to e-cigarettes and reduced risk tobacco products will not kick their habit and become nicotine-abstinent if these products are prohibited. No — they will revert to the widely available, deadliest source: cigarettes.

This is so true, I would indeed go back to cigarettes. I think about cigarettes even now, the smell… doesn’t smell bad. But, the craving is gone. With my e-cigs, I don’t have that.. “Must have one” that I use too for cigarettes and that’s enough for me to be smoke free for a year now.

What do you think?