American Lung Association Pushes For Ban On Electronic Cigarettes 790
Anarki2004 writes "The American Lung Association is jumping on board the ban-E-cigs-train. From the article: 'So, while the ALA admitted that electronic cigarettes contain fewer chemicals than tobacco cigarettes, they refuse to acknowledge the obvious health benefit that lack of the most toxic chemicals provides to the smokers who switch. Are lives and lung health the real issue here or is nicotine addiction? The ALA must know that numerous studies show that, absent the tobacco smoke, nicotine is relatively harmless and comparable to caffeine. The American Heart Association acknowledges that nicotine is "safe" in other smoke-free forms such as patches or gum.' For those of you not in the know, electronic cigarettes (also called personal vaporizers) are a nicotine delivery device that resembles a cigarette in shape and size, but does not burn tobacco. It is less a expensive alternative to the traditional tobacco cigarette that is by all appearances (though not thoroughly researched) also healthier."
Good article (Score:5, Insightful)
But the ALA has an agenda to push, and logic and reason be damned.
Re:Good article (Score:5, Interesting)
no kidding. My husband has a serious cigarette allergy (his throat swells shut and he falls over unable to breathe), more smokers people using e-cigs the better. The lack of all that crap in them greatly reduces his symptoms, and the fact that a far higher % is absorbed by the smoker means that there is less in the air per "cig".
E-cigs have far less second hand smoke, and generally only harm the person using them. If anything, the APA should be trying to get more long term smokers to swap to e-cigs if they are not planning on quiting.
Re:Good article (Score:4, Informative)
The term personal vaporizor is used a lot. But that tends to make people think of smoke, and there isn't any. Nothing is burned in an Ecig. Instead an element is heated and the liquid nicotine substance is turned to vapor, inhaled and never exhaled significantly. There are almost none of the chemicals found in tobacco, and it's nearly impossible with current ecigs to OD on nicotine (something you probably can't do with tobacco, but could with liquid nicotine substances).
Frankly this whole thing stinks of a ploy by the tobacco industry to maintain dominance in a field where technology and innovation are about to crush them. That, or keep the tax revenue up... or both.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The "smoke" you see is water vapor.
There must be some amount of other chemicals in that "water vapor" or else these devices wouldn't be any different from sticking your head over a humidifier.
Anecdotal only, but I can smell something in the air when one of these devices is around me. Last I checked, water was odorless (no jokes about some river near you, please).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
nope. really, that's all it is. nicotine, fake smoke (For smokers), and that's it. No other millions of chemicals.
From the FDA Website:
Newer information from the FDA suggests that e-cigarettes are not safe. A 2009 analysis of 18 samples of cartridges from 2 leading e-cigarette brands found cancer-causing substances in half the samples. There were other impurities noted as well. For example, diethylene glycol, a toxic ingredient found in antifreeze, was found in one sample.
The reason this is a big deal is that the rate of permanent cigarette quitters for ecigs is substantially higher than the rate of quitters on patches/etc. It's like 7% on patches versus somewheres in the 50% rate on ecigs.
Do you have a citation for this? Last I looked the data did not seem to be there at all. I'd be curious to see a real scientific study.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
honestly, I read it on some sites I came across when the ban was pushed again, but I'll see if I can find it. From a read of wiki, maybe the sites were a bit biased, since wikipedia at least claims that there have been no conclusive studies.
Hmm.
I don't know, I don't have the expertise to reliably cite the studies, so someone please mod down my OPs.
Re:Good article (Score:5, Informative)
Not quite [wikipedia.org]. Now, these are significantly less harmful than the tar and such in cigarettes, but to say it's 100% pure nicotine is false.
The bigger plus is that most of these chemicals are absorbed by the user, rather than dispersed second-hand. There are still trace amounts of harmful things in the solutions, not sure how much is released secondhand.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The War on Drugs sees what you did there...
Re:Good article (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not entirely true. Some people have looked into the cartriges in the e-cigs and have found all sorts of interesting stuff like anti-freeze and unknown compounds.
http://class-actions.lawyers.com/blogs/archives/1781-The-Dangers-of-E-Cigarettes.html
Re:Good article (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And that is a problem, how, exactly? It's not like people are becoming addicted to nicotine through second hand inhalation, even with regular cigarettes.
Re:Good article (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were you I'd be more worried about other sources of "secondhand vapors", like car exhaust, than I would be of accidentally inhaling a little nicotine.
Re:Good article (Score:5, Insightful)
And obviously the road to improvement is to ban the progress we've made so far and hold out for the yet-to-come perfect solution in the future.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the large number of chemicals in a cigarette, I wouldn't be so sure that an allergy to them is impossible.
Also, if it's possible to have an allergy to tobacco leaves, then what are the grounds for presuming that it's impossible to have an allergy to the smoke from such leaves burning?
I really doubt that you have any grounds for saying that such an allergy is impossible. Not that your hypothesis that it's a sensitivity to smoke, and tobacco only because it's in smoke form. That may be a reasonable co
Re:Good article (Score:5, Insightful)
What is their agenda? (other than to promote lung health, which no reasonable person could criticize)
Re:Good article (Score:4, Insightful)
What is their agenda? (other than to mandate lung health, which many reasonable people who want to control their own bodies could criticize)
Fixed that for you.
Re:Good article (Score:5, Interesting)
It's funny. Some people seem to have no problem with big corporations controlling almost every aspect of their lives, but take offense at mere suggestions from people trying to look out for them. It's almost as if they identify with the corporations and the owning class CEOs and board members who run them, and anything that limits the powers of said fat cats is a personal affront. News Flash, you idiots: you are not owning class fat cats and you never will be so stop siding with them all the time. They are laughing at you as they rape you and steal your wallet, while you sit there like the abused spouse who defends their own oppressor.
Re:Good article (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, many of us don't like the idea of ANY interest group, corporation, religious zealot, etc. forcing their lifestyle on us. There is always some causenik out there that wants the government to force everyone to do this or that, whether it's a Mormon telling me what kind of beer I can drink, to some environmentalist who wants to force me to use a crappy low-flow toilet (no pun intended), to some corporation who wants my tax dollars going into a sweetheart deal for them. Everyone thinks they've got it right, and that gives them to right to make me do it their way too.
It's like grandpappy used to say "Kid, if you ever want to see everyone in the world all at once, just yell out 'Will everyone who thinks they're doing it better than I am please come here'."
Re:Good article (Score:4, Insightful)
Living in a society requires compromise. Freedom, in fact, is always a trade off. We trade a freedom we don't desire, like the freedom to punch someone in the nose, for a freedom we do desire, like freedom from being punched.
A Mormon telling you what beer to drink is not, in fact, impacted by your decision. But I am impacted by your decision to waste a scarce natural resource, or to pollute. I should have a say when people's actions impact me, and people should take responsibility for their actions, such as polluting, or wasting water.
Freedom is far more complicated than asserting "You're not the boss of me!" We have an interdependent society. We aren't hunter-gatherers anymore, we require society in order to function. Living with others in an interdependent relationship is complicated, as any married person knows, but it is necessary these days, and so it is necessary to let others tell us what to do. In exchange, we get a say in what they do.
If you don't want people telling you what to do, there is a simple solution: don't live in a society. Go be a hermit somewhere. That's the only legitimate way to not be told what to do. Otherwise, you are essentially saying that you want to make demands on others, but refuse to let them make demands on you.
Re:Good article (Score:5, Insightful)
We do make social decisions about the nose, that's exactly my point. Without the social decision, we do not have rights. We either have, or lack, power. We either have the power to stop our nose form being hit, or we don't. To speak of rights without society is meaningless. Rights derive from contracts agreed to by individuals who collectively form society. Interdependence does not mean one person giving another orders. That is called dependence, and is a childish way to look at relationships. Society, and relationships are about acceptable compromises. Your reductio ad absurdum is actually a poorly constructed straw man that has nothing to do with my original argument, but thanks for trying.
I'll say it again: freedom is more complicated than "you're not the boss of me." See my sig.
Re:Good article (Score:5, Insightful)
It's hard to say, but considering that they want to eliminate a device which clearly causes less harm (and may cause NO harm) so that people RETURN TO SMOKING, clearly they have abandoned the promotion of lung health. My guess is that their new agenda is "keep the cash coming in". All else is secondary.
This is abstincence vs. harm reduction (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a philosophical battle. Some people believe abstinence is the only answer to addiction, while others think addiction isn't the problem, it is the harm addiction causes that is the problem. To the first group, devices like this are insidious evils which corrupt the innocent with the promise of harm free drug use. To which the second group usually responds with something along the lines of, "LOLwhat? Without harm, what's the fucking problem, you tightass sonsabitches?" It is basically a battle between the Puritan ideal that all pleasures of the flesh are bad, wrong, and evil, and the not so crazy idea that harm is bad while pleasure is good.
Re:This is abstincence vs. harm reduction (Score:5, Insightful)
-- H. L. Mencken
Re:This is abstincence vs. harm reduction (Score:4, Informative)
I think you are giving people far too little credit. Most people who use drugs do not become addicted to them, while conversely, some people have addictive personalities and will find something, anything, to become addicted to. Your doomsday scenario is not backed up by modern science. Addictions don't work the way you suppose they do. In fact, even most people who do become addicted to something will eventually gain control over their addiction without outside help. I'm not even sure what you are basing your hypothesis on, certainly not any science done in the last fifty years.
Re:This is abstincence vs. harm reduction (Score:4, Interesting)
One side says these are evil, harmful, addictive things that destroy lives; the other says (get this-- it's great) people will manage themselves fine while addicted to crack, and will get professional help and have doctors write prescriptions, and use their drugs responsibly.
No: One side says addicts should be dealt with by the police, the other says addicts should be dealt with by doctors.
Oh, ok, I'll meet you half way: One side says addicts are evil and their lives should be destroyed by the police, the other says addicts should be dealt with by doctors.
There, that's closer to how you said it.
Re:This is abstincence vs. harm reduction (Score:5, Informative)
>But this is all very fuzzy; importantly, it's just as fuzzy as "everything will be fine." Read this again: the hypothesis that legalizing drugs will result in a Utopian Paradise or even in a complete null operation (i.e. no change) is JUST AS CRAZY as assuming the whole world will slowly fall apart
Actually, you are completely wrong. Portugal decriminalized all drug possession in 2001 [time.com], and since then:
"The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well."
So, there is not no change when you decriminalize, there is actually a decrease in use. Still no utopia, but a better outcome than the current system by far.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You only need to look at my nic to know what side of the fence I'm going to come down on. Still:
"They will then proceed to abuse their prescriptions (people do this already with prescription meds) to get high... well, higher." As you said, this is happening now. Good luck in trying to reverse it. I remember reading somewhere that 15% of the adult Western World is talking some form of anti-depressant. So that means that 15% of the adult Western World are legal drug addicts. But doctors prescribe those
Re:Good article (Score:4, Insightful)
Same as most bureaucracies, their agenda is the continuance of the bureaucracy. Organizations like this have a tendency to take on a life of their own and as their goals become closer to being achieved they need to expand their scope to ensure there is still a reason for their existence.
Re:Good article (Score:4, Insightful)
What is their agenda? (other than to promote lung health, which no reasonable person could criticize)
Their agenda is to acquire the funding to pay their salaries. Promoting lung health is only their excuse to get people to part with their money. If all the lung problems they currently work against were to be cured tomorrow they would find some other reason to ask for people's money. The ALA has done (and continues to do) a lot of really good work, but as eventually happens to most organizations its primary goal has become self-perpetuation.
Agenda? (Score:5, Insightful)
What is their agenda? (other than to promote lung health, which no reasonable person could criticize)
When their agenda includes banning a legal product because they think it sends the wrong message, then they've crossed the line. They've done noble work over the years, but they're becoming as bad as those fools from the Center For Science In The Public Interest. If you want to convince someone to change habits, more power to them. If you're trying to ban a legal product because, well, you just know what's good for them, then ALA can go pound sand.
Note: I don't even smoke. Never have. But ALA is just being a nannying busybody here.
Re:Good article (Score:4, Insightful)
Why isn't the ALA pushing for funding to get a study? If there's no hard evidence one way or the other, it seems stupid to make any statements about these things.
mod parent observant (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not flamebait, it's human natue. Like all other self-righteous do-gooders and cause-sellers who want to tell you how to live your life, the ALA wants you to do it THEIR WAY and their way ONLY.
Also, an environmentalist doesn't want you to just pick any old way to reduce carbon (i.e. clean coal, hyrdro-electric, nuclear), they want you to pick THEIR chosen ways of doing it (wind and solar) and those ONLY.
Also, a bible-thumper doesn't want you to come to Jesus just any old way, they want you to do it th
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Same with MADD. That's why the founders quit.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Is the tobacco industry against e-cigs? Wouldn't it be the least bit ironic if the ALA found itself on the same side as them?
Re:Good article (Score:4, Insightful)
It would be ironic but not illogical.
If the enemy of my enemy is his enemy for a different reason than mine, then he is still not my friend.
Like the U.S. and the Soviet Union in WW2, we will fight our common enemy from either side, then when we meet in Berlin we will resume fighting each other.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Rule 29: The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more. No less.
-- "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Pirates"
Re:Good article (Score:5, Informative)
I have a better idea (Score:5, Insightful)
How about we sell cigs that don't contain so much bullshit? I mean honestly...is all that crap really necessary?
Re:I have a better idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, just removing the extra bullshit doesn't solve the fundamental problem of inhaling hot gases produced by the combustion of solid matter. You're still pulling things into your lungs they're capable of handling, but the regularity of it just overwhelms them.
I think the ALA here is seeing a "suggestiveness" due to the cigarette appearance, and it doesn't have anything to do with nicotine (I haven't seen them fuss about nicotine patches.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hey retard,
Read the post I was replying to, which was pretty obviously referring to cigarettes themselves.
Re:I have a better idea (Score:4, Insightful)
How about we sell cigs that don't contain so much bullshit? I mean honestly...is all that crap really necessary?
If that were so easy don't you think the tobacco companies would already be offering such a product? The simple fact is that you're setting fire to something and sucking in the fumes; it's inevitable you're inhaling something harmful.
You can buy them, doesn't matter. (Score:3, Interesting)
It isn't hard to find chemical free cigarettes. Most of the convenience stores around here stock at least one variety, like this brand [nascigs.com]. They aren't really any healthier though. The health problems with cigarettes have far less to do with the chemicals, and more to do with partially combusted hydrocarbons (tar) sticking to the most sensitive parts of your lungs.
The chemicals are put into cigarettes for various reasons - some to make the smoke "smoother", some for flavor, some to make the cigarette burn faste
Re:I have a better idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Wrong. There is precedence that even growing your own wheat for personal consumption is regulated by the administrative branch an the concept that there is an interstate market of wheat, and your growth and consumption affects that market.
The ATF can and will use its unnatural power however it sees fit.
However, an the topic of home grown tobacco, it will still have a load of nasty crap in the smoke. Just less than manufactured cigs with formaldehyde, etc.
Nicotine (Score:5, Insightful)
Nicotine is far from harmless. Best to keep people away from it if at all possible.
Not by force of law necessarily, but by education and social support.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Wait...LSD is a "soft drug?"
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"The currently available literature indicates that nicotine, on its own, does not promote the development of cancer in healthy tissue and has no mutagenic properties"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine [wikipedia.org]
One has to wonder... (Score:3, Insightful)
I dislike second-hand smoke, and... (Score:5, Insightful)
...give me a seat next to an electric cigarette smoker over a cigarette smoker any day.
There's a lot of FUD about nicotine, when it is not apparent that nicotine is dangerous, compared to all the other chemicals that get delivered with the traditional nicotine cigarette.
I've never seen the need for treating nicotine like a controlled substance outside cigarettes. If I want Nicorette for uses other than smoking-cessation, how is that any more dangerous than my ability to buy aspirin, acetaminophen, or caffeine tablets, all of which can be used to a harmful degree?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
addiction... while nicotine is not that dangerous on its own, it is still hellishly addictive.
Re:I dislike second-hand smoke, and... (Score:5, Funny)
addiction... while nicotine is not that dangerous on its own, it is still hellishly addictive.
And slashdot isn't?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
It is now. I used to avoid /. when Goatse links and GNAA posts would randomly appear. The pain factor has been removed and now I'm completely addicted with no harmful effects. Kind of like the fake cigarettes being discussed.
Haven't we learned anything!?!?
It's the usual (Score:3, Insightful)
People who derive gratification from telling others what to do and what is good for them. They always have a convoluted explanation, but it always comes down to others having to adapt to busybody's choices.
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."
John Stuart Mill
I am not a smoker.
Re:It's the usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe it's people who are fed up with an unhealthy society and having to pay for the mistakes of idiots who ruin their bodies with no regards to the larger picture.
Re:It's the usual (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe it's people who are fed up with an unhealthy society and having to pay for the mistakes of idiots who ruin their bodies with no regards to the larger picture.
So get rid of the nanny/welfare state that tries to take care of us from cradle to grave and force people to live with the consequences of their choices. Problem solved.
Re:It's the usual (Score:5, Insightful)
A rational response to not wanting to pay for other people's mistakes is to set up a system where you don't pay for other people's mistakes, not try to legislate those mistakes out of existence. If smokers were prevented from taking part in public health plans like Medicare I think you'd see a lot less smokers out there...in about a generation or so after the first batch died off.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Point is, do you really believe you can run around punishing everyone who does something unhealthy or undesirable?
Re:It's the usual (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, that'd be fair. Well, that is unless smokers weren't already taxed on their habit. Wait, how many billions do smokers contribute again? Way more than they use on healthcare?
Go look at the figures and one you realise how much smokers are actually subsidising plans like medicare you may have a different opinion.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe, but i think that's the wrong fix.
In my mind, if you smoke.. you just ticked the "I don't want lung coverage" option on your health program. Just like if you drink heavy, you just signed a statement saying "I opt out of a replacement liver should mine prematurely fail."
Is my view ok? If not, i will join you.. but that might be a bad thing. If i see an overweight person in line at McD's i'll feel compelled to smack the sack of burgers out of his hands and yell at them.
Re:It's the usual (Score:5, Insightful)
That one went out the window years ago. The big tobacco settlements and the exorbitant taxes on cigarettes are supposedly to pay for the health costs associated with smoking. It's not the smoker's fault that 97% of that has been misappropriated for other uses.
Then there's the lack of an explanation for why the ALA and company wouldn't be pushing for 100% of smokers to switch TO e-cigs given that they avoid exposure to practically everything in cigarettes that has been shown to be harmful if they do so.
healthier??? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it isn't. It is just less harmful.
If you don't know the difference, probably you say a gunshot wound is healthier than stepping on a landmine.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, yeah, yeah it is.
Less harmful and healthier do in fact mean the same thing, in the context of harm to human bodies.
You're more likely to survive a gunshot wound than a landmine, in general. That's pretty much what "healthier" means. It doesn't mean "overall makes you live longer than you would without it", it means "overall makes you live longer than you would with the specific alternative being compared".
The E-cigs aren't exactly GOOD for your lungs... (Score:5, Insightful)
So while the rest of the toxic crap that is added to cigarettes (much of it to keep them burning) might not be present, the inhaled mixture itself isn't good for your lungs regardless. So the ALA has a pretty valid point that E-cigs are still bad, even if they are less bad.
Re:The E-cigs aren't exactly GOOD for your lungs.. (Score:5, Insightful)
So the ALA has a pretty valid point that E-cigs are still bad, even if they are less bad.
So we should ban E-Cigs, but not the "more" bad regular kind?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So the ALA has a pretty valid point that E-cigs are still bad, even if they are less bad.
So we should ban E-Cigs, but not the "more" bad regular kind?
I suspect it is, at least in part, a case of them picking their battles. It is easier to stop a new product than kill an existing one; and if their interest is in lung health they should take action against things that are bad for lung health. They likely realize that there is no chance in hell of pulling off a full bad on regular cigarettes - at least not with a pro-business government - so they might as well put energy into something they might be able to get some traction on.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The E-cigs aren't exactly GOOD for your lungs.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nicotine suspended in Polyproplene Glycol, or Vegetable Glycerine. Checking these two out you will find that not only are they safe but where considered in the past for vaporizing into the air within hospitals to make the environment safer.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
eCigs have about 1/1000th the health risk of a normal cigarette. Somehow moving society forward to a far less harmful way to maintain a nicotine addiction is a bad thing? Sure, addiction is bad, but dying of cancer is a lot worse. This is a way to significantly avoid cancer. It's completely antithetical to the ALA's stated purpose to be against these.
I think the ALA is just pissed cause they aren't going to be able to continue their free ride where they are funded by a cut of cigarette taxes. Of course they
ALA is being a fool (Score:3, Insightful)
I occasionally smoke cigarettes (we're talking a few times a month). They're horrible for your lungs, full of tar, and your lungs work like a sponge. Ask a smoking friend to see their cigarette when they're done and look at the filter.
The less people who smoke cigarettes, the better. It's terrible for them, but it's also bad for people around them inhaling the smoke. Good riddance.
But these e-cigarettes are nicotine and some flavoring, with a battery vaporizer. Now, nicotine's not harmless in the slightest - it is, in fact, rat poison. But nicotine alone vs. nicotine, tar, formaldehyde, etc... all in one package - it doesn't take a genius to figure out which you should be encouraging people to use.
Most smokers I know are acutely aware of how bad it is for them (actually, most are medical professionals of some sort). Some of them want to stop and can't, and some of them just don't care. But they know it's bad, they're not in denial about it. The people I hang out tend to be well educated about this sort of stuff, but many aren't. If the ALA were to come out and say "hey guys, smoke this instead! same great effects, no tar, woohoo... vastly vastly reduced risk of cancer" well they'd probably switch.
In fact, straight nicotine basically doesn't affect the lungs - it'll mess up your arteries and brain, but largely ignore your lungs. <conspiracy_theory>Maybe they're worried about being put out of business</conspiracy_theory>
They're decent... (Score:3, Interesting)
Beloved Spouse has been using these. They smell less bad, they're not as bad for you, and they make it a lot easier to taper down nicotine to get rid of it -- without taking away the fidget. Seems like a great idea, and I am pretty sure the only reason to ban them is that they could result in many people ceasing to use the pure-cancer form of nicotine delivery.
One caveat, though, the cartridges don't seem to last NEARLY as long as advertised. Still cheaper that traditional cigs.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Spliff? (Score:4, Funny)
Rachel: "Do you mind if I smoke electronic cigarettes?"
Decker: "It won't affect the test. Give me a hit."
What's the author's agenda? (Score:5, Interesting)
The author is attacking the American Lung Association for their agenda. But what's the author's agenda?
Quoting from her bio on the site: Kristin Noll-Marsh is a charter member of the board of directors of The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA), Vapers International and a member of the Vaper's Coalition, a cooperation of organizations working to encourage the use and understanding of smoke-free alternatives. She receives no funding (directly or indirectly) from tobacco, drug or e-cigarette companies or trade assocations.
Do you honestly believe that those organizations listed do not receive substantial sponsorshipf from e-cigarette companies and affiliated interests?
Re:What's the author's agenda? (Score:5, Informative)
For the most part, 'e-cigarette companies' are monNpop operations importing the hardware from China. There ARE no big e-cig companies. The afilliated interests are primarily individuals who have switched from smoking to e-cigs and don't want bans to push them back to burning tobacco.
The pharmaceutical and tobacco companies are against them because they cut into their profits.
a question to ask slashdot smokers (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm an ex-smoker (yeah yeah I know reformed whore), & have switched to using a vaporizer for my fine herbals. I rarely smoke anymore, but now have realized I have no means of partaking outside my home without going back to old ways.
What electronic cigs have you used for a mid priced unit & what if any manufacturer would you recommend or stay away from?
Thanks
'Anti-nicotine' is simple 'competition' (Score:4, Interesting)
We're witnessing, in our own time, a version of the 'Edison DC'/'Tesla AC' debate. Except there's more law and fewer dead elephants.
In the one corner, tobacco. Long-known, home-grown, proven mood-adjuster. People can self-medicate throughout their normal day by taking what's known as a 'smoke break', as little or as often as necessary. There are no debilitating effects, like with alcohol or marijuana, that otherwise interfere with your daily life. It is messy, yes, but quite effective and relatively cheap (before taxes).
In the other corner, prescription drugs. Little pills exist for every problem. Your doctor tells you how many to take, and your pharmacy tells you how much it costs. When they don't work quite well enough, go back to the doc and get some more. Eventually you'll need a box with seven compartments to keep it all straight, but you might just wind up feeling exactly the way you want, all the time. Look at Chantix, for example. One-for-one transition with that one: nicotine to prescriptions.
Now ask yourself, who staffs the ALA? Who makes their policy decisions? Lay persons, or medical industry types?
Occam's Razor applies here. Unless you really think that it makes MORE sense that the ALA has collectively taken leave of its senses.
Call them! (Score:5, Informative)
I just called my local branch of the ALA and it turns out this article is mostly scaremongering.
As it was described to me they are pushing for two things currently;
Prohibit the sale to those under the age of 18.
and
Investigate the safety of the ingredients.
They're not trying to blindly take away your e-cigs, they're pressing for things that are actually rather reasonable. The person I spoke to stated that they are NOT pushing for a blanket ban, only a request for testing with decisions to be made after official, legitimate research has taken place.
Seeing as how I want an ingredients list and some sort of quality control on the stuff I'm puffing on right now, this is directly in line with my own interests as an e-cigarette user.
Really? "and echo his call" (Score:3, Informative)
They themselves have in a press release asked for an absolute BAN
http://www.lungusa.org/press-room/press-releases/e-cigarettes-action.html [lungusa.org]
"Our organizations thank Senator Lautenberg for his leadership in urging the FDA to remove these products from the market and echo his call that the FDA move quickly to remove these products from the marketplace. "
Great for Cannabis (Score:4, Informative)
ALA stop nanny-state-ing us (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm onboard with the bans on public smoking/second hand smoke. SH smoke can't be controlled, it can't be avoided and is largely forced on to other people. While I doubt smokers intend it, forcing SH smoke is really a selfish act that is detrimental to society at large. It's forcing others to accept your choice.
But if you want to smoke, full speed ahead! You do want you want with my blessing.
This thinking on banning electronic cigarrettes seems to be similar to a lot of the logic that goes on in pushing for more outlawing of thought crime. Nothing's taking place that is harming anyone whatsoever (even the smoker) but someone somewhere deems it wrong or immoral or whatever. We should have the right to kill ourselves in anyway we desire so long as there is no direct or indirect (to a couple of levels) harm to other people.
Going on a rant.. but I really hate our backwards false-puritanical society. Religion, god, faith, allah, $other_diety$.. it's all a crock of mind-control horseshit.
What actual scientists have to say instead. (Score:4, Informative)
FDA smoke screen on e-cigarettes
by Dr. Elizabeth Whelan
Dr. Elizabeth Whelan is president of the American Council on Science and Health.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/06/fda-smoke-screen-on-e-cigarettes/ [washingtontimes.com]
"The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a press conference late last month to scare Americans about the so-called "e-cigarette" -- claiming it was loaded with harmful "toxins" and "carcinogens." The agency was implicitly saying: Stay away from these newfangled, untested cigarette substitutes -- better to stick with the real ones, the ones that we are more familiar with, the ones that cause over 450,000 deaths annually in the U.S.
In making its distorted, incomplete and misleading statement, FDA was violating its long-cherished tradition of sticking to sound science as the basis for its policies. And in doing so, it is putting the lives and health of millions of Americans at risk."
The FDA has shown E-Cigarettes to be less likely to cause cancer than even nicotine gum based on nitrosamine content.
FDA report on nitrosamine content of cigarettes, Nicotine replacements and E-Cigs
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/ScienceResearch/UCM173250.pdf [fda.gov]
Canadian report on nitrosamine levels in commercial cigarettes
http://smoke-vs-vapor.webs.com/Canadian%20Cigarette%20Data%202004.ods [webs.com]
Website that has compiled data and presented a table of the data for quick viewing
http://smoke-vs-vapor.webs.com/nitrosaminelevels.htm [webs.com]
Bullshit (Score:3, Interesting)
The ALA can go fuck itself. E-cigs are from what I've noticed the single best way to quit smoking and apparently the ALA doesn't want people to actually quit smoking. Patches and all that jazz don't work so I wonder how much ALA funding is coming from the makers of those.
It's quite clear there's more to a cigarette addiction than just a nicotine addiction. Patches and all that crap barely work for that very reason.
I know a lot of people who have tried to quit for years or decades without much success. Then they tried e-cigs and after a while they don't smoke at all anymore or at most once a week. Quite a few have even stopped smoking e-cigs as well. If I remember studies show the success rate to be absurdly better than any other approach.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The problem is that the e-cig manufacturers are distributing a drug without having gone through the FDA process. They can sell them if they want, but they have to go through the proper channels just like everyone else.
The manufacturers are taking advantage of the fact that nobody really knows what is inside these things. I can only assume that they figured no one would stop them from selling a nicotine product if they made it look like a novelty and sold it in mall kiosks. But the FDA did notice. If the
Apple launches iCig (Score:3, Funny)
This is ridiculous (Score:3, Insightful)
Vaporizers are a whole lot healthier when comparing with smoking for medical marijuana, there's no reason they shouldn't be much healthier with tobacco also. The ALA looks pretty stupid here, a couple more moves like this and they'll seem as intelligent as those 'birthers' who refuse to believe Hawaii officials about who was born there.
Helpful link (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.joelspitzer.com/whyquit/joel/Joel_01_13_gradual_withdrawal.html [joelspitzer.com]
Re:The entire concept is mistaken (Score:5, Insightful)
But you're missing the point. Breaking away from these "crutches" should be a personal choice. They're wanting to legislate them out of existence.
"Crutch" or not, if someone wants to use that crutch, that's their business. This is PARTICULARLY true when the crutch has been reduced to a mere financial draw, with no serious health consequences.
Re:The entire concept is mistaken (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly.
I smoke, on occasion, when I feel like it. A cigar once a month, sometimes a pipe if I'm in the mood. Not exactly a pack a day sort of thing, but I have a real problem with people trying to make this illegal, or tax it unfairly.
What I do in my home is my problem. Don't smoke in yours.
The bar thing drove me nuts too - I ended up having to join a 'club' instead so that I could still have a whiskey and a smoke when I felt like it instead of having to stand outside like dog.
Re:The entire concept is mistaken (Score:5, Insightful)
I can completely follow your reasoning until right up in the end. I think it's only fair that you are not allowed to bother other people with your smoke. If you want to smoke in private or with only other smokers present, by all means. But don't do it anywhere where I have to inhale it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The entire concept is mistaken (Score:4, Informative)
This one's easy. The chemicals in tobacco smoke (GOOD tobacco) dissolve in your saliva and impart a flavor to it, which you can taste on your tongue.. vaguely. However, drinking good scotch (scottish whiskey) with those chemicals lingering in your saliva vastly changes the flavor; for some people, scotch is nothing special until they've had it with a cigar and experienced some amazing epiphany as the flavor opens up and transforms into something truly unique.
As a result, some whiskey drinkers like to drink good malt liquor (whiskey, scotch, bourbon) with good tobacco.
Re:The entire concept is mistaken (Score:5, Interesting)
I enjoy going to smoke-free establishments as well; however, if that were my only reason for liking smoking bans, I would oppose them. If you don't like what goes on in a bar, it's your responsibility to not patronize that bar. If no bar owners choose to provide the product you want (a smoke-free bar), too bad for you; you shouldn't be able to legislate that someone provide a product you prefer.
HOWEVER, that is not the only reason to support a smoking ban. A far more valid reason, and the reason I do support such bans, is that the bar's employees are also exposed to second-hand smoke. The argument "they could choose not to work there" doesn't hold up, unless we also discard all of the OSHA regulations that provide for workplace safety.
Re:The entire concept is mistaken (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
But that's exactly the question [wsj.com] isn't it? "the groups say e-cigarettes have yet to be proven safe... 'Nobody knows what the consumers are actually inhaling,' says Erika Sward, director of national advocacy at the American Lung Association." "[The FDA] has examined electronic cigarettes and determined that they meet the definition of both a drug and device under the Federal Food, Drug
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
'Nobody knows what the consumers are actually inhaling,' says Erika Sward, director of national advocacy at the American Lung Association."
Wouldn't it take the mythbusters around 5 minutes to come up with a gadget to get you an air sample? Feed it to a mass spectrometer and you have your list.
I'd push for testing before pushing for a ban, personally.
But does that argument has any legal basis? People are assuming these are safe; if it turns out otherwise, there could be a lot of upset. We could blame individuals for assuming they're safe without proof, but did you feel like you were going out on a limb when you asserted "no serious health consequences"?
Given the circumstances, all I personally ask for is that it's settled that they're statistically safer than cigarettes. The next step would be to make sure they're as safe as such a nicotine delivery method can realistically be. If they're a couple orders of magnitude safer, why the heck wouldn
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If they turn out to be harmful but less so than cigarettes, perhaps they should be available on prescription for smoking cessation only, rather than just marketed to everybody as a harmless way to get addicted to nicotine. (I don't think there's any controversy about the addictiveness of nicotine, is there? Tobacco companies spent good money spraying it onto cigarettes to make them mo
Re:The entire concept is mistaken (Score:5, Informative)
As long as you continue to feed your nicotine addiction, you will never be able to break yourself away from these crutches.
Uhuh.
So?
Honestly, I don't get American culture. There's this utterly ridiculous obsession with drug dependence, even when the drugs are completely harmless. Hell, even patients undergoing end-of-life palliative care sometimes refuse to take pain killers for fear of dependence. It's ridiculous!
Honestly, *who cares* if these people are addicted to some drug, so long as the drug itself causes no negative health effects? Does it make them less productive members of society? No. Does it create an undo burden on the healthcare system? No. Does it hurt them in any way, save that they blow a little extra money to maintain the addiction? No! So who gives a shit?
The only reason to oppose devices like this is because you believe you have some higher moral standard that other people should aspire to. And quite frankly? You can shove that standard straight up your ass, because it's none of your damn business what these people choose to put in their bodies.
Re:The entire concept is mistaken (Score:5, Funny)
You can shove that standard straight up your ass, because it's none of your damn business what these people choose to put in their bodies.
Something about that statement strikes me as contradictory.
Re:The entire concept is mistaken (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So, in the world regarding to zzsmirkzz, people ought to be shot for *believing* something.
No, in the world regarding to zzsmirkzz, people ought to be shot for trying to foist their beliefs onto others. If he does not want HFCS that is his choice, and he has the tools necessary to make that choice for himself. He can even get on a podium and convince others that they should also go along with his choice. But this isn't good enough for him, he wants to make the choice for you and deny you your right to choose for yourself. People who are intolerant of the right of others to make their own choices
Re:healthier? (Score:5, Insightful)
The quit rate for nicotine sucks. Nicotine is just that addictive. It just isn't that harmful, though, so that isn't a huge deal. If you can skip the hard problem of getting somebody off nicotine, and attack the (much easier) problem of just getting them to use a delivery method that won't kill them and piss off everyone around them, you get 80% of the gains for 20% of the effort. A classic good outcome.