Things are always better in the morning
Thursday, May 5, 2016 at 20:34 A week is a long time in politics, and also in public health.
Last Thursday advocates of vaping were celebrating a report by the Royal College of Physicians that found that:
... e-cigarettes are likely to be beneficial to UK public health. Smokers can therefore be reassured and encouraged to use them, and the public can be reassured that e-cigarettes are much safer than smoking.
The online vaping community was delighted, naturally. I wrote about it here but added a word of caution, pointing out that "vapers still face numerous threats and obstacles, just like smokers before them":
Tobacco control campaigners are fickle and the war between opposing camps – one 'pro-vaping', the other 'anti' – could go either way.
Worse, this is a global battle that's unlikely to be settled by what happens in the UK. For example, the imposition of the EU's Tobacco Products Directive which restricts the sale and marketing of e-cigarettes is a few weeks away.
That's going to have a significant impact on the e-cigarette industry yet the UK government has been powerless (or unwilling) to oppose the new regulations.
This week the e-cigarette company Totally Wicked lost its legal challenge to the European Court of Justice which means the EU has been given the green light to ban e-cigarette advertising and there will also be various restrictions on the manufacture, sale and marketing of e-cigs.
On top of that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in America has today announced it is to assume regulatory authority over e-cigarettes.
Fighting 'public health' is a rollercoaster of emotions and as I write vaping advocates are in meltdown.
Some are even trying their hands at 'satire' which neither works nor suits them, if I'm honest (NNA would like to congratulate the tobacco industry).
My advice? Don't throw your toys out of the pram just yet. At the very least sleep on it. Things are always better in the morning.
Reader Comments (6)
They think we smokers never fought and yet we know the battles they face and will lose because we fought them before vaping was invented.
I honestly wish them well - if winning or fighting isn't done by bashing smoking or smokers - but we who have lived it already know the outcome.
Well, they can't say you didn't warn them, can they, Simon? Did they take any notice? Did they heck! Oh no - not for them any advice from an experienced friend of the much-despised traditional smoker. Certainly not! They simply kept on with the old, hackneyed arguments, pointing with increasing desperation at that study which cited e-cigarettes as "95% safer" whilst failing to notice that the Health Zealots had not the slightest intention of taking even a cursory glance at such a study. You'd have thought, wouldn't you, that as (mostly) ex-smokers, the vaping lobby would have realised that, once the Zealots' minds are made up, no amount of reasoned argument, inconvenient research results, or even exhortations to "keep bullying smokers, not us!" can be permitted to stand in the way of The Great Plan for a Nicotine-Free World. Hey, vapers - it's all about the "punishment," remember (ref: Notts County Council). You're just not playing the game if you find a way to give up the smokes but not suffer for it! And the Zealots really, really don't like people who don't play the game according to their rules ...
Remember the study that said SHS had a protective effect on children' health Misty?? I do. But the anti-smoker industry refused to believe it in the same way that it largely refuses to believe this ecigs are 95% safer study.
They pay for the scaremongering and hype it up if the science doesn't show the Armageddon effect upon health that the funders require.
As I said, we have lived this. History is repeating for ecigs. Vapers could do themselves a favour and work with us. .... but can you hear that ........ that there is the sound of silence.
Bye bye vaping. It was good while you lasted. Now your future lies as an ineffective medicine, in the hands of Govt, and your days are numbered.
we could even write the future script based on what has been done to us first.
Wake up vapers. If you really want to save your own lives and keep enjoying your product. Treating us as lepers, bashing tobacco companies because you think it will win you friends and influence among the main players of the anti-smoker industry, just won't work. You are helping them to dig the grave of ecigs.
Pat
The vapers took the old time prohibitionists at their word and believed that only the nicotine in tobacco was of any importance.
Those prohibitionists seem to have only chosen nicotine because it was something they had heard of and as it was used commercially as a pesticide they could pour scorn on smokers to make them give up.
That was probably the limit of their knowledge even then because I have never seen TC mention that to use nicotine as a pesticide you have to mix it with sulphuric acid to make Nicotine Sulphate
nicotine (Black Leaf 40) Chemical Profile 4/85
TRADE NAME(S): Black Leaf 40
FORMULATION(S): Nicotine alkaloid, 95%; nicotine sulfate, 40% (56)
TYPE: Alkaloid insecticide
“PRINCIPAL USES: Sucking insects on plants but now largely replaced by organophosphate insecticides. Formerly used in greenhouses as a fumigant and as a paint roost for chicken lice and mites.”
“Little hazard to birds, fish and beneficial insects.”
“Approximate Residual Period: Very short, 1 day on plants; same in soil and water”
http://pmep.cce.cornell.edu/profiles/insect-mite/mevinphos-propargite/nicotine/insect-prof-nicotine.html
When burned/ oxidized, Nicotine turns into Vitamin B3, formerly known as Nicotinic Acid, but the name was changed in 1942 to Niacin at the suggestion of the American Medical Association to placate the antismokers of their day.
There's a tiny amount in cigarette smoke, but far more in a cup of coffee, in that case the pyridine alkaloid is called Trigonelline and converts to Nicotinic Acid when roasted.
There's a lot more to tobacco than just the nicotine, but the vapers have made their choice.
All links available on request, Simon permitting.
I smoke because I enjoy it for a myriad of reasons and it is that simple. Vaping, for me, is just not enjoyable. There is a chunk of something missing that means I just don't see the point. If it was just about the nicotine then why is that the case? It's like tea. I enjoy hot tea, with milk. Tea is tea right? It contains caffeine. So why don't I like iced tea, or black tea with lemon in it?
There is a chunk of something missing that means I just don't see the point
I suspected that might be the case.
I hadn't invested in an e-cigarette because I'm not a believer after testing NRT to see if it worked many years ago.
I have come to the opinion that nicotine is just one element in the total make up of a tobacco leaf, principally to deter grazing animals from eating it's green leaves, it's whole purpose is in tasting nasty.
Not that nicotine even slightly deters slugs or caterpillars, sadly.