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

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.

(Edit: I decided to dial back the four letter words a bit. I think the edited version still conveys the appropriate feeling, but it was never my intention to offend my readers.)

Second and final prefatory note: This post is going to sound angry. That’s because it is angry. I hope you understand, dear reader, that I’m not angry at you; I’m angry for you. I hope that I’m angry in common cause with you. Vaping saves health and wealth, and it just might save lives, even families. And it’s being lied about. It’s being misrepresented by those who not only claim to know better but whose responsibility it is to know better. That makes me angry. And being nice when things like this come along isn’t putting a dent in the flow of misinformation, disinformation, rumor-mongering and manipulation on the part of self-appointed “authorities” who claim to represent consumers out of one side of their collective mouth while lying to us out the other side.

If coarse language is off-putting to you, this is your stop. If not…

Here we 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/Altria, and Lorillard. Lorillard made its entry into vaping products by purchasing Blu, an existing company. Philip Morris only just introduced 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 gonna quit smoking, and you can’t make me!” to “I don’t smoke anymore!” as a change in attitude toward the habit of smoking, for the better?

I don’t think they do. And you know why? Because they don’t give a damn 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.

Screw 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. The Big Tobacco companies destroyed the health, lives and families of so many people, it’s only right that those bastards make up for it by using those same tools to help people get off the deadly product they used to hook smokers 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 damn 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 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 crap. 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 condescended to at least acknowledge 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 are making their own personal choices regardless of these legions of dictatorial fucking Mary Poppins wannabes trying to run other peoples’ lives.

I say again: To hell with these morons. 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 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: You’re an idiot. You probably think that’s beyond the pale. I think what you just tried to pull right there is beyond the pale. Call us even. You spent time researching the difference between smoke and vapor. You proved that all throughout the body of your article up to this point. The only conclusion I can draw from your attempt to conflate the two is that you’re either too stupid to understand what you read and reported, or you think your readers are so stupid that they won’t notice when you conflate the two terms. So I say again: Idiot.

“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 on this specific point — 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 business is it of yours?

If somebody does manage to vape cannabis, and the cops can’t tell, exactly what is the goddamned problem? There’s no victim. Not only that, but the problem, somehow, is that the crime is undetectable? How is it even a crime, then, other than the “crime” of people defying “authority”?

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.