Monday 6 January 2014

Good news for Norwegian vapers?

Vaping and e-cigs are getting more and more media coverage here in Norway. Today there was an article in the web-edition of the local newspaper here in Trondheim: http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/innenriks/article8908637.ece (it's in Norwegian, don't know if google translate will be good).

Karl Erik Lund, the head of research in SIRIUS, which is the Norwegian institute for drug and alcohol abuse (http://www.sirus.no/eng/), presents some really interesting data:
* 28% of Norwegian smokers wants to try vaping
* NO non-smokers wants to try it
* 30% of the smokers wants to repeal the Norwegian ban on e-liquid containing nicotine (it's legal to import for personal use but not selling here), only 15% wants to keep it. (The rest is undecided).
The data was collected by asking 666 (!) grown ups just before Christmas.

The Norwegian ministry of health still waits for reports on side effects (guess they'll have to wait a while), and the Norwegian Cancer Society argues that a lot of users will not quit smoking completely but keep on smoking while using the e-cigs, thus only postponing the day they quit completely. Lund argues that keeping the ban is like locking the door to the fire-escape cause the stairs are slippery, which I think is a pretty good argument :) He continues to argue heavily that it should be in the interest of both the ministry of health and the cancer society to reduce the risk of cancer and other smoking related diseases and although he doesn't say it I'm pretty sure he feels there is some strong forces lobbying like hell to keep the ban and keep e-cigs out of the market: Big pharma and Big tobacco.

However, it sadly doesn't look like the ministry of health will abandon madness for reason yet. The keep on clinging to their stupid we-don't-know-enough-yet argument and now it's apparently not good to reduce risk, they want everyone to just stop smoking right now. I got news for you... that's not going to happen! As usual I feel the need to punch someone in the face when I read this shit they come up with, but still, this increasing media coverage gives me hope. I know there's some people in the Norwegian vaping community working the media hard, and I think this is they way to get rid of the ignorance and open peoples eyes. Keep up the good work, looks like it's starting to pay off.

So is this good or bad news for the Norwegian vapers? Yes and no. Yes because media seems to increase coverage and hopefully this might force the ministry of health to repeal the ban, since it will become apparent that there is no valid arguments to keep it. And no because said ministry still clings to their precautionary principles which shows they are more corrupt ... ehm ... stupid ... I mean stubborn than we hoped.

4 comments :

  1. The situation is very much the same in Sweden. A ban on nicotine containing liquid and government bodies that highlight every tiny risk rather than looking at the positive sides.

    The media has been overwhelmingly negative to vaping. A recent two page spread in Dagens Nyheter chose to focus purely on the fact that there have been 31 reported incidents of poisoning (none of them fatal or resulting in long term harm) and that "the bottles have pictures of fruits on them and are therefore attractive to children".

    In the face of such transparent and stupid propaganda, I have just cancelled my subscription to Dagens Nyheter.

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  2. We had a few Norwegian newspapers copying that article as well I think. The media has been pretty negative here as well, but lately I feel they are starting to turn a bit more positive. Especially this Karl Erik Lund fellow is helping the case a lot, and he's been popping up in articles around the country lately.

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