A while ago I was asked by James who runs the ashtray blog and ecigarettedirect.co.uk if I wanted to be a part of the "Halo Panel", which means helping them develop new juices. I thought it sounded kind of cool so of course I said yes, and from the samples we've tried out yet I'd say it looks promising. Anyway, the other day they got in touch and wanted to give their testers some free juice from Five Pawns that they've just added to their site and some discount codes for our friends. So I thought why not do a review of it, so here we go...
Queenside is part of Five Pawns' Signature series and their own description of the juice goes like this: "Delicate blood orange intensifies this citrus based flavor. Harmoniously
blended with creamy French vanilla for a gentle and exquisite balance
that will carry from one flavor to the next." Now blood orange isn't a flavour I've vaped a lot and to be honest I was a bit afraid it would be a bit on the bitter side for me. But smelling the juice you notice not only the orange but also a good deal of the vanilla they are talking about. Vaping it, of course, confirms this. There is some bitterness there but you get a lot of creamy vanilla to balance it out and you get a lot of that delicious orange flavour as well. It's a really well balanced juice again from Five Pawns that keeps on getting better. Kind of like the Absolute Pin I wrote about earlier, but still in another way. Cause the Queenside is not that complex, you don't discover new notes all the time, but in a way the flavours that are there just keeps getting better as you vape more of this. As I said, great juice again from Five Pawns, and even if it is quite expensive I think it's worth every penny.
UPDATE: Some of the Five Pawns juices contain quite high levels of Acetyl Propionyl. Please have a look here for more information.
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Disclosure:
All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product.
One of the things I love the most about vaping is the endless selection of flavours. When vapesandjuices.com contacted me and asked if I wanted to do some reviews, I hadn't even heard of the juices they wanted me to try out, so I actually also decided I wouldn't read any reviews or check them out much more before trying them out either, save reading the manufacturers own description, just to kind of dive into this without any idea what to expect. I've already written a review of Potion vape's Caramel Turtle, and now it's time for another one of these juices that I had not heard about, Sweet lovin' tobacco by Cheshire Imperium.
Cheshire Imperium describes this juice like this: "Most definitely an all-day tobacco vape! It carries notes of nuttiness and hay, with a slightly sweet finish." The color of this juice is pretty pale so by looking at it and smelling it, I expect a pretty mild, sweet all day vape like they say... and they're right. It's pretty sweet, pretty nutty but the tobacco flavour still comes across nicely. It's most definitely an all day vape candidate, but also a juice that goes well with a cup of coffee in the morning... or in the evening. Now I haven't tried it with beer but I'm sure that will work too. A proper all-round juice I'd say. It's not that packed with flavour as I've gotten used to lately doing the Djinni range reviews, but it's rather mild and relaxing. All in all a juice I'd recommend trying out both for experienced vapers and beginners wanting a tobacco flavour to get them off the cigarettes.
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Disclosure:
All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product.
The juice was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
Per Schwarze, Department director for Air Pollution and Noise, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, who published, the answer to Dr. Farsalinos
Last week the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) published their report on "Health risks associated with the use of electronic cigarettes". The biggest problem with the report is their focus on nicotine and their claims that since the amount of nicotine in the air in an e-cigarette users home and and a smokers home are statistically similar, we can expect that nicotine from passive vaping and passive smoking will cause similar harm. This in itself is actually true. It will cause the same amount of harm: NONE! It is not the nicotine in passive smoking that causes harm, and it does not cause bystanders to get addicted.
Dr. Farsalinos tried to explain this to NIPH last week, and yesterday NIPH published an answer to Dr. Farsalinos. As you can see they are completely missing (or ignoring) the point made by Dr. Farsalinos here, and keep focusing on how the data from different reports are different and that there is a chance that vaping exposes bystanders to similar amounts of nicotine as smoking does. They refuse to retract their report. But this is all completely irrelevant. Dr. Farsalinos did not want the NIPH to retract the whole report, but simply to retract the part where it says that this nicotine exposure causes harm.
I'm glad to see that Dr. Farsalinos does not give up, and that he published another answer to the NIPH on his blog. I think this one makes it pretty clear what he meant the first time, and I hope that the NIPH will have the guts to publicly admit that their focus on nicotine from passive vaping (and smoking) is in fact irrelevant and should not cause any worries. As I've said earlier, the rest of their report is pretty well balanced, even though I do think they use too much time and effort explaining possible harm from substances that they later conclude are probably present at levels so low that they will not cause any harm anyway. So in a way they have shown that they are reasonable people and acknowledge that one has to look at the levels of the substances when you consider the risks associated with them. Hopefully they will be able to see this when it comes to nicotine as well.
Let me make this very clear: There are studies indicating that passive vapers will absorb similar levels of nicotine to those absorbed by passive smokers, but that does not mean it will cause them any harm, or in fact affect them at all.
So I've emptied the 3 last bottles from the Djinni range, which means it's time for the 3rd and final part of this series of reviews. In part one I mentioned that there was one of the flavors I really didn't look that much forward to, and since I told you in part 2 that I'm not that fond of floral flavors it might not surprise anyone that Turkish Delight is the one I was talking about.
Frostbite is the only menthol juice in the Djinni range. For some reason I haven't vaped menthol for quite some time now. Well actually I've not vaped that much menthol at all to be honest, which is kind of strange when I think about it, cause I really do like menthol. Anyway, with a name like this I expected this to be a really icy menthol, but actually it's not the hardest hitting menthol out there. It is a blend of peppermint and menthol, and I think the peppermint is kind of taking some of the edge off making the juice smoother, and I really think that's a good thing. I mean, even if I do like the really icy menthols as well I don't think I could vape those all day, but the Frostbite is more easy going and actually a menthol that could be an all day vape for me. It is still packed with flavour, as all the juices in this range are, and you get all the delicious menthol aftertaste you'd expect, but again Decadent Vapours have done some really nice balancing work giving this juice just the right amount of punch. As I said I haven't really vaped that many menthol juices, but this is definitely one of the best ones I've tried, if not the best.
Berry Crush was one of the juices in this range that I really looked forward too trying out. A blend of blackcurrant, raspberries and other berries sounds like something that I would like. The smell of the juice doesn't make it any less tempting either. And of course, again, it's a juice packed with flavour. It does taste a bit familiar but I can't really put my finger on where I've tasted this before, but it's great. Mixing blackcurrant and raspberries kind of creates a new flavour so I feel I couldn't really taste the individual flavours that much, but that doesn't really matter, cause the "new" flavour is so good. It does also have kind of a candy feeling about it. Definitely one of my favourites from the Djinni range.
Last but not least I tried out the juice that I had serious doubts about. You see I don't really like Turkish delight, in fact I find it kind of annoying. Cause they look so much better than they taste in my opinion. It's that rose water taste that I think messes the whole thing up. Nevertheless I decided to try it out on a dripper on high wattage, just to really get all the flavour out of it. And to my surprise, I actually don't hate it. Weird. Cause the rose flavour is still there, but not as pronounced as I feared. It's mixed with a bunch of citrus flavour that I kind of like, both on the inhale and on the exhale. I've tried Turkish delight several times, but always get disappointed, but this juice on the other hand was actually getting better and better as I vaped it. I don't think I can say I love it yet, and I'm not sure I'll ever do that, but I don't hate it like I thought I would. As I said, it has got a lot of flavour and I honestly believe that if you're one of those weirdos that like Turkish delight... this would be spot on for you.
Disclosure:
All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product.
The juice was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
I had not heard about Potion Vape beforevapesandjuices.com contacted me a while ago and asked me if I wanted to do some juice reviews. And I have to admit, even though I love caramel, I've only tasted a few caramel e-juices that has actually managed to get this taste right. So what about Potion Vape... have they nailed it?
The Caramel Turtle is not a pure caramel juice, but rather a blend of pecan and caramel. To me it seems like mixing caramel with some other flavours instead of trying to make a pure caramel juice is a good idea, cause the pure caramel juices I've tasted have usually been kind too much for me. This juice smells more of the nuts than caramel. Actually I don't get much caramel at all from the smell. When you vape it on the other hand, the caramel is most definitely there. It's actually very well balanced. I'm don't think I can say that any of the flavours are dominating. I'd say it's pretty much 50/50 pecan/caramel, maybe with the nuts a bit more pronounced on the inhale, and the other way around on the exhale. This makes the juice pretty smooth and easy to like... and it goes well with your morning coffee. For me this is more of a winter/cold weather kind of juice than a fresh summer juice. It's kind of... cozy if you see what I mean. Here in Norway we have quite a lot of winter and cold rainy days, so this is also a good candidate for an all day vape up here.
Get 15% off with discount code: giraffe15
Disclosure:
All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product.
The juice was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
Cathrine Skårn demonstrates vaping, live on national tv.
On Tuesday I wrote about the new report published by the Norwegian Institute for Public Health (NIPH) and the media coverage of this. It was news agency NTB that wrote the misleading article focusing on possible harm to bystanders that would inhale nicotine ... and possibly get addicted and start smoking. Yeah right... so eating eggplant would put you in the danger zone as well then I guess?
The report itself, is not that bad in fact. As Dr. Farsalinos pointed out, it does have some serious errors, and those are of course creating problems in the media, but the report also concludes very clearly that e-cigarettes are a lot healthier than cigarettes, and that they could have very positive effect on public health. The issues we're left with is the gateway theory and nicotine exposure from "passive vaping".
I was hoping that SIRUS and Karl Erik Lund would help us explain to the public and the politicians that these issues are in fact nothing to worry about, and of course they did not let me down. The morning after, one of Norway's biggest TV channels, TV2, covered the case in the morning news. Not only did we get Karl Erik Lund in the studio discussing the report with head of NIPH, Camilla Stoltenberg, but we also got a live interview with Cathrine Skårn, board member of the Norwegian Union of Vapers (NDS). She did a fantastic job explaining what NDS is, what they're working for, what vaping is and that vaping is not smoking. As I've said so many times now, this fight will be fought in the media, and getting this kind of coverage on national TV is a huge step forward.
After the interview there is a debate in the studio with Karl Erik Lund and Camilla Stoltenberg. The whole thing is of course in Norwegian. I'm not going to translate the whole thing, just some important bits. It does indeed seem like the NIPH has a much more positive attitude towards vaping than what has been communicated in the newspapers this week. The first question from the host goes to Stoltenberg:
Host: ... our reporter talked to this woman who is very satisfied with her vaping. The question is: When she sits there vaping, is my colleague, Johannes, exposed to a form of passive smoking?
Stoltenberg: First of all I'd like to say that I totally agree with her that vaping is less dangerous than smoking and that it is much better that people that smoke switch to vaping. This is an important part of this picture. But when it comes to passive vaping, the point in the report is that passive vaping exists, and that one exposes the surroundings to levels of nicotine that in some cases might be comparable to those from passive tobacco smoking and quite a few other substances that it is difficult to say anything about the effects of in the long term. And it is in fact difficult to say anything about the effects of vaping in the long term because we don't have many studies on this.
Host: But how dangerous is it?
Stoltenberg: It is not very dangerous, because we are talking about low levels [of these substances], so if you compare it to tobacco smoking and passive tobacco smoking it is less dangerous. Our point is that it is not risk free, and we don't know enough about it.
After this, Karl Erik Lund agrees that vaping is not totally risk free, and says that no one has claimed that either. He then turns to explain the problem with how this was presented in the media the day before.
Lund: It is not the nicotine that is the dangerous substance in passive smoking for the bystanders, it is the nitrosamines, it's the monoxide, it's the metals and we don't have any of these in passive vaping...
Host: ... but there is nicotine?
Lund: There is nicotine, but the levels are so low that they are 10 times lower than what the The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has defined as a health risk, so focusing on that we can compare the nicotine exposure from these two products is a derailment of the debate about how to regulate these products...
After this Stoltenberg admits that even though they have focused on nicotine there are great uncertainties when it comes to how significant this is. The rest of the debate is mainly about how this should be regulated and whether we should use the precautionary principle. Stoltenberg also says that we will probably see different kinds of regulation in different countries and that we should monitor how these work when it comes to how many that quit smoking. She also claims that we don't know enough yet (yawn), but Lund explains that we actually do know a lot and that we need to regulate in a way that encourages smokers to switch to a product that also the NIPH now say exists. Finally, Stoltenberg say that they're mainly worried about the people that haven't started yet and that vaping might become common, even though she doesn't tell us why she thinks this is a problem.
To sum up, I think this TV coverage partly balanced out some of the misinformation from the day before. Karl Erik Lund does a great job as usual, no complaints there... and thank you again for your great efforts. Stoltenberg and the NIPH on the other hand... well they do seem more positive than ever. They do say that e-cigarettes work and that they are reducing harm and they can't really present any big issues. But it seems like they still want to say that they are worried. It almost seem like they need to be concerned, because they want to regulate. Since they haven't really found any big problems, they say they don't know enough yet. But let's not forget that they do very clearly state that e-cigarettes are a lot less harmful than cigarettes now, and that is another step in the right direction.
In response to the report from The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) that I wrote about a couple of days ago, Dr. Farsalinos published a post this morning on his blog, demanding that NIPH immediately retract their false statements about passive e-cigarette exposure.
The most significant mistake in the report refers to passive exposure to e-cigarettes. In particular, the report mentions: “…
nicotine levels in the environment following passive exposure to
e-cigarette aerosols causes similarly high nicotine levels in the blood
as that of passive smoking of regular cigarettes. This means that one
can expect similar harmful nicotine-related effects of passive smoking
from e-cigarettes as for regular cigarettes. This does not mean that
passive exposure to aerosols from e-cigarettes causes carcinogenic
effects, but that passive smoking may affect the cardiovascular system,
have stimulatory effects and contribute to addiction”. Not a single word is true in this statement.
It's great to see that the criticism that vapers here in Norway have directed towards the NIPH report is supported by science. Well of course the criticism has been based on science all the way, but this statement from Dr. Farsalinos makes it a lot easier for us to prove it. Having the support of one of the leading and most respected scientists in the field of e-cigarettes is a huge advantage for us, as we're now working hard to enlighten the politicians and health officials that will soon decide how vaping will be regulated in Norway. A big, big thank you to Dr. Farsalinos for the support. Your statement and support means a lot!
Today the Norwegian Institute of Public Health of published a report called "Health risks associated with the use of electronic cigarettes". The report can be found here and there is also a summary in English.
Norwegian media has been publishing stories today claiming that "second-hand vaping poses health risks", giving the impression that e-cigarettes are as dangerous to bystanders as tobacco cigarettes, which of course is not at all what the report says. The report itself contains quite a few serious mistakes as well, but it concludes that risks associated with all other substances other than nicotine is negligible. It also concludes that cancer risks from nicotine itself, if any, is negligible.
The biggest problem with the report is that it focuses a lot on potential health risks of nicotine, especially to bystanders. This is all based on a false assumption that the nicotine in second hand smoke poses a risk to bystanders in itself. One of the studies they base this on is this one, that concludes that people who live in smokers homes and e-cigarette users homes absorb statistically similar amounts of nicotine. Now I'm no expert so I'll just have to trust this even though it looks to me from the summary of the study that those in the smokers home gets twice the amount. But that is not the point. The point is that these amounts don't pose any danger to the people exposed to them. Dr. Farsalinos showed us this, with reference to the same study, with some simple maths here. (His numbers seem a bit different than those presented in the summary, but I assume he found more significant numbers in the actual study). The amount of nicotine absorbed by a "passive vaper" is 10 times lower than The European Food Safety Authority say will affect an average human weighing 75 kg (and of course you should not fill your home with vapor if you have babies... but that goes without saying). This also means that the same human being is also unaffected by the nicotine from passive smoking, and this is where the Norwegian Institute of Public Health misses the whole point and causes more public harm than health. Even if passive vapers absorb similar levels of nicotine to what passive smokers do that does not pose any health risks to them. The other particles that tobacco smoke exposes bystanders to is another story. As Dr. Farsalinos points out:
Such a levels is not only harmless but has absolutely no biological effect, even according to the strictest regulatory definitions.
When it comes to the amount of nicotine absorbed by the vapers themselves they also say that these levels are the same as for smokers, which is probably not far from the truth. However, the negative effects of nicotine is also debated. There are some proven, unwanted effects on fetuses which means you shouldn't use nicotine while pregnant but other than that there's not much to be afraid of. In fact there are a lot of positive effects of nicotine use as well (for healthy, non-pregnant people that is). Then there is the question whether nicotine in itself is addictive, to which most serious scientists today would answer no. I've written quite a bit about this earlier: Nicotine - a supersheep in wolf's clothing?
Another big problem with the report is that it is almost 100 pages long, and that a lot of it is used to describe potential problems with substances that are not present in amounts that will cause those problems. This only serves to scare people (or just scare them away from reading the report), which might not notice the last sentence of the paragraph that says this won't be a problem anyway. And apparently both the media and our minister of Health has fallen in this trap. The minister of health said today that he has up until now thought that e-cigarettes are virtually harmless but he is now worried by this report. This shows how much damage this report has already done. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health have caused more harm than health as I said, by writing conclusions that do not reflect the actual content of their report. The conclusion that comes forth is one that is based on a false assumption and an error in the report: Nicotine from passive vaping can cause harm. The contents of the report (even with this error) justifies a conclusion more in the line of this: E-cigarettes are orders of magnitude less harmful to both vapers and bystanders compared to cigarettes. I really hope (and I do believe) that SIRUS and Karl Erik Lund will turn up in the media shortly and minimize the damage. I do feel a bit sorry for them as this probably feels a bit like a punch in the face.
I've got another 4 empty bottles here now, so it's time for Part 2 of my Djinni Range reviews. Again, all the juices I've tested have been 50/50 PG/VG and 12mg/ml nicotine strength, producing quite a lot of vapour and decent throat-hit.
The name of this juice suggests it would taste like jelly beans... but then... jelly beans comes in all kinds of flavours, so actually the name doesn't give it all away, but the smell of the juice suggests they've aimed for the fruity ones. Vaping it reveals that they've put a lot of different flavours in here. Almost like they wanted it to taste like all kinds of jelly beans. It actually tastes like you've just put your hand in a bag of mixed jelly beans and picked a few at random, and it kind of taste slightly different every time. Again, Decadent Vapours is spot on with their little slogan on the box: Insanely fruitful. Cause they really have put an insane amount of flavour into this one. I think it might be my favourite in this range so far.
New York 60 Tested on:Kanger Subtank (RDA @ 0.4 ohm, 20-25 watts)
Decadent Vapors describe this juice as vanilla and caramel, with hints of biscuit and coffee. Now I'm not sure I get the biscuit hints, but the vanilla and caramel is definitely the dominating flavours here. As for the coffee it tastes like the same dark, roasted coffee that they've put in the Café au Lait, and I think this really gives this juice a distinctive character. The coffee is by no means as strong as it is in the Café au Lait, but it plays an important role here as well. Kind of reminds me of those Starbucks coffee variants with a lot flavours added, so that there's just hints of coffee left. A great all day vape candidate in my opinion.
San Clemente Tested on:Aspire Nautilus (1.6 ohm's, 15-17 watts)
Reading the description of this one I was expecting a really heavy cigar flavour with hints of blossom. But vaping it I almost feel it's a bit the other way around. I'm getting quite a lot of floral, almost spicy yet still very smooth flavours from this. When I first tried it it reminded me of the floral taste you get from some kinds of honey that I've tasted actually. The tobacco is still there but for me it's more in the background and it also really leaves an after-taste of tobacco after the exhale. Now I've never been a big fan of floral flavours, so for me I don't think this will be an e-juice I'd start vaping on a daily basis. But there is still something intriguing and very unique with it, and it is still growing on me, and as with all the juices of this range that I've tried so far I keep discovering new tastes even to the last drops of the bottle. The box says it's rolled, robust and original. I'm not so sure about the rolled and robust, but I'll definitely call it original as I've never tasted anything like it. It is quite a difficult juice to describe so I'll just have to recommend you try it out and make up your own mind. Again... don't just write it off if you don't quite like it at first... you have to vape quite a lot of it before you've discovered all of it's flavour notes.
The San Clemente didn't taste quite what I expected. The Zingo on the other hand, tastes, and smells, pretty much exactly as I expected. It's got a strong citrus smell, and an enormous amount of citrus flavour when you vape it. When you mix lime, lemon and oranges I'd expect the lime and lemon to be the dominant flavours and the orange to be more in the background sweetening things up a bit, and that is exactly how I think they've balanced this juice as well. They've done a great job in my opinion. It's really fresh, really zesty, really juicy and you get a lot of delicious citrus flavour from this one. Some of the citrus juices I've tried have had that artificial feeling about them, but this one tastes more like they've actually squeezed and equal amount of real limes, lemons and oranges in there. I imagine it will taste even better when summer comes around and it's time to hit the beach. Great mix again from Decadent Vapours.
Disclosure:
All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product.
The juice was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
The Norwegian Department of Health recently published and presented their Public Health Report to the Parliament. According to the Norwegian governments' official web-portal, regjeringen.no, this report presents new policies in areas that the government believes has not
been sufficiently prioritized or that require new approaches.
As I've mentioned earlier, The Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research (SIRUS), wrote an answer to a request for input by the Department of Health during the process of writing this report. SIRUS' answer focused on harm reduction. After this Public Health Report was published SIRUS' head of research, Karl Erik Lund, was positively surprised by the impact their input:
We
prepared a note on the need for harm reduction in the tobacco area but had
little hope that the Department of Health would anchor harm reduction ideology in the Public
Health Report. Now, however, the Norwegian health authorities for the first time has
given the topic discussion in an official, authoritative publication and
additionally they've taken a quite positive stance.
I've translated what the report says about harm reduction in the tobacco area:
Harm reduction in the tobacco area
The emergence of electronic cigarettes has intensified the debate about whether harm reduction should be a supplement to the traditional tobacco politics. Smokers who do not manage to quit will be able reduce their health risks by switching to e-cigarettes, even if these are not necessarily completely harmless.
Harm reduction as a political strategy has until now had no place in the Norwegian tobacco policy. The government is open to a rethinking of this area when it comes to e-cigarettes, but have not yet concluded on how the products should be regulated.Traditionally the authorities' policy to reduce tobacco use have had it's roots in three principles of medical ethics: The no-harm principle discourages the use of products which cause harm due to toxic content. The precautionary principle warns against use of products where it can not be excluded that undiscovered harmful consequences may occur in the future, and that these may be irreversible. The loss ofautonomyprinciple warns against use of products which can be addictive.
A comparative perspective implies that the adverse effects of cigarette smoking are used as basis for comparison when evaluating the adverse effects of the use of e-cigarettes.Conventional cigarettes and e-cigarettes are nicotine products in a so-called substitutional relationship, which means that their user functions and users are strongly overlapping. There are still no epidemiological studies of any consequential damage by prolonged use of e-cigarettes. However, a number of studies indicate that the transition from tobacco cigarettes to e-cigarettes will result in a significant risk reduction for the individual smoker. Expert groups have estimated that the overall health risks of using e-cigarettes probably constitute less than 10 percent of the overall risk of cigarette smoking.
Although
the transition from tobacco cigarettes to e-cigarettes will be harm
reducing for the individual smoker, their effectiveness on community
level will depend on the extent to which e-cigarettes may come to
recruit non-smokers, postponing quitting, lead to double-use and recruit youth smoking.
Based
on current knowledge there is no basis for assuming that e-cigarettes
will cause adverse effects on a large-scale population. Users
of e-cigarettes is currently almost exclusively smokers or former
smokers, and e-cigarettes are used to reduce tobacco consumption, to stop
smoking or to prevent relapse to smoking. According to the Institute of Public Health smoking is the single most important cause of differences in life
expectancy between people with high and low socio-economic status. The Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research has estimated that about 200,000 of the 700,000 daily smokers in this country have characteristics associated with low probability of smoking cessation. The large difference in risk between tobacco and e-cigarettes suggests
that access to e-cigarettes will improve the health of the vast
majority of users - which is the smokers.There are currently many disreputable manufacturers of e-cigarettes and studies have shown that the content of the products often do not match the content declaration. It
is therefore a prerequisite for an eventual repeal of the current
prohibition that quality requirements for the products are set, that the sales are regulated and that e-cigarettes in no way will be marketed to young
people.
As you've probably noticed there are some points here that are still not concluded on, regulation being the most important one. They do not say much about how much or what kinds of regulation they envision. However, the fact that they seem to have understood the enormous value and efficiency of a harm reduction strategy is a huge step in the right direction.
So, while politicians in a lot of other places seem to work for strict regulations or even bans on e-cigarettes, seemingly unable to grasp the concepts of harm reduction, it looks like we're moving in the other direction here in Norway, where we already have a ban (on nicotine e-liquid that is). This is quite remarkable actually, as we have a strong tradition for over-usage of the precautionary principle here. As I've mentioned before, we even had a total ban on skateboarding from 1978 to 1989 here. So what is the reason that our politicians and health officials seems to have a relatively positive attitude towards the harm reducing e-cigarettes now? Well, we are indeed lucky to have SIRUS on "our side" here in Norway, but a lot of hard work and fighting is also done by the vapers themselves and we must not forget the tireless efforts made by members and the leadership of the Norwegian Union of Vapers (NDS). Here is what Karl Erik Lund wrote in the NDS Facebook group after the report was published:
This mustbe interpreted asa more sympatheticattitude to harmreductionin general ande-cigarettes in particular.Ournotehas been important, but it's stillallinquiriesandactivityfrom youvaperswhichhave preparedthe groundforthis shiftin views one-cigarettes among the political leadership.
Personally I also believe that the way e-cigarettes have been presented in the media lately have contributed a lot to this. We've seen vapers telling their stories about how the e-cigarettes have affected their lives, stories about how Norwegians travel across the border to Sweden to buy e-cigarettes and liquid, and Karl Erik Lund and SIRUS have done some extremely important work here by quickly debunking the horror stories that hit the media.
Queenside is part of Five Pawns' Signature series and their own description of the juice goes like this: "Delicate blood orange intensifies this citrus based flavor. Harmoniously
blended with creamy French vanilla for a gentle and exquisite balance
that will carry from one flavor to the next." Now blood orange isn't a flavour I've vaped a lot and to be honest I was a bit afraid it would be a bit on the bitter side for me. But smelling the juice you notice not only the orange but also a good deal of the vanilla they are talking about. Vaping it, of course, confirms this. There is some bitterness there but you get a lot of creamy vanilla to balance it out and you get a lot of that delicious orange flavour as well. It's a really well balanced juice again from Five Pawns that keeps on getting better. Kind of like the Absolute Pin I wrote about earlier, but still in another way. Cause the Queenside is not that complex, you don't discover new notes all the time, but in a way the flavours that are there just keeps getting better as you vape more of this. As I said, great juice again from Five Pawns, and even if it is quite expensive I think it's worth every penny.
