Juice Review: Bananacharma by Decadent Vapours

The last of the 5 juices Decadent Vapours sent me this time was the Bananancharma. I was really looking forward to trying this juice, cause it sure looks tempting by the description. I've tried a few banana based flavours now and it seems like this flavour is a bit hard to get right, a lot of them end up too sweet and sticky. Then again, Decadent Vapours have proven themselves to be quite good at making juices in my opinion so I'm hoping for the best.

Bananacharma

Tested on: Kanger Subtank (RDA @ around 0.4 ohms, 30 watts)

Even though ice-cream is not mentioned in the description of this juice, the picture gives us quite a hint on what they are aiming for. Squeezing the bottle a bit you get the smell of banana and vanilla as promised by the description, and a feeling that DV once again is going to be quite accurate with their description.

The taste, in my opinion, is vanilla ice cream with a fresh, ripe banana on top. Pretty much exactly what I was hoping for when I saw the picture. As always well balanced, with a perfect amount of banana in there. As I said, banana flavours for me tend to end up to sweet and sticky. This is neither, but it's more of a natural banana flavour rather than candy banana. I mean I do like those banana candies as well, in fact they're one of my favourites, but in e-liquids I'd rather have a more natural banana like this one. So if you like a good banana split ice-cream, you need to try this one out.

Thanks to Decadent Vapours for sending me the juice for review.

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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.
• This review does not contain affiliate links.

Juice Review: Rhubarb Cuddle by Decadent Vapours

It's time for another review of one of Decadent Vapours new juices. Today's juice is one I don't think I would have been tempted to order by the name or description to be honest, mainly because I don't really care that much for rhubarb. But I've been surprised before, so who knows...

Rhubarb Cuddle

Tested on: Kanger Subtank (RDA @ around 0.4 ohms, 30 watts)

This juice is described by decadent vapours as "a warming embrace of tangy rhubarb paired with a generous dollop of sweet and creamy Crème Anglaise custard". I've already reviewed the Crème Anglaise, so that's a plus, and tasting the juice I can recognize the great custard notes from that juice. The rhubarb however, I still can't get myself to like. I mean it does not taste awful or anything, actually it's a lot better than I expected, it's just that I don't like rhubarb. I have no problems vaping this juice, but if I could choose the Crème Anglaise instead I definitely would, kind of in the same way I'd always choose  wheat buns (kind of a big thing here in Norway, sold on every gas station) without raisins over those with raisins if I'm given the choice. But I've got no problem eating the ones with raisins if the plain ones are sold out. You probably see what I mean by now :)

To me this juice is definitely true to the description, so if you, unlike me, think the description sounds tempting, I recommend giving it a try.

Thanks to Decadent Vapours for sending me the juice for review.

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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.
• This review does not contain affiliate links.

On the PHE report in Norwegian media ... and extreme stubborness

Around a week or so has passed now since I first read about the PHE report that concludes e-cigarettes are 95% safer than cigarettes, among other conclusions. I have to say that 95% seems like a huge understatement to me, but all in all I think the report will be good for the case, but I'm not going to go into the details of the report here. Others have done that in a great way for example here. Thanks to the Ashtray blog for a great post.

As you probably already know the report is very positive towards e-cigs and vaping, and it's coming from Public Health England. I've got some google news searches set up, searching for articles on e-cigarettes in Norwegian, and I kind of expected that now I'd be getting quite a few hits in my mailbox... but no. I've only got 2 ... and one of them was even from kind of a local newspaper. So only one of the big newspapers here in Norway found this report interesting enough to write about it. Well, actually I got 2 more that kind of mention the report but I don't count them. I'm sad to see that Norwegian media don't seem very interested in covering e-cigarettes unless there is death and harm and very alarming findings involved. And it's not because they're not aware of the report, cause members of NDS (Norwegian Union of Vapers) have tried their best to get the big papers to write about it.

The little coverage we got also reveals that we're facing some extremely stubborn organizations in this debate. The Norwegian Institute of Public health still claims that "use of e-cigarettes are not without health risks, neither for vaper or bystanders" and LHL, the national organization for people with heart or lung disease, are still not convinced that e-cigarettes help people quit smoking. Ugh!

I've written earlier that we have to win the media to win this fight. As you can see, we have a pretty hard fight in front of us. I'd like to urge all Norwegian vapers (and anyone else out there that wants to help us) to fight even harder. There is a lot of good work being done already, and even though we're fighting extreme stubborness we can win. We just have to be as stubborn as they are right? And maybe a bit smarter... so please don't give up if you're already working on it, and come join us if you're not! Apparently we need a lot of voices to get heard.
 

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Great news from Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids

Yesterday Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids published a press release claiming that a new study published Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) provides evidence that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking. Well of course the study proves no such thing, and there is (almost, I'll get back to that) no good news coming from Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids here. I'll leave it up to Dr. Farsalinos and Professor Michael Siegel to explain why.

Now you might say that my headline for this blog-post is highly misleading. Well, I agree, I did that on purpose, to kind of underline the fact that not only is the headline in Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids' press release highly misleading, but the whole thing is just a big fat pile of lies. For a bunch of reasons, as explained in detail by Farsalinos and Siegel, the study doesn't prove the gateway theory at all. In fact it doesn't really prove anything new, even the authors of the study acknowledge that. Professor Siegel explains this:

Ultimately, what this research demonstrates is that youth who experiment with electronic cigarettes represent a sub-population of youth which is at increased risk of tobacco product use. This is a natural finding that we expected to be true and which has been documented in other studies. The study does not show that e-cigarette use leads kids to start smoking or to become regular smokers. It does not demonstrate a gateway effect.
The study authors readily acknowledge this, with the lead author making it clear that: "we cannot conclude that e-cigarette use directly leads to smoking."

As you can see, nothing really new. The gateway theory has in no way been proven, and we're still waiting patiently for the first ex-vaper, current smoker to emerge from the shadows. Kind of strange that we haven't seen a single case in so many years, and with millions of people using e-cigarettes don't you think? Also, if a gateway effect existed... isn't it a bit strange that cigarette use keeps going down when e-cigarette use goes up? Actually it seems to start going down even faster when e-cigarette use really started going up, according to Tobacco Free Kids' own numbers:

Anyway, even if I gave this post a misleading headline on purpose, it's not actually as misleading as Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids' press release. Because there is actually some good news in there: Current e-cigarette use now exceeds current use of regular cigarettes. Of course the way they present this fact is also misleading, as they deliberately fail to mention how much current use of cigarettes have gone down. If you can't see that this is good news, not bad news as these guys claim, you can't be truly concerned with peoples health. There must be something else that's more important to you...

EDIT: Just saw Clive Bates also commenting on this. Recommended reading indeed.

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The REAL gateway to smoking

Last week I was reading this article about the Norwegian minister of Health and his criticism of AmCham. The background was the AmCham has responded to the governments proposed introduction of plain packaging. The Cancer Society also comments on the matter:

- It is no wonder that they are lobbying against this, because we know that this measure actually works. Tobacco packages with cool design appeals for example to young people, and if you get fewer young people to start smoking, the total tobacco use goes down.

This post is not going to be about whether plain packaging works or not, but there are indications that it might not work as well as they thought it would: http://goo.gl/yMViME. They argue that "Tobacco packages with cool design appeals for example to young people". So they're actually saying that people start smoking because the package looks so damn cool? Really? To me that sounds pretty far fetched. I've done some googling trying to find some statistics on why people start smoking, and I've never come across this reason. I mean, I can see that cool packaging might appeal to young, hip people, in the way that they might be tempted to try a brand with a cooler package, but I find it really hard to believe that the cool packaging is what made them start smoking. To me this whole plain packaging idea seems like something they came up due to lack of other good ideas to make sure a lot of people have a lot of work to do, without really making any difference. The only real effect I find plausible is that it would make it easier to operate in the black market since it will take less effort to make the packages for fake or smuggled cigarettes. 

Anyway, this statement from the Cancer Society made me start thinking a bit about why people start smoking, especially young people and kids. If you google the matter you'll find several "top-lists" with somewhat different reasons. You'll see reasons like parents smoking, friends smoking, peer pressure, people smoking in movies, their idols smoking, to look more adult, self-medication, stress releaf, experimenting and rebellion. Trying to sum up a bit it seems to me like the biggest reason why young people start smoking is other people smoking. Not really surprising to be honest. Young people wants to act older and wants to fit in. In other words: Smokers are the REAL gateway to smoking. I believe that you can regulate, ban, restrict advertising, make manufacturers print all kinds of ugly pictures or warnings on the packages, plain packaging, campaigns warning young people of the dangers of smoking and so on to stop young people from smoking. Some of these measures might be somewhat effective as well, but I think none of them will ever come even close to the effect of getting current smokers quit smoking. If less adults smoke, less young people and kids will start smoking. E-cigarettes and vaping has proven to be one of the most effective ways of making this happen. Regulators and politicians should welcome this opportunity rather than using all their time and effort to find harder, less effective means or even fight against what could ultimately be the end of the tobacco epidemic.

Smokers are the REAL gateway to smoking, vapers are the REAL gateway to quitting. 

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photo credit: Vaping vs. Smoking | E-Cigarette/Electronic Cigarette/E-Cigs/E-Liquid/Vaping/Cloud Chasing via photopin (license)

Juice Review: Blackdrops by Decadent Vapours

As some might have noticed, I've been reviewing some of Decadent Vapours new flavours lately. The two first one's I tried were both creamy desert flavours, Crème Anglaise and Vanille Francaise. Now for something completely different.

Blackdrops

Tested on: Kanger Subtank (RDA @ around 0.4 ohms, 30 watts)

Opening this bottle and smelling the juice gave me absolutely no surprises. Blackcurrant. I'm getting used to Decadent Vapours being spot on in their own description of their juices by now so vaping it was equally unsurprising, having read their description before I tried it: A powerfully fresh and fruity vape, reminiscent of mentholated blackcurrant lozenge. But this does not at all mean I'm bored with the juice. In fact I'm very satisfied that it taste exactly like that, cause it's a great flavour. And of course they've packed it full of flavour as usual. Loads of blackcurrant on the inhale, while the exhale gives me more of the menthol leaving me with a feeling I've got an extraordinary fresh breath. To me this is kind of an all year juice. It's refreshing on warm summer days, like we had at times while I've been in Denmark, but for me blackcurrant toddy is also kind of a traditional winter drink we usually bring when we go skiing. Now of course I haven't had the opportunity to try this one out in such a setting yet, but this juice kind of makes me want to add a hint of menthol to the toddy next time I go skiing. All in all another great, refreshing flavour from Decadent Vapours. Highly recommended.

Thanks to Decadent Vapours for sending me the juice for review.

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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.
• This review does not contain affiliate links.