Worth Reading this Weekend (October 30th)

Quite a lot happening this week here in Norway, with the government preparing to implement the TPD, trying to convince us that they're doing a good thing for public health and NDS biting back, exposing their hoax.

There has also been some other really interesting cases worth reading about as well:

• A study called How does Electronic Cigarette Access affect Adolescent Smoking? got a fair bit of attention this week. I've been wondering a fair bit about this lately... we all seem to want to ban e-cigarette sales to minors, me included... or at least I used to be sure about this, but what is the reason behind this? This study makes confirms a suspicion I've had a while: Vaping might act as a firewall, preventing teenagers from taking up cigarette smoking. You can read more about it here and Michael Siegel has written a good comment on the case, as has Dick Puddlecote: Won't Tobacco Control Please Think Of The Children!

Woman getting yelled at
in Australia

• While the above mentioned study is, in my opinion, both pretty robust and important, these are obviously not qualities needed to get the attention of the media: E-cigarette users are 'significantly more likely' to be problem drinkers: Devices encourage excess alcohol consumption, study claims. What's wrong with this study? Pretty much everything... I'll leave it to Christopher Snowdon to explain: The unsurprising relationship between vaping and drinking 

• Another case worth mentioning is a video of a "psychotic anti-smoker yelling at a woman in a park in Australia". Christopher Snowdon and Dick Puddlecote both has written about it this week.

Have a nice weekend!

Review: Goblin Mini RTA by UD

The first sub-ohm tank I tried out was the Kanger Sub-tank, the first edition they released. Pretty big thing, works like a charm though, but a while ago I wanted to try out the mini version of it. I remember I wanted it pretty quickly, since I needed something smaller for a trip I was going to. I checked dampoteket.no, which is located pretty close to where I live (like 15 minutes by car) and lets me come pick up the stuff I order online. However they were all out of mini Kangers, so I asked Birger, who runs dampoteket, for alternatives. He suggested I tried the UD Zephyrus, claiming it was the best sub-ohm tank out there when it comes to flavour. I decided to trust him and ordered one, and I was totally amazed. The Zephyrus is a fantastic tank. Since then I've been meaning to try out more stuff from Youde, and I've had my eye on this Goblin Mini for quite a while. Now, finally I've got to try it out.

In the box
The Goblin Mini is indeed... mini. So they've packed it in quite a mini box, well protected by a foam insert. Pretty classy as well, looks like a small black jewellery box. In the box you get:

• The RTA (of course)
• A spare tank section
• A spare driptip
• Spare o-rings (one of each I guess)
• Spare screws (one for the build deck and one for the fill hole)
• A 510 driptip adapter (the Goblin driptips are just plain glass tubes)
• A single coil adapter (blocks one of the air holes if you want to do single coil builds).

Looks and feel
I really do like the looks, and size, of this little thing. Putting it on my Hana One mod I have a great, lightweight but powerful combo, small enough to almost fit into the palm of my hand... RTA included. I even like the logo quite a lot. Fits the name in a way.

In use
This RTA being so small of course also means it has a pretty small build deck. Still I think it's pretty easy to build on. It does have 2 holes in the center post as you can see, which in my opinion makes building it easier as you can do one coil at the time if you're doing dual coils like I've been doing.

The airflow control is quite unique on this one. The air comes in through holes in the bottom which can be adjusted in size by adjusting a slider at the bottom of the RTA. When fully open the holes are pretty big giving you more than enough air. I've run it up to 60W (that's all I've got right now) on around .4 ohms without any problems, which means the wicking is also great. Well of course that also depends on how you wick it. I've put just enough cotton in there to go slightly down into the 4 juice canals, and that seems to work very well. Almost no leaking (just some times slightly wet when I unscrew the atty), and no dry-hits whatsoever. I've seen some complaints about the airflow control with the slider, as you do have to unscrew the atty a bit to adjust. For me it's not a problem at all, since I don't really adjust it that much anyway.

Filling is done through a hole in the bottom, plugged by a small screw with an o-ring. This means you have to have a screwdriver with you at all times, and this can be an issue. They should have included one in the box to be honest, preferably a really small one that you could keep with your keys or something like that. Then again, I guess most vapers who use RTAs already have quite a few of those tiny screwdrivers so might not be a problem. To tighten the screws on the build deck you need a tiny Phillips screwdriver, while the fill screw is slightly larger and needs a flat one. They could have made these the same and included the screwdriver needed. Other than that, if you have the screwdriver at hand, and good lighting so you don't loose the tiny screw, filling is no problem. The size of the hole matches the tip of most juice bottles.

The juice capacity is said to be 3ml. For my use, this is more than enough, and actually quite a lot considering the size of the atty. But this also means that it is not the RTA you would bring as your only one for longer trips, especially outdoors considering how it is filled. Of course if you're inside and can fill whenever you want it's all good.

The Goblin does not use standard 510 drip tips, but there is an adapter included if you have some favourite you want to use. I haven't even thought about that since I think the glass tube ones included look awesome, and they don't get hot. They could, however, have used a slightly thicker o-ring in there to make it a tighter fit. It is pretty loose, and I have actually had it falling out in my pocket. Found it again though so I still have both :)

Performance
Now comes the really good part. Cause performance is amazing on this RTA. With my .4 ohm dual coil setup (28 AWG) I get huge amounts of vapour and equally huge amounts of clean delicious flavour. It's up there with my drippers, and definitely one of the best atties I've tried once set up. I've been running it mostly on 40W, and it is quite a thirsty thing. Guess it has to be to produce those clouds. You could probably set it up differently, and run on lower watts to make it less thirsty, but I haven't really had the need to do that by now. Again, flavour and vapour production is incredible on this, and one of the best I've tried so far.

Pros and cons
++ Insane flavour
++ Fantastic vapor production
+ Looks great (you can also get tank sections in different colors)
+ Size (if you want a small atty of course)
- They should have made all the screws the same and included a screwdriver
- Difficult to fill if you're out and about, would have been great if they figured out a way to fill it from the top as well (Maybe block the fill hole with the driptip or something like that).
- Driptip fit is a bit loose.

Also worth mentioning is that this is not the RTA you want to do super-advanced fancy big builds on, with thick clapton or twisted coils and all that. The build deck is to small for that. But I didn't really want to list that as a con either, since that is not the point of this atty. It performs incredibly well on quite simple builds.

Conclusion
Would I recommend this? Hell yes! Of course, the small size limits it's use a bit, but honestly it has not been a problem for me yet. I quite simply love it. I see it's listed at just below $40 most places, but you can easily get it for around $20 most places, and at that price I see no good reason not to try this out. Gearbest has it at 50% off right now at $18.99. It's worth every penny... and then some.

Big thanks to Gearbest for sending me this Goblin Mini for review.

Disclosure:

• All my reviews are my honest opinion even if I am affiliated with the company manufacturing or selling the product. 
• The device was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
• This review does not contain affiliate links.

Government wants to implement TPD, Norwegian vapers bite back!

Kjell Marius Jenssen, head of board of NDS

On Monday Norwegian government parties Høyre and FRP announced they wanted to make it legal to sell e-cigarettes and e-juice containing nicotine here in Norway. Not surprisingly it was all just an effort to make it look like they're doing something good for public health, when really they're just preparing to implement the TPD.

Norwegian vapers, however, will not give up without a fight. Yesterday, Kjell Marius Jenssen, head of board of NDS, wrote an article published on minervanett.no, exposing the governments real intentions and calling their bluff. On behalf of Norwegian vapers, he bites back... hard.

Yesterday Høie and Wold celebrated themselves in the press. Finally  E-cigarettes will be made legal. It was even stated that e-cigarettes are good for public health. A little later that day the consultation paper was made public and all illusions vanished like dew before the sun. What the government took credit for wasn't actually making  e-cigarettes more easily accessible to Norwegian vapers, but rather introducing the EU tobacco directive Article 20 - an EU directive that actually obliterates the vaping phenomenon.

Google will probably translate the article well enough for you to see that it is a thorough walk through of the consequences, the undemocratic processes resulting in article 20 and finally a good summary of how NDS (and I think most Norwegian vapers will stand behind these views) view vaping and how it should be regulated.

Despite the fact that the government has access to all the information above and know that e-cigarettes are good for public health, they choose to promote a proposed regulation which effectively removes an alternative that is minimum 95 percent safer than tobacco smoking. When this is even communicated as a liberalization, one has to wonder if this is a sign of incompetence, or if they actually want to give the tobacco industry such a present.

But it gets better. Not long after Jenssen's article was published Dagbladet, one of Norway's biggest newspapers, picked up on the case and published an article with this headline: The government's e-cigarette proposal is a hoax. Now that's more like it. Jenssen's original article gets a link and some of the most important points are explained in a way most people can understand: The tobacco industry owned cigalikes that will be left on the market and the nicotine strength limit suggested will not make e-cigarettes a good alternative for smokers trying to quit. In the end, the tobacco industry will be the ones winning. This is also where Karl Erik Lund from SIRUS (The Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug Research) comes in to support Jenssen's argumentation in an excellent way.

What the government seems to want with this is a step in the right direction, and the intention to lift the ban is good. But to use the EU's tobacco directive as a template for regulation of e-cigarettes would have disastrous consequences for those products that lures smokers away from the deadly cigarettes.

For the first time in history, we now have harm-reducing nicotine products with the potential to compete with - and preferably out - tobacco. But in order to do so the nicotine doses needs be high enough and taste variations must be allowed. The EU directive causes the product range to narrow, the products to become more expensive, the attractiveness is reduced and the tobacco industry are left as the winners.

Lund also continues to attack the process leading to the TPD, calling it a missed opportunity:

There is a broad agreement among European tobacco researchers that the tobacco product directive evolved to become a "missed opportunity" for e-cigarettes. This is because neither researchers nor users were included in the decision-making process.

Finally he explains how cig-alikes are not very popular (cause they don't work very well) and refers to data from the UK showing that vaping is not picked up by non-smokers.

Jenssen gets to explain a bit about the Totally Wicked legal challenge and that NDS have suggested e-cigarettes should be regulated as consumer products with an age limit of 18 years, before the minister of health, Bent Høie, and general secretary of the Cancer Society, Anne Lise Ryel, gets to say they're happy with the suggestion. Høie says the proposal is an improvement to the current situation, that it will clear up some misunderstanding that e-cigarettes are risk free, but that there are health benefits for smokers switching to e-cigarettes. His statements doesn't make much sense if you've read the rest of the article.

Finally, I'd say, NDS and the Norwegian vaping community are getting some good, fair coverage in Norwegian media. This article in one of Norway's biggest newspaper is surely valuable to us. However, I do think it is a bit disappointing that I haven't seen any other media picking up on the case yet. NTB, a big Norwegian news agency is referenced in the article, so more media should have picked up on it in my opinion. Hopefully they're just a bit slow, and hopefully this can spark a real debate here in Norway, where vapers and vaping advocates voices are also heard. We've been left out in the cold for way to long already.

Norwegian government pretends to care... but wants implement TPD

Earlier today I wrote that Norwegian government parties Høyre and FRP wants to allow e-cigarettes containing nicotine. With big words FRP proudly announces they want to allow this and facilitate product availability to give smokers a healthier alternative, one that will not kill them. A bit later the consultative document was released on the government webpage. This is in Norwegian of course, don't know how good google's translation will be, but I'm sure many of you recognise this: 2014/40/EF (or 2014/40/EU). Yes.... it is the EU TPD.

I said earlier today that I felt weird to see a representative from FRP make so much sense. Once I wrote that I had a gut feeling this all sounded a bit too good to be true. My gut was right. This is nothing more than the Norwegian government preparing to implement the draconian and deadly TPD. Høyre and FRP is merely trying to score some points among vapers, trying to make it look like they actually care about public health, when in fact they're jumping when they EU say they should and effectively try to eradicate vaping as we know it. The result is that they are sacrificing lives to avoid the wrath of their EU gods. There are two possible explanations to why: Either they're to weak and cowardly to stand up to the EU, or they're to lazy to do their job and actually read a word or two about what vaping is all about. I'm not sure what I think is more scary.

This morning I felt a bit optimistic. I should have known better. Norwegian vapers now face the same deadly regulations as the rest of Europe. Still, not all hope is lost. There are still people fighting the TPD, both in Norway and the rest of Europe. It's pretty clear from what we saw today that the Norwegian government intends to implement the TPD, so I urge Norwegian vapers to engage in this fight as well as working to educate the Norwegian politicians, making them understand that the EU is on the wrong path here. It's not very surprising, but still disappointing, that our government intends to implement the TPD. There's a lot of good work going on in the vaping community ... we'll just have to keep it up and hope for the best.

Norwegian government parties wants to allow e-cigarettes with nicotine

TV2 went to a tobacco shop in Oslo selling e-juice...
without nicotine of course, says the girl working there.

Today TV2, a large Norwegian TV channel, reports that governing parties Høyre and FRP wants to repeal the existing "e-cigarette ban" here in Norway. Currently e-cigarettes are subject to kind of a semi-ban. It is not legal to sell e-cigarettes or e-liquid containing nicotine, but as long as they don't contain nicotine e-cigarettes are legal to sell, but subject to an advertising ban and an age limit (18 years). It's great to see that politicians are welcoming vaping, but it's a bit early to bring out the champagne just yet.

There is currently not much information available on the suggestion, but FRP writes on their web-page that it will be regulated by the current smoking laws, and that they're very happy with that:

"It makes control operations easier. Moreover, not everyone will notice whether you smoke a cigarette or vape on an e-cigarette. So it makes sense that e-cigarettes are regulated by the Tobacco Act", says Morten Wold, Member of Parliament from FRP.

This probably means no vaping inside and so on, but also means it can be sold anywhere tobacco is sold. A very important issue is what will happen to our current import rules. If the opportunity to import e-juice for private use by ordering online is removed (we're not allowed to order tobacco or alcohol this way), we're suddenly much more limited in our choices and I fear prices will be a lot higher than today. I've found no information on any limit on nicotine strength yet either, but it would surprise me if they don't look at the TPD for this. So even if the ban on nicotine e-juice is lifted we still have a long way to go, and some battles to fight.

"We have repeatedly proposed to repeal the ban on the sale of e-cigarettes because these are far less harmful than regular cigarettes. E-cigarettes may represent a harm reducing alternative for smokers. Therefore it has been important for FRP to facilitate access to these products", says Wold

As you can see, they are all for harm reduction and seem to understand that this is they way to fight tobacco, and therefore wants to facilitate access to e-cigarettes. However, regulating this under the Tobacco Act is not exactly how I would have started out to facilitate access. Also, facilitating access is great, but you also need to think about facilitating usage, making e-cigarettes a more attractive alternative for smokers. If these politicians really understand the concepts of harm reduction, it is obvious that some education is needed to make sure they regulate this the right way.

A request for comments to the suggestion will be sent out today. Høyre and FRP needs support from some of the other government parties for the suggestion to become reality, so we're not sure this will become reality yet. We'll just have to wait and see how this turns out. There is still a lot of questions as well, and not much information on how regulation will be done, but I do believe vapers in Norway will have to continue fighting for reasonable regulations. I'm kind of optimistic, but I do feel it's quite weird to see a representative from FRP making so much sense, almost hard to believe ... that's enough about my political views for now:) I'll try my best to keep you guys updated on this.

UPDATE: This turned out to be the government preparing to implement TPD and kill vaping as we know it.

Worth Reading this Weekend (October 23rd)

It's Friday again and time for some new links to keep you busy reading this weekend.... just to make sure you're not bored :)

• Last week I mentioned I've been discussing regulations with Sanner and Grimsrud. One of the main points we've been discussing is nicotine. Sanner and Grimsrud claims that nicotine, by itself with no tobacco present, is highly addictive and can cause cancer. No documentation have been provided. I've written a bit about this before and I also found a couple of quite interesting articles on the subject this week here and here. 

• Dick Puddlecote has written a great post on "The Inconvenience Of Proving Harm":

So, it would appear that 'public health' has set its sights on convincing governments to ban e-cig use in public not by proving harm actually exists, but by "continued monitoring of public perception" to "guide clean air policy decisions" in favour of prohibition.

• NHS have updated the E-cig advice on their website to reflect the PHE-report: NHS Updates Ecig Advice.

• Many of you might have seen the story about a guy claiming his e-cig burned a hole in his lungs that was published here (among other places). Snopes.com was also pretty quick to cover the case... from a slightly different angle :) Dr. Farsalinos also commented on the case on Facebook: 

A case of spontaneous pneumothorax, for which SMOKING (current or past) is a risk factor, is presented as "burning hole in the lung" (a term which sounds like a joke) caused by e-cigarettes.
It is never too late to stop the misinformation.
I feel sorry for the patient, not only about his episode of pneumothorax but mostly because he is probably convinced to quit e-cigarette use and relapse to smoking!!!

• Christopher Snowdon have some words on cheese: Action on Cheese 

• And finally, a video that will make you happy: Former health committee chair Kevin Barron MP backs E-cigs

Have a nice weekend!

Juice Review: Il bacio by Suprem-e

I'm actually not sure if I've tried Italian made e-liquid before, but I do like Italian food. I mean who doesn't? Suprem-e writes quite a lot about their efforts to make safe products on their website, but they were involved in the case where Cloud9 tested some juices and decided to withdraw the whole Five Pawns range. The juice I'm reviewing here was also withdrawn due to detectable DA and AP. Still the amounts found was in this one was not very high and probably not put in there on purpose. I don't know if Suprem-e has taken steps to fix this, and I can't really find any info on it either (feel free to comment if you know anything). However, as I said, the amounts found in this juice is so low that I'm not worried about it, as the levels are around the limits Dr. Farsalinos have mentioned earlier as probably just contaminants in the flavourings used. As I said, personally I feel vaping this is perfectly safe, but I also feel that test results should be published so every vaper can make an educated choice.

Il Bacio

Tested on: Steamcrave RDTA (OCC head @ 0.3 ohms, 30-40 watts)

I don't speak Italian... at all. So when I first saw the name of this juice I just assumed that "bacio" meant tobacco. Sounds reasonable doesn't it? To be perfectly honest I didn't even check it out before I tasted it... and it tasted didn't taste tobacco... it tastes like Hazelnut. So I had to check out what Il Bacio means, and according to google it means "The kiss". Anyway... after this little surprise, I do think this juice is quite good. It is not a pure Hazelnut e-juice, there is also chocolate in there. Kind of reminds me a bit of a chocolate we got here in Norway with whole hazelnuts in it. It's the same flavours, but different balance. This has much more nuts and the chocolate is more in the background. The nuts are pretty authentic with a little bite to it. I have to be honest, hazelnuts and chocolate is not my favourite flavour combo, but it doesn't at all taste bad and I can easily enjoy this juice for days, and for those of you who just love chocolate with nuts in it... try this one.

Thanks to esmokes.se sending me this juice for review. They also provided this code for 10% off: VG2015

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 do not affiliate links.

Juice Review: Kringle's Curse by Halo

Halo has been around for as long as I can remember. I remember considering at their mini tank system when I was looking for a really easy to fill cig-alike starter kit for a smoker I know that I've still not managed to convince that vaping is the way to go. Pre-filled didn't quite do the job and cartos were way to complicated to fill. Yeah, Mum, I'm talking about you again. Anyway, Halo also make e-liquids, and from what I've seen they get quite good reviews. I have to say, however, that even if Halo's website looks pretty good, clean and professional I do have some issues with it. First of all, they call themselves Halo cigs... not e-cigs or vapes or whatever. In their "Why Halo?"-section they also talk about "American Made Smoke Juice". It's not a huge issue, but I do feel Halo should do a better job making sure new users understand that vaping and smoking is not the same thing. Anyway, that being said, let's move on to the review of the e-liquid that esmokes.se sent me :)

Kringle's Curse

Tested on: Aspire Triton (0.4 ohms, 30-40 watts)

Kringle's Curse is part of Halo's Gourmet range. Pure peppermint, according to the description... and it sure smells like it. Opening the iconic blue bottle you get a pretty strong, fresh peppermint smell. The taste... is also very true to the description. Spot on, I'd say. A cool, pretty sweet peppermint. Great balance when it comes to sweetness, just sweet enough without being sickening, which also makes this a great all day vape. No surprises here but a lot of flavour, good throat hit and decent vapour-production. I can really see why this one has gotten very positive reviews. Great juice that I've got no problems recommending. Halo have also tested their juice for Diacetyl and Acetyl Propionyl, and published the results, which is a big plus in my opinion. Now if they would just stop using the word smoke on their website I'd be really happy with them :)

Thanks to esmokes.se sending me this juice for review. They also provided this code for 10% off: VG2015

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 do not affiliate links.

E-cig April Fools' jokes becomes reality?

Seems to me it's in the UK all the fun is happening at the moment. While most of the European vapers, Norwegians included, are struggling hard with stubborn, clueless, greedy public health officials and politicians, eager to make sure their sin taxes are not lost, the UK probably has the strongest public health support in the world right now. Since Public Health England did a U-turn, publishing their famous report concluding that e-cigarettes are at least 95% safer than smoking cigarettes, it seems to me that things are moving in the right direction. I'm not saying they're there yet. There are still some pretty big obstacles in the way, the TPD being by far the biggest one in my opinion, but when they're discussing whether e-cigs should be provided on the NHS they're obviously miles ahead of the rest of us. Back here in Norway we're still fighting our Health Minister that wants plain packaging... on snus(!). Great article on his failures here by the way (Google translates "snus" to "snuff", and you should be aware that "Sats" is a well known fitness center chain in Norway).

This morning I read the Ashtray blogs' post on E-cigarette Summit III, which I think will be an extremely interesting event. The one thing that really caught my attention was the paragraph on "The tobacco endgame":

Perhaps the most controversial presentation will made by the Royal Society of Public Health.

The society will ask if we should encourage all smokers towards safer nicotine products, making cigarettes as we know them today illegal.

The reason for this?

They feel that now we have e-cigs, there’s no need for tobacco cigarettes.

The funny thing is that I ran this post on the April 1st 2014. In my April Fools post I had our prime minister stating that "With the new electronic cigarettes there is no need for the deadly tobacco cigarettes any more". Pretty much the same that RSPH now suggests. A lot of people actually believed that post by the way, some French forums went all crazy about it. Now I do realize that there is quite a long way from RSPH calling for a ban on tobacco cigarettes, replacing them with e-cigs, to a government implementing it, but it's still quite interesting to see that someone is actually suggesting it. I don't believe the WHO has ever done that. They instead want to ban what could lead to the tobacco endgame. For this reason, Margaret Chan will now receive "Winston Man" David Goerlitz' medal "World Health Medal of Honor" back with instructions to "put it where the sun does not shine". Great gesture, David!

I have to admit I do think it will be a while until we see an actual tobacco ban. I'm not sure it would really be the way to go either, at least not yet. But who knows. Since April 1st 2014 quite a lot has happened, at least in the UK. The things we believed back then would never happen... well have a look at the Ashtray blog's post from April 1st 2014: Massive EU About Turn on Ecigs. Quite far fetched back then, but the U-turn that UK Public Health have done isn't that far away from what James' joked about back then.

Use discount code "vapingiraffe" for 5% off

Worth Reading this Weekend (October 16th)

WHO Director General Margaret Chan 

This week I've spent some time discussing e-cigarette regulation with my friends Sanner and Grimsrud in  the comment section of an article on tidsskriftet.no, which is kind of the official journal for the Norwegian Medical Association. I couldn't really get google to translate the comments in any other way than copying it and paste the whole thing into the text-field on google translate, but if anyone have a better idea please let me know. Anyway, the discussion has been going on for quite a while now, and I've been pointing out errors in their article, their documentation and their ability to draw logical conclusions. The last two answers I've gotten from them has been more or less attacks on my sources (which have basically been the same as theirs) or me personally. They don't even try to go into the topic any more, just blabbering about conflicts of interest, how little I know about toxicology and in their latest post they strongly suggest I'm stupid. I won't sink to their level but they'll get an answer, that's for sure.

Anyway, in this discussion there has been quite a lot of talk about conflict of interest, which leads me to some of the posts and articles I wanted to share with you today:

• James at the Ashtray blog has written an excellent article on who you can trust in the vape debate. A lot of interesting stuff in there, exposing where some of the most famous anti-vaping advocates get their funding from. (Actually the Ashtray blog also had an interesting article this week on E-cigs, Water vapour and The Lungs that's worth reading as well)

• Although Clive Bates don't mention conflicts of interest in his article on WHO’s Director General Margaret Chan’s casual irresponsibility, one can certainly start questioning how the WHO is funded.

• David Sweanor has been speaking on a C3 Breakfast Seminar this week, and Richard Smith writes about it on thebmjblogs. Some really interesting angles here as well, that might come in handy when discussing with the ANTZ.

• Dick Puddlecote writes about Simon Chapman (or Simple Simon if you'd like): Aussie Tobacco Control Worse Than North Korea. Always amusing to read Dick's well targeted posts.

• Finally, I'd like to ask everyone to have a look at this. Apparently, Facebook is censoring Aaron Biebert and his upcoming movie, and Aaron wrote this letter to Mark Zuckerberg & the Facebook team. Please take a moment to help share this info.

Juice Review: Mother's Milkshake by Yaeliq

Yaeliq is the only Israeli e-juice maker I know of and they say they're a "family owned business that began as a hobby and the desire to vape quality e-juice, made from the world's finest ingredients". They've got this slogan as well... "Premium liquid from the holy land". Kind of big words don't you think? Let's see if they can live up to them, shall we?

Mother's Milkshake

Tested on: Steamcrave RDTA (Dual coil @ 0.5 ohms, 30-40 watts)

This juice aims to be a strawberry milkshake flavoured juice based on ripe, fresh strawberries and cream. Smelling the bottle it sure smells like strawberries, but I do feel it's got kind of an artificial, candy kind of strawberry smell to it. Not that promising if I'm honest. Vaping it however, does not taste artificial at all in my opinion, I get more of a fresh, natural strawberry taste from it... and cream... loads of cream. Tastes like a really thick strawberry milkshake, so their description is not at all off. It produces a lot of thick, creamy vapor that you almost feel you can chew. You almost get the feeling you'll gain weight just by vaping this stuff. It is pretty sweet so for me it's not an all day vape, it's more of a dessert vape... I mean a vape that I'd actually have for dessert, and dessert is my favourite part of the meal. Really a great juice this one and, judging by this one, I'd say Yaeliq's big words that I mentioned in the beginning are justified.

Thanks to esmokes.se sending me this juice for review. They also provided this code for 10% off: VG2015

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 do not affiliate links.

Juice Review: Unicorn Blood by Fuzion Vapor

Usually when vendors contact me to asking if I want to do juice reviews they ask me what I like, and usually I'm not able to tell them. And usually I don't want to either, cause I'd probably just end up with something less interesting, some juice that I've heard a lot about and so on. So I'll tell them to send me their own favourites, some times adding which flavours I really don't like. For me it's a lot easier naming the flavours I don't like than the ones I do like... cause I like a lot of different stuff. Anyway... when Johan at esmokes.se asked me if I wanted to do some reviews, I told him to send some of their favourites, and the first one I tried out was this Unicorn Blood by Fuzion Vapor.

Unicorn blood

Tested on: Steamcrave RDTA (Dual clapton @ 0.4 ohms, 40-60 watts)

"Tastes exactly like rainbows.” - This is what Fuzion Vapor writes about this juice on their web-page. Well, how the hell does rainbow taste like? Actually the rest of Fuzion Vapors' description won't give you much more of a clue either, but some googling and smelling the bottle tells me this is a fruity candy kind of flavour. Vaping it the flavour seems quite familiar, but I couldn't really put my finger on just exactly which candy it reminds me of. Definitely a fruit candy kind of flavour though, maybe lime skittles is closest as some other reviewer suggested. It's been a while since I've had lime skittles but from what I can remember it's  close to this. It's a pretty sweet juice, so definitely candy, not trying to replicate the fruits itself. And the more I vape it, the better I like it. Cranking up the watts gives you even more flavour. Great juice that I believe I could vape all day long.

Esmokes tells me this juice has no Diacetyl, but it does have some sweeteners and food grade colouring. However, Fuzion also have a redesigned version (Fuzion Prime range) of this juice that don't have this stuff in it, and is also supposed to work better on RDAs.

Thanks to esmokes.se sending me this juice for review. They also provided this code for 10% off: VG2015

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 do not affiliate links.

Worth Reading this Weekend

It's not every week I have the time to write very much myself, but I usually manage to squeeze in quite a bit of reading. So I thought I'd try to make a habit of sharing some of my favourites every weekend, starting... well now:

• Dick Puddlecote comments on this Forbes article where Sally Satchel introduces an interesting concept of vapers signing up to be sponsors helping smokers quite. It's a great idea, but will it work in the real world?

• James of the Ashtray blog said the just had to write about the Welsh government destroying their own gateway theories using their own evidence. But they still not quite ready to let their beloved theory go. This one left me trying to decide whether I should laugh or cry...

• I think Dr. Glantz have reached an all time stupidity high again. Well, I can't really be sure that this is the stupidest things he have uttered yet, there is so much to pick from, but it's definitely up there. I'll leave it up to Michael Siegel to explain: Cutting Down on the Amount You Smoke Has Benefits if You Cut Down Using Low-Nicotine Cigarettes, But Not if You Use E-Cigarettes. I also recommend reading his post from the day before on kind of the same topic.

Updates on the Totally Wicked legal challenge (UPDATED)

Yesterday Totally Wicked published a report on the hearing that was held on the 1st of October. This hearing is "the oral stage" of the whole process, where TW's barrister got 20 minutes to present his arguments and the EU institutions and member states (UK, France and Spain) contesting the case got 15 minutes each. The next stage is ... the Judgement stage:

We will get an opinion from the Advocate General on the 17^th December. In around 80% of cases, the judges do follow this, and the actual ruling will be given in the early part of next year.

Hopefully the Advocate General is able to see that the gateway theory is a product of certain peoples imagination and has nothing to do with reality, that the health risks are only applicable to certain peoples "smoking-robots" and that dying babies ... well ... is a good sign that they don't have many real arguments to present. 

Totally Wicked have published a guide to the process here, and I also recommend following Clive Bates' post on the case which seems to be updated as we're moving along.

UPDATE: Totally Wicked also published a press release on the case today. You can read it here.

Norwegian Medicines Agency confirms private import of e-cigarettes still legal

Yesterday I wrote that the Norwegian Medicines Agency (NOMA) have implemented new rules on private import of pharmaceuticals here in Norway. The Norwegian Union of Vapers (NDS) had already talked to reliable sources that said e-cigarette import for private use would not be affected by these new rules, meaning we'd still be allowed to order e-liquid for 3 months use online. Some hours later the government confirms this in a press release. This means nothing has changed regarding import of e-cigarettes and e-liquid to Norway, and for now, we don't have to choose between being criminals or smokers. Thanks again to NDS for their efforts in this matter. I've translated the press release below:

A great many Norwegians are buying fake and illegal medicines online. To protect the public from exposure to substances that in the worst cases can be harmful, the government now introduce new rules for private import of medicines.

From October 1st, you can only privately import prescription drugs that have been approved in Norway. This means that the package text must be Norwegian. The requirement for approval in Norway follows from the EEA Agreement. The new rules also means that one can no longer privately import prescription medicines.

WHO estimates that 50 percent of medicines sold over the Internet are fake. This may mean that the medicines are ineffective, so serious illness may not be treated, or that they contain substances other than those described. At worst, they can be downright harmful.

Behind these shipments are often organized criminal networks and it is this business we want to put a stop to. Today Customs return these shipments to sender. This means that drugs often been resent. From October 1st, Customs will have the authority to destroy the drugs they confiscate. This way we get the false and illegal drugs out of circulation.

Those who for medical reasons need to get imported medicines that are not sold in this country will still be able to do it legally through a doctor. The doctor has, with these new rules, the opportunity to apply for exemption from approval when it is necessary for the patient to use medicines that do not have marketing authorization in Norway.

E-cigarettes are not covered by the new rules. It will still be allowed to import e-cigarettes to Norway after 1 October. Neither do the new rules do not affect the ability an individual has to bring these medicines into Norway themselves.

While I'm happy to see that e-cigarettes are not affected by these new rules, I still think the rules are the result of totally incompetent politicians not doing their job... at all. As you can see the rules were supposed to be designed to stop criminal networks from sending fake medicines into Norway, which would be great... of course. The problem is that they also ban the import of vitamins, minerals and dietary supplements while they're at it. I came across a good article (in Norwegian) on the matter yesterday (http://www.lillemaane.no/nyhet/252/), which questions how this could happen. It could certainly look like big pharma lobbyists have done some work here. An example: Vitamin D bought online costs 65 NOK for 6 months supply. Buying it here in Norway costs 1253 NOK, or 2136 NOK for the prescription version.

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Norwegian authorities bans private import of pharmaceuticals

Yesterday Norwegian newspaper VG reported yesterday that the Norwegian Medicines Agency have implemented a total ban on importing pharmaceuticals from October 1st... that's today:

It will now be illegal for Norwegians to order medications online sent from abroad, according to the Norwegian Medicines Agency. This applies to all prescription drugs and non-prescription (with one exception: if the drug is Norwegian with Norwegian label).

This means, it will not be possible any more to buy medication from pharmacies online, for example from our neighbours in Sweden, which I believe have been quite common up until now. There is a long list of stuff that we can no longer get shipped (from what I understand there are no changes in rules if one brings the products in themselves when coming from abroad): 

• Products containing pharmaceutical substances. 
• Products containing herbs.
• Products containing vitamins in daily doses exceeding maximum limits. 
• Products claiming to be medicinal. 
• Products for injection, excluding products which are CE marked medical devices or products regulated by the regulations on tattooing. 
• Products for use in eyes. 
• Homeopathic remedies. 
• Drugs. These are also governed by regulations on drugs and is not allowed to import privately. This also includes synthetic substances similar substances listed on the drug list, but not covered by drug regulation. 
• Doping assets. These are also governed by regulations on what is doping and is not allowed to import private. 

The Norwegian Medicines Agency have said earlier that e-liquids are classified as pharmaceutical products, so it certainly looks like this might stop us from buying e-juice online. However, the Norwegian Union of Vapers (NDS) quickly reacted to the news and started asking around. Actually the new rules were published some days before VG wrote about it so they've been working on it for some days now. Anyway, it looks now like e-liquid will NOT be affected by the new rules. The rules were made to stop the import of fake pharmaceuticals and it has not been the intention to stop the import of e-liquid, like many of us feared when we first heard about these new rules. There has been a lot of uncertainty.... and panic in the NDS Facebook group the last days but hopefully this info posted by NDS will help people sleep:

It has not been possible to obtain any written statement on whether e-liquid is affected or not. However, we have access to information from multiple credible sources that indicate that e-liquid is not going to be affected.
 
This means that we will continue as before even after 01/10/15 and look forward to constructive cooperation with Norwegian Health authorities on the regulation in Norway. We hope that the opportunity to be a pioneer in harm reduction and tobacco injury prevention will soon be seized.

So, for now: The rules for importing e-liquid to Norway are still the same today as they were yesterday, we're allowed to import e-juice for 3 months use ... as long as we're not enjoying it too much, and use it for smoking cessation only :) Thanks a lot all of the people in NDS and others who have worked with this case.