Five Pawns response to Cloud 9's Diacetyl and Acetyl propionyl tests

Yesterday I wrote about the test results Cloud 9 Vaping published showing incredibly high concentrations of Diacetyl (DA) and Acetyl Propionyl (AP) in Five Pawns' e-juices. Five Pawns have responded to all of this on their blog, and they have issued a Cease and Desist. I recommend reading their response here. The test results published on Cloud 9's blog is no longer available there and have been replaced by the following text: "The information relating to specific products withdrawn from sale as part of our testing/due diligence processes has been removed pending legal advice."

Five Pawns now link to several tests done of their juices and the results are very different from what Cloud 9 published. The tests they've published show very low or non-detectable amounts of DA and the highest PA result is 910. The Cloud 9 tests showed numbers above 2000 for PA. So which tests should we believe? Honestly I don't really know. The Cloud 9 test results seem almost to high to be true, but on the other hand Five Pawns would benefit from a lower number. That being said, I'm left with a feeling that Five Pawns' own tests (which are also done by independent labs) seems more in line with what I'd expect looking at the Vaporshark tests. In any case I think Five Pawns make a valid point when they state the following:

There is currently no standardized or approved methodology for testing e-liquids.  That needs to change.  We want to assure our retailers and customers that Five Pawns is 100% dedicated to working to develop a standard methodology by which all e-liquids can be tested and held accountable.

I also got an interesting comment yesterday saying that the Cloud 9 tests also differs from tests published by Mystic's own tests. Another interresting thing that might indicate that Five Pawns are actually working to reduce the amount diacetyl to a minimum is that their 2014 tests showed detectable and in one case (Perpetual Check) quite high amounts of diacetyl, while the newer tests show none or very low amounts.

For PA, Five Pawns' tests still shows quite high numbers, but Five Pawns are saying that they don't see this as a problem:

Further, we feel that efforts to translate industrial exposure limits to vaping exposure limits are flawed. It is clearly not the same.  If this were true, one would expect a population of individuals becoming sick from vaping, but this is not the case. There are no known publicly documented cases of anyone having respiratory issues related to vaping AP or diacetyl at the levels currently in e-liquids.  Many websites and blogs discuss this exact issue.  We are confident that studies and future data will show inhalation from vaping e-liquids should not be compared to industrial exposure limits.

Well, I'm not an expert on these substances so I don't really know, but I suspect neither are Five Pawns, so I find it kind of strange that they could be so confident. Is it really worth taking the risk? And wouldn't it take quite a while until we would see long term effects of vaping DA and AP? I have to agree with what Dr. Farsalinos said about the matter in an interview:

My suggestion is not to use Diacetyl or Acetyl for any reason. The only reason that you would use them is that it tastes better than the Diacetyl and Acetyl free liquids, aside from this there is no reason for these ingredients to be contained in e-liquid. It isn’t worth the risk. Everyone can decide for themselves, I’m not here to implement or enforce any decisions, it’s a personal decision. We need to educate the users with what we know about Diacetyl and let them decide for themselves.

The way I see it, until more research is done, proving that AP is harmless in e-liquid... or not, we are taking a risk vaping it. The good thing about all this fuzz is that awareness is raised which might lead to more research on the issue being done soon, and we as consumers are able to choose whether or not we are willing to take that risk. Because there is alternatives without DA and AP, some of them already very popular.

I see a lot of people angry at Five Pawns in forums, and in a way I understand it. I don't think Five Pawns is handling this in the right way, threatening to sue, which in my opinion just makes it look like Cloud 9 hit the nail bang on. But on the other hand we don't know all the details here either. We don't know what communication, if any, Five Pawns and Cloud 9 have had prior to the first results getting published. I think publishing such results without talking to Five Pawns first would be wrong as well. I can think of reasons why Cloud 9 would do that actually, seeing how much goodwill Vaporshark earned by publishing the results. But again, we don't know this, so there is no point discussing it.

As I said above, I think Five Pawns has a valid point in that "there is currently no standardized or approved methodology for testing e-liquids", and I really hope this will lead to the industry starting to working on good standards and methods for giving us test-results we can trust. As of now I get the feeling you can send your e-juice to different labs and get very different results back, which means it's difficult to trust any of them (but that doesn't mean that none of them are correct). I'm also hoping that we'll start seeing more research done on the effects of vaping these substances soon. 

Cloud 9 Vaping withdraws entire Five Pawns range after Diacetyl and Acetyl propionyl tests

Not long after Vaporshark released test results for all the e-liquids they sell, Cloud 9 Vaping just released some very concerning test results as well. In a blog post from the 16th of June this year they explain that they have been testing all their e-liquids and flavour concentrates since 2011, not only for diacetyl (DA) and acetyl propionyl (AP), but also for diethylene glycol, ethylene glycol and nicotine assay. In the blog-post on the 16th they say that these tests resulted in them withdrawing a whole range of well known, very popular e-liquids from their store, and yesterday they published the results in question. According to Cloud 9, Five Pawns failed the tests miserably as you can see. Not only do they have the highest AP levels we've seen so far, but also fails the nicotine assay tests.

I think it's very sad to see such results and have to admit that I kind of hope something horribly wrong has happened and it's all just a bad dream. I've been doing some research, asking around a bit and Five Pawns have ensured both retailers and end customers that their liquids are diacetyl free. Now, as Dr. Farsalinos also mentioned in his appearance on Click, Bang!, the e-liquid manufacturers might not be the only ones responsible for this, as DA and AP comes from the flavour concentrates used. So Five Pawns might have been told by whoever they buy their concentrates from that they don't contain these chemicals. However, as we've now seen, e-liquid manufacturers should not trust this, and in my opinion they are still responsible for testing the finished product. It's the same thing in my own line of work (I work for an ISP), we cannot blame the manufacturer of our CPEs when they release a new software that breaks something, it's our responsibility to test it thoroughly before it's rolled out to customers. I'm probably not the only one impatiently waiting to hear what Five Pawns has to say about this.

Again, I think it's a good thing that resellers are doing these tests and publishing the results. This puts pressure on the manufacturers who will now have to start taking this seriously or they will probably be out of business even before regulations are being implemented.

Glantz telling us why vaping is a great idea

In the beginning of this month I wrote a post about an article written by Tore Sanner and Tor K. Grimsrud, where they try to convince Norwegian politicians to heavily regulate e-cigarettes, in reality handing the market over to Big Tobacco. Pretty much the same kind of propaganda we're used to from Stanton Glantz, with conclusions drawn out of thin air, preferably backed up by some graphs and data that has nothing to do with the conclusion whatsoever. I mentioned back then that it's been a while since I had heard from Glantz, but a couple of days ago I saw what he's been working on: A study titled "The smoking population in the USA and EU is softening not hardening".

I've been trying to make sense of what he's trying to say here, a difficult task in itself as most of it quite simply does not make sense, but I do believe the essence in his message is that if smoking prevalence goes down, quit ratios and quit attempts go up. Kind of a snowball effect or something like that. So basically there is no need for e-cigarettes or harm reduction for that matter.

It has been argued that as smoking prevalence declines in countries, the smokers that remain include higher proportions of hardcore smokers who are unwilling or unable to quit.

This is what Glantz call "the hypothesis of hardening as smoking prevalence drops", and he claims that his study has rejected this hypothesis. To me that hypothesis sounds very logical. It quite simply says that the as the people finding it easiest to quit, quit and the ones left smoking are the "hardcore" smokers that find it hard to, or does not want to quit. So the smoking prevalence graph will flatten out in time. Makes sense, but now here comes Glantz claiming to have evidence that this is not true. He actually goes even further and says that the graph will become steeper. If he really has found evidence of this it would be remarkable, sensational actually... so lets have a look at the evidence. I think looking at the "limitations" part of his publication is a good idea:

Concerning the use of the quit ratio as one of our outcome variables, it is important to remember that we do not know when these people quit; the successful quit could have been at any point prior to the survey (not just the current year), so the relationship between quit ratios and prevalence is reflecting the integrated effects of the long-term changes we are documenting, not necessarily behaviour in a specific year.

Soooo.... the quit ratio graphs in the study basically... well ... uhm ... why did you include them again? To show that quit ratio goes up, right? But you haven't really got any data to support this so you included something else instead hoping that no-one would notice didn't you, Glantz? So basically Glantz is left with his quit attempt graphs then, which proves that more and more people are trying to quit. And then:

The population-level data used in this analysis do not include individuals who are institutionalised or homeless. It is, however, among at least some of the segments of such populations where disproportionately more and heavier smokers can be found. Hence, the surveys we use might not include a portion of those who would be characterised as hardcore smokers.

What were you trying to prove again? That hardcore smokers will "soften" right... so why not exclude them from the survey to make it a bit easier, shall we? It's quite amusing, or sad, or both, that this last quote is written right above the conclusion stating that they've proven that these hardcore smokers are softening up. So in other words, as you can see, Glantz is just twisting and turning his background data, picking out parts he think might be confusing enough to back up his agenda and (amazingly) he is allowed to keep his job.

Now, I just found out that the always excellent Dick Puddlecote has written a post on this matter as well. It is a great read, and Dick points out that since Glantz has proven that more and more people are trying to quit, but the (real-life) graphs still have been flattening out, Glantz has actually managed to prove that less attempts are successful. In other words he has proven himself wrong. And I think the graph showing smoking prevalence California, Glantz' own state, is quite interesting as well:

Notice how the graph seems to start flattening out in the 90's, just like the "the hypothesis of hardening as smoking prevalence drops" says. But then something happens that makes the graph start dropping again. Which product do you think hit the American market around the time you see the graph start steepening downwards again?

Stanton Glantz set out to prove that e-cigarettes are not needed because smokers will quit anyway (or something like that), but he have ended up showing us why vaping is such a great idea. Thank you Dr. Glantz.

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Juice Review: Gambit by Five Pawns

I've done some reviews of Five Pawns juices earlier and I've been impressed by their ability to combine, balance and getting the best out of the flavours. They've shown they can combine a lot of flavours I would never have thought of mixing up in the Absolute Pin, but they also manage the art of keeping it simple (well more simple at least) with the Queenside.

Gambit
Tested on: Kanger Subtank (RDA @ 0.4 ohm's, around 25 watts)

Gambit is described by Five Pawns as a mellow apple pie flavour with flaky crust and decadent caramel, lightened by a dollop of French vanilla ice cream and unsweetened whipped cream. Smelling the juice it definitely smells like pie. And vaping it also makes me think if pie, with the caramel and vanilla there to sweeten the deal. The apple however, for me, is not that pronounced. And I also think the actual apple flavour could be better. It might just be me that spoiled with great apple flavour lately, but somehow I'm stuck with the feeling that I'm tasting an apple pie where they could have used better and sweeter apples, and maybe some more of them as well. Then again, I've tried a couple of apple juices lately (and also some earlier in my time vaping), and I've discovered that there are different kinds of apple and I've seen others around the web that loves this juice. The creamy pie taste is not at all bad, but for me this juice doesn't quite get up there with the rest of the Five Pawns juices I've tried.

Big thanks to vapeclub.co.uk for letting me try out this juice :)

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. 
• The juice was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
• This review does not contain affiliate links.

Vaporshark releases Diacetyl and Acetyl propionyl tests for all their e-liquids

As many probably know already, Vaporshark have tested all their e-juices for diacetyl (DA) and acetyl propionyl (PA) and the results are available at their website. Not only have they done this for their own line of juices, but they've done it for all the 3rd party juices they sell as well, and I think this is the first time a vendor has done that. I first read about this earlier this week on the grumpy vaper blog, but apparently the tests was done like a month ago and the results have been available since then as well. This is according to Mike from Vaporshark who was interviewed by Russ at the Click, Bang! show. Dr. Farsalinos was also on this show talking about the issue and I REALLY recommend listening to it, especially if you're still wondering what to think of all this. It's very enlightening: http://media.soundcloud.com/stream/fXhb26Iw0JNg.mp3

I think what Vaporshark has done here is absolutely great. As Dr. Farsalinos repeats a lot of times on the show as well, DA and AP in e-liquid does not have to be there(!) If you're wondering what the problem with these chemicals are, I recommend again that you listen to Dr. Farsalinos (he comes on around 47 minutes into the show), who explains this very well. In short, research done within the food industry has shown that people inhaling this have a risk of developing bronchiolitis obliterans, also known as Popcorn lung (I think I've read somewhere that it was first discovered in popcorn factories), which is a disease pretty similar to COPD... not very pleasant that is. From what I understand, it's not like you will develop this for sure, and you get DA and AP from smoking as well (so don't go back to smoking guys), and it's not a huge risk I believe, but there is a risk. What Vaporshark now has done is given us the information, so we're able to choose if we want to take that risk or not. And they have also put quite some pressure on a lot of e-liquid manufacturers to re-formulate some of their juices. 

Most vaping advocates I've talked to, or read about, agrees that vaping is not necessarily risk free, but it is a lot less dangerous than smoking. In other words we are not trying to avoid all risks, but we're trying to minimize it. So shouldn't we then accept the risks from DA and AP in e-liquid as well? Again I have to agree with Dr. Farsalinos on this: No we shouldn't. The point is that these substances are put in there on purpose by the makers of the juices, at least at the levels we see in some of the juices (ppm and ug/mL is the same number, had to ask Dr. Farsalinos about this I have to admit). Dr. Farsalinos explains that when we're looking at 10 or 20 ppm this is not very much and might be just contaminants in the flavourings used, and I guess these levels are also so low that it's pretty much ok to vape. However, when we see levels of 400-500 or even as high as 1800 ppm, this is something that is put in there on purpose to get the flavour they want to produce. DA and AP is from what I know used to create kind of creamy flavours, but it is also possible to make these flavours without DA and AP, which means these risks are totally avoidable. It is however difficult to set some kind of limit to what should be allowed in the juices, as the risk depends on how much you e-juice you consume every day. We might have to accept that there will be some trace levels coming from contamination, but I agree with Dr. Farsalinos that we shouldn't accept that these chemicals are added to the liquids on purpose, and this could very well become reality in future regulations.

I really hope this move by Vaporshark will put some focus on this and make some e-liquid-manufacturers reformulate their juices. Some manufacturers are already publishing similar tests for their juices, so they're not all bad :) As far as I know there is no kind of central database where you can go and look up your favourite juice, but the Vaporshark website now has data for quite a few popular brands. Hopefully they'll update if any of the manufacturers do reformulate their juices.

Personally I've learned a lot by listening to Dr. Farsalinos talking on the show I linked to above, and for now I'm going to stick with juices with no or at least very low levels of DA and AP. For me that means I'll stop vaping some that I do like, but it also means I might discover something new and even better. As I said, quite a few juice makers have already done the tests and published the results, and we now have the Vaporshark site for reference as well so I mean, why take the risk when it's so easy to avoid? 

There is also a discussion about this going on on the We are Casaa facebook page, where Dr. Farsalinos also clarifies his views on the matter, which I recommend reading.
 

 
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Review: Heatvape RDA Coiler

A little while ago I reviewed the Coil master, a handy little coil tool that in my opinion does exactly what it's supposed to: makes it easy to make perfect micro-coils in no time. The Coil Master is great, and reasonably priced as well. I did, however, mention that it might be an idea to create some kind of case or something like that for it, making it a bit more handy to bring around without loosing the different rods you use for different diameter coils.

Now last time I was getting some new coil-heads at Dampoteket, which is kind of my local webshop (just a 20 minute drive from here), I noticed something that kind of looked like the Coil Master: The Heatvape RDA Coiler. It also looked like they've kind of solved the problem I mentioned above: how to carry it around without looking the rods. I talked to Birger, who runs Dampoteket, just to ask him a bit how it worked and he offered to send me one for review. (Thanks for this, Birger).

Again, I'm not sure if I should call this a review, as it's more like a product recommendation. Cause the Heatvape RDA Coiler works pretty much the same way as the Coil Master (and probably a lot of other coiling tools out there), but it has a nice feature that makes me prefer it: It's hollow so you can store the rods inside which, in my opinion, makes it better. And it's cheaper as well, around £8-10 here in Norway at least. You get 5 rods (and matching insets, which is also stored inside the device): 3.5mm, 3.2mm, 2.5mm, 1.6mm and 1.0mm. Now, it's still possible to loose these rods, cause they'll slide out pretty fast when you open the device to take them out, but once you've finally found the little bastards on the floor you'll hopefully learn which way you should hold it when you unscrew the little cap. All in all, a very handy little tool for people who build their own coils. I'm starting to see a lot of different versions of these around now, maybe some of others also have that same idea of storing the rods inside the device, but I have no problems recommending the Heatvape RDA Coiler. The only thing I can think of that would make this even better is if they had offered some more different diameters (1.2 and 3.0 would be great).

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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 device was sent to me free of charge for the purpose of this review.
• This review does not contain affiliate links.

Juice Review: El-Toro Puros Dark by House of Liquid

I've mentioned House of Liquid in several of my reviews earlier and there is a reason for that: In my opinion House of Liquid makes one of the best tobacco e-liquid ranges out there, the El-Toro range. I remember there was a lot of talk about the Cigarillos when I first started vaping so I had to try it out, and of course I tried out some of the other juices in the range as well. I've got to say that to this day the El-Toro range is the best and most authentic tobacco e-juices I've tried. Now I see House of Liquid have decided to kind of split the El-Toro range into two sub-ranges, El-Toro Raw and El-Toro Fusion. The Raw juices I guess are the pure tobacco juices, while the Fusion juices have some other flavours blended in there as well. I do believe I've mentioned the Eden earlier, which is a fantastic apple tobacco juice. It of course sorts under the Fusion sub-range together with the subject of this review: The El-Toro Puros Dark. Reading the forums... it looks like I'm in for a treat. Let's see what all the fuzz is about, shall we?

Puros Dark
Tested on: Hellfire Dripper (0.3 ohm's, 25 watts)

The El-Toro Puros is a really strong, authentic Cuban Cigar kind of e-juice, and the most authentic one I've tasted so far. In the Puros Dark they say they've added "a splash of organic chocolate, coffee, and our full mastery" to the Puros, not because they wanted to add another flavour, but they say the chocolate and coffee will bring out the natural dryness in the tobacco flavour. So have they succeeded in this? In my opinion, YES! To be totally honest, if I didn't know there was some hints of chocolate and coffee in there, I wouldn't have noticed, at least not in a while. The tobacco flavour I know from the Puros is still there, even stronger and better than in the "original". But since I know there is chocolate and coffee in there I can taste the hints if I focus on them, but they're only hints and they're only there to bring out and enhance the tobacco in my opinion. If you're already familiar with the El-Toro range, it shouldn't surprise you that this juice is no less than fantastic, and if you're not... well then you should head over to the House of Liquid webshop immediately and start shopping. Cause you need to try this!

A big thanks to Georgio / eBaron for sending me the sample 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: Boss Reserve by Cuttwood

Cuttwood calls themselves "The sauce boss" and states the following on their website: "Through research, development, rigorous testing, and innovation, we are dedicated to providing the best e-sauce on the market." The juice up for review this time is even called "Boss Reserve". Lot's of big words there... let's see if they can live up to them.

Boss Reserve
Tested on: Kanger Subtank (RDA @ 0.4 ohm's, 25 watts)

Cereal vapes seems to be the big thing at the moment. When I read the description of this one I was kind of hoping it would taste something like one of my favourite cereal brands. Actually a really cheap, very sweet, no fruits, and probably not healthy at all... but it tastes great.

The Boss Reserve really does live up to it's name, and the description is pretty much spot on most of the time. Honey, nuts and milk comes to mind. Lot's of honey actually, and some hint of banana back there as well, but not too much. Being 40/60 PG/VG it produces loads of thick, sweet vapor as well. Some times I also think I also detect some hints of caramel as well. Absolutely a juice worthy of this name, and great with a cup of coffee. Maybe more of an indoor, cozy kind of juice for me, you know the kind you're looking forward to get back home to, sit down with and relax in the evening.

Thanks to vapeclub.co.uk 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.

Norway's biggest Stanton Glantz-fans strikes again!

It's been a while now since I've seen our dear Stanton Glantz spread his anti-vaping propaganda all over the internet. Maybe that's also the reason why a couple of his (apparently) biggest Norwegian fans decided to take matters into their own hands, trying to convince Norwegian politicians to regulate e-cigarettes to death by publishing their own far fetched version of reality. Tore Sanner and Tor K. Grimsrud has published an article in "Tidsskriftet for den norske legeforening" (Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association) that is so full of misinformation that I think the fact that these guys still can call themselves professor (emeritus) and dr. med., respectively, is no less than a tragedy. It's not the first time Sanner and Grimsrud publishes anti-vaping propaganda by the way. I've written about a couple of publications earlier here and here.

I'm not sure how good the google translation of the article will be, but I'm sure you'll be able to pick up the most important points. I'll translate and comment them here anyway. Let's start from the top shall we? Well actually there is some description of how e-cigs work first but then they start out with this, just to set the mood:

It is predicted that the current major tobacco manufacturers will soon dominate the market for e-cigarettes and sales in ten years will exceed the sales volume of conventional cigarettes.

Well, that doesn't seem to be happening in the real world now does it: http://goo.gl/CiLBBB. The source of this prediction is apparently an article from 2014 (with our dear friend Neal Benowitz who was thrown of the FDA TPSAC because of conflicts of interest as a co-author by the way). Actually this prediction might not be far from the truth if Sanner and Grimsrud gets it their way with heavy regulations that will favour Big Tobacco and kill all the competition, but if they don't it seems a lot more likely now that the independent vaping industry will dominate the market.

Then there is a whole paragraph on accidents and health effects where they talk about fires, poisoning, diacetyl, formaldehyde, acute effects of vaping and harmful effects of nicotine. They even throw in some words about e-cigs being used to do drugs, just so everyone will understand how dangerous this is. I haven't had time to go through all their references on this but when reading the next paragraph on passive exposure I noticed one of the passive exposure studies criticised by Dr. Farsalinos (Ballbè et al) was referenced so I bet most of their sources have been debunked thoroughly already. So I'll just skip that part. As for the e-cigs-used-to-do-drugs-part, I've covered this before here.

Moving on to the parts that worries me, frustrates me and makes me the most angry. Because these guys are not done with the gateway theory yet:

In a new Swedish study found that youth who had tried smokeless tobacco when they were 12-13 years old, had 3.4 times higher risk than others to be smokers when they were 17 to 18 year old. It is tempting to imagine that nicotine dependence has played a role here. In light of this, we must assume that young people who start with e-cigarettes also have an increased risk of later start smoking.

This shows how little contact the authors have with reality. Calling themselves experts on smoking and cancer and whatever, they still fail to mention that nicotine in itself is not very addictive. And even if it was, there is still no plausible reason why anyone would switch from a harmless, great tasting product to a deadly one that tastes like shit. It just doesn't make sense, and reality confirms this. The anti-vaping movement has been trying to convince us that e-cigarettes is a gateway to smoking for years, and they've spent an enormous amount of money on so called research to do this. But still they haven't found the only proof they need: A smoker that started out vaping. To me it seems like most of them has given up on this by now, focusing on the enormous amounts of young people that will start vaping and what horrible effects it will have on them, but Sanner and Grimsrud are a couple of stubborn bastards. But make no mistake, they also worry about never-smokers starting to use e-cigarettes, especially young people and kids: 

When e-cigarettes hit the market, it was mainly those already smoked, who tried the products. Later the use spread to never smokers, particularly young people. In 2013 6.8% of the population in the US used e-cigarettes. The use among young adults (18-24 years) was the highest, 14.2% of this age group used e-cigarettes.

According to a survey conducted in the UK 3% of the population used e-cigarettes regularly in 2010, while the proportion in 2014 was increased to 18%. 6% of children in the 10-11 age in Wales had tried e-cigarettes.

Let's have a look at a couple of their sources for this information, a study by McMillen et al and an ASH report from 2014. The study states in the result summary: "However, 32.5% of current electronic cigarette users are never- or former smokers." In other words this study does not differentiate between never-smokers and former smokers (quitters), which obviously (to anyone but Sanner and Grimsrud at least) makes it totally irrelevant in this context. What about the ASH report then? It states this in the summary:

Electronic cigarettes are proving more attractive to smokers than NRT while providing them with a safer alternative to cigarettes. There is evidence that they can be effective in helping smokers’ quit and little evidence that they are being used by never smokers.

So we really should worry about never-smokers starting to vape, shouldn't we? Sanner and Grimsrud presents numbers showing that e-cigarette usage is increasing like it is something very worrying. What they deliberately fail to mention is that this increase represents smokers trying to quit. Actually a big bunch of them has succeeded as well. I say deliberately fail to mention this, because if they really didn't know this it means they haven't even read their own sources. Even as little as I trust these guys I still think they've done that. They should also be interested in this years ASH-report that, again, confirms the fact that never-smokers don't start vaping: 

Regular use of the devices is confined to current and ex-smokers and use amongst never smokers remains negligible.

Sanner and Grimsruds conclusion is (no surprise) built an all these false conclusions drawn from more or less irrelevant and unreliable sources. Actually it looks to me that some of these sources have been included just for one single number or percentage, while ignoring the fact that they conclude totally opposite to Sanner and Grimsrud.

What we fear is the increased use of e-cigarettes among young people. Many can later start smoking, which can be seen among young people who have used snus. To prevent a "normalization" of smoking, we believe it is important not to allow the use of e-cigarettes in places where it should be smoke-free. Moreover, plain packaging is required, in the same way as for tobacco products. The price has the greatest impact on young people, and it is important that a sufficiently high fee is imposed on e-cigarettes.

As you can see, their suggestion is to hand the white market over to big tobacco, and make sure a totally unregulated black market emerges that will contain all the product that really work plus a good portion of dangerous ones. As if taxing e-cigs as we know them to death wasn't enough, they've even added plain packaging to make absolutely sure we minimize control, safety and tax income in addition to keeping as many smokers as possible smoking. Good God...

Vaping Giraffe shop open :)

For those of you that have always wanted a Vaping Giraffe T-shirt, Mug or Tie-bar, the Vaping Giraffe shop is now open :)

I know a lot of you have been waiting ages for this (yeah right), however there is only a limited number of items available... yet. If you have suggestions for other items with a Vaping Giraffe logo that the world cannot live without, feel free to leave a comment.

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Juice Review: Rockhopper by Penguin ejuice

We've seen penguins as characters in quite a few animated movies in recent years. I guess Happy Feet was the first one of them that I saw at least, and of course we all loved the penguins in the Madagaskar series. So much in fact that they got their own, kind of spin-off movie. I also quite enjoyed Surf's up, which by the way also featured music by one of my favourite bands, Pearl Jam. The main character of Surf's up was a Rockhopper, which is also one of the species that Penguin e-juice have chosen to name their juices after... and the subject of this review :)

Rockhopper
Tested on: Aspire Nautilus (1.6 ohm's, 15 watts)

The Rockhopper is described by Penguin as Watermelon Jolly Rancher. Again, I'm not familiar with the Jolly Rancher candy, but watermelon on the other hand, means summer and beach for me. I can smell watermelon when opening the bottle, but it's not a very strong smell. Then again, watermelon don't really smell that strong, or taste that strong either. For that reason I imagine making watermelon e-juice is kind of a challenge. I mean you don't want it to be to weak, but I imagine to much watermelon taste could end up a bit sickening as well. Anyway, I think Penguin has done a pretty good job finding the right balance. The watermelon taste is strong enough but not too strong, but it's also sweeter that just eating the fruit. I guess that's where the Jolly Rancher part comes in. Honestly I haven't really tried any watermelon candy that I can think of right now, but I imagine this is about how it tastes. For me it tastes like summer, relaxing, subtle and not to overwhelming. In the beginning I was thinking this was an all day juice candidate, but I think I've changed my mind, because I think you might get a bit bored with it if you use it too much. I'd say it's more the kind of juice you'd fill your tank with before a day on the beach, or some other summer activity.

Thanks to vapeclub.co.uk 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.