Worth reading this weekend (March 4th 2016)

When I started vaping I remember thinking that this will be the innovation of the century and that public health, anti smoking organisations, cancer societies and everyone who have spent decades fighting the deadly cigarettes would be overjoyed by this new products. I thought governments would be thrilled by this, finally being able to see one of the most expensive posts in their health budgets shrink. Now how wrong was I? I soon discovered the reason I was so wrong ... and that was also one of the reasons I started this blog: It was never about health! During this week it became even more evident. Here's some good reading on the subject:

• Dick Puddlecote, as always, have a couple of interesting and quite amusing considerations: Vapid Anti-Vapers; Vapid Government; Vapid EU and Vapid Anti-Vaper Writes

• Christopher Snowdon have some comments on the EU's plans to tax e-cigs like cigarettes: The EU shows its contempt for vapers (again). Now why the hell would they even consider this if it was at all even remotely about health?

• Actually... kind of on the same subject I'm going to link to an old post from this blog, hope that's not to cocky: Losing income from sin taxes shouldn't be a problem.

• Finally, I'd like to urge everyone to take Clive Bates Annual quiz on e-cigarettes and harm reduction - 2016. As Clive says: Fun with a purpose :)

Have a nice weekend!

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.

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Another day, another lie by Glantz

Sorry for the re-use of this photo, but I really
can't be bothered to find another one of Glantz

Stanton Glantz is really on fire these days. Today I noticed he proudly proclaimed that some of his friends have done another longitudinal study shows that kids at low risk of smoking who use e-cigs are a lot more likely to progress to cigarettes. Using his computer skills to make some of the text bold, and thereby, in quite a clever way I have to admit, he's able to emphasize his point and what he thinks his friends have proven with this study:

What they found was that the kids who used e-cigarettes were 8.3 times more likely to be actual smoking cigarettes a year later.

Oh, really? Is that what they actually found? Well apparently they think they did. From the "At a Glance"-section of the study:

In analyses that controlled for all covariates, baseline e-cigarette use was independently associated with progression to smoking (adjusted odds ratio [AOR], 8.3; 95% CI, 1.2-58.6) and progression to susceptibility (AOR, 8.5; 95% CI, 1.3-57.2) among initially nonsusceptible nonsmokers.

Hmm... this doesn't smell right? In what way did they twist reality to come up with those numbers? I have to admit I kind of cheated a bit and went straight on to Michael Siegels blog to see if he had already read the study and pointed out the lies. Of course he had, and he confirms a sneaking suspicion I had: They've created an alternative definition of a smoker. Well actually, from what I can see (I haven't really read the study that well yet), they don't really define a cigarette smoker in the study but rather a cigarette smoking initiator. Still they write about this as if they were the same thing. So what is a cigarette smoking initiator then?

... a cigarette smoking initiator, defined as someone who has smoked at least 1 puff of a cigarette in her or his lifetime

Oh? By that definition I'm actually still a smoker, right? Actually I think I remember taking a puff of my mothers cigarette when I was like 6 (sorry mum, I don't think I ever told you that), so I've been a smoker since I was 6 then. No wonder I was in such a bad shape when I hit 25. I'm also pretty sure my teenagers are alcoholics as I know for a fact they have tasted beer. Oh, Lord...

I guess most people can see why such a definition of smokers by itself makes this whole study was total waste of time, and the published results nothing more than a big fat lie. If you don't, or just want a good read, I recommend reading Dr. Siegels thorough explanation here.

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Do you really want a black market for e-cigarettes and e-juice?

A couple of days ago I read this story about a guy getting arrested for selling drugs that people could put in their e-cigarettes. Damn, more fuel to the fire. I'm sure some of the ANTZ will pick up on this and use it to create some kind of scaremongering story blaming e-cigarettes for teen drug abuse, and I'm not sure I can be bothered to write another post about how many household devices that are perfectly capable of doubling as equipment used for taking drugs. Go ahead, ban bottles cause they can be used to smoke pot right?

Anyway, the story also got me thinking about one of the effects of banning or over-regulating e-cigarettes. Do you really think people would stop buying e-liquid or advanced e-cigs? I don't. One thing I'm very sure of is that both bottles of e-juice and the equipment to vape it is here to stay. Millions of users won't quit that over night and I'd be very surprised if we don't continue to see an increase in users even with a ban in place. These devices are just to damn effective as quit smoking aids, and the success stories are just to many for that to happen. On top of that, the stories about people dying or even getting ill or hurt from e-cigarettes are practically non-existent. So where would we get our e-juice and mods if they are banned? You guessed it... a black market will rise and thrive under such circumstances... of course. Have a look at the survey that the Ashtray blog did on the consequences of an e-cig ban: http://goo.gl/Hvahos. 66% say they will buy from the black market!

So what would a black market for illegal e-cigarettes and e-juice look like? It might turn out in different ways, but one thing is certain: It will not be regulated in any way. We might see some of the vendors in today’s legal market moving to places where they won't be bothered by the authorities, but still they might face a lot of problems when trying to send into countries with bans in place. My experience with the market we have today is that most vendors and manufacturers are honest people trying to help others and make a living out of  it while they are at it, so my guess is that most of them will disappear or try adapt to regulations (which might also drive them out of business eventually). The problem is that it is the people that we want to stay that will go away, and the ones that doesn't care to much about the legal stuff, or the safety of their customers, are likely to be the ones operating in the black market. In fact they might even like it better that way, cause now they really don't have to care that much about their reputation either as people will be more reluctant to complain about stuff they have bought illegally.

Another group of people that might be happy with another illegal, yet popular, substance is the people that already sell other illegal substances; the drug dealers. Kind of a scary thought isn't it? That the easiest way to get some e-juice could be buying it from the same guy that would also sell you cocain? We all know that the infamous gateway effect is basically just... well bullshit, but what if we end up with drug dealers selling nicotine e-liquid? Can you think of another kind of gateway effect, that is much more scary than the one Glantz and his disciples have made up? I can think of several...


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