Alexis Petridis tells his vaping story

The stories that vaping ex-smokers tell are the best proof there is that vaping works. And these stories saves lives by making more and more smokers able to do the switch. The most effective stories are the ones shared between people who know, love and trust each other, stories told by friends and family. But stories told in public by journalists, celebrities and politicians are also effective in making people aware of the benefits of switching. I really enjoyed reading music journalist Alexis Petridis' (the Guardian) story: http://goo.gl/mtkCkD

He reflects around some really important questions in his story, the most important one being why he started smoking. Alexis says he started because it was cool, or actually because he thought he'd look as cool as his idols with a cigarette in hand. I'm guessing I'm not the only one who can recognize myself if this. Smoking has an aura of cool surrounding it, says Alexis, and he also gives the gateway argument some proper kicks in the nuts:

Even so, the life of the vaper isn't without minor privations. If the argument that e-cigarettes will ultimately lure kids into smoking seems specious, I suspect that's largely because the one thing that smoking an e-cigarette definitely doesn't do is make you look good. Quite the opposite: whatever the health benefits, it feels faintly pathetic whipping out an e-cigarette when the people around you are smoking the real thing, like turning up at the Giro d'Italia on a bike with stabilisers.

Love that Giro d'Italia analogy. And I like how he points out how horrible a cigarette tastes after you've been vaping for a while. This is why only never-smokers clings to the gateway argument. To a vaper who has successfully quit smoking completely, it's just ridiculous.

As I said, I really enjoyed reading Alexis' story, but it also made me think that some vapers have to think twice before going public with their story. I'm thinking about stars and celebrities. Their stories have the potential to influence a lot of people if published. These people have to remember that they are the idols of thousands, in some cases maybe millions of teens. If told in the right way they could possibly help a lot of smokers make the switch, but told wrongly, without making it very clear that this is not a habit you should pick up if you're not already a smoker, they can easily recruit non-smoking teenagers as well. I'm not pointing fingers here, in fact I've not seen any examples of such stories coming out in the wrong way, it was just a thought. And a reminder to any teen idol that reads my blog :) Actually, when I think about it, it might be a good reminder to all of us, especially parents, cause even though you're not on TV your story might influence your kids (or their friends) so make sure they get the correct version. You might be someones idol without even knowing it.

E-juice review: Vapourlites Blueberry, Vanilla Pod and Strawberry

A little while ago Vapourlites contacted me and asked if I wanted to review some of their new E-liquids, and I agreed to sharing my honest opinion on these. They sent me 3 flavours free of charge for the purpose of this review. (I am not affiliated with Vapourlites in any other way).

Vapourlites Pharma + E-liquids are produced by Vapourlabs (http://www.vapourlabs.co.uk/), and they've opted for 80/20 PG/VG. They have a strong focus on safety, all e-liquid are delivered in child safe 10 ml bottles, with a proper list of ingredients and warnings. They make a point out of the fact that their liquid is manufactured in their UK laboratories using the best ingredients including pharmaceutical grade nicotine.

All juices were 18mg/ml nicotine.

Blueberry
Tested on: Hellfire Hybrid
Opening the bottle the smell of this one is pretty good. As expected from an 80/20 liquid the throat hit was good as well. When it comes to flavour it's pretty good and pretty strong as well. There's a good deal of sweetness added, and I think that makes me feel it tastes a bit artificial. More like blueberry candy than pure blueberry. I haven't got too much to compare with when it comes to blueberry, as the only other one I've tried is Scopes, which is a much more complex juice that could just as well have been called blueberry-cinnamon-muffin or something like that. Vapourlites I'd say is more blueberry candy, which probably would hit the spot for quite a lot of people, but personally I like it more natural and I think it could be more balanced when it comes to sweetness.

Vanilla Pod
Tested on: Hellfire Mega
Good throat hit and decent vapour production. A pretty good vanilla flavour but I also get the feeling the sweetness could be balanced a bit better on this one as well. But then again, for some reason I tend to get quickly bored by vanilla e-liquid. I do love vanilla ice cream, vanilla custard and vanilla syrup in my coffee but as an e-liquid it doesn't really work for me, at least not as an all day vape. Vanilla custard on the other hand could easily be, don't really know why. Taste is personal I guess :)

Strawberry
Tested on: Hellfire Mega
This on kind of takes me back to my childhood as the taste reminds me of a strawberry milkshake they used to sell here in Norway like 20 years ago. To me this was the best of the 3, and although this one is also pretty sweet I think it suits the flavour better. It still has kind of a candy feeling about it, but there is still a distinct strawberry taste, which is a good thing. And even though it does have that candy feeling it still doesn't feel that artificial.

To sum up
The juices vapourlites sent me are by no means bad juices. Actually they are pretty good, and I wouldn't mind recommending them to someone looking for reasonably priced, safe e-liquid. I've tasted better blueberry, better vanilla and better strawberry juices than these, but then the price is also quite a lot higher. These you get 3 for £10. You probably also noticed that I've "complained" about sweetness balance a bit. This I guess is a matter of personal preference. I recommend trying them out to make up your own opinion, after all the price is quite affordable so you won't get ruined trying them out: www.vapourlites.com

The ASH study covered in Norwegian Media

On Tuesday, Norwegian newspaper VG published a story (http://goo.gl/po6nD6) on the ASH study I've written about earlier (http://goo.gl/lEbFpZ). The article sums up the results of the study, which you can read more about in my previous post, and also has a couple of interesting sub-headings:

• Norwegian expert rejoice in the development
• Can expect the same development in Norway

The expert in question is of course again Research Director for the SIRUS (Norwegian institute for drug and alcohol research) tobacco unit, Karl Erik Lund. He says to VG that he thinks we will see the same development here in Norway if the ban on over-the-counter sales is lifted. Today there is around 50.000 e-cigarette users in Norway.

"Despite the fact that some people are worried that e-cigarettes will re-normalize smoking, we have not found anything that supports this. On the contrary the use of e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking as many use them to help quitting.", Robert West, professor and head of The Smoking Toolkit Study, is quoted. And Karl Erik Lund supports this. He says the development is undoubtedly positive from a public health view, and he adds that we have studies indicating that the use of e-cigarettes is not harmful at all from a physiological perspective.

Lund is very negative towards todays ban on over-the-counter sales in Norway. He says there has been observations of some products that contains toxins that can be harmful in high concentrations and over time, and therefore it is urgent to get regulations in place that will ensure a higher grade of consumer safety. However, "it is the long term effects of keeping the ban that will prove fatal", he says.

In Denmark, the use of e-cigarettes has also exploded, and their minister of health, Nick Hækkerup, has said that he wants to intervene, mainly because he is worried about the rising popularity among children and young people. (Read my post on this here: http://goo.gl/uxi9cP) Commenting on this Lund says that "all user surveys - in Norway as well - shows that e-cigarettes has little appeal to non-smokers. But as the use of e-cigarettes increases, we have to expect that a segment of young non-smokers will be recruited." And he goes on to make a very important point that I've mentioned a lot of times on this blog: "The question is if the experience these young people has with e-cigarettes will increase their desire to switch to conventional cigarettes. There is not much that suggests this. Why should someone abandon the e-cigarette in favor of conventional cigarettes that tastes rancid compared to e-cigarettes, is perceived as a lot more dangerous, are a lot more expensive, has a negative symbolic effect and can only be used outdoors?"

photo credit: MonicaGrigsby via photopin cc 

 

What does ASH Scotland really think about e-cigarettes?

Last week I wrote about the survey YouGov (yougov.co.uk) have done on behalf of ASH UK. YouGov also did a similar survey (http://goo.gl/szCYiz) for Scotland, and the results are pretty much the same: A dramatic rise in both use and awareness of e-cigarettes but almost no non-smokers use them. The conclusion, again: E-cigarettes are NOT a gateway to smoking traditional cigarettes.

On April 28th ASH Scotland commented on the results: http://goo.gl/BJzGSN. There you will also find a summary of the results. Although the numbers are a bit lower than in the UK survey the trends are exactly the same: More and more smokers try e-cigarettes and more people believe that they will be good for public health (31%) than not (23%). The most important finding however, as in the UK survey: "Current use of e-cigarettes amongst those who have never smoked is negligible (zero or nearly zero) and only around 1% of never-smokers report ever trying e-cigarettes."

ASH Scotland Chief Executive Sheila Duffy then comments on the results:

"Our interest is in helping people improve their health and so we welcome harm reduction as a principle. We believe that ‘vaping’ will prove to be less harmful than smoking – but not harmless, as some supporters suggest."

That's good. Even if most unbiased studies do conclude that e-cigarettes are pretty much harmless, there are in fact some that conclude that there may be some dangers from some products. And of course we cannot say that we are 100% sure there will be no long term negative effects from use. What we do know however is that they are a lot less harmful than cigarettes (and maybe even totally harmless or even beneficial ... we'll know more as time goes). And this is the important question to ask when we are talking about harm reduction: How much safer is it? Not: Is it totally 100% safe? From this statement it looks like Shiela Duffy and ASH Scotland has that right.

"We are calling for regulation of the market in e-cigarettes - and other new nicotine delivery devices - because nicotine is a highly addictive substance and the companies involved are under strong commercial pressure to recruit young people into using it.

To minimise the risk of drawing the next generation into nicotine addiction, we also want an under-18 age restriction on the sale of e-cigarettes in Scotland, as is already being planned for England and Wales, and we need restrictions on how these products are promoted."

I find it a bit strange that this is mentioned in a response to the results of this survey that clearly shows that non-smokers show very little interest in the products in today's regulations. I read this as a call for stronger regulation of advertising of e-cigarettes, which I think must be handled with care. Over-regulating in this area, for example by not allowing advertisers to say that the products are healthier than smokers and effective tools to quit smoking, dangerous. This means advertisers are forced to play other cards, mainly marketing them as cool lifestyle products, which would be more appealing to young people. I've written about this earlier: http://goo.gl/5CVeLO. However some careful regulations could be reasonable to prohibit advertising that targets children. The age limit, of course, is something we all want, and that most of the industry already has in place by self regulating.

"However, including e-cigarettes in the smoke-free enclosed public spaces legislation would require scientific evidence that harm from ‘second-hand’ e-cigarette emissions is likely. This is not the situation to date. But we support venues that have banned vaping to protect smoke-free environments."

This one is confusing. They say that there is no evidence that supports vaping harms anyone around the vaper, and they do not want it included in the smoke-free enclosed public spaces legislation for that reason. But then in the next sentence they support venues that bans them? The survey shows an enormous growth in e-cigarette use among smokers, and I believe one of the most important reasons for this is that smokers see vapers vaping around them, often in places where smoking is not allowed, like bars and restaurants, and then get inspired to try it themselves. Venues that allow vaping will be areas where adult smokers are directly targeted by the best advertising for e-cigarettes there is: The vapers story. Supporting venues that ban e-cigarettes will only work against this. Yes, someone might misunderstand from time to time, and light up a cigarette where they are not allowed to, but the staff on the venue can just tell them that only e-cigarettes are allowed, and that might even trigger another switch.

"There are particular concerns with the growing involvement of tobacco companies in this market because of their history of prioritising profits over people and misleading consumers. It is not in their interest for people to become free of nicotine addiction. We must defend Scotland’s vision for creating a generation free from tobacco and ensure that e-cigarettes work for this, not against it."

If they are really concerned about the tobacco industry winning the e-cigarette market, they should be really careful with calling for strict regulations, especially when it comes to advertising, but also regarding premarket authorization. As I commented on the proposed FDA regulations (http://goo.gl/D8GR6c), expensive premarket authorization and ridiculous restrictions on advertising will hand the whole market over to the tobacco industry, and kill most innovation that could have made e-cigarettes even better and safer than they are today.

From these comments, I must say I'm a bit unsure what ASH Scotland actually wants. It seems to me they kind of see the potential and they want the e-cigarettes to keep getting smokers rid of the cigarettes. But on the other hand they seem to call for regulations that will work against this. To be honest they look like they are very sceptical, but the numbers of the survey makes them unsure on what stance to take. Guess I'll have to do some more reading to get a better view of where they really stand.

My comments on CDC Director Frieden's explanation to what he hates with e-cigarettes

I just finished reading this article in the Los Angeles Times where CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) Director Tom Frieden explains what he hates about electronic cigarettes, and I just can't resist the urge to comment on it. I know I'm a bit late but what the hell. How this man got this job is beyond my understanding.

“I’ve treated so many adults who are desperate -- desperate -- to get off tobacco. They all started as kids,” Frieden said. “I see the industry getting another generation of our kids addicted. To me, as a physician, when 1.78 million of our high school kids have tried an e-cigarette and a lot of them are using them regularly … that’s like watching someone harm hundreds of thousands of children.”

When the anti-e-cigarette movement is out of arguments, this is what they turn to. Think about the children. And Frieden even wants us to think about 1.78 million of them. Of course with no reference to any evidence whatsoever. To be honest I'm a bit surprised he didn't mention puppies and kittens while he was at it. Now dr. Frieden - how many patients have you treated that was desperate -- desperate -- to get off e-cigarettes? Well at least he kind of confirms that e-cigarettes gets these people off tobacco. Then he adds:

“people have a misconception that the tobacco epidemic is a thing of the past. Tobacco still kills more Americans than any other cause. It still kills more than 1,000 people a day. As a doctor, I can tell you it kills them in really unpleasant ways -- gasping for breath with emphysema, with cancer, with heart disease.” 

What on earth does that have to do with e-cigarettes? We all know cigarettes kills people in rather nasty ways, but why should that make one hate e-cigarettes? Again, he feels the need to mention he's a doctor, to give people the impression he knows what he's talking about. Some probably fall for that too and it is such statements that will keep your patients gasping for breath with emphysema and dying from cancer or heart disease, dr. Frieden.

I'm glad the journalist felt the same way that I did about the statement above and asked the obvious question next:

"What does that have to do with e-cigarettes?"
"E-cigarettes are a tobacco product," Frieden answers.

Oh really? By what logic? That the nicotine can be extracted from tobacco? That would also make nicotine gum and patches tobacco products. But maybe it's because it looks like you are smoking tobacco when you use them? By that logic however you also have to assume that electric cars are oil-products that lets out just as much CO2 as a regular car, right? I mean in some cases you can't really see the difference. Actually, when I think more about it, e-cigarettes does have something to do with this; they have the potential to shorten dr. Frieden's line of emphysema, cancer and heart disease patients. Maybe that's his problem?

Then there is the five reasons Frieden rattled off to why e-cigarettes are as dangerous as tobacco cigarettes:

--“If they get another generation of kids more hooked on nicotine and more likely to smoke cigarettes, that’s more harm than good”
--“If they get smokers who would have quit to keep smoking instead of quitting, more harm than good.
--“If they get ex-smokers who have been off nicotine to go back on nicotine and then back to cigarettes, more harm than good.
--“If they get people who want to quit smoking and would have taken medicines to think e-cigarettes are going to help, but they don’t, more harm than good.
--“If they re-glamorize smoking, it’s more harm than good.”

This makes it pretty obvious that Frieden actually has no reason to hate e-cigarettes, but has decided to do it anyway. And these are just a list of reasons he wish he had, that's why he put "if" in front of them. Well here is why I hate dr. Frieden and why he is as dangerous as a mass murderer:
-- "If he buys a machine gun and kills a bunch of people, he would do more harm than good".
Actually I've got another, more plausible one as well:
-- "If he takes advantage of his position to make sure smokers are deprived of a healthier alternative and hence keep on smoking, he would to more harm than good"

Just for good measure, Frieden threw in two more problems with e-cigarettes: People who use them can expose kids, teens and pregnant women to nicotine via secondhand smoke; and enterprising smokers can put marijuana or hallucinogens in an e-cigarette “tank.”

First of all there is no smoke involved in vaping. This just shows ignorant and uneducated this man is. Then there is a bunch of ways to consume marijuana and hallucinogens. Do you hate ovens since it can be used to bake hash cookies? And by the way Frieden, you missed another opportunity to throw in puppies and kittens. Stay focused please.

Frieden acknowledged that “stick to stick, they’re almost certainly less toxic than cigarettes" and that many people have quit smoking tobacco cigarettes with the help of e-cigarettes. However, he said, “the plural of anecdote is not data.”

So the fact that millions of people have quit with the help of e-cigarettes are just funny anecdotes and not data? If you ask everyone who quit smoking how they did it, the means they used are just irrelevant then? This argument just crumbles under it's own weight.

“If the e-cigarette companies want to market these to help people quit, then do the clinical trials and apply to the FDA,” he said, in a reference to the Food and Drug Administration. “But they don’t want to do that. They want to market them widely.”

Another example of how little common sense this man shows/has. This has nothing to do with whether or not e-cigarette companies want to apply to the FDA or not, it has to do with what they can afford and how long it would take to get a new product to the market. I would like to believe that Frieden understands this in his position, but based on his statements, sadly I don't.

“The challenge that the FDA has is that they will be challenged by the tobacco industry, as they have been at every step of the way,” he said. The federal agency “tried to regulate e-cigarettes earlier, and they lost to the tobacco industry. … So the FDA has to balance moving quickly with moving in a way that’s going to be able to survive the tobacco industry’s highly paid legal challenge.” 

You think the tobacco industry's lawyers will fight regulations that will effectively wipe out all their competition? The FDA's challenge is to balance between moving quickly and moving in a way that will convince the general public that their regulations are reasonable. And the tobacco industry will applaud every successful step the FDA takes in this direction.

Since I started this blog, I've read tons of articles about, and interviews of, anti-e-cigarette advocates, but never before have I come across any that managed to reel off this many contradictions and this much, excuse my language, bullshit in so few words.