• Recently released government data suggests that use of electronic cigarettes among middle and high school students has tripled between 2013 and 2014. It was also discovered that more teenagers are using e-cigarettes than traditional tobacco products. The findings were based on an annual survey of 22,000 students across the country.
• There is no data linking e-cigarettes to the use of traditional tobacco products. In fact, many teens who have tried e-cigarettes were already smokers.
• The Center for Disease Control - CDC should really be jumping for joy at the fact that smoking rates are declining. This is a huge success. Instead, they are using this as another opportunity to demonize e-cigarettes.
• Students are using e-cigarettes in place of traditional tobacco products. E-cigarette use increased from 4.5% to 13.4% between 2013 and 2014, and its usage tripled among middle school students. During the same time frame, traditional cigarette use showed its lowest level in years, dropping to 9.2% of high school students and 2.5% of middle school students (dropping from what level, the article, unfortunately, did not say).
*****Update 4/13/2015: In this post, I'm just trying to get ahead of the politicians, who want to first ban (anywhere outside your home) and then tax e-cigarettes because they want the tax revenue. It's too easy to just follow the money!
The Wall Street Journal contained a recent article on why our government loves cigarette smoking: because of the massive taxes they collect from their sale. This is what we call in the private sector a "conflict of interest". However, our government doesn't have to worry about such things because they are most often "above the law" that governs those competing in private enterprise to stay afloat. Anyways, you can read the article by clicking here.
What does this have to do with banning e-cigs? A lot, as it turns out. First, smokers are turning away from tobacco cigs to e-cigs — good, right? If you are our government, then it's not good, because, well, the government isn't taxing the sh*t out of e-cigs like we are with tobacco cigs - at least not yet.
So the question becomes: how to make e-cigs appear "bad" like the tobacco cigarettes that actually are bad. Before we can tax e-cigs, we first have to "ban them" from public sidewalks, parks and offices, thus setting them up to "appear" bad. After being established as bad, we can now tax them ... yeah! shouts our state government (quietly, of course).
Is the greedy rush to tax e-cigs beginning? H*ll, yes, it is! I'll just quote the relevant portions of the above reference Wall Street Journal article, and that should be "'nuf said".
"Lawmakers can claim they’re raising taxes on cigarettes to reduce smoking and improve public health. That talking point is belied by the recent imposition of taxes on electronic cigarettes, which are saving lives by delivering nicotine in puffs of water vapor instead of chemical-filled [carcinogenic] smoke. There are more than 15 tax bills pending across the country for currently untaxed e-cigarettes. Hawaii is proposing a tax of 80%, New York of 75%, Oregon of 65% and Ohio of 60%. For politicians, cigarette taxes are—and have always been—about one thing: money."
So why do I really care about any of this? 2 reasons:
1) I want people to be healthy and live longer. I believe e-cigs help some people quit smoking; tobacco cigs are 100's of times worse for you than e-cigs, according to current research. Most current research says that I am correct - so does common sense and logic.
2) I want to help the poor and the homeless. The cigarette-addicted poor are hurt most by the high cigarette taxes, and they can afford it the least. Money spent on cigarette taxes takes away from the essentials of living. Yes, the poor should give up smoking, but it's just not that easy. Remember, every who can quite smoking has already done so, leaving only the highly addicted to smoke and pay cigarette taxes to the government. If the poor move on to e-cigs, which are cheaper, they are better off, health wise.
US News and World Report put out an article last year begging our government not to tax e-cigs like their distant cousins, tobacco cigarettes, which you can read by clicking here. IMHO, our government will eventually win, and e-cigs will be banned from public and private spaces and heavily taxed, to the benefit of government coffers and to the detriment of the governed - time will tell.
*****Update 3/4/2015: As predicted, the SLO city council, in a 5-0 vote, elected to ban e-cigs from public places, including restaurants, sidewalks and parks. Oh well. The Nanny State marches on. You can read about it in the 3/4/2015 Tribune newspaper by clicking here, or just read about it on page 1 of the Trib (the Tribune web site is chock full of ads and other crazy stuff, and I am doing my best to avoid it).
Note: the info below is my opinion based on studies that I have read - should new studies come out to the contrary, I will weigh those new results. I have no horse in this race, as I do not smoke tobacco cigs or e-cigs.
As I am so simple-minded, let's get simple. Let's look at the erroneous objections listed in the Trib article and debunk them:
• Myth 1: the vapor from e-cigs exposes people to harmful second hand health impacts: totally false. Based entirely on "scientific" tests where they caused the e-cig to massively overheat, basically causing it to dramatically fail, then allow the chemicals used inside the cigarette (that were never meant to ever see the atmosphere) to escape into the air. Then they extrapolated that bogus result to say that all e-cigs have the potential to put out these operational cancer-causing chemicals. E-cigs are no more harmful than nicotine gum or the nicotine patch (both nicotine delivery devices), so why doesn't the city council ban them the patch and gum, while they are at it?
• Myth 2: E-cigs appear harmless to teens and are easy for them to get: So far as we know, e-cigs are harmless to teens, other than nicotine absorption. However, tobacco cigarettes, their competitors, are indeed harmful. Studies show that when teen e-cig use rises, harmful tobacco cigarette use declines - IMHO, that's a good thing. No idea whether they are easy to get, but I do know that banning them will make them even more desirable and popular with teens. This ban will increase teen e-cig use, by making it even more cool and hip than it already is.
• Myth3 : Allowing e-cigs undermines tobacco cigarette regulations: Huh? I have no idea what this even means. I could never be a government bureaucrat!
That's it - that's all the objections that it requires to ban something. The Nanny State of SLO marches on. Congratulations to all those people trying to quit smoking by using e-cigs: the odds of your premature death just increased a little bit. Sad.
*****Update 2/26/2015: The Wall Street Journal had a good article on the "misbegotten crusade against e-cigs" which you can read by clicking here.
I have attempting to persuade the SLO city council that E-cigs prevent tobacco cigarette deaths. They are simply looking at the wrong studies that are being trumpeted by those having something to gain by "snuffing out" e-cigs forever. Also, I suspect that government coffers have much more to gain in the way of tax dollars for the continuing sales of tobacco products than they do from e-cigs.
A few highlights related to the above article. All info. below is supported in whole or part by legitimate scientific studes:
- E-cigs play a dramatic role in reducing disease and death from tobacco cigarettes. E-cigs are about as effective as the nicotine patch in getting people off of tobacco.
- Somehow, the anti-smoking movement has jumped on the "ban e-cig" bandwagon, I suspect because it increases funds into their coffers. Bureaucracies love to grow.
- E-cigs are not a gateway to tobacco smoking.
- The addictive component of E-cigs (nicotine) is substantially lower than tobacco cigs. Studies show E-cigs are about as addictive as nicotine gum.
- The rise of E-cigs in 2011 has been accompanied by a drop in tobacco smoking among students under 18
- A bogus student in the New England Journal of Medicine indicated E-cigs cause cancer - FALSE. In the study, they overheated the aerosol in the E-cigs in order to create formaldehyde, a known carcinogen. In normal use, E-cigs do not overheat and do not create any formaldehyde. Period.
- E-cigs are the greatest potential antismoking agent ever invented. And our city council wants to snuff them out because they "look like" actual tobacco "death" cigarettes. That's on their head.
*****Original Post 1/29/2015: The city of SLO wants to ban E-Cigs from restaurants, sidewalks and parks. They recently requested that we give them input on whether we agree. Below is my response to their public input poll, which you can access by clicking here.
Nanny State Running the Show: Suffice it to say that with our various neighborhood wellness programs, and the turn-in-your-neighbor movement here in SLO, I can say that I've had enough of the nanny state. Right now, banning E-cigs is a bad idea, even if it will give us headlines across the nation. Oh wait, too late - they've already been banned in Boston, Los Angeles, and New York. Guess the headlines the SLO City Council are seeking won't be as big as they would like, after all. Oh well - I guess they should just grab what the can - facts be d*mned.
E-Cig 101, from WebMD: There is a healthy debate about the risk posed by e-cigs, and this article at WebMD, called E-Cig 101, may sum it up best. You can read the article by clicking here.
There is a powerful force out there (mainly tobacco companies and politicians) that is bound and determined to kill off E-Cigs before the facts are in. I am content to hold off banning them until true scientific studies give us definitive results about E-cigs effects on our health. Note also that if they are found to be unhealthy in a manner similar to tobacco cigarettes, then they should be banned entirely - and not just from our sidewalks and public places, either. Unfortunately, politicians want the issue and the taxes they will be able to tag onto E-Cigs if they are proven to be bad for your health. If they are proven to be unhealthy, our politicians will never ban E-Cigs because they are cowards.
Reasons NOT To Ban E-Cigs - Yet:
- I have heard and read that E-cigs help smokers quit, thereby saving their lives, so banning a life-saving product is cruel. Those who can quit smoking real cigarettes have already done so, and those who struggle to quit need all the tools they can to help them quit. Ask someone who is trying to quit real cigarettes whether they want to ban E-cigs.
- Banning something like E-cigs will make it "cool" with the teens, and thus will encourage it's use among the under-aged. Admittedly, this is speculation, but it has a high probability of being correct.
- Yes, it may look like a cigarette, but so what? It's not. The popular candy cigarettes of yesteryear also look like cigarettes, and we didn't ban them. Banning something because it looks like something else is bad policy.
- Most smokers are low income and homeless; E-cigs are cheaper than regular cigarettes, so banning E-cigs cause an additional financial burden on the low income and homeless, who we are supposed to be trying to help - aren't we?
- So far, E-sigs have not been definitively proven to have any negative health benefits. Until then, why ban them just because they look like something that does kill?
Join us at Supai Falls in May 2015: In the meantime, I dislike posts without interesting photos. These are images from my wild 45 foot jump from Havasu Falls in May 2014. We are doing a trip back there in May 2015, so contact me if you are interested!
Below: photo 1) I begin the climb; 2) I'm already scared; 3) 1-2-3 jump! Made it down alive and uninjured. I stayed underwater longer than expected because of all the air bubbles created by the falls (think buoyancy), so probably took 15 to 20 seconds to re-surface.
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