A Warning Ignored

Just over a year ago, I attempted to impart some of the wisdom gained from over 5 years fighting the righteous. It was in response to this post on an e-cig forum.

Please could you make suggestions about organisations we would like to associate ourselves with. Some might be controversial, bear in mind that this isn't about you or your allegiances, it must reflect what is best for our community and the future of vaping.

Anti smoking organisations -
Action on Smoking and Health - ASH.

The proposal was countered by another member, but was vehemently, and repeatedly, rebuffed. So I registered and politely offered my experience-based opinion.

[...] if you are considering consorting with ASH, you will be killing your industry stone dead.

If your product isn't provided by their paymasters, you will be hounded out of business by whatever means. In the UK, they are already pushing for bans on e-cigs. If they are not made by pharma, they will kill them.

They will bankrupt you without losing sleep, believe me.

The reply was surprising, to say the least.

Hi Dick, thanks for your concern but you are presenting false information.

I'm finding myself arguing, not because I like ASH or have any loyalty for them but because of the misinformation that has been presented to stop Right to Vape considering potentially useful allies.

OK, I tried, but it really isn't worth it when someone refuses to have a clue.

Fair enough Kate. You believe your nonsense, I'll carry on with what I know.

I'm not wasting any more time on you.

You were warned. Best of luck.

And that was about it.

Take it to the police Dick.

I don't believe you about anything.

So, I wonder if she will believe this gleeful press release from ASH.

The importation of e-cigarettes will be banned indefinitely as the result of a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals [...] reports public interest law professor John Banzhaf of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), who participated in the legal proceeding.

The FDA had warned that e-cig use poses "acute health risks," that "the dangers posed by their toxic chemicals . . . cannot seriously be questioned," and that they have caused a wide variety of potentially serious symptoms "including racing pulse, dizziness, slurred speech, mouth ulcers, heartburn, coughing, diarrhea, and sore throat."

The FDA had found that samples it tested contained detectable levels of known carcinogens and toxic chemicals to which users could be exposed. The FDA said the toxic chemicals included diethylene glycol, “an ingredient used in antifreeze, [which] is toxic to humans”; “certain tobacco-specific nitrosamines which are human carcinogens”; and that “tobacco-specific impurities suspected of being harmful to humans -- anabasine, myosmine, and B-nicotyrine -- were detected in a majority of the samples tested.” The FDA does not currently monitor or license e-cigs, and indeed considers them "illegal."

Consider yourself 'indefinitely' denormalised, love.

If e-cigs are ever sold without opposition in this country, or the USA, it will be the pharmaceutical industry who will control the entire market, not some daft woman who thinks ASH is somehow anything else but a marketing department for big pharma.

None so blind etc.