E-Cigs Still Confusing The Hell Out Of Anti-Smokers

One of the best aspects of being a vaper (or 'dual user' as I was advised by an exclusive vaper in Stony) is that e-cigs confuse anti-smokers so deliciously.

A perfect example was posted a few days ago by US anti-smoking speaker Rick Stoddard on the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC) Tobacco Free Facebook page.

e-cigarettes..... It's ok to stay addicted as long as you have "harm reduction"... now say that 3 times real fast...... now say this 3 times real fast "excuses, excuses, excuses"

Following a few polite responses in support of the e-cig as a way of quitting smoking, Rick came up with this dissent killer.

Selling addiction for profit. How is that any different from the tobacco cartel that got you hooked in the first place?

Perhaps he might ask the same question of ASH and the Royal College of Physicians in this country, then.

ASH is today calling on the Government to develop a harm reduction strategy for tobacco.

ASH endorses the key findings of a report published today by the Royal College of Physicians. The report notes that despite a steady decline in overall smoking rates, the most disadvantaged smokers, who tend to be the most heavily addicted to nicotine, are still not quitting.

The report notes that whilst it is the nicotine in tobacco that keeps people hooked, the harm from smoking is caused primarily by the thousands of poisons in tobacco smoke. Medicinal nicotine, on the other hand, is relatively safe but little has been done to promote longer term use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) as an alternative to smoking for those who can’t quit.

Hmm. Selling addiction for profit. How is that any different from the tobacco cartel that got you hooked in the first place, eh?

It seems anti-smokers are still utterly blindsided by the e-cig. It completely ruins their long-practiced argument that nicotine from pharmaceutical companies is good, anywhere else is bad.

Because now there are three suppliers of nicotine delivery rather than the less confusing two of yore, they're all over the place on how to act. Or, as tobacco control advocate Michael Siegel explained back in May.

The ideology is simply this: nothing that looks like cigarette smoking can possibly be a good thing, even if it saves lives. People need to quit smoking the way we say they should quit smoking. There is a right way and a wrong way to quit smoking. The right way is our way and the wrong way is any other way. If it looks like smoking, it's still smoking, even if there are no adverse health effects and the individual has achieved smoking cessation.

I've no doubt that Stoddard has the very best of intentions - after all, he does the same job that David Goerlitz was doing before being hounded out after criticising the potentially harmful methods of hysterical tobacco controllers - but until he, and others, can accept that the rules have changed, their approach is looking increasingly old hat and at times absurd.

In fact, a sceptic might argue that they are now so in the bunker with their pharma funders that a continuation of smoking is preferable to quitting in a way which doesn't involve their sponsors' products.

But that would be like saying that it's not about health anymore, or something. Which I, of course, would never do.