Thursday 19 February 2015

An Unfortunate Day To Write Crap About E-Cigs

The Guardian's eclectic assortment of overthinking  blowhards has just thrown up a guy called Nash Riggins on the subject of e-cigs. Now, there's been a lot of derisory tosh written about them recently, but I think he just raised the bar.
From April, all Scottish health boards (bar one, NHS Lothian) will ban the use of e-cigarettes on NHS premises. The move makes perfect sense 
Only to an imbecile.
Lobbyists have been queuing up for a few years now to push the idea that e-cigs are somehow safer than normal cigarettes. One of the most dangerous aspects of your typical, run-of-the-mill cigarette is the tar-filled smoke you're inhaling with each puff. That tar may contain up to 7,000 different toxins, which are otherwise found in everything from rat poison to nail polish. E-cigs, on the other hand, produce a light, tar-free vapour. But this doesn't necessarily make them any safer.
E-cigs are just as dangerous as smoking? Nurse, bring the meds!
Doctors say a tablespoon of some e-liquids on the market would be enough to kill an adult; half a teaspoon could kill a child. And the worst part is, you don't even need to ingest these liquids to end up in hospital. Mere skin contact with concentrated liquid nicotine is enough to cause symptoms of poisoning, such as dizziness, elevated blood pressure and seizures.
Really? A bottle top popped out when I was refilling my V-Scope last week and 20ml squirted up my arm, the only remotely worrying aspect of the incident was smelling like sherbert lemon for the next hour.
That should scare even the most devout e-cig user
No, Nash, it will just make them laugh.
Every puff you take on an e-cig is a roll of the dice
Oh get over yourself, you dribbling fool.

Anyway, go read the whole steaming pile of nonsense if you're so inclined. It appears to be his first tentative step into CiF, and I'm already embarrassed for him seeing as the comments are a swiftly-mounting orgy of ridicule and derision. Perhaps next time he should write something he knows more than fuck all about.

You see, his article is entitled "Don’t fall for the hype. Nicotine is a poison, no matter how it is delivered" but comes on the same day that a game-changing polar opposite view was published at the Spectator.
Safety concerns were addressed recently. Two analyses reviewed toxicological, laboratory and clinical research on the potential risks. They concluded that e-cigs are by far less harmful than smoking, and that ‘significant health benefits are expected in smokers who switch from tobacco to e-cigs’. 
[...] 
We need clear, unambiguous messages to smokers about the safety and benefits of e-cigs. An example is the March 2014 statement on the Royal College of Physicians website that ‘the main benefit of e-cigarettes is that they provide inhalable nicotine in a formulation that mimics the behavioural components of smoking but has relatively little risk… Switching completely from tobacco to e-cigarettes achieves much the same in health terms as does quitting smoking and all nicotine use completely. Furthermore… risks associated with passive exposure to e-cigarette vapour are far less than those associated with passive exposure to tobacco smoke.’ (which are non-existent anyway - DP)
The author of the fact-free car crash Guardian piece is some American guy living in Scotland, while the author of the Spectator endorsement of e-cigs is Derek Yach, former head of tobacco control at the WHO.


When even someone like that sides with e-cigs, it makes brainwashed anti-smoking useful idiots like Nash Riggins look even more absurd than we already know they are. Of all days to write utter garbage about e-cigs, Nash chose just about the worst.

Do you reckon he's unlucky at cards too?


26 comments:

Mark Wadsworth said...

"Only to an imbecile."


I actually laughed at that one.

Mark Wadsworth said...

"a tablespoon of some e-liquids on the market would be enough to kill an adult; half a teaspoon could kill a child."


If you drink it neat, maybe this is true. But an adult would spit it out, and little kids die in all sorts of horrible accidents, like strangling themselves with window blind cords and so on, people die falling down the stairs.



Very sad, but so what?

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Indeed. But such is the crashingly stupid nature of his article that not even that is remotely true. Jeez, early anti-smoking lunatic Lennox Johnston even used to inject himself and others with the stuff but didn't die.

JLTrader said...

I think it's dangerous to side with people like Derek Yach just because he happens to be in favor of ecigs. That's like saying that up to 1939 Hitler was a good guy because he built autobahns and got people out of unemployment. I made a comment to the linked Spectator article, but here's another thing I noticed on a second reading. He says that ' For many years, the increased use of snus versus regular tobacco has
been a major factor in Swedish men having the lowest death rate in the
European Union.
Indeed, death rates from all causes among European men are about 2.5
times higher than among Swedish men — thanks, in part, to snus.' But if we look at male cancer rates, we notice that Sweden has 296/100k vs 283/100k UK or 295/100k in Austria. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats/world/incidence/#By So why aren't cancer rates lower if they smoke less and we all 'know' that smoking 'causes' all cancers ?

Dick_Puddlecote said...

You seem to be making tobacco control's case for them on snus.

Look, my position is always consistent. If someone advocates bans, restrictions or stupid rules, I disagree; when they don't, I agree. It's why I can agree with Robert West, for example, about e-cigs, but still write to condemn him on plain packaging.



I don't side with people, I side with ideas.

JLTrader said...

I'm not making any TC case, what I'm saying is that data doesn't support their own 'science' about the 'worst' offender - cigarette smoking. If the 'science' used is proven as junk, the logical step is to throw it away, not to use it on snus or ecigs.

Norbert Zillatron said...

It can't be politically correct to insult imbeciles by comparing them to him!

Lisabelle said...

A good CRAP SLAP on a CRAS CHAP!

Norbert Zillatron said...

An adult needs vastly more than a teaspoon full of liquid to croak:

Attempting to commit suicide with E-Liquids: Witless!

Lisabelle said...

Unlikely to change that. When the past 70 years of lies have been said so often they are believed to be facts. I appreciate your understanding though, it's just that the corruption is now systemic.

JLTrader said...

I think the change will start in the near future because of 2 main reasons: 1. Their lies have become so enormous that just complete imbeciles would fall for them - think the notion of passive vaping as being a health hazard for instance. That's light years away from their beginnings in the 1950s that 'excessive cigarette smoking may contribute to lung cancer in men'
2. The internet is taking over traditional media. It's much harder to blatantly lie on the internet.

What the.... said...

The imbecile in question, Nash Riggins (come on, is that a real name?).

From Nash’s twit account:

Don’t fall for the hype. Nicotine is a poison, no matter how it is delivered | Nash Riggins

https://twitter.com/nashriggins

Mag01 said...

Don’t fall for the hype. Nicotine is a poison, no matter how it is delivered | Nash Riggins

Wonder if Nash is familiar with the vegetable "delivery device" (e.g., tomatoes, potatoes).

Starship Fighter said...

I've left my comment on CiF but I spent a while on it and didn't want to get it deleted by calling him a cunt. Is it OK if I call him a cunt here, Dick? I just wanted to make sure that it was OK with you to call Nash Riggins a cunt before going ahead and saying something like 'Nash Riggins is a cunt' and getting the tone all wrong. Thanks!

truckerlyn said...

Do you really believe what CRUK say? I certainly don't! As I have said before CRUK (Crook) by Name, CRUK (Crook) by Nature!

truckerlyn said...

Is he even out of nappies (sorry diapers) yet?

JLTrader said...

I don't necessarily believe those statistics, the point is that their own data don't support their propaganda.

truckerlyn said...

Does it ever?

JLTrader said...

They did once, when the rising cigarette consumption was paralleling the rising lung cancer rate and cancer rates in general. Since the 70s-80s, it's the opposite. Falling smoking rates parallel rising lung cancer rates for women and cancer rates in general for both men&women.

MikeF said...

I mistook 12mg blackberry flavoured e-juice for eye drops one bleary-eyed morning!
Of course it stung a bit - so I bathed my eye. No harm done.
I buy e-juice in 10ml or 20ml bottles. A tablespoon is 17ml. Who, FFS, is going to spend time dribbling a whole large bottle of juice into a spoon and drink it?
Probably someone with the IQ of Nash Riggins! Definitely worthy of a Darwin Award.

Starship Fighter said...

A bit of cursory Googling throws up an interesting connection - there was a Nash Riggins studying at (and Head of Advertising for The Brig, their student newspaper) at Stirling University in 2011. Which is the same University at which one Linda Bauld was the Professor of Socio-Economic Management at the time. Now I'm not suggesting that this particular institution is pumping out indoctrinated drones, as I'm sure that Nash Riggins is all about being his own man, but I just found this little coincidence rather delicious... I should mention that I was attempting to discover whether Nash Riggins is in any way qualified to make the comments that he has on E-cigs in the national press. I didn't find anything apart from badly written, leftist boilerplate. So pretty much what I expected...

https://prpuffs.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/sept-2011.pdf

DP said...

Dear Mr Puddlecote

"That tar may contain up to 7,000 different toxins, ..."


Wasn't that 4,000 different toxins a moment ago?


Is tobacco control suffering from inflation?


At this rate, a cigarette will be the size of a small universe by a week next Tuesday.


DP

MikeF said...

Someone should remind the imbecile that oxygen can be toxic. Maybe he'll stop breathing it!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

truckerlyn said...

I forget how many of the same toxins are found in coffee and many other natural things that we eat and drink, but they are pretty close, I believe, to what is in tobacco!


Perhaps these moronic idiots need to visit Specsavers - their eyesight is obviously that bad they can't see the wood for the trees!

truckerlyn said...

As is the air that we breathe every day as it is polluted with a multitude of toxins from vehicles, factories, farms and, most of all the hot air spouted by politicians and their henchmen!

Michael Bersil said...

There are many rumors about E-Cigarettes like they are hazardous to health. I do not think so. From many years, I am vaping E-Cigarettes and I have no health issues till now.