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.

Derek Yach piece on e-cigarettes can't but shift the debate one would have thought, very significant intervention
— Shane MacGuill (@ShaneMacGuill) February 19, 2015

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?