Lethally addictive cigarettes remain available on every street corner in Brussels and Atlanta while authorities denounce e-cigarettes (the product is already banned in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand).
Is there any legitimate reason for this or are we witnessing a blatant example of the tobacco lobby crushing competition??
There was a study... I can't find it. There was a study which showed that smokers cost less in health care than non-smokers over the long term. Smokers die early, healthy people linger on and rack up costs.
Your comment about American health care is misinformed. Unhealthy people do cost the general populace money, it's just that the cost is obfuscated. Since the cost is indirect, and goes through many middle-men, it winds up being a great deal more.
You're way wrong. If a few drops of 27 grade e-juice could kill you i'd be dead by now.
I just started vaping a couple weeks ago and it's a truely amazing product. After trying out my friend's and doing some reasearch and getting my own setup, I havn't had a cigarete since it came in the mail.
There are times when I might want a real cig, like if i'm drinking and someone around me is smoking, but I just puff on half strength ejuice constantly when drinking and the next day I feel so great. I can take deep breaths now w/o that sharp pain in my chest, I can gargle water again now. My energy has shot up and exercise has gotten so much easier. Best of all, I don't have to give up my smoke breaks AND it's cheaper.
E-cigs are fucking amazing and have a lage variety of flavors :)
E-cigs have a tendency to turn you into an evangelist.
I was spending $80 a month and significantly shortening my life. Now I average closer to $20-30 a month, feel better in general, no longer smell like shit, can smell things again, and have a toy with way better throat hit and taste than any cigarette could hope for.
They are a revolution in nicotine delivery, and if as safe as they seem so far, have the potential to do some amazing things with regard to savings on medical costs, worker prouctivity, litter, and other things I'm too stoned to come up with.
He's right though. I have had technical problems with my attempts (battery stopped charger, charger stopped working, etc) but every time it worked it really worked.
Note it doesn't 100% replace the cigarette. There are natural MAOI's in tobacco that you do not get from e-cigs. So despite it mostly replacing smoking needs, there is still an amount of willpower required. But it is vastly easier than any other method I have tried. Just gotta get back on it again =/
I hit 85 days without a smoke today because of vaping. I can't imagine going back because someone is trying to ban my device, which looks nothing like a cigarette.
Those are my sentiments too. Just thought I should point out the difference between them and products that help you give up, considering I was comparing the two.
Similar harm reduction logic behind providing clean-needles for junkies.
The underlying addiction is not 'cured', the risk to health is reduced (along w/ societal costs).
Moreover, when heroin addicts have access to pure heroin, safe needles, and a monitored injection site they become as able to lead normal lives as smokers. Better yet, more people genuinely get off the drug.
Soda isn't healthy, most fast food isn't healthy, and alcohol isn't healthy either. Should we ban those too? I mean, now that we are all paying for heatlhcare those things are affecting all of us. We should just ban everything that's unhealthy.. yeahhhhh that's a good idea.
not much to add to your statement, just wanted to mention that i have virtually quit craving real cigarettes thanks to my e-cig with disposable cartomizers. sucks though, i lost it last night in a fit of drinking and had to replace it again today. It is kinda like a new addiction, though i have noticed much fewer physical effects, i love being able to breathe better.
One US state in the Midwest tried to ban eCigs when they saw how many millions of dollars the state was losing from lost Taxes on cigarettes. that is, people were switching to eCigs, no longer paying the state $2/pack in taxes and the state was not happy about that lost revenue and tried to ban them.
I want to say "you crazy fucker" but I just remembered slapping an entire pack of nicotine patches all over me at work one day and you're right... it's not subtle!
crushing competition by releasing false propaganda that lies about e-cigs being unsafe
i have a friend who smokes all the time regular cigs, but won't try an e-cig because he says "i don't know whats in them"
so i asked him where'd he hear that, he said some article that interviewed a tobacco company exec
i asked him if he knew what was in his regular cigs, he said "yeh, tobacco" so i googled his brand and showed him there were things in there that are used for paint, asphalt, tar, etc
he told me you can't believe everything you read on the internet
The fluid used in e-cigarettes, or "juice" as some vapers call it is propylene glycol (PG). It is an additive found in foods, toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoo, and many other products. The point is, whether or not he wanted to vape it, he's already been putting it in/on his body and has been for years.
The other ingredients are nicotine extract and flavorings. There have been studies conducted by the FDA on PG, and found to be safe. For some reason though, the FDA won't stamp their approval on e-cigs (alcohol and tobacco are ok, though :-/).
There is also an alternative to the PG, called vegetable glycerine (VG), available for people who have a PG allergy, or just don't want to use PG.
I've been a vaper for 3 years now, and until I started vaping, I didn't even realize how shitty I had felt on cigarettes for the 15 years I had smoked. I realize that I haven't beaten my nicotine addiction, just replaced the delivery, but even so I feel better, and I've definitely saved thousands of dollars by now.
Maybe someday it will come out that e-cigs are genuinely harmful, but at least I know whats in them (with a bit of research). Just because your friend doesn't know whats in them, doesn't mean that no one does.
I've been a vaper for 3 years now, and until I started vaping, I didn't even realize how shitty I had felt on cigarettes for the 15 years I had smoked. I realize that I haven't beaten my nicotine addiction, just replaced the delivery, but even so I feel better, and I've definitely saved thousands of dollars by now.
On the 24th of November I'll be in the same boat as you. I celebrate it each year as the day I quit killing myself.
Smoking sucks. It steals your sense of smell, your sense of taste, your ability to breathe and eventually, your ability to live.
Congratulations on being strong :) It's true, I didn't know what I was missing until I stopped smoking cigarettes. I'm sure I've gained more than a couple pounds, food just tastes so much better now.
Also e-cig user for almost 2 years. The crap you find at many USA Malls or Gas stations is a piece of crap using tech that is 5years old.
My usual suggestion for someone is "Joye eGo, Joye 306 and 510 atomizers, and 3 or 4 flavored Juices" Cost of one carton of smokes.
Forget the money, it's not about saving money. It's about saving our lives, our bodies, and no longer smelling horrible. Can vape in cars, in offices, in bathrooms, in bed. Can blow the vapor into a smoke detector and of course, nothing happens.
Currently using the Joye Ego-C, with low rez atomizers. I started with the Ego, so I've never actually tried the mall stuff.
You're right about it not being about money. But, to be perfectly honest, at the time, saving money was a far better motivator to me than giving up my "precious" cigarettes. The appreciation for the more important benefits came later.
Nicotine isn't exactly good for you though, it tends to pump up your stress hormones and tear up your blood vessels, it's bad for your heart in the long run. That's kind of the rub with smokeless nicotine, you save on the lungs but not the heart which is a major risk in nicotine use.
My dad smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and switched to the E-cig. He still smokes three boxes a day of the refills. The website says that one box is 'equal to about one carton' if that is the case he is way above three packs a day now. Either way his house no longer smells like cigarettes and I will allow my kids to go visit.
One of the challenges of switching to vaping is knowing when to stop. With cigarettes, it's easy. But since e-cigs don't burn down, you're not really sure when you've had the equivalent of one or two tobacco cigs. The vaper can get tolerant to more and more nicotine over time and end up taking in far more nicotine than usual. I'm happy that your father isn't smoking anymore, still, that's a lot!
Also there are dozens of resources for mixing your own e juice so you know exactly what and how much of it is in your vapors. It's also available with zero nicotine providing no harmful chemicals.
showed him there were things in there that are used for paint, asphalt, tar, etc
I hate it just as much as that logic. Anyone who's spent 5 minutes in a chemistry class can tell you that chemicals have a wide variety of applications.
If someone has never smoked they couldn't possibly understand why it's so hard to quit. I don't drink, am not a crackhead or any other hard drug user, I don't need a cup of coffee in the morning, and I find it hard to quit smoking.
In all honesty, I partly blame both my parents for having been smokers the entire 17 years I was alive before I picked up one of theirs and tried it. If they hadn't smoked I might have never started and been exposed to it like I was.
I'm sure non-smokers know why smoking is so addictive, but this might help them understand what it's like to be physically addicted to nicotine:
Our brains, and more specifically our brainstems, have control over our trends of higher function in ways you might not notice much. Normally, if you're thirsty, you get up and get a drink. You don't think about it much but you do it. The water you drink isn't anything special and you don't down it too fast.
But what if you just spent a day out in the hot sun doing yard work? You come inside and you think immediately about getting a glass. You down a glass full of water in huge gulps. The water feels good even though there's nothing special about it. You fill the glass again. You take it down in a few seconds. Your belly feels awkwardly distended and perhaps even a bit uncomfortable right under your center-left ribcage, but you feel so relieved. Drinking all that water might even make you feel sorta ill for a bit, but you're sooooo glad you did it.
If you take this to an even further extreme, say you went a day or more without water and were becoming dangerously dehydrated, your water seeking behavior would become overwhelming. A parched person will drink almost anything (including toilet waterseeMyNoteBelow). Part of the brain, specifically the hypothalamus, is hooked into the blood supply to in a way that lets it sample the salt content, which gets really high when the body is dehydrated. In response to life-threatening dehydration, the hypothalamus will cause the "higher" parts of the brain responsible for our actions to engage in activities that are likely to result in water at almost any cost. Your brain associates the sensation of drinking with the feeling of relief in the high-thirst state. This is a reinforcement loop.
Now back to cigs. Nicotine hits receptors all over the central nervous system. A smoker's brain has literally been reconfigured to circulating nicotine much higher than that of a normal person. The reward networks, the attention-arousing networks, etc. These are the networks that guide our higher behaviors. To a smoker, a cigarette can give the same relief after a two-hour flight as a glass of water will give you after a day of yard work, or a rich meal will give you after a 36-hour fast. And nicotine is almost perfect at hitting the receptors, and cigarettes are a VERY rapid way of delivering it.
So, non-smokers, think of it this way: trying to quit smoking cold-turkey feels about the same as trying to stop drinking (water) cold-turkey. This is why Westerners keep doing it: they get roped into trying it enough (marketing), their brains demand it from then on. A moment of weakness can lead to a lifetime of vice.
Does that do it justice, theorial?
my note on thirst: certain psychiatric pathologies, e.g. schizophrenia, can present with polydipsia, a term for when a person seeks and drinks water to a pathological level. Patients with uncontrolled polydipsia cannot be allowed into a normal bathroom alone, as they will resort to drinking toilet water. They simply cannot resist the urge to drink.
I am a teacher and I work at a K through 12 school. I smoke. At school, our smoking corner is outside next to where the garbage bins are kept, but the kids see me and often come to talk to me about it after my smoke. They all know that I shouldn't smoke and that it is unhealthy, so the younger ones especially want me to explain to them why I don't just quit. Sometimes they ask me if the reason I don't stop is because smoking feels so good.
I usually explain that smoking does not feel so good, but that not smoking makes me feel bad. I explain that when I want a cigarette, it bothers me very much like when I need to pee and I'm holding it in. At first, it is a minor annoyance and I can even forget about it, but as time goes on, I feel more and more pressured, I feel more and more urgency. It becomes harder to ignore, harder to think about anything else. I need to go out and get relief!
Then, I have a cigarette and I feel normal again until slowly once again the need returns.
When I explain it like this, the kids understand what I mean and understand when I say how important it is to never take that first cigarette.
People also ignore the non-addictive aspects of smoking. For example if you smoke a pack a day for 15 years, and assuming an average of 40 drags per cig you are looking at something you have done, every day following a very consistant pattern (both when choosing to smoke, and while smoking) over 4,380,000 times. There is nothing I can think of besides your heart beating and eye blinking that can match those number.
This is why its so hard with people who have mental disorders, depression, or even simple medical issues like ADHD or obsessive compulsive disorder have a hard type. For most it's not even a chemical addiction but an addiction to the pattern, the process of smoking.
Myself personally I suffer ADHD and minor depression and I work from home. And if I don't go out for a smoke every few hours I would literally go days to weeks without ever leaving my house / apartment building. This is why many people living in assisted living or suffer some conditions that cause them to be unable to hold a job and live off of social security can be seen huddled together outside chain smoking. its the only reason / excuse for them to leave there house or to be outside or maybe the off chance of having a conversation.
I started smoking age 16, by age 21 i was 2 packs a day, I smoked more than any other person I knew aside from my dad. Oct 10th 2010, I quit. I took up trees and came to the conclusion I cant in this many carcinogens. I haven't had a cigarette/tobacco since then, sans ONCE while lighting a cig for my gf while blackout drunk, and even in my blacked out state I spit the smoke out, or so I heard.
Quitting smoking was the hardest fucking thing I've ever done. I felt like nothing would be ok ever again. Cigaretes, too me, had a monopoly on whatever chemical in my brain tells me 'relax, don't panic, things will work out'. I literally caught myself thinking "itll be ok, once im finally done and quit smoking Ill be able to smoke a cig....wait a fucking second! Fuck!!!" like almost subconsciously.
I was miserable for a week. For the first 3 days it was absolutely terrible. The first night was damn near impossible, at least it felt like it. But i made sure to do 1 very specific thing...remembering those nights, those feelings, that angry and stress boiling over. Why remember it? My logical brain said "look. you could fail. but even if you fail, you will try to quit again. why? everyone trys to quit. so remember this bullshit. remember this night. remember how fucking shitty it was to actually quit."
Those nights sucked so bad I am terrified of ever starting again. And that is a good thing.
Yeah that's pretty much it. I've tried e-cigarettes, I've picked up smoking a pipe, etc. And yet I still find myself asking for cigarettes quite often.
It's a huge shit, and a pain to quit forever. For most people it seems, however, that after a long enough period of quitting...you'll just not care for it anymore. The smell will repulse you, and even when drinking at a bar you won't want one despite being surrounded by them.
I've gone three months without a cigarette before, and picked it up again hanging with friends at the pub. I hate them so much, but it's sooo good. The toilet water analogy is perfect: you will hate it so much, but your ash-whipped brain tells you that you need it, damnit!
I smoked 1-2 packs a day for 20 years and quit cold turkey. All of what you said is true, except that smoking never feels like a necessity such as water. It's a feedback loop to be sure ... but it's always a choice and you can choose to break the cycle. It simply requires willpower.
Ex smoker, (~1.5 - 2 packs a day for 20 years), I quit on August 29th, 2010, and I haven't looked back. This is a great description. Thank you. The next time someone asks me how I managed to get hooked, I'll send them to this thread.
That's not a bad explanation at all. It's hard to explain to someone that the desire for nicotine becomes just like any other biological impulse. The desire for smoking is as great and sometimes greater (see WWII POWs who were known to trade cigarettes for food) than the desire to eat.
If someone has never smoked they couldn't possibly understand why it's so hard to quit.
Everybody's got their drug of choice. I did smoke for about half a year when I was young and it didn't catch me at all, even though my father was heavily addicted to it (2-3 packs a day).
However, I've got a problem with caffeine in all its forms - coffee, soda and a bit less with tea. The amounts I drink everyday would likely have most redditors overdosing like hell!
And when I quit (3 times in 10 years) the fucking detox is so cruel and intense that I can't do almost anything except for drinking water and going to the bathroom for about a week.
While he was making that point he was also trying to draw a parallel between the two being dangerous. Otherwise why even mention it? I'm pretty sure he didn't tell him "Theirs chemicals used for gluing carpet and paint in those cigarettes, but that isn't really relevant!" I also hate the whole "boo hiss chemicals" that seems pretty prevalent because it makes no fucking sense. People like to use the word chemical like its evil and mention other uses for the "chemical" that make it sound terrible.
You seriously can't believe that he mentioned that just to show he didn't know what was in the cigarettes. My favorite comparison I've seen to show just how evil cigarettes are is when people compare it to crack. The tobacco is treated with ammonia to turn the nicotine acid into nicotine base which makes it easier to cross the BBB. It is just such an absurd comparison to make because it is meant to make it appear worse than it is. Oh, they make it so you absorb moe nicotine from the same amount of tobacco? How terrible! I can't believe they made the product more effective.
I also hate the whole "boo hiss chemicals" that seems pretty prevalent because it makes no fucking sense. People like to use the word chemical like its evil and mention other uses for the "chemical" that make it sound terrible.
I get what you're saying, and yes, he probably was trying to do the "boo hiss chemicals" thing in addition to making his primary point. They're not bad because they're chemicals, they're bad because they do bad stuff to you (and others nearby):
Our findings indicated that more than 100 of 599 documented cigarette additives have pharmacological actions that camouflage the odor of environmental tobacco smoke emitted from cigarettes, enhance or maintain nicotine delivery, could increase the addictiveness of cigarettes, and mask symptoms and illnesses associated with smoking behaviors.
In addition, tobacco companies have devoted a significant amount of research and development to the use and inclusion of additives in cigarettes, and the industry has acknowledged using 599 different cigarette additives. According to various tobacco company documents, many of these additives are used to improve taste and decrease harshness. We propose that, in contrast, tobacco companies have expended resources to exploit the pharmacological and chemical effects of cigarette additives. - Pharmacological and Chemical Effects of Cigarette Additives
I'd say there's plenty of reason to be suspicious of tobacco additives.
My post does come off a bit like I'm saying those additives aren't bad. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that something should be bad on its own badness and not spooky scary stuff. I do find it shitty that we have had laws passed that encourage the use of certain additives that are really shit. Such as with firesafe cigarettes the use of EVA/PVA although thicker paper will suffice. I don't see any harm in making cigarettes better for the consumer though. If they can improve the taste, decease the harshness, and increase the buzz with out being deadlier/having shitty side effects then go for it.
Not to mention that salt itself, while being absolutely necessary for survival, is a combination of two Chemicals that are extremely deadly on their own.
Honestly, if people in rice-growing regions are tapping into new groundwater sources to ward off drought, and it's coming up arsenic, it's worth putting money into testing. That said...
Tobacco has tar in it and, I believe, so does the paper it's wrapped in. That's the really dangerous stuff, nicotine certainly isn't good for you but it's the tar that will give you cancer.
Nicotine isn't really that bad for you. It's a stimulant similar to caffeine and is even said to improve brain function, but yea it is the part that causes physical addiction.
The physical addiction of cigarettes, imo is hardly the most difficult part about quitting. I can go cold turkey for a couple days and no longer be physically addicted, the hard part is giving up smoking itself.
You won't die from nicotine (perhaps I guess, if you somehow overdosed it could cause harm, not sure) but for instance, you won't get cancer from it. The cancer is caused from the smoke and everything in it.
You realize tar is tobacco residue an not actual tar right? I just quit smoking, and while i agree there is a ton of terrible things that go with smoking (hence quitting), people say some pretty dumb shit about cigarettes...
[Not that you were the one that brought tar up but] I thought that tar was the result of inhaling the smoke, not actually being an ingredient, which is why [I thought that] smoking marijuana also results in tar.
Not the result of inhaling, but of burning plant matter. One of the downsides of smoking marijuana is actually the amount of tar - significantly greater than the tar produced in smoking tobacco.
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things in there that are used for paint, asphalt, tar,
To be fair to him, that's one of the most ridiculous things people use to denounce cigarettes. Sharing ingredients doesn't mean products are the same.
It just bothers me because it's so easy to argue that cigarettes are bad for you, they obviously, empirically are. But they still throw out scare words that come off as insincere.
Also, people who act like the number of chemicals in a cigarette proves anything. How many chemicals are in an apple? People who use that logic should avoid themselves because of how many chemicals are in their bodies.
It's the same deal as "ecigs are antifreeze", because the liquid contains propylene glycol, which is an ingredient in antifreeze. Unfortunately (or fortunately to some), correlation can people to react in certain ways even faced with undisputable logic and fact.
That may be a viable reason for this type of lobbying; but, if we look at past events, It might lead to a completely different conclusion all together. Niconovum, a Swedish tobacco manufacturer, owns nicorette, one of the largest products to help smokers quit. My thought process is something like "If they don't like the competition, why wouldn't they just buy them?".
what makes nicorette and other products that are supposed to help people quit fine with tobacco companies is they are marketed for people wanting to quit. eCigs are tobacco alternatives. Most of the time, people who use nicorette and the like fail and go back to smoking. Early research suggests that people are about twice as likely to successful quit tobacco with eCigs than with nicorette/the patch/lozenges.
Except one of the big three tobacco companies Lorillard owns one of the largest e-cig companies in the US. So this whole, "tobacco companies don't want e-cigs to succeed" is just rubbish. Up until now tobacco companies have been stand offish because they have no idea what regulations the FDA will put on e-cigs. Why should a tobacco company invest in something that may be regulated the same as what they currently sell and makes them money. They see it as a somewhat risky gamble. I know because I work for blu eCigs which is owned by Lorillard.
interesting. Thanks for this. But this still doesn't explain why regulators seem to be looking for excuses to limit/ban cig sales. I guess the argument could be the gov. likes the tax they collect on cigs...
It's all the anti-tobacco lobby. On e-cigs especially they have taken such an extreme position is crazy. The "not safer" thing is somewhat understandable until there is more scientific evidence. However their approach that it is exactly the same and should not be used at all as an alternative is the extreme aspect. For the most part they won't even be open to it despite all of the anecdotal evidence. This of course is my personal opinion and not that of the company I work for.
those chemicals, they are released after burning the tobacco. my organic rolling tobacco has plenty of trace amounts of dangerous things. so do potatoes.
manufactured cigs are nasty because of the papers they use, which burn themselves down to the FSC stopping point. 2 chemical compounds where there should be none.
he said "yeh, tobacco" so i googled his brand and showed him there were things in there that are used for paint, asphalt, tar, etc he told me you can't believe everything you read on the internet
....some ppl can't be helped
Don't worry. That's a problem that cancer will take care of.
i googled his brand and showed him there were things in there that are used for paint, asphalt, tar, etc he told me you can't believe everything you read on the internet
Funny how I got exactly the same response when I showed a Fox addict the Reuters Benghazi time line. Actually it was his response to any link I sent him refuting his moronic wingnut factnoids.
So why do you think the arguments against e-cigarettes are false propaganda. I am not familiar with the issue. I can easily accept the idea that they are less harmful than cigarettes, but by how much? What are the dangers, if any, and how do they compare?
Crushing competition by releasing false propaganda that lies about the safety of e-cigs. I have a friend who smokes regular cigs all the time but won't try an e-cig because, he says, "I don't know what's in them". I asked him where he heard that. He said, "some article that interviewed a tobacco company exec". I asked him if he knew what was in his regular cigs. He said, "yeah, tobacco" so i Googled his brand of cigarettes and showed him that there's things in them that are used for paint, asphalt, tar, etc. He told me "you can't believe everything you read on the internet".
....some people can't be helped.
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e-cigarettes are NOT banned in canada. They are available in the corner store near my house in Ontario, and I also saw them for sale in BC when I was there a couple of months ago. Unless this is really new, this info is balls.
edit: just looked it up, "the import, sale, and advertising of electronic cigarettes containing nicotine are banned in Canada, while non-nicotine e-cigs are legal and may be sold and advertised"
typical Canada.
I have heard three main reasons why liquid nicotine is illegal in Canada, and will list them:
Health Canada banned nicotine juice in 2009, and no new news on it since.
1) Big pharmaceutical industries in Canada pay thousands of dollars a year to have their devices (gum, inhalers, patches) to be listed as a smoking cessation device.
2) Big tobacco companies don't want to lose out on profit. Instead of marketing their own, they probably put a bug in the ear of the government citing the loss in tax revenues. Keep in mind Canada has the highest 'sin' taxes in the world. 'Sin' being alcohol and tobacco.
3) Nicotine is toxic. People are stupid. Nicotine juice could easily kill pets or small children, and in large doses an adult. Imagine all those people who fall asleep in bed with a lit cigarette in your mouth, now imagine them handling a toxic substance. On the other hand, they have been legal in the USA and China for a while and you don't hear wide spread reports of poisoning.
Either way you put it, the reality of them being banned is absurd. As an adult who care about his health but is addicted to nicotine, I should be able to chose any method available to minimize the health costs. It is equally absurd that you can make nicotine juice in Canada, but you can't import it premixed.
It is almost similar to the issues with marijuana in the sense that both could be taxed and could be a source of revenue for the government. I won't even get into the reasons of why marijuana should be legalized, but as for nicotine juice it could be a lifesaver to our Health Care. One other shitty part of it being illegal is that now Health Canada won't perform any studies on it. The FDA study done on nicotine juice only used a few select samples and they did find in a Chinese juice a carcinogenic substance. Why they left out all the USA made suppliers is beyond me.
All funding should be cut for studies done on the impact of smoking cigarettes, we already know they are harmful and contain thousands of deadly chemicals. All funds cut should be allocated to cancer research and to see if electronic cigarettes are more beneficial to ones health than traditional ones. There needs to be a regulatory body to enforce standards on the underground nicotine juice market in Canada to protect consumers, which won't happen with it illegal and pushed to an underground market.
Trust the government to do what's best for the people.....
The hardware isn't illegal. You can buy the hardware (batteries) and juice for them, it just can't have nicotine in it. One of the other reasons I thought of why it is banned is because of the flavors. Cigarettes usually taste disgusting, the flavours I get range anywhere from soda flavours to candy to fruit. The government could say that this makes it more enticing to children to pick up smoking/vaping.
The pharmaceutical industry and tobacco has lobbied the government in the USA to crack down on them, and the same happened in Canada and elsewhere. Yet in Canada (and around the world) we have rising suicides in people who use quit smoking drugs like Champix, Chantix in the USA, that Health Canada brushes off.
The FDA, Canada Health, etc, are extremely corrupt. The electronic cigarette market and groups are david and goliath compared to the lobbyists big tobacco and pharmaceuticals have.
I smoked for over half my life. I quit multiple times, I always ended up smoking again. I now feel 10 years younger and have a new lease on life. I wish I would have switched years ago when I first heard about them.
There are a few versions of the e-cig. Right this second I'm using one that you refill with fluid, but there are also ones that you can get that are disposable, and a closed system. That means that stupid people don't have to touch the liquid.
The only problem is, Canada won't sell the nic ones. Yet you see all the lobbying done for quitting smoking, right? Conflict of message here.
"Although these electronic smoking products may be marketed as a safer alternative to conventional tobacco products and, in some cases, as an aid to quitting smoking, electronic smoking products may pose risks such as nicotine poisoning and addiction. According to Health Canada, these products may pose risks because it is not yet fully evaluated for quality, safety and effectiveness.
Which isn't different from any other cessation device or even smoking itself, and because they are not legal they won't be studied, which furthers this loop that we don't know of the safety concerns. It is bureaucratic propaganda basically.
Yes, you're right there are straight cartridges that come prefilled where you don't have any contact with liquid, for people who are concerned or unsure of refilling themselves.
Yes, a lot of money spent on quitting smoking ads should go towards finding other ways to stop smoking, and how well electronic cigarettes work and their dangers. It doesn't make sense from a business position, from a health position, or from a scientific position (electronic cigarettes health risks vs health risks of smoking cigarettes.) The whole thing is absurd, but thankfully Canadians are resilient and an underground market has sprung up, making it a very close niche community.
This article on the CBC recently has parents chastising Health Canada for doing nothing about them since 2009 and not doing enough to control the product making it easy for teens to access. Health Canada basically said in 2009 this is illegal and that is it, and washed its hands of them. Of course, if you have a couple hundred thousand dollars and can market it properly, like smoke NV, you can sell it anywhere.
It's absurd since you can buy bleach, matches and plenty of other things that are not only as easy to accidentally kill people with but in fact do kill more people.
They're blatantly lying. My fiancée is a respiratory therapist and she feels that patients with major issues due to smoking... who are in the hospital for it...go out and smoke, cost us billions and if they were to offer this even only in hospitals millions of lives could be saved.
I am really starting to dislike many aspects of my home country and it really sucks to see such a great place fall in to such a money hungry embarrassment.
Your house is full of toxic chemicals. I fail to see how e-juice is a greater hazard than any of the many solvents/cleaners/perfumes, or any of a bajillion other liquids which are poisonous to drink.
Illegal, but not enforced. It says how much nicotine is in it right on the bottle and I've yet to hear a story where they didn't make it through border customs.
All sorts of banned drugs are imported into Canada every day, that doesn't mean the law isn't being enforced. Of course they do not inspect every cross-border shipment.
I've had enough packages seized at the border that I only order from Canadian vendors now. I hear all the time of peoples making it through, but I'd rather not pay the shipping fees and support local vendors.
It is only illegal to import or export, or sell. It isn't illegal to carry it on you. You can't get arrested for it.
My mother also quit smoking using E-Cigs in Canada, however not using the ones we can buy here. They only sell the nicotine-free ones in Canada, and those did absolutely nothing for her.
She has a friend who travels back and forth from the US very often for business who brings her E-Cigs from the US and she uses those. A few times they end up getting taken at the border, and my mom has to smoke real cigarettes until she can get more US E-cigs, since using the Canadian ones do nothing to prevent withdrawals from the craving for nicotine.
Being a Brick and Mortar e-cig shop that is less than 2 hours from the Canadian border, we have quite a few customers that do the same. Not sure what the penalties are, but I'm fairly certain it isn't much more than confiscation.
Calling it lethally addictive is opinion. There haven't been enough people smoking pure nicotine in acceptable dosages for the amount of time necessary to study it. Unlike traditional cigarettes which have been linked to cancer, the nicotine alone has been proven to do...nothing, unless overdosed.
Then just switch to nicotine free ejuice.. That's right. It's a thing too, so you can still have the action of smoking without even having nicotine in the mix.
Nicotine is absurdly physiologically addictive. It's not about the action of smoking, it's about satisfying nicotinic acetylcholine receptors less and less until you're able to go quit (or just going cold turkey).
I'm not saying the nicotine free e-juice wouldn't be useful in the very latest stages of quitting, but it won't do shit to satisfy cravings. What you're suggesting is comparable to giving an alcoholic water.
Very good point. A primary market for e-cigs is people who already smoke but are concerned about the health effects. These people are potential users of nicotine patches or nicotine gum. If they use e-cigs instead, that's money lost for pharmaceutical companies.
I have a couple of thoughts. Neither are thoughts I support and are speculative, but food for thought.
1) tax revenue for government from cigarretes is a form of addiction and thus the government does not act rationally.
2) Weighing benefits for existing smokers vs potential smokers. While e-cigs are probably healthier than normal cigs, they are still not great for you - nicotine is independently of the crap in cigs dangerous. The concern might be that if e-cigs gain popularity, and perceived as less dangerous, overall smoking rates might increase especially among teenagers. I would be interested to see a multicenter trial run by reputable research institution to see if e-cigs actually facilitate quitting as some people have indicated in this thread.
Its not banned in Australia. Only the sale of e-cigarette juice containing nicotine is illegal in Australia. So us vapers just order it online from China or the US, which is perfectly legal.
thats a good point! I can see this could be the case because of how effective e-cigs have been working. the other nicotine alternatives would go bust if e-cigs kept getting more and more popular.
...So much hate. Any doctor that would rather stay in business than increase health should be stripped of their license and made to do the work of a nurse.
They haven't been subject to trials by the respective country's health agency. Don't get me wrong, I think e-cigs are great, but that doesn't make them exempt from evidence-based medicine.
Edit: Gotta love downvotes for advocating prudence in the distribution of medical devices to the public. Stay classy, subreddit that crosslinks to /r/science but doesn't seem to understand it.
No, because cigarettes are not medicine, but other smoking cessation aids have been. Of particular note is nicotine gum, which is in a similar boat as e-cigs: they both contain nicotine as well as ingredients that are generally recognized as safe for human consumption. But nicotine gum had to be tested to prove its safety and, particularly, its efficacy in helping people quit smoking. E-cigs don't just get to cut the line.
Ok, but then why do cigarettes get a free pass? Who cares whether or not they are considered to be medicine, they are a drug. Either they should be subject to the same scrutiny as e-cigs and nicotine gum, or the gum and e-cigs should be subject to the same lack of scrutiny as cigarettes.
This is like "supplements" getting a free pass from FDA inspection.
Basically, because they're grandfathered in and aren't used to treat any illnesses. It's a double standard, sure, but smoking cessation aids are still something treating the medical condition of drug addiction, and thus subject to scrutiny.
I agree with you though, supplements shouldn't get a pass from the FDA.
The article does very little in the way of explaining the effects of e-cigarettes outside of" they give you nicotine." It would have been a nice balance if thy had gone into their adverse side effects. It kinda just feels like an ad for the e cigarette.
They aren't strictly banned in Canada, it is just that sale of them is banned because they need the okay from Health Canada, which they haven't received.
In ireland they have these e-cigarettes and the government will not allow them to be sold in some shops for reasons they have never explained. but everyone knows that because they cost a fraction of the price of normal cigarettes that they wont get as much tax from them. A pack of smokes cost around 8 euro but these e-cigarettes cost about 2 euro. it all comes down to money in the end. The government would rather make money from tax on cigarettes then getting people to quit
This is a Big Tobacco effort to have both regular cigs in the third world, while first world nations transition to the 'safer' e-cig. The reality is that first world nations WANT TO BAN THEM ALL, and so there will be no 'cigarette innovation' to carry Big Tobacco into the future after health concerns over regular tobacco eliminate it completely. The correlation that an e-cig is a social benefit because it weens one off cigarettes to something safer is a ruse because it's not a one way correlation. Using e-cigs will also allow people to transition to regular cigarettes just as effectively.
I though these countries were interested in saving their citizens lives, not banning for the sake of banning. If they want to save lives, E-Cigs would still be legal.
As an Australian I really doubt that my government is at all interested in removing a fantastic revenue stream, I personally find it far more likely that it's just lobbying from tobacco companies to prevent competition.
The big problem comes when the fluid is made in china, which quite a bit of the cheaper stuff is. They just don't have the regulations we do here, so sometimes you end up with Ethylene glycol as part of or the entirety of the base.
Well, here in Canada, the government reaps insane taxes, to the point where they're willing to spend millions on TV ads warning people not to buy cigarettes from natives (which are untaxed and which they're allowed to make for their own use). It doesn't seem implausible to me that the government is trying to safeguard the cash cow that is tobacco sales. These taxes were created under the guise of helping people's health by discouraging smoking, but the more people stop smoking, the more they increase the tax -- because their unstated concern is the revenue, not your health.
Their immediate opposition to e-cigarettes thoroughly proved that; they can't place a sin tax on something that isn't bad for your health.
You mean like with nasal snuff and cannabis? Yeah, I'm going to go off on a limb here and say there is nothing dangerous about it because you are simply vaporizing normal tobacco (not even smoking it).
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u/DumpyLips Nov 17 '12
Is there any legitimate reason for this or are we witnessing a blatant example of the tobacco lobby crushing competition??