Ashtray Blog: An Electronic Cigarette Blog

Some rather thick skulled anti-smoking advocates over at SmokeFree Wisconsin have resorted to blatent if stupid lies in their effort to disparage the electronic cigarette.

In the latest argument against e-cigarettes SmokeFree Wisconsin state that ECigarettes are “the latest ploy by big tobacco to hook kids.”

In fact, the tobacco bill underway in the US, which has the support of Tobacco Free Kids and Philip Morris, is likely to ban electronic cigarettes in America by requiring research that is physically impossible to carry out. (See our interview with Dr Nitzin for elucidation!)

This bill has the support of America’s largest tobacco company. Philip Morris has seen that the bill will aid the company to crush both smaller competititors and safe alternative tobacco products. As a result, it takes some imagination to believe that big tobacco could be behind electronic cigarettes.

SmokeFree Wisconsin might want to read the reply to Lautenburg’s letter, again by Dr Nitzkin, which argues:

simply informing current adult smokers that they could dramatically reduce their risk of tobacco related illness and death by switching to alternative near-zero-risk nicotine delivery products could possibly save 4 million or more of the 8 million current smokers who will
otherwise die of a tobacco-related illness over the next 20 years.

The fact of the matter is that people like SmokeFree Wisconsin are partly responsible for the deaths of smokers who could and would have changed to safer alternative tobacco products like Snus and e-cigarettes but have remained on the cigarettes that are far more lethal to kill them.

One question suppliers and indeed customers often ask of new products is:

"Is it approved by the FDA?"

Despite concerns over the overworked FDA – for example, by the fact that research is often paid for by the very companies whose products they are testing – FDA approval is still valued highly.

This is likely to change after a new tobacco bill has been approved.

The Tobacco Bill will force the FDA to approve a product known to be approximately 100,000 times more dangerous than is generally considered to an acceptable level for consumer products.

When the FDA does this, all value of FDA approval will disappear.

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I have just finished an interview with Dr Nitzkin (it will take me a little while to transcribe and upload the interview) on e-cigarettes.

Just as an aside, I asked him about a topic that interests me, that of passive smoking.

I was originally convinced that passive smoking killed. However, a seed of doubt was planted in my head when I heard Sir Richard Dahl, the scientist who discovered the link between cancer and smoking, disparage the connection between passive smoking and smoking diseases in a radio interview not long before his death.

My sceptism was increased when I saw the money that had been poured into smoking disease research and anti-smoking campaigns by pharmecutical companies.

Dr Joel Nitzkin, however, stated that passive smoking was responsible for 30,000 deaths a year in America.

With around 400,000 smokers dying from smoking related diseases in America, that would mean that for every 11 or smokers that die from smoking, one non-smoker would be taken along with them.

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We have now launched our electronic cigarette affiliate system. Features include a £25 sign up bonus, a low payout threshold of £25 and a commission of ten percent.

For more information or to sign up head over to our electronic cigarette affiliates page.

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An academic article in Business Source argues that the current tobacco bill will damage the FDA and help the largest tobacco company, Philip Morris.

Some of the salient points are:

• Philip Morris opposed regulation until it realised it could capture and manipulate the provisions to suit themselves

• Philip Morris has admitted that making profits is the driving force behind their support for the bill

• the tobacco company’s huge resources as compared to the under-funded and overwhelmed FDA means that it is Philip Morris which is likely to win any litigation arising from the FDA’s new found control

• In determining the efficacy of reduced risk cigarettes, the FDA would rely on the evidence submitted by the tobacco company, not by neutral parties. The development of a ‘healthier cigarette’ would obviously be a boon for any tobacco company able to do so.

• Forcing the FDA to issue standards for a product that kills would lead to the FDA, a body designed to protect the consumer, to have an ideological crisis.

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Paul Reynolds has kindly pointed out an e-cigarette petition on the the Number 10 website.

Currently it has just 96 votes, so if you are British and find the e-cigarette a viable alternative to smoking please sign up.

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New evidence reveals that the expensive Nicotine Replacement Therapy products marketed by big pharm are effective for a tiny 1.6% of smokers.

Measured over a 12 month period 98.4% of smokers were unable to quit with the NRT products.

These finds have been exposed in a post by Michael Sigael, a professor in the Boston University School of Public Health.

Given that:

• NRT therapy does not work
• smoking diseases kill 1/3 to 1/2 of all long term smokers
• many e-smokers have already tried to quit and fail

the implications of denying e-smokers the choice to safer alternatives is clear.

1. Profits for big pharm who can continue to sell expensive products that don’t work.
2. Safeguarding the estabished tobacco industry.

And for at least a third of e-smokers?

Death.

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