Ashtray Blog: An Electronic Cigarette Blog

Excellent video response to the FDA by Matt Salmon of the Electronic Cigarette Association.

Professor Carl Phillips of the TobaccoHarmReduction.org project very kindly agreed to an interview on the electronic cigarette and with us recently, and we have now published the full interview on our website.

You can read the full interview here: Electronic Cigarette Interview with Professor Carl Phillips.

You can also watch a short extract from the interview below.

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.

Smoke Free Wisconsin has been awarded the Lie of the Year award by the Tobacco Analysis Blog.

In “The Latest Ploy By Big Tobacco to Hook Kid” Smoke Free Wisconsin outrageously and falsely claimed that the electronic cigarette was supplied by tobacco company, and despite numerous scientists and users pointing out their mistake, both on their blog and off it, the lie remains.

Says Professor Siegel:

“The lie is significant because the removal of electronic cigarettes from the market would be devastating to the public’s health. It would result in a return to cigarette smoking by perhaps hundreds of thousands of ex-smokers who now rely on vaping to keep them off of tobacco products.”

So here’s a call to anyone else with a blog/website – link to this post with the words Smoke Free Wisconsin (http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/12/rest-of-story-announces-2009-lie-of.html). If enough people do so the post will come up whenever anyone types in the word Smoke Free Wisconsin.

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.

There is just one week remaining (December 28 is the deadline) to submit public comments to the US FDA on tobacco regulations.

To submit a comment, go to http://www.regulations.gov/search/Regs/home.html#submitComment?R=0900006480a34db4

For more information about FDA tobacco regulations, go to http://www.fda.gov/TobaccoProducts/default.htm

In public comments submitted on September 28 (attached), Smokefree Pennsylvania urged the FDA to:

• truthfully inform smokers and the public that smokefree tobacco/nicotine products are far less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes, and that millions of smokers have already reduced their health risks by switching to smokefree tobacco/nicotine products,
• eliminate the misleading “This product is not a safe alternative to cigarettes” warning on smokeless products,
• eliminate the unsubstantiated “This product may cause mouth cancer” warning from snus and other low nitrosamine smokeless products,
• require a warning on all cigarette packs stating “Smokefree tobacco and nicotine products are less hazardous alternatives to cigarettes”,
• evaluate and publish the relative and comparable health risks of different tobacco/nicotine products
• establish stricter standers for “modified risk” and “reduced exposure” claims for cigarettes than for smokefree tobacco products,
• oppose cigarette emission standards, as they would perpetuate the safer cigarette fraud because humans smoke differently than machines,
• require a warning on all cigarette packs stating “There is no such thing as a safer cigarette, as all cigarettes are similarly hazardous”
• approve NY State Health Commissioner Daines’ petition to make NRT more accessible and affordable to smokers, and to change NRT pack warnings to provide comparable health benefit and risk information about NRT use versus continued cigarette use,
• approve temporary and long term usage of NRT products for smokers and other tobacco users
• inform smokers and the public that most ex-smokers have quit cold turkey (not by using NRT or Rx products)
• redefine electronic cigarettes as a new category of tobacco products, and propose reasonable and responsible e-cigarette regulations,
• acknowledge huge declines in youth tobacco usage during past decade, and FDA’s statutory and constitutional limitations to further reduce youth tobacco usage,
• oppose banning menthol cigarettes, as doing so would create a huge black market, and
• oppose bannning flavorings/additives in cigars or smokefree tobacco products.

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.

Here are some more ways to connect with Vaper’s Network:

• Vapers Network on Twitter
• Vapers Network on You Tube
• Vapers Network on Facebook

Kudos to Kate to pointing this out on Vaper’s Network.

Dr Murray Laugeson is arguing that the electronic cigarette reduce the risk of cancer.

His arguments are based on the following:

1. Nicotine is not a known carcinogen.
2. The USA lung study demonstrated that the risk of lung cancer did not increase in those who stopped smoking but continued to use nicotine. This was based on a ten year follow up of smokers of thousands of ex-smokers.
3. Over the last 25 years nicotine has been given to millions of smokers without any sign of increased risk of cancer. This includes the 8% who have become long term nicotine gum users.
4. The cancer causing gases of cigarettes are not found in electronic cigarettes.

In conclusion, Murray states:

Switching to e-cigarettes with nicotine continued, can be expected to reduce lung cancer risk the same as altogether quitting cigarettes without e-cigarettes.

You can read the full arguments here Electronic Cigarettes Reduce Cancer Risk, check out our interview with Murray Laugeson here or read more research here.

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.

Professor Carl Phillips has just made an excellent reply to our recent listing of grants to pharmaceutical companies.

In his post New Catalog of Financial Conflict of Interest r.e. Anti-E-Cig Activism he points out that the actual funding of the companies is not the problem.

The pharmaceutical companies provides lots of funding to lots of different organisations, many of which produce good work.

The real problem lies with the non-disclosure of this funding by health groups.

With that in mind, we’d like to disclose that this blog is funded by E Cigarette Direct. And we are inherently biased towards electronic cigarettes.

Just in case you hadn’t guessed!

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.

This is a post we have been meaning to do for some time!

We have been tracking down funding for the electronic cigarette campaign.

Some funding has been easy to find. However, some organisations are more secretive. ASH International’s funding from suicide drug maker Pfizer was difficult to track down, as they have no reference to it on their website – and the credit for finding that goes to E Cigarette National.

(ASH International should not be confused with ASH UK. We have been through ASH UK’s balance sheets and have yet to find any funding from large pharmaceutical companies, which perhaps explains their more balanced approach to the electronic cigarette.)

Bill Godshall first mentioned GlaxoSmithKline’s secretive agreement with the American Cancer Society, while Professor Michael Siegel’s blog pointed us towards more funding for ASH.

This funding is of concern because these companies produce the nicotine cessation aids which directly compete with the electronic cigarette.

To see all the details of the funding check out this page: Big Pharm Funding of Anti-Electronic Cigarette Campaign.

We are sure there is more out there – feel free to point it out to us. (All information/help we use wil be attributed.)

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.

Banzhaf has recently called for a class action against electronic cigarette companies.

Now Smokles is asking if anyone is up for a class action against John Banzhaf.

While we are neither lawyers nor Americans, we thought it would be interesting to brainstorm some of Ash’s claims and actions that, if not illegal, are certainly outragous.

1. Non-disclosure of income

ASH has failed to disclose on its websites funds received from Pfizer, funds which create a conflict of interest on its campaign against the electronic cigarette. We have no idea if this is illegal in the US, though.

2. Attacking scientists

At the same time as receiving funds from big pharm, Banzhaf has maintained that scientists who defend the electronic cigarette are paid by e-cigarette companies. He is adapting an old public health organisation trick (any research that shows we are wrong must have been funded by tobacco companies), breathtaking in its hypocrisy when one considers that the current anti-smoking climate was partly brought about by a $99 million dollar grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Possible libel?

3. Political Lobbying/Misuse of Fund

ASH is supposed to be protecting smokers. Instead, it is using donations to attempt to influence a political process and attack a product which a number of scientists have said is at least 99% safer than smoking.

4. Physical Harm

Which leads to actual harm being caused to smokers. If the assessments of the electronic cigarettes doctors and scientists such as Dr Joel Nitzkin are correct, ASH will actually cause the deaths of smokers who would have otherwise switched to cigarettes.

(At least, assuming billionaire John Banzhaf actually uses the funds. Considering all the money his organisation receives, it’s rather strange that he uses free press release, and paid a five year old to design his website.)

5. Lies?

I don’t know if public health companies are allowed to lie, but John Banzhaf has promoted false junk science, and used junk science to promote harmful actions such as separating parents from their children.

Banzhaf has also defended the right of newspapers to lie, attacking us when we criticised the Peninsula for stating that electronic cigarettes contain 40 times as much as nicotine as a cigarette.

6. Discrimination

ASH actively supports and promotes discrimination against smokers, including preventing smokers from using hospital waiting rooms. This is again based on junk science notions such as that of third hand smoke.

7. Just plain craziness

I mean, stating that propylene glycol can be found in anti-freeze. (It can – but so is water. Meanwhile, propylene glycol can also be found in FDA approved asthma inhalers and medicines.)

Or complaining about the levels of carcinogens in e-cigarettes when they are at similar levels to that found in nicotine cessation aids also approved by the FDA – and recomended by public health groups!

Any other grounds for complaint?

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.