Ashtray Blog: An Electronic Cigarette Blog

Here’s a film I’d like to watch!

If you are wondering, like me, what its take on smoking was, here it what the director says:

“What I wanted people to think about was political correctness. I wanted them to think about ideas of personal responsibility and personal choice. I think cigarettes are a wonderful location for that discussion because cigarettes are something we know all the answers to”, he posits. “I wanted to look into this idea of why we feel the need to tell each other how to live and why we can’t take personal responsibility for our own actions when we fall ill from things that we know are dangerous.” [24] Stephanie Zacharek of Salon agrees with Reisman, “Despite its title, the movie doesn’t come packaged with a strong anti-smoking message, because it doesn’t need to: Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, including people who continue to do it.” ”[25] The film is generally considered to be politically correct enough to avoid offending any one side of the debate.

Source: Wikipedia

Wow, someone actually promoting freedom of choice! That’s a rare thing for today’s nanny bully society.

It’s a common question.

But work to do what?

Electronic cigarettes as a replacement?

For the majority of people who try them, they’re an effective alternative to cigarettes.

It’s not just the nicotine. Some of our customers are happy smoking non-nicotine cigarettes. It’s the hand to mouth action and the throat kick that make the difference.

As a cessation therapy?

We can’t say – there have been no long term tests into the e-cigarette as cessation therapy, and until there have been we can’t no for sure.

What we can say is that short term tests in New Zealand have shown that electronic cigarettes can relieve cravings and increase the level of nicotine in the blood.

However, many smokers quit smoking just to take it back up a few minutes later. (That’s why nicotine cessation aids have exaggerated claims – they may help in the short run, but ineffective in the long term.)

To save money?

Oh yes.

According to our calculations – and we have given some margin of error here, as so many suppliers are accused of exaggerating claims about cartridge life – the new NJOY duo could save a 20 a day smoker £1,500 a year, a 40 a day smoker £3,000 a year and a 60 a day smoker £4,500 a year.

I don’t know what other e-smokers (especially those using e-juice) have worked out they are saving by using e-cigarettes, but I’d love to see some estimates!

Have a question about e-cigarettes? Email us and we’ll try to answer it on our blog.

The MHRA has set a new date for the consultation meeting on the electronic cigaratte.

The date is now June the 4th.

The date set, unfortunately, is currently one day after the end of the consultation period on whether to make the electronic cigarette a medicine!

Paul Bergen, one of the scientists featured on our "people" page.

We have started a new section in our website, dedicated to the people in the electronic cigarette world.

We have started off by covering the major scientists involved in the electronic cigarette debate, Professor Siegel, Professor Phillips, Paul Bergen and others. Hopefully, it will be a starting point for those looking to research the electronic cigarettes and who are looking for interview subjects.

(If you want to get in contact with any of these people, fire off an email to me and I will send it on – I have the contact details of most of these scientists from our interviews.)

We want to expand this section in the future, and add many more people from the electronic cigarette world.

If you know of anyone we really shouldn’t miss out, please leave a comment.

To view the page, just click here: Electronic Cigarette People.

Warning labels on cigarettes: Disgusting, but apparently ineffective.

When Martin Lindstrom started research for his book Buyology, he took a group of researchers, placed them in an fMRI maching and measured the reactions of their brains while flashing images of cigarette warnings labels at them.

He was astonished by the results.

Not only did they fail to deter cigarette smokers from smoking cigarettes, they actually encouraged it.

“Cigarette warnings… stimulated an area of the smoker’s braincalled the nucleus accumbens, otherwise known as “the craving spot”… when stimulated, the nucleus accumbens requires higher and higher doses to get its fix.”

The data lead him to the conclusion that:

“…those same cigarette warning labels intended to curb smoking, reduce cancer and save lieves had instead become a killer marketing tool for the tobacco industry.”

Nice use of millions of dollars of taxes!

It could be argued that the anti-smoking groups acted in good faith. But, at least in America, this is the same anti-smoking lobby which worked with Malbrough to keep menthol cigarettes legal, while lobbying against the smokeless tobacco which carries a fraction of the risks of cigarettes. (To be fair ASH UK support smokeless tobacco (and, cautiously, e-cigarettes).)

(According to Velvet Glove Iron Fist, which charts the history of the anti-smoking movement, anti-smoking groups in California were also furious when some money from tobacco settlements was spent on improved treatment of smoking diseases instead of on prevention!)

The e-cig world has changed and developed hugely since we wrote the electronic cigarette glossary.

We have now changed and updated our glossary to reflect those changes, and you can see the finished product here: The Electronic Cigarette Glossary.

Please let me know if we have missed anything out!

As the largest user base of the electronic cigarette users, the ECigarette Forum should and does have a huge role to play in educating the public about electronic cigarette.

It’s not a role the Ashtray blog can share in, unfortunately, as we have been kicked off the forums.

It was a shock to me, as although I was paying a monthly sum to the electronic cigarette forum I never received any warning or advice. I visited the forum one day, and found that my sub forum had been removed.

This was several months ago, but it was only a few days ago that I was told why. Apparently I was insufficiently active in the forum, grounds which, to my surprise, were sufficient to remove paying advertisors without warning or advice.

Not only that, but my ability to post, despite promises to the contrary, have been removed. This, to me, is more annoying. As is clear from this blog we spend a lot of time campaigning for the electronic cigarette, but it means we are unable to discuss anything in the largest e-cigarette  forum on the net.

If you are unfortunate enough to be in my position, you will be looking for an alternative. I took the advice of Kate of Vaper’s Network, and have joined Vaper’s Forum, which even has a special thread (titled “The Refugee Camp”) for all the people who have been kicked out of the the ECigarette Forum!

A guest post by Breathe New Hampshire

Electronic Cigarette companies have been caught out.

Little did we realise that companies like the one below are insidiously marketing their products towards children.

Okay, you can’t enter their websites unless you are over 18, but that’s probably an sneaky trick to make the device more attractive. After all children like things they can’t have, so any attempt to make them more difficult to obtain is really a marketing ploy aimed at children.

You can see from the pictures on this website how they are marketing the device to children.

Okay, not pictures of children, but pictures of adults using it at work is bound to increase the attraction to children.

And there are all the flavours that they sell on their website, like the fruit chill one below.

Oops, that’s the nicorette, not an electronic cigarette, a device with the same ingredients as the electronic cigarette. That’s okay because the manufacturers support stop smoking societies with huge funds, so let’s brush little problems like attraction to children and hair loss under the carpet. I can’t find any flavours apart from Menthol on this website at all, so I am going to quickly move on.

When you need to make a case, you need some statistics. Let’s look at a recent survey. E-Cigarettes as a Potential Harm Reduction Project found that 55% of users were aged 31-50, and none were aged below 18. Oops!

Never mind. When there is no evidence, turn to emotion, and find some children to coach honestly give their opinion.

“My friend bought an electronic cigarette because she thought it would help her quit smoking,” said Georgia Doing, a student at High Mowing School in Wilton.  “She has been smoking more than ever.  Despite the optimistic benefits that e-cigarettes advertise, the truth is they create or fuel an addiction to nicotine.”

There, you see. Undeniable proof that the electronic cigarette is marketed towards children.

By the way, you won’t see comments enabled on our blog post on New Hampshire. We know how e-cigarette users like to point out awkward little facts on the bottom of articles about electronic cigarettes, and we are not having it!

The story of the electronic cigarette!

Feel free to embed it in your website/blog (attribution and link required!)

Our latest press release is now out.

Press Release: The MHRA is refusing to allow experts in tobacco to take part in a consultation process on electronic cigarettes.

Professor Carl Phillips had bought his plane ticket.

The world renowned expert on tobacco control and harm reduction was coming to the UK partly for a conference on harm reduction, but also to explain the science of the electronic cigarette to the MHRA as a consultant to UK-based ECigaretteDirect.