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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsPeople who want to ban e-cigs are the useful idiots of Big Tobacco
Seriously, there is no one who'd benefit from that besides Big Tobacco. What they allow is people to get their fix without all the tar and carcinogens present in standard cigarette smoke, and keeping that out of nearby people as well. They also serve as a means that people use to phase out usage easier and quit. Either way, Big Tobacco loses some of the money from their addicted consumer base. There is no one else who'd benefit by getting rid of them.
Quite frankly I'd like to see some journalist see where any of the money or talking points against them is coming from, since there's only one group that'd benefit I have an idea...
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leeroysphitz
(10,462 posts)Busy body assholes.
d_r
(6,907 posts)and those dirty addicts are enjoying themselves.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)I know that's a pain for people who want to dirty it.
We need much more research to be done before we say that vaping is safe enough to expose non-vaper people to it..
http://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/are-e-cigarettes-safe-to-use-new-research-shows-metals-found-in-vapor-of-electronic-cigarettes
I would say e-cigarettes are the cigarettes of the 21 st century," according to scientist Dr. Prue Talbot. She and her team at the University of California Riverside are among the first in the country to analyze the vapor in e-cigarettes.
The ABC15 Investigators had her team test two brands of e-cigarettes using a smoking machine and a specialized microscope.
The first test was for Smoking Everywhere Platinum. It showed metals.
"There is quite a bit of tin. Most of this material is composed of tin," said Dr. Talbot. "There is also some oxygen, some copper and some nickel."
Smoking Everywhere Platinum had so much metal in the vapor that it created pellets.
(SNIP)
AND FROM THE FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER (a national cancer center in Seattle):
http://www.fhcrc.org/en/news/center-news/2014/03/the-great-e-cig-debate.html
What about secondhand effects on kids?
A big unknown is what the effects are of inhaling propylene glycol vapor, which Bricker said does leave a residue on drapes and carpet and furniture.
“We don’t know the long-term effects of that getting in the blood system and how it might affect diseases and cancers,” he said. “We don’t know how it impacts children. Are e-cigarettes dangerous? We don’t know. They haven’t been around long enough and we haven’t studied the chemical compositions to see what impact they have on the body.”
WillyT
(72,631 posts)
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)and automobiles. Cell phones have never been proven safe and the exhaust from automobiles has been proven deadly.
Fair is fair, I say ban everything that hasn't been proven safe.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)that people use it to commit suicide. And we have people are complaining about e-cigs poisoning the air? I hope like hell that none of them drive. That level of hypocrisy would be pathetic.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)We should be trying to keep our air as clean as we can. There are good reasons for needing transportation, but no good reasons for becoming nicotine addicts.
Until the e-cig came along, our country was doing a great job in reducing the numbers of people addicted to nicotine. All these efforts are threatened now. There isn't any research showing that e-cigs are actually helping to reduce the number of addicts, but there IS research showing growing numbers of children using them.
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)Then raise "your" children NOT to smoke. I'm tired of that stupid excuse. The children my ass. Just busy bodies prying into things that don't even touch them.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)They may actually be killing people by taking a viable alternative to smoking off the market.
My spouse had a stroke and is one of those that has been able to quit smoking and drastically reduce the nicotine level inhaled by use of an e-cig. I have a great fear that my spouse may return to smoking cigarettes if the bans on e-cigs continue.
IMHO, the people advocating these bans will be, at least partially, responsible for the early deaths of many trying to quit.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)And you support that?
All I said was fine, let's go ahead and ban every friggen thing that hasn't been proven 100% safe. I am sure you will support that too. Certainly, you wouldn't want to be known as a hypocrite.
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)the tobacco companies seem to be pretty into the manufacture and sale of ecigs. At least the big three.
Mark 10 is made by Altria
Vuse is made by RJ Reynolds
Blu is made by Lorillard
Revanchist
(1,375 posts)Those who are first starting out and haven't learned about all the various devices that are available. When I first switched I used an e-cig that looked like a real cigarette and took pre-filled cartridges but as I decided to give up actual smokes altogether I decided to find out what was out there and switched to larger batteries and tanks that I fill myself using liquids that are made in house in a Michigan vapor shop. I'm supporting a small U.S. business and not big tobacco and paying $15 dollars for 32 mg of liquid instead of $12 for 5 pre-filled cartridges from a company like Blu.
Big tobacco has a lot to fear from E-cigs, they can't control the market like they did with regular cigarettes and they know it.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)technology. It could be a big problem, given that monopolies seem to be granted favoritism again.
However, nobody that has been paying attention, would purchase an e-cig or juice from these notoriously evil companies.
How about instead of banning the product, we ensure that monopolies are once again illegal?
msongs
(67,365 posts)to quit smoking and that is to stop. millions have done it.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)you wrote that LOL
thanks 
ReverendDeuce
(1,643 posts)
(kudos if you get it...)
dlwickham
(3,316 posts)Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)According to some here. Better to smoke the real thing than some unknown vapor that lurks over your head and kills you in the night.
Demit
(11,238 posts)quitting smoking.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)They're supposed to be miserable while they quit smoking. E-cigs are pleasurable to use, so they must be demonized.
Demit
(11,238 posts)Now that vaping solves the big issues—the sidestream smoke issue, the smelly smoke issue—the puritans' real objections are laid bare: Somebody is getting away with something! IT'S NOT FAIR!
Mariana
(14,854 posts)most people are reasonable about this issue. The crazies do make a lot of noise, though.
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)Along with any flavorings and carriers which might be used in the e-cig? Okay, I can live with that. Sorry, but other people still have the right not to be subject to your second hand vapors, even if they are not as bad as actual second hand tobacco smoke. You have the right to your pleasure, but not at the expense of some one else's comfort or health. Crazy here.
Demit
(11,238 posts)Therefore I do not stand really close to other people's mouths.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)"Some non-smokers have expressed concern about inhaling nicotine should they be exposed to exhaled vapor. It should be particularly comforting to observe that the quantity of nicotine in a puff of captured exhaled vapor too small--even if inhaled directly by a bystander--to have any health effects whatsoever. If a bystander were to lock lips with a user after each inhaled puff and take in the entire quantity of nicotine the user inhales, after 300 puffs the bystander would be exposed to 2.1 mg of nicotine, which is the approximate quantity present in a low-dose nicotine lozenge or piece of gum. At these quantities, nicotine is not a danger to health and does not cause addiction. Furthermore, the nicotine would be delivered much more slowly—at about 1/10 the speed of delivery from gum or lozenges.
However, bystanders concerned about inhaling nicotine are unlikely to lock lips with an e-cigarette user, and since no nicotine was detected in the air samples taken in the stainless steel test chamber, it is apparent that the tiny amount of nicotine exhaled by the user is quickly diluted by mixing with the ambient air. As a result, bystanders are not exposed to nicotine at all."
Demit
(11,238 posts)It was the inhaled tar & umpteen thousand chemicals in the smoke.
These complainers...we can counter all their specious arguments but they will cling to their beliefs because there is something in them that needs to. A need to judge others & find them wrong. They'll never let it go. Dare I say it is—an addiction?
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)They must be addicted to clean air! Listen to yourself.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)...shit, burned microwave popcorn, bug spray, bad breath, pollen, car exhaust, wood chimneys, disinfectants, and host of bacteria and viruses ever single time I leave the house.
It is just the price I pay for sharing the planet with a few billion others.
I can certainly agree with you that we like cleaner air, but let's not pretend that we don't all have our own habits that affect the air quality around us.
No one should be coughing/sneezing in your face and people should be polite in closed spaces, but if someone is sitting in the park puffing an e-cig, they aren't doing you any harm.
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)know that. Your other examples are red herrings to say the least. I see the difference between someone letting a fart fly in a crowded room and someone puffing on an e-cig. It is a question of preventable vs unpreventable risks as I see it. No one has to vape in a room where there are other people around. The odd fart - not so easily prevented and generally the perp does something about it - such as heads to the bathroom for a stool session. Some office buildings do limit perfumes, particularly if there is someone working there with a sensitivity. And I have yet to have an office mate or random passerby pee in my face or even spray air freshener in my face. Get real.
Demit
(11,238 posts)I hope, as you journey through the nitrogen oxides, VOCs, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulates emitted daily by car exhausts, power plants, industrial pollution, air conditioners, aerosol sprays & barbecue grills, you someday find it.
Just make sure to hold your breath until you do.
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)Yeah, that makes sense.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)Would you be arguing as vociferously against wearing perfume in public places?
Demit
(11,238 posts)Go throw a few steaks on the grill. Now inhale. THAT'S smoke. THAT'S combustion. THAT has particulates & combusted chemicals that can harm you. But that's a part of modern life that you like, right? You think of that as benign, right? It's only a little bit, only once in awhile, right? And all those other features of modern life that pollute the air? It would be so inconvenient to not have them! So yellowcanine accepts the existence of those. And assuages his/her conscience with self-righteous moaning about the terrible hazards of encountering the occasional puff of exhaled vapor.
Nicotine isn't even a poison, unless it's in highly concentrated form. Not at the level it exists in a tobacco cigarette, certainly not at the minuscule level it exists at in exhaled vapor. Even if the marauding hordes of vapers that fill your fevered imagination were to exhale all at once and aim it straight at you, you melodramatic ninny.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts) yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)No one is proposing to have the right to light up a grill in my office building so that is a big fat red herring. Get real.
Demit
(11,238 posts)On second thought, since you think that barbecue grills in backyards don't matter when it comes to carcinogenic smoke, only those in office buildings would... I'll amend that to big fat ninny.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)...for the amount of dioxins they release in the atmosphere.
That's the equivalent of what 14 pack a day smokers release in a year.
Given that the values of chemicals exhaled from a e-cig are 9 to 450 times less than a cigarette depending on the specific chemical (not including those that e-cigs don't even emit), I fail to see how someone at the park puffing on an e-cig constitutes a major health hazard.
I'm leaning toward the "it offends my sensibilities, therefore it is bad" as the basis for a lot of this.
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)Congrats. Or something.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)You want to play?
E-cigarettes have been promoted as a safer alternative to cancer-causing tobacco products that can wean heavy smokers off their habit.
But on Tuesday, Los Angeles officials joined a growing list of cities that treat e-cigarettes just the same as regular cigarettes, banning their use in parks, restaurants and most workplaces.
http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-0305-e-cigarettes-20140305,0,2449939.story#ixzz2vh91LvQE
Next time you decide to make accusations of strawman fallacies against others, you'd do well to make sure your facts are in order.
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)The main discussion here has been about indoor air and secondary exposure to vaping. Making comparisons about barbecues, etc. is just not germane and yes, it is a strawman fallacy.
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)
sibelian
(7,804 posts)Your complaint doesn't really mean very much.
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)There are in house industry studies and there are independent peer reviewed scientific studies. If you fail to provide a citation my assumption is that it is more likely to be the former than the latter. And this reasoning is clearly misleading if not outright false.
"It is apparent that the tiny amount of nicotine exhaled by the user is quickly diluted by mixing with the ambient air. As a result, bystanders are not exposed to nicotine at all."
Diluted does not = zero, at least not in all circumstances. It depends on how far the bystanders are away, how much air movement and mixing is going on, and how much vaping is going on (how many people, how vigorous?). Not to mention that nicotine may not be the only issue - there are carriers, flavor compounds, etc. The wording of this study smacks of an industry study to me.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)Had to dig a little to find it but voila!
http://casaa.org/
Right at the top of the web page I found this:
CASAA - The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association
Please submit your e-cigarette user testimonial!
Heh. I don't think I need to add anything to that. I wonder how many of the CASAA folks are posting here.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)You could try this article:
http://meetingdocs.alachuacounty.us/documents/bocc/agendas/2013-12-10/500347c5-b7d5-423c-b645-0860dc047067.pdf
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)"It just is!" doesn't fly with me.
I don't get my information on marijuana from "Partnership for a Drug-free America".
The article you read was an extrapolation of another study (that you would have found if you have done your research well instead of looking for attack on the source of the article), but you didn't.
Now you want to play urban dictionary with me?
When push comes to shove, I could sit here all day (and pretty much have), trying reason, logic, studies, etc.. and not sway your opinion. I could just as easily say you resorted to Ad hominem circumstantial fallacy.
How does that further discussion?
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)not just the ones supporting a particular viewpoint. Readers are not supposed to have to go to the original studies - they should be able to trust the reviewer to accurately summerize the relevant research. I knew there were other studies which should have been cited so it raised questionns about the author and the sponsor of the study. Turns out that the sponsor was an advocacy group for e-cigs and smokeless tobacco (snuff) - very suspicious because this is the kind of group which is often a front group for industry - in this case likely the tobacco industry. Also the author was in fact the president of the board of CASAA and it turns out that at least one of the newest studies they are touting on their website was commissioned and paid for by CASAA - another red flag because the tobacco industry has a history of sponsoring research and selectively releasing data which downplayed the dangers of tobacco use. Sorry - too many red flags there I am not going to chase down all of the original studies when there clearly is a dead rat stinking up the place.
When you posted this clearly suspicious study as the basis of your argument and then followed up with another link when I shot it down - well, the thought "Gish Gallop" popped into my mind. In fact I did read the second link you posted and it was not definitive about the safety of second hand e-cig vapor so I am not sure how it supports your case.
I honestly don't know if there is a health risk from second hand e-cigs but it is certainly way too early to rule out the possibility and cherry picking data will not help the advocates of e-cigs.
beevul
(12,194 posts)So its not the content, its the source. No interest in the truth of the matter, no interest in what these studies say, no interest in whether they're true or not. Only interest in who did them, or who paid for them.
CASAA can't possible be listened to, since another entirely separate and all together different group was dishonest at some point.
You could have just said that you were an anti-ecig person, and that nothing was going to change your mind, and saved the lot of us here much time and effort spent trying to separate you from what we mistakenly thought was ignorance rather than bias.
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)I pointed that out. Yes when the content is solely provided by a tainted source the conclusions drawn from the studies is tainted. The cited "study" was a review - but it was a selective review. Some relevant studies were omitted and only ones which favored use of e-cigs were included. I don't care one way or the other about e-cigs, but I don't want people using them around me unless I know I am not getting ANY nicotine from them or any of the carriers which may be used. Sorry if that offends you but is my right and everyone else's right.
beevul
(12,194 posts)To those who see "big tobacco" hiding behind every twig and branch, I suppose so.
"I don't want people using them around me unless I know I am not getting ANY nicotine from them or any of the carriers which may be used. Sorry if that offends you but is my right and everyone else's right."
In the real world, the burden lies on those wishing to restrict, to justify the restriction. I don't want to see any restrictions on them for health reasons, UNTIL it can be justified. It jives nicely with my view of due process. As these threads show, there are some who take a position on these to ban them/restrict their usage now because of what they are and what they represent, and maybe ask questions later.
You fall in with the "ban/restrict them now" bunch, whether you realize it or not.
As far as "my right and everyone else's right"...I assume you wear no perfume, no cologne, no detectable scents of any kind, never burn wood, don't burn propane or lp for heating, don't use electricity which combustion of some sort was used in making, don't make use of any form of transportation which uses or works as a result of combustion, right?
Because you practice what you preach, by not using things around others that THEY might not want to be getting any intake of, right?
Well, congratulations! 
Most people use "criteria", is rather selective and subjective, and I don't see where you're any different.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)These people seriously don't understand the idea that the dose makes the poison. I wonder if they avoid tomatoes, peppers, and other nightshade vegetables, since all of them contain nicotine.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)Puritanism is the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere, is having fun.
Gemini Cat
(2,820 posts)Thou must be miserable at all times, so I can feel good about life!!!
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)I will take both, thank you.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)They should be happy someone is giving it to them free. 
sibelian
(7,804 posts)You're here to make noise.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)that this is a real fear or not.
That kind of epidemiological study takes at times decades. So people are afraid.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)I think most of them are pissed off that smokers now have an enjoyable alternative to smoking. It's not smoking they hate. They hate smokers - even after they've quit.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)I ascribe this to a fear. Whether that fear is real or not is besides the point. It will take decades to test it. Hell, I would have preferred if dad chewed nicorette for the rest of his life, or used e-cigs, than the actual cigs. (And the ashtma attack was really bad) But we need research to see if there is any measurable risk to the general population from this. My first instinct is NO, due to what is in them, read no tar and no particulates, but we still need the research.
As to hate of smokers, you know where it is very real? With a very small percentage of EX smokers.
aquart
(69,014 posts)And I am happy to loathe those selfish, smug drug addicts. They robbed me of income and friends because they were such moronic suckers for product placement. They spoiled dinners, weddings, jobs, dancing.
Keeping them miserable sounds lovely.
Demit
(11,238 posts)
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)Created exclusively for blu by Johnson Creek, our electronic cigarettes use ingredients (only 5 ingredients, 6 ingredients in cartridges containing nicotine), yet deliver maximum flavor:
Industry recognized as the leader in American-made electronic cigarette e-liquid with domestic and imported ingredients.
Master mixers make each batch fresh, by hand.
Our flavor cartridges are made specifically to work with blu products.
http://www.blucigs.com/cartridges
Demit
(11,238 posts)I'm not sure if that's supposed to be some kind of gotcha, or if you really think that juice gets smoked. Have to tread carefully here, don't want to assume too much. Ms Toad, that's a FLAVOR word. It's not indicating actual combustion of anything.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)When the very people manufacturing it and promoting it are using that language.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)Examples:
Madvapes
Vapor Lounge
E-Vape
Pro Vape
On the other hand, there are some like:
Smart Smoke
Alt Smoke
For the most part, every shop I have ever been to and most forums and users refer to it as "vaping" to distinguish it from "smoking".
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)merely that those who are complaining when people call it smoking should clean up their own house first.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)You do realize that drug addiction is a disease and due to genetics, don't you? Loathe what you will but don't expect me to respect you for your hatefulness.
On second thought, perhaps your inability to empathize with others sufferings is an indication of another genetic (I don't know let's call it a malfeasance) that many (especially on the other side of the isle) seem to suffer from.
Bandit
(21,475 posts)But the Haters DEMAND I obey. They say stupid things like I might cost the taxpayer money someday by going to the hospital.. Why would they say such stupid things?
Mariana
(14,854 posts)or who have already done so. Do you think it's better if they continue to smoke?
Bandit
(21,475 posts)on purpose.
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)what people choose to eat and drink too?
Bandit
(21,475 posts)
When you make laws protecting one from themself you are wrong..IMO If those laws protect others from you then I accept them. HappyMe
(20,277 posts)Shouldn't the poisons that people dump into their bodies also include donuts or cheeseburgers and beer?
Bandit
(21,475 posts)all reckless behavior should be on the table....Why would you say helmet laws are ok but smoking laws are not?
HappyMe
(20,277 posts)most places. What I am not okay with is all of this anti-ecig garbage.
You said in another post that the taxpayers would have to pay for someone hurt from no helmet or seatbelt. Wouldn't the tax payers then have to pay for somebody that eats only junk food because they are sick from that?
Bandit
(21,475 posts)One does to themself. I think we are close to an understanding but not sure. For the record I am opposed. I am opposed to helmet laws and seatbelt laws and e-cig laws and Big Gulp laws. I am not opposed to smoking bans though because that effects more than one person.
I think we have an accord. 
Mariana
(14,854 posts)
Tyhanna
(145 posts)I can think of quite a few RX drugs that are more serious poison that are given to people very day, and they are far more poisonous than nicotine.
One RX drug is rat poison. Coumadin
one used for pain, very poisonous Belladonna
Colchicine used for gout is also poisonous
and there are more.
reckless behavior?? really?
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)who, after they're addicted, can then switch to cheaper cigarettes.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)You mean the same way cigarettes were marketed to kids, with the Joe Camel ads? I really haven't seen anything like that.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)Mariana
(14,854 posts)Lots of adults have a sweet tooth and like those flavors.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)don't need bubble gum flavors to attract them to e-cigs.
Tobacco cigarettes are already banned from having sweet or fruity flavors added.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/06/286416362/teens-who-try-e-cigarettes-are-more-likely-to-try-tobacco-too
Demit
(11,238 posts)Where do you get this stuff?
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts) pnwmom
(108,959 posts)Meaning, cigarettes that contain both tar and nicotine, unlike e-cigs that contain nicotine and whatever else is added (formaldehyde, for example.)
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Unless you have something intelligent to say about the actual concentration (and it is likely that the unnamed thing you keep citing involved one of the sponge-type cartomizers), then I for one would be very surprised if there was more formaldehyde than you will inhale walking through the clothing section of a department store.
However, you continue to fail to understand that getting away from the flavor of tobacco is part of why ecigs are effective at getting smokers to quit.
After a couple days of exclusively vaping another flavor, cigarettes frankly taste awful.
You refuse to even attempt to learn anything that doesn't confirm the conclusion you have already reached.
Tyhanna
(145 posts)did you know non-smokers emit formaldehyde from their normal breath, that's right our bodies even non-smokers naturally have formaldehyde in their breath.
Formaldehyde is not added to the e-liquid, you really need to get your facts before commenting on something.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)This may be hard to understand, but as a former smoker, I can't stand the taste of regular cigarettes, but enjoyed vaping flavors like "French vanilla", "Caramel", and "Toffee".
If a person wants enjoys bubble gum flavor or cotton candy flavor, that is their choice.
Are you suggesting there should be some "head arbiter" to approve flavors to make sure that no young person would enjoy?
And, if so, better get started on the liquor and coffee industry first.
energumen
(76 posts)We need tighter control of Boone's Farm. There's a gateway drug to alcoholism if there ever was one.
Tyhanna
(145 posts)its very obvious you have no understanding of any of this having to do with e-cigarettes and flavors.
Let me educate you...
A person that is quitting the cigarette does not want to have the taste of tobacco any more. That is why we use fruit, candy, drink, bakery flavors. This is one reason they work so well for people.
Since when do adults loose their taste for sweets and fun flavors when they become adults. How about all those fun flavors put in coffee, alcohol, tea, are those also marketed to kids? Last time I looked all those were for adults.
How about the nicotine gum and lozenges that are put out in fun flavors are those also marketed to minors to? illegal for anyone under 18 to buy but hum they come in fun flavors, why is that?
So with your thinking we should ban all fun flavors for all things that adults buy? How about the alcohol infused chocolate should we ban that to?
An other case of minors trying to do adult activity's, why punish the adults?
14 million vapers world wide using e-cigs.
Kurska
(5,739 posts)Blueberry is the best seller at the store I frequent, blue raspberry is the second. Oh and absolutely everyone is age verified everytime (store policy).
To be blunt, you're wrong adults like fruit and bubblegum too (shocker)
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)Anything else is just "marketing to children".
The person you are replying to seems to think that adults don't enjoy a selection of flavors to choose from, which in my opinion, is the biggest load of horseshit (probably another flavor geared to adults) I ever heard in my life.
It is like saying Peach Schnapps or Apple Martinis or Pina Coladas are created specifically to market to children. Ridiculous and illogical on the face of it.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)They should be banned from nicotine products, too. There is no reason to make nicotine especially enticing. It's already addictive enough.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)Are you the arbiter of what people can choose to vape?
And how do you propose to stop it? I can go out right now and buy flavorless nicotine, a bottle of vegetable glycerin, and any food grade flavoring concentrate I desire.
Mix it up and you have a virtual cornucopia of e-liquid flavors at your disposal. It is as easy as making kool-aid.
Easy peasy.
And what about e-cig liquid that contains no nicotine at all? Every flavor comes in strengths from no-nicotine to around 24mg.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)Better than marketing them to kids with candy flavors.
And I wouldn't have any problem with e-cigs that contained no nicotine or other harmful ingredients.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)I understand and share your concerns about kids. Really, I do.
I am fine with making it illegal to sell to minors.
We are going to have to part ways when you assume selling certain flavors indicates an intent to sell to kids. Adults like candy. Adults like fruits. There are even *gasp* some adults that don't really want to vape something that tastes like an ashtray. Just like there are adults who like alcoholic beverages that don't taste like liquid fire which is why we have wine coolers and flavored vodka and Kahlua and Mike's Hard Raspberry Lemonade.
Is that really such a difficult concept to grasp?
As far as harmful ingredients are concerned, e-cig liquid contains propylene glycol (same stuff found in cake mixes, frosting, salad dressings, beer, candy) and/or vegetable glycerin (a sweetener you can buy in any drug store and health food store as well an ingredient in many foods), flavoring, and nicotine (if added).
To allay your concerns about formaldehyde, the human body metabolizes fruit juices, methanol, and aspartame to formaldehyde. 100% of the population exhales small amounts of formaldehyde. It certainly isn't good for you in high doses, but e-cig liquids are not made with a bottle of embalming fluid. The ingredients I listed above are what they are made out of. The amount in vapor is far less than indoor air quality standards. Riding in a vehicle, air contains 15.3 µg/m3 formaldehyde. E-cig vapor contains about 0.06 ?g/m3. You do the math.
energumen
(76 posts)Cigarettes, I guess. However, there are plenty of fruit and exotic flavored cigars, chewing tobaccos, snuffs, and hookah tobaccos. All of which, I would consider, ... tobacco products. But, that's just me.
Revanchist
(1,375 posts)
tridim
(45,358 posts)Nor the hundreds of other brands that are sweet and fruity.
Menthol, doesn't exist.
Shisha, doesn't exist.
What the hell are you talking about?
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)Number 6 (not to mention that the entire scheme of advertising being copied is what successfully marketed cigarettes to kids in the first place)
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/tobacco_unfiltered/post/2013_10_02_ecigarettes
Demit
(11,238 posts)Whatever the product is. But make up your mind. If you want to say that #6 (using cartoons) is proof that Blu is marketing to kids, make that argument. I'd counter with all the cartoon advertising for other products (life insurance? prescription drugs?) aimed at adults.
But claiming that the other methods in that list (rugged men? sex? switch, don't quit?) are proof of marketing to kids—well, as a veteran of the advertising world, I have to tell you that you are wildly off-base. If I'm Blu's marketing director & you're my ad agency and I tell you my target is kids and your team comes back with that? You're so fired.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)the cartoon Joe Camel - the very effective advertising campaign which dramatically increased the youth market share of RJ Reynolds.
http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/11/us/smoking-among-children-is-linked-to-cartoon-camel-in-advertisements.html
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)
It's a cartoon AND a celebrity!
I'll bet their policies come in sweet flavors.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)Life insurance policies weren't addictive or toxic. So they can market life insurance policies to kids all they want - and my spouse has had a life insurance policy since her childhood.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)it self regulates.
The threat of external regulations keeps most of the youth-directed advertising in check, and when it stops being effective it is pretty likely that external regulations will actually be imposed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_advertising
The tobacco industry (now moving rapidly into the vaping arena) has never been able to self-regulate.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)And here come the cartoons.....
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)Anyone who is honest knows the cartoon Joe Camel was deliberately intended to entice teens to start smoking. The largest pot of advertising money for e-cigs is starting right where Joe Camel left off.
Using e-cigs as a way of stopping smoking is a good thing - and there is no need to make it look glamorous if you already have an addicted target audience.
But creating new nicotine addicts is a bad thing - and that is the point of the glamorization, and the use of other things which make e-cigs look sexy, youthful, and invigorating (including cartoons) in an attempt (denials aside) intended to appeal to those not yet addicted who are most vulnerable to addiction - youth looking to be cool, more grown up, or a bit rebellious.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)You brought up Joe Camel which was retired 17 years ago on the basis of such concerns regarding tobacco.
I have seen precious little in the way of e-cig advertising, but in my experience, they haven't been buying up slots during the Powerpuff Girls (although that would be funny in a terrible way).
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)(Vuse) and another big player in the tobacco industry (Lorillard (Maverick & Newport) owns a different e-cig company (Blu)) and they are marketing e-cigs the same way Camel cigarettes (and others) were marketed to teens - at events where teens are present (sports), making using e-cigs seem glamorous, sexy, and a bit rebellious - and, yes, using cartoon characters which were so effective in targeting that same audience with Camel.
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/tobacco_unfiltered/post/2013_10_02_ecigarettes
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/03/284006424/e-cigarette-critics-worry-new-ads-will-make-vaping-cool-for-kids
If you asked them back then whether they intended to entice youth into smoking, they would have (and did) vehemently deny it - even though that was exactly the result they got.
So when the same companies start using the same advertising techniques to sell e-cigs - with the same powerful profit motive (the younger you can get them addicted, the more reliable your profit base), it is disingenuous to deny that youth are a primary target, just as their denials were disingenuous decades ago when they made them about cigarette advertising.
Is there a smoking gun right now? No. No more than there was when the same point was made decades ago about advertising and cigarettes. Getting youth addicted was a primary goal of the way they were advertised - which we can only offer solid evidence for in retrospect as litigation, and investigation, discloses documents that they would not have willingly allowed to see the light of day.
What RJ Reynolds (owner of Vuse e-cigs) said in private, while it was publicly denying marketing cigarettes to youth:
What Lorillard (owner of Blu e-cigs) said in private, while it was publicly denying marketing cigarettes to youth:
So - we can wait decades for litigation to disclose the evidence that they are really targeting youth in their e-cig advertising, or we can learn from past mistakes and impose advertising regulations similar to those imposed on cigarettes now, before they create new generations of youth addicted to nicotine. I'd prefer to do the latter.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)I just want to be clear.
I'll grant you that Big Tobacco have been sleazebags with regards to many things, including targeting youth with their cigarette marketing.
I'll also grant that it deserves a measure of vigilance.
I don't believe, however, you have made a compelling case to make a blanket statement that e-cigs are being marketed to youth.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)And now that three (at least) tobacco companies are pouring money into e-cigs, how long do you think they will have a 1% share
You might also want to check your statistics. e-cigs have 1% of the nicotine market share, but in Colorado, 16 weeks after introduction, Vuse (RJ Reynolds) had a 55.6% retail market share in the state, compared to blu (Lorilland) with 25.5% and NJOY (7.3%). That is only Colorado - but it is also only 16 weeks after it was introduced - and they won't stop with just Colorado.
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/11/18/big-tobacco-begins-its-takeover-of-the-e-cigarette-market/
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)Many small companies already have e-cigs on the market, and a few of Philip Morris's competitors — Lorillard and Reynolds American — have either bought e-cig startups or are developing their own. They're still less than 1 percent of the overall market but growing fast, as Philip Morris illustrated at its investor presentation Wednesday:
What this means in layman's terms is that 99% of e-cig users are not buying their e-cigs at Wal-Mart or convenience stores. They are buying from small e-cig companies online or brick and mortar stores that sell nothing but e-cigs. You are likely to find Vuse or NJoy or Blu in convenience stores and chain stores, but the small e-cig companies generally don't sell these brands of e-cigs. So you aren't getting a clear picture from the article you linked to.
Succinctly: Vuse/Blu/Njoy currently have 88.4% of 1% of the marketplace.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)
Demit
(11,238 posts)Joe Camel well may have been designed to target children, I don't know. But Joe Camel was 25 years ago. I am not aware of any current cartoon characters that have been created to sell cigarettes to minors, are you?
I AM aware of lovable cartoon characters continuing to be used to sell adult products, however: Scooby Doo to sell State Farm, Snoopy to sell MetLife, those horrible bears for Charmin. Do you suppose these are insidious campaigns to lure children into buying insurance and toilet paper?
Children are hyper-aware of the world around them and always have been. I was singing advertising jingles when I was 3 years old in the Fifties. It didn’t mean I was running out to buy Rheingold beer or a Muntz TV.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)What RJ Reynolds (owner of Camel and Vuse e-cigs) said in public:
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/joe-camel-hit-teen-smoking-rise-article-1.810382#ixzz2vK0wKNmt
What RJ Reynolds (owner of Camel and Vuse e-cigs) said in public:
The precise impact of the Joe Camel ads is unclear. There are too many variables. Smoking in youth dramatically increased the year Joe Camel was introduced. The market share of 18-24 year olds who were explsed to Joe Camel during their younger teen years dramatically increased. And a very self-serving, business smart company, believed the ads were working well enough to throw billions of advertising dollars into their attempt (which we can only prove after it was shut down) to create new teen smokers.
And, FWIW, many cartoons - including the Charmin bears are targeting children as a vehicle to get parents to buy particular brands. It isn't the kids spending money on products advertised during Saturday morning cartoons, after all. But neither life insurance nor toilet paper are toxic. So I'm really not concerned (from a regulatory aspect) with whether insurance and toilet paper ads target youth. I am concerned with giving the very same industry - including some of the very same players -free reign to try to create an addiction to nicotine (guaranteeing their profitability by creating a new client base) via a different delivery mechanism.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)Demit
(11,238 posts)Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)Because the new response to this different post, in a different train of conversation, which would not have made sense without that repeated snippet.
But your post wasn't about repetition. It was an announcement that you were only interested in sound bytes. You should try Twitter - unless 140 characters is also "tl"
Demit
(11,238 posts)If you want to advocate for regulating the advertising of vaping equipment, fine. Age restrictions on sales, fine. But you've got to argue with actual real facts or you'll make yourself look ridiculous.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)Especially here in Washington State.
Cigarettes are about 8 dollars a pack.
If you buy a refillable e-cig, then you can buy e-liquid for about 10 dollars that will last a month.
Of course, if you decide to go the route of buying some of the prepackaged, non-refillable pens like Blu or something, you probably will pay about the same or slightly more.
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)pnwmom
(108,959 posts)The more you consume, the lower your cost per cig -- to a point. They're also cheaper right now because they aren't being taxed in most places. But that will change.
Kurska
(5,739 posts)I can get a 30ML bottle of e-cig liquid that will last me nearly 3 weeks for 20 dollars. Wicks are about 15 dollars for 3 and each lasts me about a week.
I vape a lot, I would probably be a pack a day smoker if not for vaping. I could buy the dirt cheapest ciggs in the heart of tobacco country (about 3 bucks a pack) and still would be paying way more money than If I was vaping.
You're assuming everyone uses those cheepo disposable ones, most people use refillable rigs which are way cheaper.
Revanchist
(1,375 posts)After the initial cost of getting a good set up, which can cost the same as 2 cartons of "cheaper cigarettes" I can buy a supply of e-liquid that will last me for well over a month for under $30. In order for cigarettes to be cheaper they would have to cost $1 a pack.
TheKentuckian
(25,020 posts)It was quite expensive getting to this point with endless experimenting with all of those high dollar toy batteries and the expensive big corporate prefilled cartridges but now I've have real batteries, rebuildable tanks, and mix my own juice.
Done correctly, at least to my view of correct, if one starts off with the right equipment the continuing costs would be almost shockingly minimal and with a tad more work rebuilding coils could be even less.
No, the impacts on the kids is I believe grossly overstated and emotional hyperbole. Junk to hide behind because the vast majority impacted are folks who were already smoking cigarettes. If someone starts nicotine via vapor, I'm not sure am somewhat disinclined to believe they'd go to cigarettes. It really is different and not exactly interchangeable.
Even the nicotine addiction is a different experience, I can go longer without and the withdrawal is much more tempered.The inhalation is different and more relaxed and relaxing, kind of in between smoking a cigarette and puffing a pipe. In fact, I call it taking a puff.
Any kid that starts vaping was probably already smoking and if there are any that start on the electric the greatest likelihood is that they where going to smoke otherwise. The next nicotine new start that I meet that started on vapor will be the first.
Maybe it is just where I am but what I see is young folks smoking and those of us a little longer in the tooth puffing our mods.
Anyway, I think folks are dead wrong on this. The jury may be out on the impacts on the user but there is no reason to think there is any measurable second hand impacts and considering our common use of the ingredients in food, medicines, and just to make fog for fun to stridently insist reasonable concern seems damn near the anti vaccine mentality to me but fine how do you get from even there to bans?
Banning is legally enforcement of a preference for smoking! It makes harm reduction a complete non item, fucking advertising spiked in the end zone and forever more forgotten.
I really think ill of folks on this bandwagon, that they would seriously try to legally force me right back to tobacco is downright fucking hostile and contemptible in it's sweeping dishonesty.
All weird cranks that feel the need to dictate what others do with their bodies need to find one of the any number and flavors or authoritarian regimes around the world and live as they please rather than making just one more big shit hole. The approach is stupid and dangerous as is evident by the fruits of these wrongheaded prohibition efforts.
"Cures" need to at least be more productive than doing nothing.
justabob
(3,069 posts)This and your whole post....
backwoodsbob
(6,001 posts)switching from cigs to e-juice probably SAVES ME about $150 a month
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)There are nicotine patches, there is nicotine gum. Neither of which produce second hand anything unless the person deliberately spits the gum in your face.
Give it up. E-cigs produce second hand nicotine. They will eventually be restricted - maybe not as much as cigarettes are but they will be restricted. You might as well get used to it.
TheKentuckian
(25,020 posts)
alarimer
(16,245 posts)To transport your broken body to the hospital or morgue. To clean up after the wreck.
If you are wearing a helmet, there's likely nothing much to clean up.
I'm of two minds about this. Requiring helmets reduces the number of brain-dead people who can donate organs. So maybe I should encourage more motorcyclists not to wear helmets, so that there are more organs for people who need them.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)JoeyT
(6,785 posts)Look at the people screaming about them. They sound like anti-vaxxers. They even use the same arguments and buzz-words. They're totally not anti-smoker/vaper, they're anti-toxin!
Some people think mirrors and cameras will steal their souls. Some people think cell phones cause cancer. Some people think vaccines cause autism. Some people think contrails are government mind control drugs. I see no reason to codify their silliness into law.
Orrex
(63,172 posts)Mariana
(14,854 posts)that it was never about "secondhand smoke" to some of them.
My experience is that most people have no problem with e-cigs, even if they're strongly against smoking. They understand that it's a completely different thing.
Demit
(11,238 posts)Big Tobacco is adapting. They'll probably come up with a new business model that will reap them the same big profits they get from cigarettes. But Big Pharma—they stand to lose A LOT now that word is getting out how helpful vaping is to quitting smoking.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)Nicotine is very inexpensive. The prices of the pharmaceutical nic replacement products is ridiculous.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)Demit
(11,238 posts)I know, I buy from one. When I researched the topic before making my first purchase, I found a bewildering array. Big Tobacco will probably gobble them up eventually, after all, that's the American way.
I hope you do a little research too, pnwmom. Vaping is an excellent harm reduction strategy. It's also helping smokers realize what they were doing when they were inhaling smoke from a burning plant. The practice of inhaling vapor—one puff every so often versus multiple repeated puffs on each tobacco cigarette because it's already lit and you don't want to waste it—also makes you realize how much habit was involved. I am beginning to break the habit part of smoking. That's valuable.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)that the safety of e-cigs has not been established -- at least for people who haven't previously been using regular cigarettes. For those people, e-cigs are clearly a better alternative.
But for teens who have never smoked before, the main concern is that they could become addicted to nicotine by using the e-cigs, and then switch to cheaper cigarettes once they're addicted. And this already seems to be happening, according to research.
There is also an unknown risk for 2nd hand users. If you're in a room or a restaurant with multiple people vaping -- as was common 50 years ago with cigarette smoking -- there could be a risk to non-vapers. Just because the fumes come in the form of vapor doesn't make them safer. They're still inhaled into the lungs and contain varying amounts of irritants.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/06/286416362/teens-who-try-e-cigarettes-are-more-likely-to-try-tobacco-too
Director Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has called the rise of e-cigarette use among teenagers "alarming," because nicotine is still an addictive drug. Frieden also has expressed concern that electronic cigarettes may be a gateway to tobacco cigarettes.
"The adolescent human brain may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of nicotine because it is still developing," the authors write. Their study was published Thursday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
The study is one of the first to try to get a grip on how e-cigarettes affect tobacco use. It couldn't look at whether e-cig use caused tobacco use, or vice versa, or why teenagers decided to use the products. And it doesn't answer the question of whether teenagers used e-cigarettes in order to avoid tobacco.
Although cigarette makers deny they target teenage customers, researchers say the companies aggressively market glamorous and sexy images that appeal to a teenager's sense of rebellion and tendency toward risky behavior. Those same tactics are now being used for e-cigarette ads, tobacco control advocates say.
SNIP
Demit
(11,238 posts)That's real world information from regular people. People with experience. Weigh it against the alarmists who talk about vaping being a gateway to cigarettes. I remember when I was young hearing that marijuana was a gateway drug to heroin. You want to be careful with the propaganda. Kids are pretty good at sniffing out bullshit.
And please stop referring to "cheaper cigarettes." Ain't no such thing. Cigarettes became even more prohibitively expensive when taxes on them were raised to fund the SCHIP program. It is risible to think that anyone would start smoking because cigarettes are cheap.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)even tried it yet, and they're extremely unlikely to be in the comments.
Vaping is still more expensive than cigarettes.
Demit
(11,238 posts)Why do you cling to that falsehood?
And if you think that prohibiting ANYTHING in this world is going to keep teenagers from trying it, it's been a long time since you were a teenager. That's what teenagers do, they experiment.
I don't know why you've set yourself up as the protector of all the teenagers in the world, but you have to leave some room for parents there, to guide their own kids. And leave some room for the kids themselves, to find out things for themselves: whether things are good or bad, and why and when they are.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)to smoke in quantity. The more you smoke the lower the price per e-cig. That's not a benefit, unless you're pushing an addiction.
Any reduction in price will disappear as soon as states begin to tax them as they do cigarettes.
Nicotine is one of the most highly addictive substances known, that is thought to have particularly bad consequences to a developing brain. If you cared about kids then you would encourage your state to ban the selling to children. As it stands now, a 10 year old could buy an e-cig in many states. I have just as much right to care about children getting addicted to nicotine as I do about them not getting enough to eat or not having an education. The health of children is important to society as a whole. As a progressive, I would think you would agree with that.
Demit
(11,238 posts)Two months ago I bought supplies that cost $74. I'm still not finished with them. That included two batteries, five vaporizer heads, and a supply of e-liquid. The batteries cost $16 apiece and are rechargeable, I won't have to replace them for some time. I used to smoke a carton a week. Even making my own cigarettes, that cost was about $12 a week. Vaping is already costing me less than stuffing my own cigarettes, which was saving me—jeez, I don't even know what a carton of retail cigarettes costs these days, $40 or $50?—a bundle. So even if my batteries were to break tomorrow, I have spent $9 a week on vaping supplies. That's my investment to start. I calculate my costs will go down even lower, as you say—so we agree on that!
The business I buy supplies from does not sell to anyone under 18. I don't know where it would happen that a store would sell to a 10 year old. I have trouble picturing an adult behind a counter blithely selling an e-cig to a 10 year old. But as I said upthread, age restrictions on sales are fine with me, advertising restrictions are fine with me.
As a progressive, I believe in regulations. I don't believe in legislating morality.
And stop calling it smoking. That's the very thing it is not.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)And while it's probably safer than smoke, it's not as safe as clean air. I don't have a problem with any adult vaping. I recognize that that's a safer choice for that person. But I don't want to have to inhale it myself, and I don't think babies should be exposed to second and third hand exposure. (The nicotine exhaled leaves a film that a crawling baby would get exposed to.)
We need much more research to be done before we say that vaping is safe enough to expose non-vapers people to it..
http://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/investigations/are-e-cigarettes-safe-to-use-new-research-shows-metals-found-in-vapor-of-electronic-cigarettes
I would say e-cigarettes are the cigarettes of the 21 st century," according to scientist Dr. Prue Talbot. She and her team at the University of California Riverside are among the first in the country to analyze the vapor in e-cigarettes.
The ABC15 Investigators had her team test two brands of e-cigarettes using a smoking machine and a specialized microscope.
The first test was for Smoking Everywhere Platinum. It showed metals.
"There is quite a bit of tin. Most of this material is composed of tin," said Dr. Talbot. "There is also some oxygen, some copper and some nickel."
Smoking Everywhere Platinum had so much metal in the vapor that it created pellets.
(SNIP)
AND FROM THE FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER (a national cancer center in Seattle):
http://www.fhcrc.org/en/news/center-news/2014/03/the-great-e-cig-debate.html
What about secondhand effects on kids?
A big unknown is what the effects are of inhaling propylene glycol vapor, which Bricker said does leave a residue on drapes and carpet and furniture.
“We don’t know the long-term effects of that getting in the blood system and how it might affect diseases and cancers,” he said. “We don’t know how it impacts children. Are e-cigarettes dangerous? We don’t know. They haven’t been around long enough and we haven’t studied the chemical compositions to see what impact they have on the body.”
Demit
(11,238 posts)Is that what you're proposing? Invading homes to make sure people aren't exhaling vapor around crawling babies? Upthread it was a horde of vapers in a restaurant you were worried about. Are there crawling babies in restaurants now?
Your posts are getting a little too absurd for me. I've pointed out that cigarettes are most certainly not cheap, that vaping is most definitely not smoking, and twice I've agreed with you that advertising & sales should be regulated. But crawling babies, I just don't know what to say to that.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)http://www.fhcrc.org/en/news/center-news/2014/03/the-great-e-cig-debate.html
What about secondhand effects on kids?
A big unknown is what the effects are of inhaling propylene glycol vapor, which Bricker said does leave a residue on drapes and carpet and furniture.
“We don’t know the long-term effects of that getting in the blood system and how it might affect diseases and cancers,” he said. “We don’t know how it impacts children. Are e-cigarettes dangerous? We don’t know. They haven’t been around long enough and we haven’t studied the chemical compositions to see what impact they have on the body.”
Tyhanna
(145 posts)they have been using it in air systems in hospitals for years and years. PG (propylene glycol) is a germicide. Its an ingredient in asthma inhalers and they use it for interventions medications.
And what else they use it to introduce medications to lung transplant patients threw breathing it. Also has been used in fog machines for years and years. The FDA has it listed as GRAS, meaning its approved for human internal use.
PG is probably one of the more studied chemicals out there and has been around since the 40s.
Also its in many foods, drugs and dog food.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)
Not to mention the same marketing tactics as cigarette manufacturers did to hook teens are being used.
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/tobacco_unfiltered/post/2013_10_02_ecigarettes
By some of the same companies who were so successful at it:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-06/teenage-e-cigarette-use-likely-gateway-to-smoking.html
Tyhanna
(145 posts)Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)"And stop calling it smoking. That's the very thing it is not."
It is inappropriate to jump on people who refer to the product (or the process of using it) the same way as those manufacturing or promoting it do.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)Vaporizing a fluid is not smoking.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)"And stop calling it smoking. That's the very thing it is not."
When the folks marketing it call it "liquid smoke," it is a bit unrealistic to jump on people who use the language adopted by the people who create and market it.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)rather than pretend it is something it isn't. You know better. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)I'll wait while you search.
. . . .
. . . .
. . . .
My point is that advocates for e-cigs who are upset about others calling it smoking should clean up their own house first, rather than snapping at people who are doing no more than using the language the product promoters are using.
Demit
(11,238 posts)that's the one thing it's not." I wasn't talking to you, though. I was talking to pnwmom, who was calling it smoking over & over again. You decide to join in, with a word used as an adjective in a product ad ('smoke juice'), as if you were triumphantly proving that the industry thinks vaping and smoking are the same thing. Or that people could be innocently confused. Or something.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)start with the folks on your side who are using the word smoke to describe the product. As long as it is marketed as "smoke" people are going to call it smoking.
Demit
(11,238 posts)such as in a thread like this one—AND they are told what the very meaningful difference is between vaping and smoking—it should sink in. The fact that an advertiser uses 'smoke' as a marketing-shorthand adjective (and pnwmom NEVER referenced that ad, you did) has no bearing on how one uses the device. You are making a superficial, rhetorical point that is completely beside the point.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)But others on your side of the argument obviously feel differently.
And it is not just "an advertiser" or a short hand adjective
http://www.halocigs.com/why-halo/american-made-smoke-juice.html
http://www.thevaporpro.com/eliquid-smoke-juice.html
http://freedomsmokeusa.com/
http://www.sgtjimmys.com/
It is a bit silly to be cranky about a word folks on the other side of the argument are using, when the people on your side (who get to name it since it is their product) are using the same word.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)All of those links include the term "smoke juice".
I gather you have issues with cooking supplies too.....
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)puffing on it and blowing something which looks like smoke, and then chastising people for referring to it as smoking.
My comments about smoke juice were solely a response to the verbal spanking being given out to someone who was referring to it as smoking. If the industry itself continues to link it to smoking, it is hypocritical to chastise those who have concerns about glamorizing addiction to nicotine for also referring to it as smoking.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)Lots of e-cigs don't even remotely resemble cigarettes, and it's very easy to avoid blowing any visible vapor.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)It is the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes, which go for about $7 around here.
Buying individual e-cigs is the most expensive form of using them, but it's still significantly cheaper than real cigs.
Michigan-Arizona
(762 posts)My supply for vaping is around $40.00 + tax for almost if not for 2 month's. If I bought carton's of cigs at the Indian Reservation where there is no tax I would spend $ 340.00 for 2 month's....
beevul
(12,194 posts)Its just great when someone that knows nothing of what they speak, speaks as if they do.
This:
"Vaping is still more expensive than cigarettes."
Couldn't be more wrong.
Of course, that's something one would only know, IF they're a vaper.
Our monthly bill reduced from 550 a month on cigs, to around 70 a month on e-cigs.
rainbow4321
(9,974 posts)Just posted about big pharm down thread....big tobacco, big pharm, and gov agencies collection tobacco taxes are all in a panic about their decreased revenue!!
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)I'm as much of an anti-smoking Nazi as you'd want to see. I'm not entirely sure the verdict is in on the e-cigarettes, but I've already noticed that someone sitting next to me in a bar sucking on one does not reek of cigarettes, unless he or she has smoked the real thing within the past thirty minutes or so.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)It's a completely different thing. Many of them don't even have any nicotine.
Warpy
(111,169 posts)I've been around people sucking on e cigs and while I find the peppermint flavor annoying in the same way heavy perfume is, it hasn't made me sick.
pnwmom
(108,959 posts)are the real useful idiots.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/11/20/us-philipmorris-outlook-idUSBRE9AJ0YH20131120
(Reuters) - Philip Morris International Inc (PM.N) plans next year to enter the electronic cigarette business, a $2 billion-plus global market identified by the maker of Marlboro cigarettes as its "greatest growth opportunity".
Speaking to investors in New York, Philip Morris Chief Executive Andre Calantzopoulos said the company would enter the e-cigarette business in the second half of 2014 to tap fast-growing demand for a less harmful alternative to cigarettes.
The world's largest listed tobacco company will launch a new range of products, called "Reduced-Risk", Calantzopoulos said at a conference. The company, which sells to countries outside the United States, will also spend more on research and development.
"2014 will be a key investment year behind our Reduced-Risk products, our greatest growth opportunity in the years to come," he said.
pacalo
(24,721 posts)It's not the tobacco companies that are attacking e-cigarettes; I suspect the pushback is coming from the states that are benefiting from the huge taxes from the sales of tobacco.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)They're in the addiction business and it's the height of self delusion or stupidity to think that getting your fix from an actual drug delivery device, is striking a blow against RJ Reynolds or Lorilard
beevul
(12,194 posts)Oh, yes, big tobacco is getting into the market...however...they're making cig-alike models, which very few to none of those interested in truly making the switch would stick with.
Thats yet another thing, that people who haven't gone through it themselves, wouldn't know. You state the fact that big tobacco has thrown their hat into the ring as if it is something significant.
It isn't.
To believe otherwise, is to believe that people will stick with shitty little 808 connection 280 MAH batteried tobacco flavored garbage that needs charging every 90 minutes, rather than stepping up to a decent device with batteries in the 2-4 thousand MAHrange that lasts a day or two without charging.
If you would bother to look, at the state level there exists several pieces of legislation in numerous states, which targets decent devices and seek to ban them while leaving the "cig alike" types alone. Those pieces of legislation are almost all supported by big tobacco.
You do the math.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Warpy
(111,169 posts)although I lack the resources for it. I think the way you do, that the only people set to gain from restricting or even banning e cigs are the tobacco companies and maybe undertakers.
Big tobacco has a lot of money to use against them. It's cheaper to roll butts than it is to refine the nicotine out of them for use in e cigs and they want to keep doing things the deadly, old fashioned way.
energumen
(76 posts)For the cost of a couple of cartons of cigarettes you can buy enough of the basic ingredients to make gallons of e-liquid. Its pretty damn hard to plant, raise, harvest, and cure your own tobacco.
taught_me_patience
(5,477 posts)Big tobacco owns these e-cig companies and they are trying to "nomalize" the behavior by making acceptable to vape these in indoor public spaces.
Demit
(11,238 posts)If you are going to pronounce on this topic, please do a little research beforehand so that you are in command of actual facts.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)They usually sell batteries, kits, liquid, cartomizers, and accessories and the vast majority of e-cig juices are made either in house or by other smaller distributors.
The stuff you might see at Walgreens or Wal-mart is more likely to be something owned by the large tobacco companies.
taught_me_patience
(5,477 posts)
energumen
(76 posts)The use of those statistics seems to be a bit specialized. If I am interpreting the chart correctly it is merely measuring the the market share according to what is sold in convenience stores. I would have to say most of us do not buy our vaping supplies at a convenience store. I might use one of the devices listed in the chart, if I was desperate, and all my other devices had failed, and I was really worried about buy cigarettes. And by the way, I LIKE fruit and candy flavors and pretty much stay away from anything tobacco flavored anymore. (although the new flavor - grass clipping from the dog part are running a close second )
edit : park, dammit, not part
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)nt
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)I already said that you are more likely to find NJoy and Blu and in diverse retail establishments.
The brick and mortar e-cig stores (the ones that sell e-cig parts and liquids) are not in that category and are not counted in the chart you named.
I don't really know anyone that vapes who goes for the "big brand" like that. I am more than sure they exist, but they are overpriced for what you get at e-cig stores.
I'd like to know the percentage of market share the "branded" labels have in comparison to small e-cig shops and web purchasers.
Tyhanna
(145 posts)There is a much bigger market that arnt cig look alikes so NO these companies do not control the entire e-cig market, there are hundreds and hundreds of second and third generation Personal vaporizers that don't even look like a cigarette.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)beevul
(12,194 posts)"Big tobacco" owns three out of THOUSANDS of companies.
And they're about 5-10 years behind the industry leaders, and a great majority of the industry.
Tyhanna
(145 posts)Big tobacco only has 5 brands on the market, there are over 250 cig look alike companies. And far more that make next generation
personal vaporizers that don't even look like cigarettes.
Big tobacco only jumped on the band wagon in 2013, e-cigs have been out for 10 years, since 2009 here in the US. There are hundreds and hundreds of factories in china that make the different generations of e-cigs. So no they don't control any market, and no they are not trying to normalize any thing, people that are using them are quitting smoking using them, and there are those that were hard core smokers and those that didn't want to quit smoking at all. They are saving lives every day. 14 million e-cigarette users around the world no longer smoking dangerous toxic cigarettes.
Everyone should be happy for these people that they are no longer smoking. But no.
energumen
(76 posts)I have read through most of these threads here. It seems you have the same small group that are violently, neurotically opposed to electronic vaporizers. It is hard to believe their concerns have anything to do the health of anyone involved but instead are a manifestation of some pathological need to control the actions of other people to enhance their own feelings of significance. It would be almost forgivable if they were opposed to everything that may be harmful to people but they seem to be quite accepting of any harmful activity that they favor or engage in.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)and lots and lots of Drug Warriors.
Tikki
(14,549 posts)Tikki
Kermitt Gribble
(1,855 posts)According to company policy, we're now supposed to use them outside in the smoking areas. Some of the people in this thread must work in our HR department...
rainbow4321
(9,974 posts)Quit the cigs that I smoked---pack per day for 7 years.
The groups that have a vested interest in anti-ecigs: Big tobacco, pharmaceutical companies (makers of nic patches/gum and pills---i.e Chantix, etc..), and the government agencies who collect tobacco tax.
Think of it as all their lobbyists pouring their combined money into convincing the public and pols into somehow how bad ecigs are...and by trying to tax, tax, tax ejuices and ecig hardware. One city (think San Diego) is trying to pass a law that vaping wouldn't even be allowed IN vaping shops..um, people go there to test ejuices before they purchase them...no one is going to randomly buy the ejuice unless they try the samples. Washington state is in the process of trying to add like a 90% tax on ecig juices and products.
Sure the big tobacco companies are already trying to get a piece of pie by having their little ecig versions but I can tell you from the various vaping forums I visit---vapors do NOT want to give big tobacco ANY more of their money. While people wanting to quit smoking may start out with a big tobacco product, they usually advance to other ecigs once they start to learn more about the available options from online forums, friends, other vapors.
All of the groups I mentioned are no doubt flooding the media with "scary" ecig faux "facts" in hopes of swaying the low-information public into thinking vaping is just as bad as smoking.
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts)Why do we have to tolerate either one? I have a right to not breathe in your second hand nicotine, regardless of how it is delivered.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)to some of these people. Now we have e-cigs and no smoke, and instead of being happy about it, you see what happens. They're just interested in punishing smokers - even when they're not smoking.
What I've seen in real life is that very few people freak out over e-cigs. The ones that do make a lot of noise, though.
B Calm
(28,762 posts)antiquie
(4,299 posts)TheKentuckian
(25,020 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Big tobacco is pushing e cigs. With their declining market in the US it is the method they have found to keep their customers as paying addicts. They are also loving the independent distributors. The major tobacco companies can no longer truly get away with advertising to children. The independent shops are taking care of that for them. The independent shops are actually doing exactly what has been made illegal with respect to cigarette advertising. Just look at Lizard Juice. They sell a highly addictive product, use a cute little lizard that appeals to children, promote chocolate and fruit flavors containing high levels of nicotine, and put cute little hearts, lizards, peace signs, ext. on their products. While the product shouldn't be outlawed, the advertising of the products needs to be reigned in. I am really looking forward to more research being done on these products and the health risks involved. E cigs are creating the next big consumer base for the big tobacco companies.
Demit
(11,238 posts)They don't love that one bit.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)That is because your claim is highly inaccurate. Big tobacco love what is going on. The advent of the e cig is guaranteeing their existence. Big tobacco sells e cigs. Please show where they are taking away from big tobacco? You do know the big tobacco companies are some of the largest sellers of e cigs.
Demit
(11,238 posts)9 weeks so far of not buying tobacco is my research. Multiply me by the tens of thousands who are not buying tobacco anymore. Go on the vaping forums, there are enough of them. People might be introduced to vaping through the purchase of a ready-made e-cig, but they soon realize it's cheaper & better to assemble your own. Go piss up a rope.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Big tobacco is leading the way in the e cig market. Altria took over market share in Arizona within 7 weeks of advertising. Don't let that get in the way of anecdotal evidence. I do like your research methods though. I can use the same method to prove that everything I do in life is correct without any REAL research at all.
Demit
(11,238 posts)You said to show you how independent distributors are taking away from Big Tobacco, not that what I do is correct.
I suspect that when you use the term "e-cig" you are referring to those already-assembled, use once and throw away e-cigarettes. It's already been shown upthread that the big tobacco companies are making and marketing those. That's the market they own. I'm talking about the devices that vapers buy & assemble the components of, to make our own e-cigs that can be used over & over again. We purchase all that from independent businesses.
Your hard on about market research is weird. As if there can be no observable reality until a market study has been published.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Your assertion is false. Your claim is that you and your friends don't get your e cigs from the big tobacco companies, therefore they must be losing. It is factually incorrect. The big tobacco companies are fully in the market for alternative nicotine delivery devices and doing well in said market. You claim e cigs are taking business from big tobacco, that is patently false and there is ample evidence to prove it. You have still made no concrete claim to back up your original assertion. You see, I have move no goalposts at all. I am still waiting for you to back up your original assertion. Maybe some market based evidence. Maybe proof that the three major tobacco companies are swallowing up market share at a very impressive rate.
I do find it funny that there are individuals out there who thought the three big companies weren't going to take over the market of an alternative nicotine delivery device. They already had the distribution channels and lack of morals in place. They see a way to get a whole new generation of consumers addicted.
You original assertion is what is being discussed, therefore it is highly inaccurate to claim the moving of goalposts.
Demit
(11,238 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Nope. Have been talking about this patently false comment from the start. I simply asked you to back it up, which clearly cannot be done as it is highly inaccurate. So I am moving the goalpost by addressing your initial claim.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)"The independent distributors losing are business to Big Tobacco at a stunning rate."
Then your statement would have been accurate and provable.
Demit
(11,238 posts)
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)to facts from users themselves (forums) rather than facts from pr firms or interest groups.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)I find it hard to believe that is how you are making a case for this posters clearly inaccurate claim.
beevul
(12,194 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Some surveys are done from time to time on the big forums if you're interested. I have seen some of them but I'm not going to go look them up for you.
www.e-cigarette-forum.com
But I think what consumers say they buy, and do, in large numbers of posts over a long time is more accurate than what some surveying entity is going to come up with because any such entity has an interest to push.
Two of us are telling you what we have observed by spending time on such forums, like DU, in an industry which is too new to have established facts yet. If asked, I think you could give some rather good answers about the views of DUers. Most here could. It's the same thing.
bhikkhu
(10,713 posts)It took about a week to be fully addicted. Vaping every day had few negative effects beyond dry mouth from the suspension base, and the nicotine by itself is much more mild than the chemical cocktail you get smoking (I did smoke for years, but quit in 2008).
The most striking thing was that I went from vaping a high-dose mix pretty heavily to quitting cold turkey with ease, just because I decided I'd gone far enough with it. There were no physical withdrawal symptoms at all, and no psychological effects - no brain fog, no depression, no effect on appetite - nothing but a bit of mildly annoying "something's missing" feeling. Which I took care of by keeping busy with things.
Nicotine by itself, as you get through vaping, is a whole different animal from what you get smoking. When I quit smoking I was always afraid of relapse - I had to get rid of every bit of paraphenalia, I quit going to the market where I used to buy cigs, and I stopped hanging out with anyone who smoked. Quitting vaping was no big deal at all; I just put the things in my desk drawer, where they still sit now. No fear!
on edit - that's anecdotal of course, but I'd welcome anyone else who wants "the facts" to do the same. I was curious, and I was unsatisfied with the research, so I tried it myself and found that it was no big deal.
Tyhanna
(145 posts)beevul
(12,194 posts)"Big tobacco is leading the way in the e cig market."
Completely false.
The brands owned by "big tobacco" are 5-10 years behind the industry leaders, in design, durability, and longevity.
I suppose somewhere, someone could define "leading the way" without of those things, but I sure wouldn't.
"Big tobacco" owns 3 crappy brands, which the majority of vapers graduate out from under within 6-8 weeks of using them, at which point they switch to devices with variable voltage/wattage, which last a day or two before recharging batteries, instead of doing the battery shuffle every 90 minutes. And they top these devices with tanks which last days between refills, instead of carts that need refining every 45 minutes or so.
You don't know what you don't know.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)They are leading the way with respect to taking over market share. I could have used a better phrase there. I think it is pretty clear what I meant but it won't stop nic addicts from claiming it is not a sector currently being overtaken by the big 3. No one in their right mind would claim the big three aren't taking over market share. Still, leading the way was the wrong phrase to use.
beevul
(12,194 posts)Unless the market consist largely of beginning vapers, and they stay beginners forever, big tobaccos brands can not be anything except a very short term use product where the entire market is concerned. They are incapable of filling the function of anything better which constitutes almost every device on the market, even the mechanical mods.
That's not opinion, that's fact.
Because of that fact, any information which shows their brands as being dominant in any way where the entire market is concerned, is false, overly specific, or incomplete.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Big tobacco was losing money each time a smoker switched (and lots of smokers have switched by now, so yes, that's hurting their bottom line), so they bought some ecig companies (that would also sort of indicate there was a red ink reason to do so). There's nothing hard to understand about that. Their buying these companies is merely their way of switching sides in the profit stream. The point is that, regardless of who owns which company, cigarette sales are going down. They go down each time a smoker becomes a vaper, so why, if you hate big tobacco so much, are you not for ecigs?
We'll never be able to stop big tobacco's money from making money. But what can change, is what money is made ON. Money made on ecigs is better than making it on cigarettes.
My guess (based on observation of the very large ecig forums) would be that the small vendors still hold most of the market. But you have shown no statistics on that either way yourself, and I doubt very much that any such credible stats exist at this point.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)You can easily find information with respect to market share and the big three. The original inaccurate claim that was made is what I asked for proof on. That is the way it works. They have not backed up their claim in any way. I requested that from the start. It was not done. Why in the world should I post numbers to refute their inaccurate claim that was made without anything to back it up?
"My guess (based on observation of the very large ecig forums) would be that the small vendors still hold most of the market."
Most of the market and market share are two completely different things. For example, Altria hold an extreme market share in Arizona, yet they don't hold most of the market(I actually think they do hold market share and the market at this point in time).
How can any information be derived at all from "observation of the very large ecig forums"?
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)I still don't see you establishing the stats for YOUR assertions. If you don't have numbers, how would you be able to claim that you're right and someone else is wrong?
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Want to guess who? Somehow you would be surprised to know it is one of the big tobacco companies. Combine two of the top three tobacco companies and it is eye opening with respect to market share. Anyone spouting that this is negative for big tobacco is not educated on what is going on.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)As of November 2013.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/22/big-tobacco-admits-defeat-will-develop-e-cigarettes/
Many small companies already have e-cigs on the market, and a few of Philip Morris's competitors — Lorillard and Reynolds American — have either bought e-cig startups or are developing their own. They're still less than 1 percent of the overall market but growing fast, as Philip Morris illustrated at its investor presentation Wednesday:
That leaves 99% of the market comprised of independents.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)
Really, though. Trying to get through to people who seem to have done very little research and made up their minds based on their cursory information is like playing "whack-a-mole".
We've gone from "OMG. Cancer VAPE!" to "Think of the children!" to "One e-cig exploded (out of how many millions in use)" to "Second hand nicotine."
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Because I have only ever seen all the vendors being very careful about not selling to minors. And that's going back 4 years now that I myself would have seen it.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Because most independents do not have retail shops, it's mostly online. You said about them, in the post I replied to #82...
... They are also loving the independent distributors. The major tobacco companies can no longer truly get away with advertising to children. The independent shops are taking care of that for them. The independent shops are actually doing exactly what has been made illegal with respect to cigarette advertising. ...
The only advertising I can imagine this referring to is either on-location retail sales, or online which is also restricted. What did you mean to refer to?
If they're only advertising to children somehow, but not selling to them, then what is the problem?
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts). . .
Lorillard makes Newport and Kent cigarettes but also owns the Blu e-cigs and UK based SKYCIG.
RJ Reynolds, who makes Camel and Kool, is now also making and advertising Vuse e-cigarettes.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-06/teenage-e-cigarette-use-likely-gateway-to-smoking.html
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Ecigs are a "ground up" phenomenon. They developed from users spreading the word, not from advertising campaigns pushing them. The vendors are still mostly small, and connected to their customers via websites. Most products are not available in retail stores either.
When big money, big tobacco, big pharma couldn't "beat" ecigs, they began "joining" them, by buying up these independent companies. That does not mean that the product originated from big tobacco, it absolutely did not. Most of the ecig community is still online, not retail and not advertising-driven.
(Btw to address a point that is often brought up, the juices which test with metal or chemical content are most often Chinese juices, because of the unavoidable environmental pollution there, and the lack of standards in addition to cutting every corner possible. So those test results are not surprising. However, most ecig users know of better quality alternatives which are made locally, and use and prefer them... including a heavy DIY base.)
The JAMA study in the link you cited above also had this to say...
The study does not state whether these young "gateway" users were exposed to real cigarettes in addition to ecigs. I would suspect that is so. The teenagers would be getting these ecigs from older family or friends who use them, because they are not sold to those un 18. This would imply use-influence in the teen's close circle, which imo is the reason for the experimentation, not simply the mere existence of ecigs which they go out and search for cold. I doubt that many teens would be affected in this way anyway, as there are not vast numbers of ecig users altogether.
Lastly, no one has yet died from an ecig. Until such harm can be proven, statements about it are pure speculation, not science. One thing we know for sure... if any harm is ever demonstrated it will be vastly less than the known effects of cigarettes. Adult smokers should have the right to reduce the risk to themelves by replacing an extemely dangerous substance with one which to date is known to be vastly safer.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)So the fact that no one has yet died from the specific mechanism used to deliver a toxin is a bit of a red herring.
I am all in favor of using e-cigs as a way to stop smoking. But glamorizing vaping will create new addictions to a toxic substance in the same way that the glamorization created earlier generations of people addicted to nicotine.
Although many small manufacturers (those ground up folks) may not be glamorizing it, or trying to create new generations addicted to nicotine, the same people who created prior generations of people addicted to smoking are now in the game (two that I know of so far) - and they are- using the same tactics they used with smoking. And while people trying to quit smoking may want to distance themselves from the tobacco companies, the non-smokers who are starting vaping don't have that addicted/hate relationship and are the ones most likely to be influenced by the glamorization of vaping. That is what the concern is about - they know from vast experience that if they can create an addiction in a teen, they most likely have a customer for life.
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/03/284006424/e-cigarette-critics-worry-new-ads-will-make-vaping-cool-for-kids
http://www.tobaccofreekids.org/tobacco_unfiltered/post/2013_10_02_ecigarettes
Mariana
(14,854 posts)The dose makes the poison, as they say. There's arsenic in seafood, cyanide in almonds, and nicotine in tomatoes. We don't consider those toxic. So, how much nicotine does it take to harm the body?
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)Or when people who eat tomatoes become addicted to nicotine, I'll take your skepticism seriously.
The amount of nicotine in e-cigs is enough to create addiction - the most significant harm short of the larger quantities which are fatal. Between the merely addicted level and the fatal level, it creates a number of side effects primarily associated with being a stimulant - and impairing brain development in not fully developed brains.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Ecigs are not sold to those under 18 with "not fully deveoped brains".
There is no set "amount of nicotine in e-cigs". It could be comparable to a cigarette, all the way down to zero.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)(or otherwise accessible), not to mention that developing brains include brains in utero, and individuals who are late teens to early 20s. And the cigarette companies, including those currently in the e-cig marketplace, deliberately marketed to teens (even though they denied it at the time). Their profit motives for marketing e-cigs to teens is the same - create a teen addicted to nicotine and you have (often) a customer for life.
I don't believe I suggested there was a set amount of nicotine in e-cigs - and it can also provide more nicotine a cigarette smoker who switches has been consuming via cigarettes.
And nicotine is not "like coffee" - it is a powerfully addictive drug.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)And Big Tobacco buying an ecig company is not a reason to condem all ecigs in my book. BT's practices are their own problem and irrelevant to the rest of the ecig industry.
BT is less than 1% of the market, as I just showed here. Talk to me when it's over 50%.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)And your information appears not to be.
The 1% figure is the share of the tobacco market, not the tobacco company's share of the e-cig market, based on a more complete description of the data in the article you linked to.
And, in Colorado where Vuse has only been around 16 weeks (as of the date of the article), it already has 55.6% of the market.
Dedicated e-cigarette companies have argued they’ll come out on top because they pounced earlier and aren’t distracted by the much-bigger business of selling regular cigarettes. E-cigarettes – battery-powered instruments that turn nicotine-laced liquid into vapor – represent only about 1% of the $100 billion U.S. tobacco market.
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/11/18/big-tobacco-begins-its-takeover-of-the-e-cigarette-market/
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)Did they go to every e-cig brick and mortar store to see what THEY sold or did they get their numbers from specific retail outlets that only sell big tobacco's products?
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)So they didn't just go to places that sell big tobacco's products. Beyond that, the report didn't give specifcs.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Knowing vapers as I do from being among them and getting to "know" them somewhat, as it is here... those who are only consumers (like me) are independent themselves too, very intelligent, and highly tech savvy on the whole. They are very do-it-yourself and in a natural way entrepreneurial. On their own, many are constantly searching for new and better ways of solving their own issues, and they educate each other sharing knowledge and discoveries very freely. When some new idea comes up, people try it and provide feedback in a big way. (Similar to open source software, I guess one could say.)
For instance: the vaping community had a lot to do with developing the tank idea. That was really fascinating to watch occur over a period of time. Mods are another similar area. Other vapers here will know what I mean.
Another example, a battery that I use was developed by a vaper here in the US as an improvement on a popular type which was already widely in use, but was too weak to be practical. The vaper-inventor got lots of feedback from others on the forums while in the "drawing board" stage, and ultimately formed a partnership with a known Chinese company to make the batteries here in the US. That is a typical story, and just as typically, the inventor markets the idea entirely on their own.
Big Tobacco may think it is going to dominate this market as big money has always done to others, but I really doubt it. Yes, I think the big companies will acquire some more market share, mostly by buying up existing small companies which are well thought of, but I doubt if they will ever have a majority of the overall total. And if they do anything untoward regarding the consuming public, namely us former smokers (who are not their big fans as you can imagine), I'm pretty sure the community will be able to circulate information enough to render rogue companies out-of-business failures pretty fast.
It is an activist bunch by nature, already well-schooled in being attacked by government entities, who really don't need commercially manufactured products except as a convenience, and oh by the way have a really awesome communication network amongst themselves (including events in real life which many go to).
It is not like any other market that I have ever seen or heard of. In this case, I don't think that big money or big advertising are going to enable the corporatists to "wag the dog" and decide where this market is going, as they like to do and always here-to-for got away with.
And if the government thinks it is going to corral us for the corporatists by passing laws, I think it is going to find that the community long ago stockpiled what was necessary, and its DIYers will be even harder to pin down than the Appalachian stills during Prohibition.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)in Colorado. I suspect the small community you know will quickly be overwhelmed by the interests of the tobacco industry.
http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-intelligence/2013/11/18/big-tobacco-begins-its-takeover-of-the-e-cigarette-market/
And while you may remain a small, well connected, separate group which shuns the tobacco industry - it is the well oiled, massive interests which I have no doubt will dominate the market very quickly - and create new generations of people addicted to nicotine. I have been connected (on the fringes) to the community using e-cigs via some of the independent inventors seeking patents. The rapidly growing public awareness, now fueled by the tobacco industry is not something I see respecting the network you are part of.
It is like a trend only a cool few are aware of that gets discovered and promoted by interests other than those who started it, when those interests are more sophisticated and monied who change the very nature of the trend when they move it into mainstream culture.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)People who buy ecigs may initially be introduced to them via retail. But then those who continue to use them will gradually move into the community I know and away from retail. Why? because they will discover that there are better, cheaper products. Almost any consumer will be looking for, and interested in that. This process has already been going on since the beginning of ecigs.
Only newbies use Blu, for instance. Companies like that will make some money but only in a certain limited niche. It isn't significant.
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)At best, railing against e-cigs and transferring prejudices from tobacco to them will serve big tobacco.
My fear is that their good intent will give big tobacco companies exactly what they need to eliminate the competition of independent suppliers through legislation. As it is now, nearly all independent distributors will tell you exactly what they use to make e-liquid.
If people keep trying to treat e-cigs the same as cigarettes they will likely put an expensive regulatory burden on all distributors and which side has the capital to meet the demands of that kind of legislation: Big tobacco or the brick and mortar stores?
And which side is more likely to claim their particular brand is subject to proprietary trade secrets?
Remember when a federal judge struck down the Disclosure Act that would have required cigarette manufacturers to disclose to the public every ingredient they used?
"Obviously, we're pleased with the decision because it protects the company's proprietary interest," said Mike Pfeil, a Philip Morris spokesman.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)when I started vaping 4 years ago, that any well-intentioned person would want to oppose this. It's a health miracle for humanity, I just don't get it. I can only conclude that the opposition is not well-intentioned, at all.
The specter of interference, both corporate and governmental, is troubling, but I think if it should become too intense, many more vapers would simply learn to DIY. I make my own juice and it is simple and cheap to do. The hardware would be much harder to regulate, and that too can be DIY if need be (just more of a hassle).
I think the haters and predators will find that this is much harder to squelch or syphon from than they imagine.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)Mass quantities of people do not begin with a mass market product and move into an underground economy - it just doesn't work that way.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)The only change I see is that more people will embark on the same process. People like a product and then look for a better source for it. It's what shoppers do. Also, ecigs by their nature require a learning curve, which leads people to go to the net and seek out informaion... which they find easily in the well-established communities.
I was no different. I started with a SmokeTip which is an entry-level type of product just like Blu or the others in the retail mass market. My next purchase came after searching up a ton of info and choices on the net via the forums. I moved on to a better product that I learned about there, and stayed plugged in to the community off and on ever since, learning more and more, and finding better "solutions" to issues for me personally. It's the common story, not the exception.
The community's knowledge base is going to draw in all but the most superficial users, who tend to be the ones who drop it quickly and/or don't buy as much for as long a time. The bulk of the market is, and will always be, those who are really "into it" and go into it deeper. They buy a LOT, and continue doing it for a long time. They have a strong tendency to buy from each other -- the small user-suppliers among them.
And... many long time vapers don't use any nicotine at all, they just like it and will keep doing it. There is no way to stop them because aside from the nicotine, there is nothing that the government can logically regulate or ban. Even these local "use bans" will fall in time as they are challenged legally, as many around the country already have come and gone, because they are logically absurd and based on nothing factual.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)of another product where the vast majority people using a product start with a product heavily marketed by entities with a strong financial incentive and significant skill in marketing then voluntarily switch to a relatively hidden alternative.
You are talking about relatively small existing group of people using ecigs which, until very recently, were a relatively unknown phenomena so the users had to search to find them in the first place. The dynamic changes when entities like the tobacco industry enter the picture.
As far as banning or regulating - the nicotine would be the key to regulation. It would not be much of a stretch to regulate them in the same way nicotine delivery devices (other than cigarettes) are regulated.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)You like a pair of shoes, you find a seller online that is cheaper. What is so unusual about that? What is Ebay? What is Amazon? What is Costco? What is Walmart?
Nearly everything works that way.
That small hidden market IS the bulk of ecig purchasing (as I explained earlier). Now if you want to tell me that somehow the process is going to reverse, and the hidden market depth vapers are going to suddenly start flocking to the mass marketed cheapie crap products... I really doubt it.
On regulation: how do you enforce a ban when you can't even tell which vapers are using nicotine and which are not? How does that work? I see a practical problem with that. As far as trying to regulate nicotine suppliers, I think that would make the difficulties of Prohibition look like child's play.
Ms. Toad
(33,999 posts)What you are suggesting is the equivalent of mom & pop bookstores still maintaining the majority of the market share for books after Barnes & Noble and Borders entered the market. Barnes & Noble and Borders multiplied by a factor of several hundred in terms of motivation, resources, and marketing experience.
I am asking you to identify for a single product category which has followed the dynamic you are suggesting will occur.
I am not suggesting that the community you are talking about will vanish, but it is completely unrealistic to think that the majority of people using e-cigs will continue to patronize the equivalent of mom and pop stores in the face of the tobacco industries' motives and resources.
Nicotine delivery mechanisms, other than tobacco, are currently available by prescription only. That is the easy regulatory extension.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)Your example would apply if B&N only sold comics.
Bottom line, the entry of big money into the market isn't going to automatically dominate it. Not in my opinion. It'll capture the low end, as I said, which isn't going to be a big deal or a big change from how it is now. The low end is largely ignored by most of the ecig market.
If ecigs become rx only then cigarettes will have to be too. Do you see that as likely? Because I don't.
Romulox
(25,960 posts)They are taking the impending legalization of pot very badly. They need something new to crack down on!
RKP5637
(67,088 posts)the 'hall monitors' in life. Some will yell about e-cigs just to feel superior IMO.
Tikki
(14,549 posts)Tikki
*certain States where pot is legal and/or for specific uses.
RKP5637
(67,088 posts)ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)or give off any type of body odor whatsoever, and I'll consider this logical.
Tikki
(14,549 posts)You do understand that a strong impetus of these rules about where you
can smoke, drink, vap, toke in public are to stigmatize the actions.
I love that I can take my grandchildren to the park and NO ALCOHOL, FIREARMS, TOBACCO and
now in Los Angeles NO VAPING.
Tikki
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)
Sorry. I don't smoke, I don't vape, but this is just pure "I want to see people suffer." E-cigs help people quit and no, they should not be "stigmatized" just because you don't like people.
Another reason why it is a waste of a plane ticket to visit that smoggy cesspool of self-loathing.
Again, you are reasonable when or if you are not driving (hope you're not driving your grandkids to a park), sweating, cleaning things with spray cleaners, deodorizing the already icky air in LA, etc.
Tikki
(14,549 posts)Nicotine is very addictive and the last thing we need is to parade around in front of a young
generation the means to become addicted.
Tikki
You know nothing about my cleaning habits and I don't live in LA.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)Tikki
(14,549 posts)Clean or not has nothing to do with nicotine addiction.
Tikki
ps I wonder how many e-cigarette users refuse to drive a car...
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)affect others.
e-cigarette users are not complaining about e-cigarette users. People who are okay with spewing all kinds of other crap into the air are.
And that's why it matters. And that's why I mentioned it. It's deliberately disingenuous and transparent. It boils down to wanting to see someone suffer, as we all drive off in cars. Simply put. Your argument holds little value if you are unwilling to give up your car keys, stop using any number of scented sprays, etc. Yes, it matters. Yes, it should be mentioned. Shining a light and all. I do hope you reconsider letting your grandchildren play in smog-filled parks.
Tikki
(14,549 posts)to a substance that is derived from a product manufactured by big tobacco 'nicotine'.
Again, who manufactures the nicotine used to make the 'vap juices' used in e-cigarettes.
The argument was that I and others are in favor of big tobacco.
How is nicotine manufactured? Is it ultimately coming from tobacco? How is tobacco grown
and harvested and by whom?
Who and what are the e-cigarettes users actually supporting.
Laws that already exist protect consumers from the by-products of our consumptions.
Some laws need to be made stronger, i.e., chemicals, exhaust, etc.
Do you believe that I am in favor of toxins and dangerous chemicals and don't fight to protect?
But the statement was made that those who want e-cigarettes regulated are somehow in
with big tobacco..that statement is disingenuous and transparent.
Can you answer: How many e-cigarette users refuse to drive a car, clean their homes?
Tikki
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)Sorry, but give up your car and I'll put serious thought to your comments.
Until then, it's just words with no meaning by someone who would just like to see people suffer.
beevul
(12,194 posts)Mariana
(14,854 posts)People often stop smoking painlessly with e-cigs. Lots of former smokers enjoy vaping more than they ever liked cigarettes. Some of these opponents can't stand that. They want smokers to be miserable, even after they've quit.
Mariana
(14,854 posts)If someone sits in an enclosed room with some car exhaust, they die, and they do it pretty damn quickly. That's toxic. And people are freaking out about e-cig vapor? Going so far as to want it banned on streets, in parks and on beaches? It's fucking insane.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts)America. They should really work on banning cars in LA. 
yellowcanine
(35,694 posts) Get real.ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts) 
graywarrior
(59,440 posts)Sheesh, get a clue before posting personal opinions not backed up with fact.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/22/big-tobacco-admits-defeat-will-develop-e-cigarettes/
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)That's as of November 2013.
Small independent companies are the other 99%.
graywarrior
(59,440 posts)If you don't think big tobacco is taking over that industry, you're naive.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)The equivalent of Flat Earthers.
KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)Many states and municipalities rely on the heavy taxes levied on cigs and other tobacco products. Those switching to E-Cigs means they no longer will spent big bucks to feed their habit. For a pack-a-day smoker that is several grand a year in taxes alone.
Travis_0004
(5,417 posts)I think its stupid that states rely so heavly on cigarette taxes. I'm fine with some taxes being collected, and when somebody has lung cancer without insurance, the state uses that tax revenue to pay for the harm smoking causes. I'm fine with government establishing anti smoking campaigns, and using tobacco taxes for it. I think its stupid that tobacco taxes go to the general fund, fixing potholes, helping uninsured children (who should be helped, but by everybody, not just smokers), etc.
I'm even fine with a small tax on ecigs, but it should not be excessive like tobacco taxes have become.
And for the record, I have never smoked, never used ecigs.
KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)I'm an ex-cig smoker...and have been vaping for almost three years. I consider the device a life saver. The attempts to legislate its use is a travesty as many have posted here; especially as it has been proven effective in helping wean long time smokers off the cancer sticks.
I'm fully in favor of regulating its sale to anyone under 18 and tax the item as any other retail device. This isn't about glorifying smoking...it's helping people escape an addiction that is not only effective but also saves the ex-smoker money. And that's where the rub comes in...
Even when I smoked I accepted the rising taxes as a way to make those things more and more cost prohibitive and maybe this would force some to quit...and even more important, to prevent younger people from even starting. That was how those taxes were sold, but unfortunately when the budgets took...property values tanked and corporates paid less in taxes, the vice taxes became a bigger and more important source of revenue.
In doing my own exploring I've seen how many of the anti-vaping laws were being pushed by tobacco company interests in conjunction with their legislative allies. My hopes are vapers can organize and fight all the ignorance and politics and keep these products available to those who are still fighting this deadly addiction.
And to those "holier than thous" who yelp "you shouldn't have started smoking in the first place"...here's a solution...now you're being the problem!
TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)Electronic cigarette explodes in man's mouth, causes serious injuries
snip
(CBS/AP) So much for being safer. An electronic cigarette blew up in a Florida man's face, leaving him in a hospital with severe burns, missing his front teeth and a chunk of his tongue.
Fire officials said Wednesday that the man had switched to electronic cigarettes to try and quit smoking, and that the scary situation was caused by a faulty battery.
"The best analogy is like it was trying to hold a bottle rocket in your mouth when it went off," said Joseph Parker, division chief for the North Bay Fire Department. "The battery flew out of the tube and set the closet on fire."
more at link above
Tyhanna
(145 posts)It was his fault, it was a home made mod that he didn't take care to make right. What this person did is not the fault of the industry. the picture shown is a stock picture not what he was using.
Kurska
(5,739 posts)Demit
(11,238 posts)Kurska
(5,739 posts)But we need to ban brightly colored chairs, as these might attract children to a vicious life on sitting on chairs.
Please think of the children.
LadyHawkAZ
(6,199 posts)Little ones see you sitting in chairs and want to do it, too! Please, sit only in dull gray chairs where children can't see you!
Liberal Veteran
(22,239 posts)
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)
Smoked for forty years and this is the only thing that has helped me quit. I also use a liquid that's nicotine free so the pearl-clutchers can suck my vape, safely.
ScreamingMeemie
(68,918 posts) Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)She's much happier since I quit cigarettes.
Kurska
(5,739 posts)You're supposed to struggle, you're supposed to go to smokers anonymous meetings and chew bland expensive gum.
How can I feel validated as a person if you're still enjoying things going into and out of your lungs!
beevul
(12,194 posts)Put simply, big tobacco doesn't understand the market as a whole, one whit better than the anti-e-cig people here do.
That explains, completely, why they bought existing companies, instead of rolling their own. It also explains why they bought the companies they bought which make cig-alikes, instead of buying a company that makes a device which is actually viable.
Neither the anti-ecig people or big tobacco, understand enough about the market or the devices themselves, to have any grasp at what constitutes viable and why.
Waiting For Everyman
(9,385 posts)You summed up this thread very well. 
gulliver
(13,168 posts)Imagine stopping most lung cancer...probably smoking-related heart disease too. The e-cig is the coffee of nicotine.
randr
(12,409 posts)e-cigs? really
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)Is that enough?
Atman
(31,464 posts)I am the last person to offer support to "big tobacco." My dad died from lung cancer directly attributed to his 2-3 pack a day habit. But to say that "big tobacco" is looking for ways to keep tar and carcinogens in the hands of people is just crazy. Yes, they want to sell their LEGAL product. Any corporation would do this, try to maximize profits and shareholder value. That is what EVERY corporation is chartered to do -- return value to shareholders. Are they protecting their turf? Sure. Is it legal for them to do so? Sure.
Approach this from a different angle, though. This is a LEGAL product. We don't know shit about e-cigs. They could turn out to be worse than tobacco. We don't know. I think smoking is just fucking stupid...but why are e-cigs less stupid than regular ones? You're still inhaling a chemical. We may not know how bad this is for another several years.
