Posted on 03/05/2014 9:39:27 AM PST by Kaslin
A handful of Democratic Senators are up in arms about the Golden Globe awards. No, they’re not upset that Breaking Bad beat out House of Cards for best Television Drama Series. Instead, they’re fuming about a few actors using electronic cigarettes during the award show broadcast. They’ve fired off a strongly worded letter to NBC Universal and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for “glamorizing” the use of e-cigarettes. And now they’re going even further in advocating for a ban on these products in the U.S. Capitol.
Banning consumption of electronic cigarettes in public has become a troubling trend of paternalistic lawmakers across the country. Such prohibitions have been passed in big cities like New York and Chicago, relatively small towns like Petaluma, California and Somerset, Massachusetts, and even a few states, like New Jersey and North Dakota.
These nanny-state bans, which typically forbid the use of e-cigarettes in public places and workplaces, have grown in popularity despite evidence that e-cigarettes can help reduce tobacco related illnesses and deaths by more than 98 percent, according to data from the R Street Institute. In fact, a researcher at Cancer Research UK recently said that e-cigarettes could save millions of lives. Even the editorial board at the Washington Post acknowledged that “e-cigarettes might be a useful tool to reduce harm rather than a gateway to a life of smoking.”
This promising development isn’t slowing down these Senators, including Richard Durbin (D-IL), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and their push for a ban on e-cigarettes at the U.S. Capitol. Such a wrongheaded move would be based on little, if any scientific support. In fact, the Senators acknowledge the paucity of evidence in their letter and suggest the ban should be implemented as “an appropriate precautionary step.” This type of “we have to ban them to figure out what’s in them” mentality makes little sense – especially given the potential of e-cigarettes to improve public health.
Meanwhile some of these same busybody lawmakers are also employing pressure tactics on Walgreens, Rite Aid, and the trade association representing chain drug stores to emulate CVS by no longer selling tobacco products in their establishments. Though e-cigarettes do not contain tobacco, the Senators have labeled them as “tobacco products” previously so it’s safe to assume that they would like to see e-cigarettes banned from television, government property, and drug stores.
What’s more, there’s another smell of hypocrisy in the air, as the lawmakers’ letter to the drug stores also recommends “increasing access to tobacco cessation devices.” If the Senators’ goal is harm reduction, they should promote, not discourage the use of e-cigarettes.
A study conducted in Italy showed that over half of smokers experienced a 50 percent reduction in the use of combustible cigarettes when e-cigarettes were offered as an alternative. This is highly encouraging news for public health advocates. For those concerned about the adverse health impact of e-cigarettes, the previously mentioned R Street study found e-cigarettes had the same trace amounts of carcinogens as other quitting aids already approved by the FDA (gum, patches, etc.) In reality, the risk posed by e-cigarettes appears to be on par with the smoking cessation devices these Senators are trumpeting.
It seems fairly clear that e-cigarettes offer smokers a much safer alternative to traditional cigarettes that can help them significantly reduce their smoking habit (which is why taxing them like combustible cigarettes is also a terrible idea). Yet Senators Durbin, Blumenthal, Brown, and a handful of their colleagues seem intent on stamping out e-cigarettes wherever they possibly can.
There may be a legitimate role for the government to play here – for instance, working with retailers to ensure that nicotine products aren’t sold to minors. But these Senators are going far beyond prudent rulemaking by leaning on television networks and private stores to do what they think is best – even if their demands aren’t supported by scientific evidence. If they legitimately are looking for ways to improve public health and reduce the use of conventional cigarettes, they should find the rapid growth of e-cigarettes encouraging. If they are merely grandstanding, we’d be better served if they’d simply butt out.
I’ve never accused you of homosexuality - just that you agree it is not an abnormal behavior or disorder.
After all, you believe the people who claim smokers are addicts, and those are the same people who claim homosexuality is not abnormal or a disorder.
Yet you accuse others of “pimping” death, when it is actually those you agree with are the ones doing just that.
I can’t believe I had to explain this to you..........again.
You sure have saved a bunch of fag pics.
Maybe someone should alert the authorities to visit you concerning child porn.
“I can’t believe I had to explain this to you..........again.”
—
Aaah,Gabz,it’s like talking to a brick wall.
.
The same people who "classified" smoking as addictive are the same ones who determined that homosexuality is not abnormal or a disorder.
I never experienced migraines or shakes or mood swings when eliminating tobacco, yet I sure as heck did when eliminating caffeine. Yet I never considered my coffee drinking as an addiction, just a habit.
Smoking, or other tobacco use, had always been classified as an habituation, until someone with an agenda determined the definition of addiction needed to be changed. Having a candy cane in hand serves the same purpose for me when driving as a cigarette, no different than having something to drink with me most of the time. That something just doesn't happen to be coffee anymore.
Yes, it is - but sometimes I just like amusing myself. It’s been a long long winter!
Besides, both the puppy and the kitten have finally decided playtime is over and both are snuggled together on the ottoman next to the woodstove!!!!
I have read the entire thread of comments.
It is so nice to know other people get it. Can’t add anything. It’s all been said.
This place keeps me sane just reading it.
Eaker, drango uses children as human shields from criticism. Who can argue?
“It’s For The Children”(tm)
It can be used as an excuse to ban or restrict anything and everything adults do.
>> It is so nice to know other people get it.
I haven’t had it in a while. But once the frost breaks, I hope to get it again. Sadly, I can’t do it as frequently as I once used to.
Riding a bike
Climbing a tree
Swimming
Roller skating
Skiing
Playing dodge ball
Playing soccer
Playing baseball
Playing. Anything.
Do you expect government to regulate every childhood activity? Most every activity carries potential harm to children.
Did your parents do this to you, or were you indoctrinated by some other overbearing control freak?
Must be real chewy!
There is no smoke with eCigs and there is no “lighting up.” Yet, you bitch!
Follow the money...no incoming tax dollars with e cigarettes. My daughter has been using e cigarettes and has quit smoking altogether. She swears they work.
Pro or con, people should agree there could be potential harm to children.
...sorry to have tell you this, but potential harm to offspring by simply existing has been a fact of life since organic beings developed the means of procreation...
...no amount of adult regulation has, nor will it ever, change that unhappy factoid...
Actually, some manufacturers don’t use propylene glycol in the smoke juice they make for e-cigarettes. Blu is one company I know of that sources smoke juice from a supplier in WI that doesn’t use propylene glycol (I believe they use some vegetable oil type derivative).
I have been around a number of people who have used a myriad of e-cigarette devices - some at work as well. I have yet to smell any hint of the vapor unless I intentionally got close enough to do so, which has always required my being within a foot or so of said vapor, it being freshly exhaled, and breathing in deeply.
I have a very sensitive sense of smell, always have. If you can smell e-cigarette vapor, then it is because the smoke juice used is extremely pungent (like I mentioned in my original response), there is a vast amount of it in the area it it being noticed in, or you are trying desperately hard to smell it in the first place.
Honestly, This is much ado about nothing.
I agree about the harm reduction. I'm hoping that kids just don't pick up e-cigs for the heck of it. Although with the new flavors, I can see where they might.
I agree.
It is absolutely amazing to me to watch hubby give up his old habit so "easily". He has tried a number of times before which no luck. He tried the patch, gum pretty much everything that was available.
I quit about 25 yrs ago and it was hell --- almost gave up, but finally made it through. I know how hard it is to do. Wish the e-cigs were available back then.
The industry is trying to make vaping cool to adults and teenagers. See the recent ad in Sports Illustrated?
Vegetable Glycerin is the other commonly used ingredient in eliquid.
That is it, thanks.
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