Posted on 01/09/2013 7:06:47 PM PST by Eric Blair 2084
I've long been a decorative smoker. One daily roll-up hasn't imperilled my health much, and it's rescued me from the ranks of the self-righteous. I've relished the dash of badness, but my indulgence has come at a price: complicity. My more heavily addicted husband has smoked from the age of 19. So long as I join him in the odd postprandial drag, I'm a bad influence.
Last month I switched to an e-cig. I'm a convert. Sleek, black, and easily confused with a fine-point felt-tip, this newfangled "nicotine delivery system" is dead cool. The gently warm vapour ingeniously replicates the reflective pause of a real fag, the same quiet little buzz. But it doesn't stink up your breath, cover surfaces with ash, turn the air acrid, stain your fingers, brown your teeth, reduce bone mass of the jaw, promote gum disease, or – wait for the drum roll – cause cancer. Nor does an e-cig give anyone in your vicinity cancer.
Why, then, are so many nonsmokers queasy, nay denunciatory, about electronic fags? Why did the EU's tobacco product directive released last month propose effectively banning any e-cigs that deliver remotely enough nicotine to make them an attractive alternative to tobacco? Isn't a "tobacco product directive" reaching beyond its remit by seeking to regulate a product containing no tobacco? Why is the sale of a device that administers a mild stimulant about as energising as a cup of coffee already illegal in Denmark, Belgium and Norway? Why do some airlines specifically ban e-cigs, which don't foul the air on planes?
(Excerpt) Read more at m.guardiannews.com ...
That just doesn't sit well with some folks.
/johnny
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bump
You posted this with no comment. Why?
Idiot libs, they seem to think that Nicotine itself causes lung cancer, instead it is all the smoke...
If we ground up coffee bean and put thin in paper tubes and smoked them it would cause cancer as well! And it sure as hell wouldn’t be the Caffeine that caused the actual cancer...
Same goes for “chew” it is the other stuff in the chew that causes cancer and not the nicotine..
There was a proposal from the RJ Reynolds (sp) Company to make a “peppermint mint that was enhanced with Nicotine” and the Libs screamed like little stuck pigs. Mainly because it would profit “big tobacco”.
I have family members that smoke around harvest season to stay awake (they are farmers). I would much rather they be addicted to “Nicotine Sweets” than damn cigarettes or chew.
I’m not talking until I see which side Eric Blair is on.
NANNY STATE PING!
This was a well written piece by a novelist who is a fellow e-cig convert. Normal people may wonder what the real reason is behind why anti-smoking groups are scared to death that their easy money big pharma and gubmint gravy train is ending. It’s not very complicated and all free people should understand what is happening.
1. Anti smoking groups are funded by contributions from Big Phrma companies that sell competing nicotine replacement products. Gums, patches etc. They stand to lose billions if ecigs take market share.
These “non profit” groups and their boards make 6 figure salaries. They were not doing this out of their altruistic benevolent concern for the health of mankind.
2. It looks like smoking, even though there is no smoke. All of the money and cultural social engineering to make the act look socially unacceptable would be flushed down the toilet.
Because someone, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves.
That just doesn’t sit well with some folks.
/johnny
bingo
NANNY STATE PING!
This was a well written piece by a novelist who is a fellow e-cig convert. Normal people may wonder what the real reason is behind why anti-smoking groups are scared to death that their easy money big pharma and gubmint gravy train is ending. It’s not very complicated and all free people should understand what is happening.
1. Anti smoking groups are funded by contributions from Big Phrma companies that sell competing nicotine replacement products. Gums, patches etc. They stand to lose billions if ecigs take market share.
These “non profit” groups and their boards make 6 figure salaries. They were not doing this out of their altruistic benevolent concern for the health of mankind.
2. It looks like smoking, even though there is no smoke. All of the money and cultural social engineering to make the act look socially unacceptable would be flushed down the toilet.
Because for the leftist/statists who now run the “West,” it is all and only about POWER. And read your Orwell. What is power to that ilk? The ability to inflict pain on others. Period.
The things do work however quality of the devices vary. US Customs regularly confiscates shipments without cause. They’re legal so why confiscate them?
The real issue is an alliance between the US government and the tobacco companies. The government hates them because they haven’t figured out how to tax them as heavily as analog smokes. Tobacco companies are against them because it cuts into their bottom line.
Why do some airlines specifically ban e-cigs, which don’t foul the air on planes?
########
I don’t fly because of TSA but I bought an e-cig and liked it then went back to my regulars because I had the same reaction to both. You are a leper.
No biggie..my tobacco tax dollars pay for illegal health care so I’m helping make the world a better place..../sarc on
What side? Lol. I’m on the side of freedom.
I quit smoking 3 years ago with ecigs. I still love the smell of smoke and hang outside with my former smoking buddies just to get a whiff.
Precisely! I love how FReepers boil issues down in the first post or five.
Beyond that, see this C.S. Lewis quote that I keep handy on my FR profile page:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” — C.S. Lewis
In this case, it doesn’t even matter if it really isn’t “bad” for the user, all that matters is that the do-gooder thinks that it is.
You just have to be discreet on an airplane. Don’t exhale the vapor. No reason to cause a panic in an enclosed space 50k ft up. Just common courtesy.
I
later
What kind of ladies’ name is Lionel? Weird!
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