Free Republic

A self-proclaimed “vaping addict” is calling for the devices to be banned after her right lung collapsed twice and she suffered permanent scars. “You never think this type of thing will happen to you — but it happened to me. It felt like my lung was on fire,” Wisconsinite Karlee Ozkurt, 20, told SWNS. “I fell into the trap of thinking vaping was cool,” Ozkurt confessed. “But it’s stupid. I didn’t realize until it was too late.” Ozkurt’s plea follows a recent study that found that 11.3% of American high school students reported using e-cigarettes in the past 30 days...

Participants in the I Quit programme, designed to help them quit smoking, need not worry about being fined or prosecuted as it does not presume they have or use vaping products. But if they are caught using or possessing such products, then they will not be immune from criminal prosecution. Senior Minister of State for Health Janil Puthucheary said this on Feb 16 in Parliament when responding to a question from Associate Professor Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC). Prof Lim had asked whether participants in I Quit, the smoking cessation programme by the Health Promotion Board, were offered immunity from prosecution....

Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert called a pregnant woman “a sad and miserable person” after she asked the Republican lawmaker to stop vaping during the “Beetlejuice” performance that she and her date were later kicked out of on Sunday, according to a report. The firebrand’s foul remark came after she had told the mom-to-be “no” when the fellow Denver theatergoer asked her to put her vaping pen down, the Denver Post reported Thursday. “These people in front of us were outrageous,” the woman, who requested anonymity, told the newspaper. “I’ve never seen anyone act like that before.” The behavior of Boebert,...

Researchers found that a person who vapes from a disposable or pod-based device such as a Juul dispels 22 times the safe level of microscopic toxins known as particulate matter, which is small enough that when inhaled can cause respiratory issues and enter the bloodstream. The findings poke holes in the belief held by many e-cigarette users that the devices are safe to use in public, indoors or around others because they do not produce the traditional pungent smoke released by traditional cigarettes, which contains thousands of chemicals, dozens of which are carcinogens.

In Canada Pastor Artur Pawlowski found guilty of violating a the province of Alberta...The case brought against Pastor Pawlowski stems from his speaking to Freedom Convoy protesters in Coutts, Alberta last year during the blockades opposing COVID lockdowns and mandates in Canada... In Oregon Democrat Secretary of State Shemia Fagan resigning effective next Monday... In Brazil the debate over new internet legislation called a "fake news" bill but also called a censorship bill... Tonight in Ukraine explosions reported in multiple regions... A Russian freight train derailing near the border with Ukraine following an explosion... Iranian media says there was an...

Mother of 16-year-old boy, who is in serious condition, urges other parents to not let their children use electronic cigarettesA teenager was hospitalized Thursday due to collapsed lungs that were apparently caused by using electronic cigarettes. The 16-year-old boy was being treated at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center of Israel, where he was listed in serious condition. The hospital said he was being treated in the intensive care unit with an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine, which provides cardiac and respiratory assistance. The boy’s mother asked Israelis to pray for his health and urged other parents not to let their...

A 37-year-old dad was stabbed to death in front of his 3-year-old daughter and fiancée outside a Starbucks in Canada after he asked the attacker not to vape in front of his child, his family said. Paul Stanley Schmidt and his daughter Erica were outside the Vancouver coffee shop about 5:30 p.m. Sunday while his fiancée, Ashley Umali, was getting drinks, his mother, Kathy Schmidt, told the Vancouver Sun. Horrifying video posted on social media captured the moment a man suddenly stabbed Schmidt, who was seen clutching his stomach as he staggered and fell to the ground in a pool...

A man is in custody following the fatal stabbing of a Canadian father who reportedly asked the suspect to not vape in front of his three-year-old daughter, authorities say. Inderdeep Singh Gosal, 32, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder following the broad-daylight stabbing of 37-year-old Paul Stanley Schmidt outside of a Vancouver Starbucks on March 27, Global News reported. The graphic incident, which was shared on social media, was witnessed by multiple bystanders who looked on as Schmidt fell to the ground bleeding. Vancouver police apprehended the suspect after witnesses detained him. Schmidt received first aid and was rushed...

On the ropes and with no message about rising crime or the struggling economy to appeal to voters, President Joe Biden has gone to pot. Literally. The president’s election-eve marijuana decriminalization order has him yet again putting politics over people’s lives and health. In a shameless attempt to buy the votes of young people and lower-income minority communities, Mr. Biden is waving his pen around again to dig himself out of the political cellar. The American Left, and some on the Right, along with the Big Tobacco companies already responsible for millions of deaths from their products, have spent heavily...

More and more, younger generations are opting to live soft lives, rejecting the struggle, stress, and anxiety that come with working a traditional nine-to-five career and grinding out your days on life's hamster wheel.

Brittney Griner, the WNBA “star” that protested against America in the wake of George Floyd’s death by refusing to appear on the court for the national anthem and saying that she thought the national anthem shouldn’t be played at all, is not fading quietly into the night and just accepting that she’s going to go to prison in Russia for breaking that nation’s laws and smuggling drugs into the country (an act that she admitted to). Rather, she’s making absurd excuses for her conduct, as if the Russians will let her free if only she comes up with just the...

by Joshua Ford | 24NewsNBA star LeBron James recently spoke out about WNBA player Brittney Griner who recently pleaded guilty to drug possession and smuggling charges in Russia.Griner was stopped at a Russian airport for allegedly having cannabis oil vape cartridges in her luggage, which is illegal in the country and carries a penalty of 10 years in prison.NBA star LeBron James shockingly said she should rethink whether she even wants to come home to America. “Now, how can she feel like America has her back?” James said. “I would be feeling like, ‘Do I even want to go back...

Those who knew the 21-year-old suspect, Robert Crimo III, say he habitually smoked cannabis, a habit he appeared to share with young mass shooters, including at Uvalde, Dayton, Parkland and Aurora...At some point, his father moved out of the family home into a house two miles away in Highwood, while Crimo stayed with his mother and the Highland Park house fell into disrepair...But when Crimo turned 18, his personality changed, Pacileo told NBC News,..."Instead of therapy, he turned to drugs..."...Another former friend, Bennett Brizes, described the Crimo he knew from age 14 to 17 as "an isolated stoner who completely...

The detained American basketball star Brittney Griner pleaded guilty to drug charges in a court near Moscow on Thursday, her lawyer said. “I’d like to plead guilty, your honor. But there was no intent. I didn’t want to break the law,” Ms. Griner said in English, which was then translated into Russian, Reuters reported. Ms. Griner has been detained in Russia since Feb. 17, accused by the Russian authorities of having a vape cartridge with hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow. Aleksandr Boikov, her lawyer, said cartridges appeared in Ms. Griner’s luggage “because of carelessness.”

The war on drugs is winding down, and the war on tobacco is ramping up. E-cigarettes, a safer nicotine-delivery alternative, have contributed to plummeting use of traditional cigarette smoking. Yet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has effectively made it harder for cigarette smokers to switch by limiting vapes from the market. The agency also recently announced a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, which will push more products onto the black market, with all sorts of unintended consequences.

Federal grant recipients broke the law while spending an estimated $246 million in taxpayer dollars for cannabis and e-cigarette animal experiments, a new report by a group opposing publicly-funded animal testing finds. White Coat Waste Project’s report, published Wednesday, highlights 10 instances of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funneling money to researchers experimenting with getting animals high on THC or making them consume nicotine. “The blunt truth is that tens of millions of tax dollars are going up in smoke for half-baked marijuana and vaping experiments on animals and NIH-funded white coats are breaking federal law by not disclosing...

The agency ignores downward trends in both kinds of nicotine use and obscures the huge difference in the hazards they pose.The pandemic has given Americans ample reason to be skeptical of pronouncements by the Centers for Disease Control Prevention (CDC). A press release the CDC issued today reminds us that the agency's habit of misleading the public began long before anyone had heard of COVID-19. According to the latest results from the National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS), the CDC says, "about 2.55 million U.S. middle and high school students reported current (past 30-day) use of a tobacco product in 2021."...

Earlier this month, news outlets all over the world reported breathlessly on new research which claimed to find that e-cigarette users were 15 percent more likely to have a stroke at young age than smokers. News sources as diverse as the Daily Mail in the UK, the South African Sunday Times, and all major U.S. TV stations picked up on it ensuring that a large portion of the global population were exposed to this bad news. The problem is that this “research” was at best, highly misleading and, at worst, plain wrong. First, this was not new published research as...

The chief executive of the company that makes Marlboro cigarettes was quoted by Britain’s Mail on Sunday as saying that the tobacco company foresaw an end to its sales of traditional cigarettes in Britain within 10 years. “I want to allow this company to leave smoking behind,” Jacek Olczak, the CEO of Philip Morris International, was quoted in the paper saying. “I think in the UK, ten years from now maximum, you can completely solve the problem of smoking.” […] For years, Philip Morris has said that its future will not include Marlboro cigarettes as it shifts to electronic devices....

Since 2018, when then-U.S. surgeon general Jerome Adams declared a youth vaping epidemic, America has been engaged in the great American vape debate. In the three years since the infamous shot heard round the anti-tobacco control world, states and localities and the federal government have pushed to restrict adult access to e-cigarettes through taxes, regulations, and some have supported all out prohibitions. Over the past week, two notable events took place in the debate. On Wednesday, June 23, U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL.) chaired a House Oversight subcommittee hearing titled “An Epidemic Continues: Youth Vaping in America.” On June 28,...