Showing posts with label vaping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vaping. Show all posts

Saturday, February 03, 2024

Vape Ban, Smoking Ban: Rishi Sunak's "Nanny State" | The New Statesman Podcast

Feb 3, 2024 | This week's disposable vape ban follows a generational ban on smoking and an XL Bully ban. Is this Rishi Sunak's legacy?


The mere idea of having a smoking ban for an adult is OUTRAGEOUS! Kick Sunak OUT of OFFICE NOW!

By the way: Maybe Sunak’s daughters will one day fall in love with, and marry, smokers. What a delightful, delicious thought! – © Mark Alexander

Thursday, October 12, 2023

Some Thoughts on Vaping

I recently wrote a short essay on smoking and drinking. In it, I pointed out that I had been smoke-free for a full year and a half. I also pointed out that I disagreed with vaping being touted as a healthier alternative to smoking, pointing out that we know far too little about the habit yet to be able to tell.

This sad article on the BBC website today about a young 12-year old girl with lung damage helps prove my point.

In my experience as a person qualified in education, I would say that it is irresponsible to encourage this habit, especially among the young. Our young have been encouraged to take up the vaping habit because of the unrelenting war on smoking, cigarettes and tobacco. I stand by my words: vaping should not be encouraged, at least not at this time and at least not until we have many more years of experience with it. Originally, vaping was put forward as a way to help smokers to quit. And for that purpose, vapes should have been made available only on prescription. But vaping is no longer simply a means of giving up smoking; it is now an alternative to smoking, a habit to which young people have quickly been drawn.

It goes without saying that smoking is an unhealthy habit. Therefore, I have no problem with our government or the medical profession educating people on the dangers of habit. But that is as far as it should go. Cigarettes should not be made so expensive that they become unaffordable for anyone except for the superrich. In doing that, it makes the pleasurable habit affordable only for the privileged few. Ironically, it also make the habit more attractive! After all, if everyone could drive a Bentley, they would soon lose their appeal.

Whenever governments get involved, they screw things up. Governments should adopt a hands-off approach, being satisfied that they are doing all they can to inform people of the dangers. It is precisely because governments have been meddling that we now face the huge problem of so many of our young people being addicted to e-cigarettes and vaping! Do-gooders rarely do good; usually, they achieve the opposite.

© Mark Alexander

All Rights Reserved

Philip Morris lobbying to stop WHO ‘attack’ on vapes and similar products: Exclusive: Leaked email shows firm behind Marlboro cigarettes critical of global ‘prohibitionist’ agenda »

Tuesday, June 06, 2023

Australia to Ban Recreational Vaping - BBC News

May 30, 2023 | Australia is set to ban recreational vaping as part of major crackdown amid what experts say is an "epidemic". This means that vape products can only be sold with a prescription. New measures will have to be passed by Parliament before becoming law. However, there are fears that the ban will fuel a black market.


Disposable vapes should be banned to protect children, UK paediatricians say: Single-use e-cigarettes growing in popularity among young people despite unknown health effects and environmental impact »

Why am I not surprised? Governments have created this problem with their relentless war on tobacco and smoking. One can but shake one’s head. – © Mark Alexander

Friday, May 26, 2023

Ministers Face Pressure to Ban Single-use Vapes amid Rising Popularity among Children in UK

THE GUARDIAN: As many as 15% of 11- to 15-year-olds use vapes, experts suggest, with products often packaged in bright colours

The relatively short history of e-cigarettes means there is minimal knowledge about long-term health effects. Photograph: Peter Dazeley/Alamy

Ministers are facing mounting pressure to impose an outright ban on single-use vapes, amid concern about their rising popularity among children and wider worries that officials have minimal grip over a fast-moving sector.

While it is illegal to sell e-cigarettes to under-18s, some experts suggest as many as 15% of 11- to 15-year-olds use vapes, with Rishi Sunak saying this week he was worried that his daughters could be “seduced” by a heavily flavoured product often packaged in bright colours. » | Peter Walker, Deputy political editor | Friday, May 26, 2023

This just goes to prove that the government’s relentless war on smoking is having a deleterious effect on children!

It would have been far better and more sensible if successive governments had simply used infomercials to make the public aware of the dangers of smoking and let the people decide for themselves whether they wish to smoke or not. In fact, that was the original strategy of governments to reduce smoking rates anyway; and, it must be said, that strategy was effective. It brought smoking rates right down over a period of years.

However, governments weren’t satisfied with this softly-softly approach. They have been determined to stub out the smoking of tobacco altogether which, of course, they will never be able to do.

The result has been that they have encouraged people to vape instead. The dangers of vaping are not yet well-understood. But the people in government have pushed ahead with this silly and ridiculous policy anyway.

At first, it was hoped that vaping would be used as a way of transitioning from smoking tobacco to not smoking at all. But it hasn’t turned out that way. Rather, vaping has become in itself a source of kicks for many people, including children. Vapes in multifarious flavours and forms have become particularly attractive even to young children, something which conventional cigarettes never were. The smell and taste of tobacco for children is often very off-putting. It certainly was for me as a child. As a child, I hated being around anyone who smoked cigarettes.

When I studied economics back in the day, one of the very first lessons we were taught was this: Governments should avoid at all costs distorting the market of any product, because the distortions caused by excessive taxes, etc, will often produce far more deleterious results than the use of the product the government is trying to stamp out. Clearly, our politicians haven’t learnt this lesson.

The moral of the story is quite simple: Stop interfering in the marketplace and stop interfering in the lives of the people. Let the people decide what they wish to do for enjoyment. Moreover, one shouldn’t be surprised that children are attracted to vaping when they are available in so many attractive flavours such as apricot, peach, blackcurrant, orange, etc. Make them taste of tobacco and most chidren will run far, far away from them! – © Mark Alexander

Tuesday, May 02, 2023

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Chris Snowden on the Ever-growing Nanny State | Reupload

May 31, 2021 | Gary sits down with Christopher Snowdon, author of the Nanny State Index. They discuss vaping; smoking; sugar taxes; Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP) for alcohol; the drive towards increased nanny statism coming from NGOs; & what consumers can do to fight back.

Thursday, November 10, 2022

Smoking Is Back in Candy-coloured Disguise - and a Whole New Generation Is Addicted

THE GUARDIAN: Tobacco companies are pouring money into e-cigarettes and making them attractive to teens. Why is nobody stopping them?

Elf Bar disposable e-cigarette products in a shop display in the US. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

The modern sweet shop has long removed from its window the screw-top glass jars full of gobstoppers and lemon sherbets that used to tempt kids to spend their pocket money on the way home from school. Instead, there is an array of slim boxes in a rainbow of bright colours. “Banana ice”, “pink lemonade”, “blueberry sour raspberry”, “cotton candy ice”, they are labelled.

The jewelled boxes contain Elf bars: disposable e-cigarettes. The rules say they are for adults only. Under-18s are not allowed to buy them, even if they wander in to look at the confectionery that is also for sale in some of these shops. But everyone knows the pretty toys also end up in the hands of children, who may even have learned how to use them from influencers on TikTok.

It’s hugely alarming for the parents of teenage kids who catch a whiff of strawberry in the bedroom. They might in the past not have known that their child was experimenting with a scrounged fag behind the bike sheds after school. Smoking was once so widespread that it would be a rare child who didn’t take a puff at some point, hopefully choking on the fumes and never touching a cigarette again. » | Sarah Boseley | Thursday, November 10, 2022

The Guradian wants to hear from you if you have taken up new vices after turning 60. Click here for more info.

This is what you get when you interfere with the market and when you engage in social engineering.

I would say that it would be far, far better for people to enjoy smoking regular cigarettes (in moderation) than encouraging people to switch to e-cigarettes with all manner of weird and wonderful flavours (which appeal to children) or relaxing laws on cannabis. These killjoys are not very smart, are they? You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that if you introduce e-cigarettes onto the market with apricot, peach, strawberry, blackberry, blackcurrant and all sorts of other appealing flavours which mask the nicotine, you are going to introduce a whole new generation of children to the joys of inhalation and exhalation. Smoking in another form, essentially. From vaping, when a little older, many will graduate to the smoking of real cigarettes.

I have no sympathy with these meddlesome killjoys. They have created a whole new generation of smokers-in-the-making. Sometimes, it is better just to leave things alone. Furthermore, by bringing down the number of people who smoke, the authorities have not improved the health of the nation. Not at all! People simply die of other causes. Now, instead of tobacco-related illnesses, people are dying of obesity and sugar-related illnesses such as diabetes. How stupid these politicians are! Don’t these interfering politicians understand that people will get their kicks somehow, one way or another? If they can’t get their kicks from smoking real cigarettes, they’ll get them from other unhealthy habits instead, like weed, sugary drinks, or sugary donuts. Furthermore, we do not yet know the long-term consequences of vaping. They try to say that it is healthier. But is it really? Only time will tell. I despair. – © Mark Alexander

Wednesday, September 21, 2022

Nicotine’s Effects on the Brain & Body & How to Quit Smoking or Vaping | Huberman Lab Podcast #90

In this episode, I explain how nicotine impacts the brain and body, including its potent ability to enhance attention, focus, and alertness, increase blood pressure and metabolism and reduce appetite. I discuss nicotine’s ability to increase the action of neurochemicals, including dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine and activate sympathetic (alertness-promoting) neural circuits. I also discuss common nicotine delivery methods, such as cigarettes, vaping, dip, and snuff, and how they each create their own unique experience and how they, but not nicotine itself, cause cancer and other adverse health effects. I also explain science-based tools to permanently quit smoking cigarettes or vaping, including peer-reviewed clinical hypnosis tools, antidepressants, and alternative nicotine replacement (patches, lozenges, gums etc.). As nicotine is one of the most widely used substances with billions of users — most of whom report wanting to quit — this episode ought to be of interest to former/current nicotine users, those who want to quit smoking or vaping and/or those interested in learning the biology behind how nicotine impacts the brain and body.

Monday, July 04, 2022

Vape Haze – The Thriving Black Market of Vaping | Four Corners | ABC News

Jun 28, 2022 | Vaping was hailed as a new way to quit smoking. But now there are serious concerns it’s hooking a new generation on nicotine. An investigation by Four Corners has found there is a thriving black market, fueled by rising demand among young people and a failure to police the rules. We delve into the fierce battle about the harms of vaping, in what’s become a multi-billion-dollar global industry. Vaping advocates claim any harms caused by e-cigarettes pale in comparison to the dangers of smoking - and that vaping can be an effective quit tool. But public health experts say there’s limited evidence they help to quit smoking, and warn that vaping poses a significant long-term public health risk.

What a surprise! Vaping has become a problem in Australia, especially for young people. Well I never!

Politicians of every stripe, but particularly left-wing politicians, are engaged in social engineering; they are trying to change people’s preferences and habits, and in so doing are causing distortions in the marketplace and are engaging in social engineering. Sometimes things are better left alone. the vowel of your choice—leave things alone?

First of all, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a conventional cigarette as long as one’s smoking is kept within limits and it is done in moderation. I have smoked for most of my adult life; though I have given up now. (With ease, I hasten to add.) Smoking is not an addiction; rather, it is a habit.

They try and say that nicotine is “the most addictive substance known to man”. TOSH! POPPYCOCK! NONSENSE! Nicotine is hardly addictive at all! It is only addictive if you let it be so. I smoked twenty cigarettes a day for most of my adult life and when I gave up, I suffered no withdrawal symptoms whatsoever. Not one! Nor have I had any cravings since giving up. (It will be three months on July 10th since giving up.)

Smoking has become the bête noire of our day; but it is actually a very pleasurable habit. The secret is not letting it control you. Many things can become addictive if you allow them to become so: chocolate, alcohol, sugary foods, gambling, and many other things besides. Self-control and self-discipline are called for.

Governments have been pushing vaping as an alternative to smoking for several years. I find this totally and utterly irresponsible, because we do not know the long-term effects of the habit. Fact is, too, they are very appealing to young people, because they are often high-tech, and because they can be purchased in all sorts of weird and wonderful flavours. So these young people are becoming dependent on them and they are convincing themselves that they are addicted to nicotine. Young people are young are often impressionable, weak-willed, and lacking in discipline.

What needs to be done is for governments to put pressure on the cigarette manufacturers to take the crap out of real cigarettes. Make them take out all those nasty chemicals, make them manufacture safer real cigarettes; and governments should bring the price of real cigarettes right down by taking all that excessive tax off them.

Don’t get me wrong. I am all for bringing down the incidence of smoking; but it should be done by education and gentle persuasion. Social engineering is not only wrong; it is also very dangerous. Because people will get their kicks in life, one way or another. Take one pleasure away from them and they will find another pleasure to replace the one taken away. Moreover, that pleasure denied to people may well turn out in the long-run to be far less injurious to health than the new-fangled habit used to replace it.

Further, while we are on the subjects of smoking and vaping. Smoking a cigarette can look extremely sexy when done by an attractive person. That’s why they have been used to good effect in movies/films over the decades to make handsome actors and beautiful actresses look sexy. Vaping will never be used to replace cigarettes for this purpose. It just doesn’t have that allure. There is hardly anything about vaping which increases one’s sex appeal. Forget it! When I have seen people vaping, cloud-chasing, they look as though there’s a locomotive ahead! Furthermore, putting a hard piece of plastic onto one’s lips is hardly a sensual experience. – © Mark Alexander

Monday, June 27, 2022

The Thriving Black Market of Vaping | Four Corners

Jun 27, 2022 • Vaping was hailed as a new way to quit smoking. But now there are serious concerns it’s hooking a new generation on nicotine.

An investigation by Four Corners has found there is a thriving black market, fueled by rising demand among young people and a failure to police the rules.

We delve into the fierce battle about the harms of vaping, in what’s become a multi-billion-dollar global industry.

Vaping advocates claim any harms caused by e-cigarettes pale in comparison to the dangers of smoking - and that vaping can be an effective quit tool.

But public health experts say there’s limited evidence they help to quit smoking, and warn that vaping poses a significant long-term public health risk.



This is total and utter MADNESS! Why don’t these meddlesome politicians–idiots all!–leave things alone?

Smoking rates were coming down anyway. These e-cigarettes are unproven. We know not the long-term consequences of vaping, because people haven’t been vaping for long enough yet; so, we have incomplete data on the habit/addiction.

One thing I know for sure: Vaping has been made to look cool to young people, especially to techy types. But the fact of the matter is that this habit is bound to appeal to very young people, because they can get their fix of nicotine with all manner of flavours, such as apricot, peach, strawberry, raspberry and all types of other attractive flavours to young people. So, do you think that these would not appeal to school kids? For sure they will: they will be far more appealing to young people than normal cigarettes would be, because in order to start smoking normal cigarettes, one must acquire a taste for them, which often times, nay usually, is most unappealing at the start of one’s smoking ‘career’. In other words, in order to become a smoker, one has to persevere. This is surely not the case with e-cigarettes.

My own opinion is that it is HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE of politicians to push vaping as a substitute for smoking. No Health Secretary worth his salt would promote these damn things. I know that if I had children, I would be devastated if they took up this habit with unknown consequences.

They have demonized smokers now to such an extent that smokers are not wanted anywhere, leading to loneliness. The fact is there is NOTHING WRONG with the enjoyment of a cigarette as long as one’s smoking is kept in moderation. Everything is bad for one’s health if consumed in high quantities: eating, alcohol, smoking, sugar, etc. Moderation is key.

I have been a lifelong smoker. And how I enjoyed it! For people of my generation, smoking was the normal thing to do for REAL MEN. As a Swiss man stated in a Swiss documentary I have watched on YouTube: Back in the day, he said, if a man didn’t smoke, he was considered to be ein Sonderling, a crank or an eccentric! How times have changed!

They have put the price of cigarettes up so much in this damn country now that the price of a packet—Marlboro Reds were £12.50 when I gave up in early April—is totally out of sync with the pleasure derived from them. (Almost all of that price is tax.) Moreover, one can go nowhere to enjoy a cigarette anymore. People have become absolutely paranoid about second-hand smoke, which I believe is largely nonsense.

On top of that, one cannot go to a café, bar, or restaurant and enjoy a smoke, either. The concept of joie de vivre has been totally lost.
Nowadays, people recognise the dangers in everything, but recognise the pleasures in nothing. – Mark Alexander, May 27, 2022
As I say, I have smoked for most of my adult life. Never out of addiction; only ever out of pleasure. Smoking, in my experience is not an addiction, unless one allows it to be one. Further, I can honestly say that even though I smoked for years, I have never suffered from coughs or phlegm or anything like that. If one looks at a packet of cigarettes these days, one's hair and teeth will surely fall out because of tobacco. To say nothing of one suffering from impotence, cancer, etc. Is there actually a disease known to man that cannot be attributed to the nasty habit of enjoying a puff?

People these days have bees in their bonnets about so many things that are sources of pleasure. Even eating meat or dairy has become a political, rebellious act. Good God! What an age to be living in! Even the government isn’t willing to allow people a few pleasures. The British government, a right-wing government which is supposed to guarantee people maximum freedom to choose their own path in life, has declared that it wants to make Britain smoke-free by 2030. First of all, have they asked the people if they want this to happen? I don’t want it to happen for starters. What? Smoke-free to replace proper cigarettes with crap as seen in this documentary? What a sick joke! Secondly, I know from my life’s experience that should they be able to achieve this goal, it will be replaced with something else far, far worse. (We can see this above in this documentary.) Not to forget that now they're after smokers; soon they'll be after people who enjoy a drop of alcohol. Rest assured: These sick puritans won't rest until they have denied us all the pleasures of life. Think of the late German theologian, Martin Niemöller!

The way forward is for government to encourage people to quit smoking whilst at the same time encouraging the tobacco manufacturers to manufacture higher quality cigarettes, preferably eliminating as many of the harmful chemicals from cigarettes as possible. It can be done. It should be done. Indeed, it must be done.

Governments have talked about employing ‘Loneliness Czars’ to try and combat loneliness. What an idiotic idea that is! Loneliness in society is caused by many factors. Death of a loved one (which I know something about). But also by not being able to go out and mix with people as we were always able to do. Remember the English pub? These days, they resemble kindergartens rather than pubs. You can eat in them as much as you like and you can have a drink. But don't, for God's sake, expect to be able to smoke a cigarette in one! Das Rauchen ist strengstens verboten!

I could go on and on about this sort of thing. There is so much wrong with this damn country now that one has to ask oneself if it is indeed fixable.

Meddlesome politicians please go away. Come back another day. Let people live their lives their way. Live their lives as they see fit. – © Mark Alexander

Friday, June 24, 2022

US Bans All Products from Leading Vaping Company Juul - BBC News

Jun 24, 2022 • The US is banning the sale of all products sold by Juul, one of the country's top e-cigarette companies.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said it did not have enough data to be sure that marketing the firm's products was "appropriate for the protection of public health".

Juul said it would challenge the move, which comes after other recent anti-smoking efforts by the FDA, including plans to reduce the amount of addictive nicotine allowed in cigarettes.



Bring the price of real cigarettes down. Most of the price is tax anyway. Make sure the quality of the cigarettes is much improved (especially by banning dangerous chemicals put in them unnecessarily) and let people smoke in moderation. Stop being so meddlesome.

I am very much against the war on smoking, and I am also against my government promoting vaping when they don't know the long-term consequences of the new habit.

Everything is bad for health when done to excess: eating, drinking, smoking, etc. But it is ironic that at the very time the authorities are turning the screws on smokers, they are relaxing laws on soft drugs like marijuana and cannabis.

Let people have a little fun and pleasure. They will anyway, whether the authorities like it or not. If smoking were banned tomorrow, people would find other ways of getting their kicks; and those ways might well turn out to be more injurious to health than smoking ever has been. We shall never live in Utopia; Utopia is unachievable.

Please note that I write this as an ex-smoker. – © Mark Alexander

Wednesday, May 18, 2022

E-cigarettes : Welcome Back, Big Tobacco - The Fifth Estate

Oct 22, 2016 • Big Tobacco is trying clean up its image, moving into the booming e-cigarette business which continuing to peddle the deadly tobacco products. This has left public health officials in Canada, the U.K. and the US.

Five million Canadians still smoke. Could e-cigarettes help wean them over to a safer nicotine delivery device? Many ex-smokers say 'yes.' E-cigarettes are their salvation.

Health Canada is on the cusp of deciding how e-cigarettes should be regulated. Mark Kelly heads to England -- a country that has taken bold steps in embracing the e-cigarette as a safer alternative. Will Canada? And what will this mean for our e-cigarette industry?

Until now, e-cigarettes with nicotine have not been endorsed by Health Canada. And that's kept Big Tobacco out of the Canadian market. Will new regulations open the doors for a tarred industry to join in the e-cigarette revolution?



Government of Canada: Vaping product regulations »

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Die Zukunft des Rauchens – wie schädlich sind E Zigaretten wirklich? | Einstein | SRF Wissen

Mar 21, 2022 • Die Tabakindustrie investiert in tabakfreie Produkte – Trendwende oder falsches Spiel? Einerseits sollen E-Zigaretten den Rauchstopp erleichtern. Andererseits lockten sie in Amerikas Schulen Tausende Jugendliche in die Nikotinsucht. «Einstein» geht dem Rauchen und seiner Zukunft auf den Grund. Die Sendung ist vom 9.5.2019


I smoked my last cigarette on April 10th. I had been a smoker for many years. I used to enjoy smoking a lot. I can honestly say that I smoked out of pleasure, not out of addiction. (Only the few believe me when I say that; but it happens to be true.) I smoked exactly twenty cigarettes a day for most of my adult life.

Truthfully, I don't miss smoking at all. I have given up because I wanted to do so and because it has become a very expensive habit. I therefore started asking myself if I was really getting enough pleasure from the cigarettes I smoked by comparison with the amount of money I was spending on them. Clearly, I wasn't.

Furthermore, smoking today has become such a hassle: one cannot smoke anywhere indoors in public. Not even in friends' homes. The only place left to smoke is in one's own home. I have never smoked in the street. It wasn't the "done thing" when I was growing up, so I never got used to doing that. (It sounds a little old-fashioned, I know; but that's how it was back in the day.)

The biggest problem for me of not smoking is weight gain. That happens not so much because one eats that much more, though that can happen because smoking is an appetite suppressant, but it also happens because smoking increases one's metabolism. So after giving up the habit, the metabolism slows down.

E-cigarettes have never appealed to me. In any case, I have no intention, or desire, to rid myself of one habit only to replace it with another. Further, I don't trust e-cigarettes. Scientists can say all manner of things about them being safer, but the fact of the matter is clear to me: Nobody knows the long-term cpnequences of vaping. And for one simple reason: We haven't got long-term data on the habit.

I hope my new-found smoke-free existence lasts. – © Mark

Tuesday, December 14, 2021

Commentary: I Don’t Defend Using Cigarettes or Tobacco. I Defend the Individual Freedom to Use Them.

This Dec. 17, 2019 photo shows a group of cigarettes in New York. About 14% of U.S adults were cigarette smokers last year, for the third year in a row. Meanwhile, the adult vaping rate still appears to be rising, according to a new government report. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE: The once-glorified cigarette graced the silver screen and could be seen in almost every magazine. Lucky Strike advertisements were as American as apple pie. Joe Camel was a four-legged hero and probably more popular than Spuds MacKenzie. Who didn’t want to look as cool as James Dean with a cigarette between their lips? On the battlefield, a cigarette provided tranquility even if just for a moment. Taking a few drags in a foxhole on a French battlefield while German soldiers were heard yelling or reloading was a little reminder of home.

For decades, cigarettes were a normal part of life. People smoked in every setting. From dinner parties, at the office, on airplanes or in the kitchen after a long day. It was normal and accepted. Then we started learning about the negative health implications. Americans became aware smoking cigarettes can have long-term negative effects on our bodies. We learned a lot of about nicotine and its addictiveness. Cancer was then linked to tobacco use. Long-term cigarette or cigar smoking could cause lung cancer. As people became aware, folks changed their behavior. Tobacco use, naturally, started to decline. » | Jess Nuñez | Wednesday, November 25, 2020

As far as I am concerned, the problem of obesity, as brought out in this German documentary started at around the time that the authorities and do-gooders started waging a war on cigarette-smoking and smokers.

I am going to stick my neck out here and state that there is a DIRECT CORRELATION between the decrease in the use of tobacco and the increase in obesity and the incidence of type-2 diabetes. When people smoked cigarettes more, both obesity and type-2 diabetes were far less prevalent in society.

Further, the authorities keep pushing vaping and e-cigarettes as alternatives to smoking real, traditional, combustible cigarettes, yet they have absolutely no reliable data on the long-term health consequences of vaping. This is grossly irresponsible on the part of medical people and governments worldwide.

People have been fed fairy stories, myths and lies about smoking cigarettes. If you listen to what they say about the dangers of smoking, if you dare indulge in the pleasurable habit, you will end up wrinkled, bald, toothless and you'll cough your lungs up! This is all balderdash, of course. I have smoked for most of my adult life and have very few wrinkles, a full mouthful of healthy teeth, a headful of thick, dark hair and I NEVER EVER cough! Moreover, I am not fat and I DO NOT suffer from diabetes. I believe that being a moderate smoker has helped me stay relatively slim and keep diabetes at bay. So, if I wish to do so, I shall continue to smoke real cigarettes despite the nonsense being talked about them. I am as proud to be a smoker as I am to be gay! I make absolutely no excuses for either!

As it happens, I have not smoked a cigarette for about ten days now. I had no intention of giving up smoking—and maybe I haven't long-term—but due to inclement weather, it was too wet to go out and buy cigarettes; so I didn't and did without. I haven't bothered to buy any cigarettes since that time.

Despite having a twenty-a-day habit for most of my adult life, I find it very easy to stop smoking when I wish to do so. Hence, I do not believe thaat smoking is half as addictive as they say it is. In my opinion and experience, smoking cigarettes is a habit rather than an addiction. Smoking is addictive only if one allows it to become so. Personally, all my adult life, I have refused to allow myself to become addicted to anything. When it comes to cigarettes, addiction is a choice: one becomes addicted if one allows oneself to become so. Basta!

At this point, I should add that I find it both maddening and stupid that at the very time that they are clamping down so much on smoking cigarettes, they are relaxing laws on smoking cannabis and other soft drugs. It is maddening because they have made the life of a smoker so difficult and expensive; it is stupid, because they are replacing one habit they say is so unhealthy with an even unhealthier one: smoking cannabis!

I would be the first person to admit that it is far better not to smoke at all. But only if the person doesn't replace smoking cigarettes with a habit which is even unhealthier than smoking cigarettes has ever been.

There is much more I could say about this subject, but for now, I shall leave it at that. – © Mark

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Juul Says Its Focus Was Smokers, but It Targeted Young Nonsmokers


THE NEW YORK TIMES: The company planted the seeds of a public health crisis by marketing to a generation with low smoking rates, and it ignored evidence that teenagers were using its products.

SAN FRANCISCO — In the face of mounting investigations, subpoenas and lawsuits, Juul Labs has insisted that it never marketed or knowingly sold its trendy e-cigarettes and flavored nicotine pods to teenagers.

As youth vaping soared and “juuling” became a high school craze, the company’s top executives have stood firm in their assertion that Juul’s mission has always been to give adult smokers a saferalternative to cigarettes, which play a role in the deaths of 480,000 people in the United States each year.

“We never wanted any non-nicotine user and certainly nobody underage to ever use Juul products,” James Monsees, a co-founder of the company, testified at a congressional hearing in July.

But in reality, the company was never just about helping adult smokers, according to interviews with former executives, employees and investors, along with reviews of legal filings and social media archives. » | Julie Creswell and Sheila Kaplan | Saturday, November 23, 2019

Thursday, October 03, 2019

Lung Damage from Vaping Resembles Chemical Burns, Report Says


THE NEW YORK TIMES: Doctors at the Mayo Clinic examined samples of lung tissue from 17 patients, all of which looked as if the people had been exposed to toxic chemicals, the researchers said.

The lung damage in some people who have become ill after vaping nicotine or marijuana products resembles a chemical burn, doctors from the Mayo Clinic reported on Wednesday.

Their findings are based on samples of lung tissue from 17 patients around the country whose biopsy specimens were sent to Mayo to be examined under the microscope by experts in lung pathology. Two samples came from patients who died.

“All 17 of our cases show a pattern of injury in the lung that looks like a toxic chemical exposure, a toxic chemical fume exposure, or a chemical burn injury,” said Dr. Brandon T. Larsen, a surgical pathologist at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz. “To be honest, they look like the kind of change you would expect to see in an unfortunate worker in an industrial accident where a big barrel of toxic chemicals spills, and that person is exposed to toxic fumes and there is a chemical burn in the airways.”

The injuries also look like those seen in people exposed to poisons like mustard gas, a chemical weapon used in World War I, he said. » | Denise Grady | Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Saturday, September 15, 2018

Is the FDA Crackdown on Vaping Politically Timed?


Is the crackdown by the FDA on the use of e-cigarettes to combat a public health crisis, a political maneuver, or both? CNN's Michael Smerconish reports.

Friday, March 31, 2017

Will Self and Gregor Hens on Nicotine, Smoking, Vaping and More


Gregor Hens discusses his book, Nicotine, and the joys and perils of smoking, with Will Self. Filmed at the London Review Bookshop on 10 November 2015.


Gregor Hens’ book: Nicotine »

Auf deutsch: Nikotin »

Book Review – NYT: ‘Nicotine,’ the Stuff of Burning Desire »