A couple of unrelated things. It seems the BMA has come out strongly against e-cigarettes:
Certainly e-cigarettes are totally harmless to anyone in the vicinity of a user, and nobody has argued otherwise. They are also much, much less harmful to the user — everyone is agreed on that — than actual, proper smoking, and may be of no harm at all. But the co-chair of the BMA’s Public Health Medicine Committee, Richard Jarvis — certainly not one of the aforesaid ‘moderate elements’ within this organisation — has said that e-cigarettes ‘directly undermine the effects and intentions of existing legislation’ which bans smoking in public places. He did not explain how, possibly because his statement is a palpable idiocy. The intention behind banning smoking in public places was to remove the risk to the so-called passive smokers, which was also the effect, as he put it. E-cigarettes are of no risk to people other than the users, and probably not to the users either. The BMA, though, is worried that electronic fags will act as a ‘gateway’ to smoking for people who hitherto had not smoked — but as usual they have refused to allow the facts to get in the way of their reflexive fascism.
As ever, it goes to show that it’s got nothing to do with health. E-cigarettes look like cigarettes, so people who use them look like they’re smoking, and that’s sufficient for the BMA to oppose them.
I wonder what they’d say if it there were little white biros available, with a red plastic plug at one end, which people might hold between fingers, and occasionally thoughtfully suck or chew on? No nicotine, no smoke, not even steam. But if they looked like cigarettes….?
The other thing was a story that’s a couple of months old.
The British prime minister’s internet filters will be about more than just hardcore pornography, according to information obtained by the Open Rights Group.
The organisation, which campaigns for digital freedoms, has spoken to some of the Internet Service Providers that will be constructing Cameron’s content filters. They discovered that a host of other categories of supposedly-objectionable material may be on the block-list.
As well as pornography, users may automatically be opted in to blocks on “violent material”, “extremist related content”, “anorexia and eating disorder websites” and “suicide related websites”, “alcohol” and “smoking”. But the list doesn’t stop there. It even extends to blocking “web forums” and “esoteric material”, whatever that is. “Web blocking circumvention tools” is also included, of course.
As far as I can make out, the filters (implemented by ISPs) will be ‘on’ by default, but you will be able to turn them ‘off’ if you want to. But of course, most people won’t turn them off. Most people won’t even know that they can turn them off.
But if smoking-related sites (like mine) will be filtered out, will that mean that ASH and all the NHS Quit Smoking websites will be filtered out too? I hope so. But I bet they won’t be.
Frank Davis 
They want nothing more than complete control of all media sources!
There was a story in the NY Times just about ten years ago, Dec. 2003, about the manager of the New York Mets baseball team, Casey Stengel when he was on a train about 90 years (?) ago:
===
He was on a train one day. Clenched in his teeth was a pipe — unlighted. The conductor came along and told him that smoking was not permitted. Stengel protested that he wasn’t smoking.
”You’ve got a pipe in your mouth,” the conductor said.
Stengel replied, ”I’ve got shoes on my feet, but I’m not walking.”
===
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/02/nyregion/nyc-no-smoking-and-don-t-try-putting-it-out.html
– MJM, and harley is 100% correct: they DO want complete control in this area, and that sort of control is quite “convenient” for other powers that be as well. And in the holy name of supposedly “protecting the children” from even the merest hint of a wisp of anything negative, people will be all too willing to sacrifice every human freedom imaginable — and leave those children a slave world to live in.
For this very reason, I’ve thought right since the start of e-cigs that it was a mistake to make them look like cigarettes. I know there are some that don’t (I think you can get one that looks like a pen though I’ve never managed to) but the ones that are most accessible are these realistic ‘looks just like a real fag and has great vapour’ types. Big mistake – and they shouldn’t be called e-cigs, either.
Now, though, I think that whatever they looked like or were called, a reason would have been found to ban them.
I did see one (from China) that was blue plastic and resembled an asthma pump. I wonder what would happen if a person using one was told to stop or leave the premises ? I can imagine asthmatics dropping down dead on the spot due to their inhaler looking like an e-cig and not able to use it.
it was a mistake to make them look like cigarettes.
On the contrary, I thought that was the really brilliant thing about them. They have forced the antis to come clean about what they’re really trying to do.
That is true – but we knew what they really up to anyway.
Margo, I’d disagree. The closer they look/act/feel like a cigarette, the more likely it will be that people will use them, and theoretically be healthier for using them, rather than smoke. In practice, I’d like to see them emulate cigarettes even more closely — much lower unit prices and with a unitary use sort of thing (I.E. you’d sit down, enjoy an e-cig for ten minutes or so, and then it would be “used up.” I’m saying this because in experimenting with them myself I’ve found the lack of such “measurement” to be disturbing. Cigarettes have a fairly good self-limiting mechanism built into them, both for new users and even for chain smokers, that the e-cigs don’t have.)
Plus, it is SOOOOO delightful to see the nasty, crazy, uncaring Antis stood on their ears and spun around, isn’t it? Imagine if e-cigs resulted in all their ill-gotten funding and gains being pulled away from them. Anyone want to guess how many of them would stick around out of their supposed “idealism”? Very few.
– MJM
I’ve thought right since the start of e-cigs that it was a mistake to make them look like cigarettes.
Quite on the contrary and only a few do look like cigarettes! A lot of them look rather outlandish; a bit like the NRT ones designed by the pharmaceutical industry. The manufacturers of the latter will be in for a surprise should the anti-smokers push the law through that e-cigs can only be obtained in pharmacies on prescription.
Well, both the ones I’ve got (cheap, from supermarkets) look enough like a cigarette for me to get told off on a train and have to enter into a conversation about it. All I want is a satisfying nicotine-delivery-system/oral fix that isn’t going to start a hue and cry. If e-cigs had managed this, the antis wouldn’t be able to claim that they ‘look like cigarettes and so set a bad example’, which is what they’re doing.
If e-cigs had managed this, the antis wouldn’t be able to claim that they ‘look like cigarettes and so set a bad example’, which is what they’re doing.
I believe the e-cigs that do look like cigarettes annoy the antis a great deal as their partner, the pharmaceutical industry, has been pretty successless with their NRT products.
A great number of e-cig manufacturers sell their product along the anti-smoker lines without realizing that this is the worst thing they can do. E-gigs are just an alternative to smoking tobacco. And with that the pharmaceutical industry, as well as the antis!, cannot take this product over. However, by their efforts to ban e-cigs with the most outlandish claims about fictional danger, they take a hammer to their own knees.
‘Richard Jarvis has said that e-cigarettes ‘directly undermine the effects and intentions of existing legislation’ which bans smoking in public places’.
The intention was made perfectly clear to MPs when this was debated in parliament. To reduce exposure and danger of ETS in the workplace. They also emphasised that it was not to demonise smokers. But it now seems that vapers have been categorised as smokers. Vaping world should now make it perfectly clear that it opposes the ban on the basis that it is fraudulent, rather than exploiting it.
The good thing is that TC has really got its knickers in a twist, which won’t go unnoticed by the public.
Off topic, but nice to see a smoking role model for the kids ;-)!!
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bradley-wiggins-smokes-a-cigarette-and-drinks-1261523
That’s one tobacco control does not like…. :)
Remember the Nazis getting all upset over a few smoking spots for athletes for the games!
I think it was dealing with Scotland.
Something else (off topic)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/going-out/music/leonard-cohen-vows-start-smoking-2263474?tabPane=Comments
Leonard Cohen plans to start smoking again at the age of 80 ON STAGE.
After big pharma spent many millions for smoking ban lobbyists to get people to flock to Chantix, e-cigs came along. They defeat the entire purpose of smoking bans, the bottom line of Pfizer.
Biomarker identified for smoker’s lung cancer
Main Category: Lung Cancer
Also Included In: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Article Date: 23 Sep 2013 – 1:00 PDT
Mayo Clinic researchers have shown that a specific protein pair may be a successful prognostic biomarker for identifying smoking-related lung cancers. The protein – ASCL1 – is associated with increased expression of the RET oncogene, a particular cancer-causing gene called RET. The findings appear in the online issue of the journal Oncogene.
“This is exciting because we’ve found what we believe to be a ‘drugable target’ here,” says George Vasmatzis, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic molecular medicine researcher and senior author on the study. “It’s a clear biomarker for aggressive adenocarcinomas. These are the fast-growing cancer cells found in smokers’ lungs.”
ASCL1 is known to control neuroendocrine cell development and was previously linked to regulation of thyroid and small cell lung cancer development, but not smoking-related lung cancer. The research also showed that patients with ASCL1 tumors with high levels of the RET oncogene protein did not survive as long as ASCL1 patients with low levels of RET.
When researchers blocked the ASCL1 protein in lung cancer cell lines expressing both genes, the level of RET decreased and tumor growth slowed. This leads researchers to believe this mechanism will be a promising target for potential drugs and a strong candidate for clinical trials.
The co-authors of the study include Farhad Kosari, Ph.D.; Cristiane Ida, M.D.; Marie Christine Aubry, M.D.; Lin Yang, Ph.D.; Irina Kovtun, Ph.D.; Janet Schaefer Klein; Yan Li, M.D.; Sibel Erdogan; Sandra Tomaszek, M.D.; Stephen Murphy, Ph.D.; Lynn Bolette; Christopher Kolbert; Ping Yang, M.D., Ph.D.; and Dennis Wigle, M.D., Ph.D., all of Mayo Clinic.
The research was supported by a Waterman Biomarker Discovery grant and by the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/266408.php
Sound smore like they might have a marker for any cancer……………non-specific!
Its already a bio-marker for a lot of cancers in tumor formation
ASCL1
Achaete-scute homolog 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ASCL1 gene.[1][2] Because it was discovered subsequent to studies on its homolog in Drosophila, the Achaete-scute complex, it was originally named MASH-1 for mammalian achaete scute homolog-1.[3]
This gene encodes a member of the basic helix-loop-helix (BHLH) family of transcription factors. The protein activates transcription by binding to the E box (5′-CANNTG-3′). Dimerization with other BHLH proteins is required for efficient DNA binding. This protein plays a role in the neuronal commitment and differentiation and in the generation of olfactory and autonomic neurons. It is highly expressed in medullary thyroid cancer and small cell lung cancer and may be a useful marker for these cancers. The presence of a CAG repeat in the gene suggests that it may also play a role in tumor formation.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCL1
Just when it seems TC cant get even more INSANE along comes this;
Smoking during pregnancy can lead to asthma in grand kids
Researchers have discovered that smoking can have a lasting legacy, and one well-established risk factor for asthma is having a mother who smoked during her pregnancy.
When animal mothers are exposed to nicotine during pregnancy-a proxy for smoking-their grandchildren were also at an increased risk of asthma, even though they were never exposed to nicotine themselves.
Wondering if this dangerous heritage might extend even farther down the family line, Virender K. Rehan and his colleagues at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) exposed pregnant rats to nicotine.
They then tested an additional generation-the mothers’ great-grand-rats-for signs of asthma.
Their results suggest that this group of rats is also at an increased risk of this condition, bearing the brunt of nicotine exposure three generations in the past.
The study is published in the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, published by the American Physiological Society.
http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/smoking-during-pregnancy-can-lead-to-asthma-in-grand-kids-113092200058_1.html
Pigs can now fly!
In 2008 this paper was produced in America and concludes that nictotine and hence active smoking and passive smoking leads to less asthma. It also gives the aetiology (causation) why nicotine and the biologial process that reduces asthma in recipients.
The results unequivocally show that, even after multiple allergen sensitizations, nicotine dramatically suppresses inflammatory/allergic parameters in the lung including the following: eosinophilic/lymphocytic emigration; mRNA and/or protein expression of the Th2 cytokines/chemokines IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IL-25, and eotaxin; leukotriene C4; and total as well as allergen-specific IgE. unequivocally show that, even after multiple allergen sensitizations, nicotine dramatically suppresses inflammatory/allergic parameters in the lung including the following: eosinophilic/lymphocytic emigration; mRNA and/or protein expression of the Th2 cytokines/chemokines IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IL-25, and eotaxin; leukotriene C4; and total as well as allergen-specific IgE. ”
http://www.jimmunol.org/cgi/content/a…
It wouldn’t, of course, be anything to do with the fact that kids nowadays aren’t exposed to the protective effects of ambient tobacco smoke, would it now?
Ye Gods, they really are grasping at straws now. What would that be classified as – 10th-hand smoke?
There go the Black Helicopters circling overhead again! I gather its more of those Fort Campbell 101st division training ops. But one never ever knows since the NSA is covertly spying on all of us anymore……………….
I read somewhere that it isn’t the liquid that the Zealots are bothered about – it is the machine itself. When they say “We don’t know what’s in them”, they are not talking about the constituents of the liquid as regards nicotine but rather what other substances could ecig machines be used for. Cannabis? Heroin? Therefore the Zealots will use any excuse that they can find, no matter how ridiculous, to get the machines sidelined and rendered useless as a cigarette substitute.
Well, in fact e-cigs could be used to inhale all sorts of things. The active ingredient of cannabis, THC, comes in liquid form, and I don’t see why you couldn’t fill up the little e-cig nicotine liquid container with liquid THC or anything else.
Which makes the e-cig even more wonderfully subversive.
@Frank Davis. Not really, the liquid thc is an oil and not vapeable by an ordinary ecig. They dont get hot enough. Anyhow why bother ruining your ecig when a weed vaporizer is already available. I could see the so called legal high people getting into vapeable liquids though. Easy solution, enforce the law as it stands.
I could see the so called legal high people getting into vapeable liquids though.
Of course some people will try all sorts. But then, what has this all to do with TOBACCO? Fact is, “vaping” is a new concept and an alternative to smoking cigarettes. It is NOT a smoking cessation aid and with that it has nothing lost in pharmacies, available on prescription only. And as “vaping” does not involve the burning of tobacco plant material, tobacco control is hardly in the position to DEMAND action.
Easy solution, enforce the law as it stands.
An even easier solution: SCRAP the law as it stands. The taxpayer is pushed to the limits.
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@michaelmcfadden “In practice, I’d like to see them emulate cigarettes even more closely — much lower unit prices and with a unitary use sort of thing (I.E. you’d sit down, enjoy an e-cig for ten minutes or so, and then it would be “used up.” I’m saying this because in experimenting with them myself I’ve found the lack of such “measurement” to be disturbing. Cigarettes have a fairly good self-limiting mechanism built into them, both for new users and even for chain smokers, that the e-cigs don’t have.)”
Although I neither vape or smoke I have found with friends/family that started on e-cigs that initially they found it disconcerting that they do not come to an end as in a cigarette, after a bit they got used to it and after that even cut down, instead of ‘smoking’ to the end of a cigarette, they would take a couple of puffs here and there. My son even stopped entirely. Others still prefer cigarettes and use the devices when they are not able to have a real cigarette.
This dude smoked one too numerous e-cigs thanks tho man I’m gonna get my mom off the death sticks.