I think that if people started inhaling air through little white tubes, these bastards would want to ban it.
They’d say that it ‘hadn’t been rigorously tested’, and that there were ‘4,000 chemicals’ in ordinary air, of which 60 or 70 were carcinogenic. And anyway, it looked like smoking. And chiiiiiiildren might see.
So naturally the WHO wants to ban e-cigarettes:
E-cigarettes should be banned indoors over fears that they can be as toxic to bystanders as normal cigarettes, the World Health Organisation has said.
Despite releasing vapour instead of smoke, the devices still pollute the air with harmful chemicals, health experts warned.
Many smokers use e-cigarettes as a way to quit, as they deliver the nicotine hit but without the carcinogens associated with breathing in smoke. There are no laws currently banning their use inside.
But yesterday a report by the WHO questioned the safety of e-cigarettes, officially known as electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS).
“The fact that ENDS exhaled aerosol contains on average lower levels of toxicants than the emissions from combusted tobacco does not mean that these levels are acceptable to involuntarily exposed bystanders,” said the report.
It’s the same with my exhaled air. That’s full of carbon dioxide and about 3,999 other ‘chemicals’. And you do know that all ‘chemicals’ are bad for you, don’t you? Carbon’s lethal. And dioxide’s even worse.
And there’s also bacteria and viruses and more little creepie-crawlies than you can get on the end of a dead heroin addict’s used syringe.
And bits of cheese from the cheese sandwich I ate an hour ago.
And there’s probably about 4,000 chemicals in regular cheese. And even more in gorgonzola, most likely. The only thing that’s almost certainly pure cheese is Kraft Dairylea triangles. And they totally suck. And get all over your fingers when you open them.
But hey lookee:
Ministers will not ban e-cigarettes indoors in England, despite the World Health Organisation urging governments to do so to combat the threat posed by the growing popularity of vaping.
The Department of Health (DH) made clear that it does not plan to outlaw the use of the increasingly popular gadgets in enclosed public spaces in England, although Wales’s Labour government is considering doing so.
The DH ruled out making e-cigarettes subject to the same “smoke-free” controls that have applied to normal cigarettes since 2007. Smoking is currently banned in pubs, restaurants and workplaces across the UK.
The department did so despite the United Nations’ health agency recommending such prohibition as part of tougher regulation of products it said were dangerous to children.
I wonder how long this bravado will last? I give it 6 months before they knuckle under and ban e-cigs like the WHO says they should. They know who gives the orders, after all. So they’ll make a show of resistance for a while, and then they’ll quietly cave in. They always do.
Bastards.
Frank Davis 
Its coming to a head………….something is going to blow very soon.
EPA & FDA: Vapor Harmless to Children
April 3, 2014 matt black
In the continued war on e-cigarettes, we hear about the “potential dangers” of e-cigarette vapor and the “unknown public health risks.”
First, I find it absolutely absurd that we’re attempting to pass laws based on unknowns, but what makes it even more absurd is the fact that there’s very little that isn’t known about e-cigarette vapor at this point. The primary ingredient of concern to those who wish to see e-cigarettes banned is the propylene glycol vapor, which has been studied for over 70 years.
I recently came across a document titled, “Reregistration Eligibility Decision For Propylene Glycol and Dipropylene Glycol“, which was created by the United State Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Catchy title. I was intrigued.
This quote caught my eye:
Propylene glycol and dipropylene glycol were first registered in 1950 and 1959, respectively, by the FDA for use in hospitals as air disinfectants. (page 4, paragraph 1).
In a previous post, I had shared the summary of research that had been done in 1942 by Dr. Robertson regarding the antibacterial properties of vaporized propylene glycol, but I had never heard that the FDA wound up approving it for the purpose of an air disinfectant in hospitals.
Indoor Non-Food: Propylene glycol is used on the following use sites: air treatment (eating establishments, hospital, commercial, institutional, household, bathroom, transportational facilities); medical premises and equipment, commercial, institutional and industrial premises and equipment; (page 6, paragraph 2)
Continued…
Method and Rates of Application
….
Air Sanitizer
Read the directions included with the automatic dispenser for proper installation of unit and refill. Remove cap from aerosol can and place in a sequential aerosol dispenser which automatically releases a metered amount every 15 minutes. One unit should treat 6000 ft of closed air space… For regular, non-metered applications, spray room until a light fog forms. To sanitize the air, spray 6 to 8 seconds in an average size room (10’x10′). (page 6, paragraph 6)
A common argument used to support the public usage ban is that, “Minnesotans have become accustomed to the standard of clean indoor air.” However, according to the EPA and FDA, so long as there’s a “light fog” of propylene glycol vapor in the air, the air is actually more clean than the standard that Minnesotans have become accustomed to.
General Toxicity Observations
Upon reviewing the available toxicity information, the Agency has concluded that there are no endpoints of concern for oral, dermal, or inhalation exposure to propylene glycol and dipropylene glycol. This conclusion is based on the results of toxicity testing of propylene glycol and dipropylene glycol in which dose levels near or above testing limits (as established in the OPPTS 870 series harmonized test guidelines) were employed in experimental animal studies and no significant toxicity observed.
Carcinogenicity Classification
A review of the available data has shown propylene glycol and dipropylene glycol to be negative for carcinogenicity in studies conducted up to the testing limit doses established by the Agency; therefore, no further carcinogenic analysis is required. (page 10, paragraphs 1 & 2)
Ready for the bombshell? I probably should have put this at the top, as it could have made this post a lot shorter, but I figured the information above was important, too…
2. FQPA Safety Factor
The FQPA Safety Factor (as required by the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996) is intended to provide an additional 10-fold safety factor (10X), to protect for special sensitivity in infants and children to specific pesticide residues in food, drinking water, or residential exposures, or to compensate for an incomplete database. The FQPA Safety Factor has been removed (i.e., reduced to 1X) for propylene glycol and dipropylene glycol because there is no pre- or post-natal evidence for increased susceptibility following exposure. Further, the Agency has concluded that there are no endpoints of concern for oral, dermal, or inhalation exposure to propylene glycol and dipropylene glycol based on the low toxicity observed in studies conducted near or above testing limit doses as established in the OPPTS 870 series harmonized test guidelines. Therefore, quantitative risk assessment was not conducted for propylene glycol and dipropylene glycol.
In a paper published in the American Journal of Public Health by Dr. Robertson in April of 1946, Robertson cites a study published in the Edinburgh Medical Journal, which was conducted in 1944:
The report of the 3 years’ study of the clinical application of the disinfection of air by glycol vapors in a children’s convalescent home showed a marked reduction in the number of acute respiratory infections occurring in the wards treated with both propylene and triethylene glycols. Whereas in the control wards, 132 infections occured during the course of three winters, there were only 13 such instances in the glycol wards during the same period. The fact that children were, for the most part, chronically confined to bed presented an unusually favorable condition for the prophylactic action of the glycol vapor.
An investigation of the effect of triethylene glycol vapor on the respiratory disease incidence in military barracks brought out the fact that, while for the first 3 weeks after new personnel entered the glycolized area the disease rate remained the same as in the control barracks, the second 3 week period showed a 65 percent reduction in acute respiratory infections in the glycol treated barracks. Similar effects were observed in respect to airborne hemolytic streptococci and throat carriers of this microorganism.
I don’t expect the prohibitionist lawmakers to delve this deeply into this subject on their own, but I certainly hope that when presented with this data that they reevaluate their stance on the subject and consider what science has to say. If they don’t, they’re simply basing their judgement off of rhetoric, misinformation, and personal bias and we all know where that gets us.
http://mnvapers.com/2014/04/epa-fda-vapor-harmless-children/
One things for sure they wont ban it based upon factual evidence!
No they’ll ban motivated by greed at the expense of human suffering.
I wonder when the day will come that public bathrooms are a thing of the past. Think of all of the harmful things that assault your senses, enter your lungs and body, involuntarily, when entering one; people defecating and a hint of ammoniating urine and all. That can’t be good to be breathing… Maybe we will all be ordered to wear catheters and be outfitted with colostomy bags to prevent anything injurious to others, and then be taxed heavily to dispose of them in a manner in which nothing can escape.
There is some fascinating mechanism that’s taken over the reigns of the world. It’s taken about 45 years to go from humans proudly putting footprints on the moon to the requirement that one leaves not even a ‘carbon footprint’ at all, no trace of your being anywhere on this planet…
“They’d say… there were ‘4,000 chemicals’ in ordinary air, of which 60 or 70 were carcinogenic”
Which is actually quite indisputably true (although there’d be a lot more than just 4,000!). It’s all a matter of concentration, and, as we all know, the concentrations of them in air or in ordinary levels of secondary smoke are harmless in the usual sense of the word.
– MJM
Somewhere in Frank’s archives here–I saved it on my computer but I’m again on the iPad– he blogged about or linked to a piece about the chemical content of nonsmokers’ exhalations. Scary stuff! Ought to be enough for the govt to ban any congregation between any two people. Ever. Either indoors or out. Short of that, we might all be commanded to wear surgical face masks or burkas once we leave the confinement of our monk cells. What I want to know is, how did we become so f’ing fearful? When? Why?
LOL! Walt, GMTA as they say…. at about the same time you were writing your post here, I was writing one over on Quora in response to an Anti who’d cited some ridiculous fact sheet stuff from the Antis. Here’s what I’d written:’
==
I could try to scare people about being in the same room with a priest by saying that his exhalations contain carcinogenic acetaldehyde and formaldehyde, as well as countless bacteria and possibly deadly viruses, not to mention the fact that his presence is using up the oxygen in the room that you need to live!
Actually, that would also be true for a rabbi, or, for that matter, any other human being. So…. would it be right for me to scare people about being around other people on that basis? That’s the kind of thinking Antismokers use on a daily basis in putting together “fact sheets” like the one you cite there.
==
:)
MJM
I use that quite often anymore………………..humans and their exhaled breaths banning them should be tantamount to any smoking regulation just to be fair with everyone.
“Human Exhaled Air Analytics…” Buszewski et al, Biomed. Chromatogr. 21: 553–566 (2007) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmc.835/pdf
Perhaps you would rather just outlaw yourselves and all the other human carcinogen machines from even existing! Or the New Building VOC’s that release constantly in new buildings that also can create a cancer risk. He should also want to ban Cooking,Campfires, Industrial output, Barbecuing,Breathing,having indoor plants that release constant Isoprene! You see no matter the contempt and daily scares these folks toss out you will never escape natural elements and chemicals such as whats in tobacco smoke or the normal everyday air we all breathe and exhale. We are all sources of the same thing these prohibitionists are trying to outlaw and criminalize!
NIH report on carcinogens
If you want to learn about which chemicals cause cancer, or just want to feel more paranoid about getting cancer, check out the 2012 NIH report on carcinogens.
One of the more exciting findings is that human beings themselves are possible carcinogens, by virtue of their natural emissions of isoprene:
Isoprene is formed endogenously in humans at a rate of 0.15 µmol/kg
of body weight per hour, equivalent to approximately 2 to 4 mg/kg per
day (Taalman 1996), and is the major hydrocarbon in human breath
(accounting for up to 70% of exhaled hydrocarbons)
Don’t breathe on me!
Human Exhaled Air Analytics…” Buszewski et al, Biomed. Chromatogr. 21: 553–566 (2007) http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bmc.835/pdf
Im an utter evil bastard just how many non-smokers in a room would be equal to the same number of cigs in releases of chemcials per sey………… co2 Isoprene,etc etc
Im no mathematical whizz but it has to be a number.
So that when they claim all the non-smokers that will come into your business now equals about 400 more cigarette smokers or whatever it works out to be.
Aah, that explains an absurd TV ad for a breath freshener in which the strapline is “Safer breath for 12 hours” implying that bad breath is dangerous rather than merely unpleasant. The brand name is some nonsensical pharma-sounding one to lend gravitas. If I weren’t so pissed off I’d find it funny.
I used to love sweet cigarettes – no smoke, vapour or nicotine, just sweetie ingredients like sugar, flavouring and the red colouring at the tip. They are now sold as “candy sticks” without the red tip because they ‘encouraged smoking’. I was really anti-smoking as a boy, so they were never a gateway sweet to me.
Just read a piece in the Scotsman from 2002 about a child near Edinburgh who brought home a packet of chocolate cigarettes wrapped up to look like ‘the real thing’.
Anti-smoking group ASH said it was time the sweets, which are no longer stocked by most stores, were outlawed.
Maybe the writing was on the wall back then. They weren’t going to stop at banning sweets! Shows the immense power these unelected, fraudulent, fake charities wield.
I also used to love Spanish Gold sweet tobacco, but I must’ve been about thirty before I made my first roll-up (due to being on the dole) and many years later when I bought my first pipe, so it wasn’t the sweet tobacco’s influence.
Remember liquorice pipes? How many children have you ever seen smoking a pipe?
I was amazed to see that you can still buy sweet tobacco from ‘retro’ online shops. D. Arnott obviously doesn’t know. You could get into the papers by being “outraged” and “demanding” it is banned and she’ll be straight onto it.
“I wonder how long this bravado will last? I give it 6 months before they knuckle under and ban e-cigs like the WHO says they should.”
The ConDems have about eight months left to wreak their destruction, so I also say he’ll do it before we see the back of this treacherous regime (to make way for the next one).
P.S. I remember when my grandma bought me a “smoking monkey” from the local newsagent’s when I was a young boy. It was a very small plastic primate with a packet of ‘cigarettes’. You placed one in the hole in his mouth and lit it and it burned away like ‘the real thing’.
Unfortunately, he didn’t inhale and exhale, but he was fun nevertheless. Until he ran out of smokes.
I can recall all of those sweets Stewart.
Not a sweet, but did you ever try those chalk filled trick cigs with the crumpled red foil tips (bought from a little joke shop that was full of treasures)? Blow instead of suck! Stood at the bus stop* in my school uniform, inc cap and shorts, happily blowing white chalk on myself and others nearby (a few hand flappers!). Made me feel like a real man.
A group of us smoked a pack of ten Woodbines when I was about 11 or 12. I say a pack, I think I almost fainted after the first drag! Didn’t touch a real one until I was 18.
*I’d have been 7 or 8. 12 mile return journey on public transport for 4 years. I suppose that’d be classed as child abuse nowadays….
Yes indeed. I bought one of those joke cigarettes on one of our many childhood holidays in Blackpool aged perhaps 8 or 9 and received some interesting looks, of course. Also bought a trick poo (which boy hasn’t?) and some trick soot. It was tiny squares of black rubber you sprinkled over an article of clothing to pretend you’d got soot over it and annoy your parents. It did have the desired effect.
Unfortunately, there was a fatal unintended consequence. Our hamster seemed to have swallowed one and died trying to pass it. Not the best result from a practical joke.
Didn’t try smoking until I was 15. I pinched my dad’s butts to start with, which were sometimes quite generous. The first brand I remember buying was Kensitas, but soon diversified.
*I’d have been 7 or 8. 12 mile return journey on public transport for 4 years. I suppose that’d be classed as child abuse nowadays….
I was reading just a couple of days ago about someone being prosecuted (in the states) for letting their seven year old walk to the park:
Florida mom Nicole Gainey let her 7 year old walk to the park, and on the way, some adults feared for his safety and called the cops. The cops swooped in, scooped up the boy and drove him home. Then they arrested the mom, because there are “sex offenders” all over the place, so apparently the mom deliberately placed her child in danger.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/07/29/no-child-left-outside-another-mom-arrest
Fox Boston called in Dr. Karen Ruskin to educate the entire Northeast on how to parent.
We want to live in a safe world, says Ruskin in this interview, “But we don’t.” Kids 7,8,9 and 10 should not walk to school or even venture outside without you, she says. Perhaps by age 11 you can let your child out in “short spurts,” but really, folks, “It is your job to be the parent,” and if you trust your kids to walk the dog or bike to a friend’s, you are guilty of “parentifying” your child — turning the child into an adult.
WTF? Like you, Prog, at the age of eight I would walk a mile to the station, get the train (which I would sometimes have to get off and change to another train halfway, it was random) for a half-hour journey, then get two buses and finally walk the last half mile to school. Nobody thought there was anything particularly out of the ordinary that I was doing that journey on my own. Lots of kids my age had a similar trek to school.
But it’s the same with everything. Things which were considered normal several decades ago (like smoking when pregnant or around your kids) and never did anyone any harm is now regarded as verging on certain death, and woe betide those who ignore the advice of the ‘experts’ who would run our lives.
“…they were never a gateway sweet to me” LOL, Stewart, what a wonderful concept (Please tell me you didn’t write that with a straight face!). Next time I feel like some fun on a comment board I shall be ‘Outraged from Smokefree-on-the-Marsh’ and rail against sweetie tobacco as a gateway to a lifetime of marijuana addiction and cylindrical lollipops as a gateway to a lifetime of oral gratification fetish!!
I remember many years ago the world health organisation stated that millions of people would die from bird flu swine flu and cjd.no more people died in those years than died in the previous years.the result was that big pharma sold tons of vaccine to the NHs.they are still left with vast amounts of this vaccine.are we the only country who signed a treaty with the world health organisation?
Pretty much everybody has signed this fucking thing.
But a few countries (like the USA) signed it but never ratified it.
Frank the WHO and the WORLD BANK are tied at the hip so to speak. Your country wants any bucks you have to play the game and sign on the dotted line.
The World Bank and Tobacco Control: The Facts
August 20, 2013
Tobacco use is the world’s leading underlying cause of preventable death.
•In the last decade, global deaths from tobacco have increased from 2.1 million to 6 million.
•Every year 600,000 non-tobacco users, mostly women and children, die from exposure to tobacco smoke.
•Worldwide, 200 million adult women smoke cigarettes. In 25 countries, girls smoke more than boys.
•Smoking is responsible for about 20% of global tuberculosis (TB) incidence, and reduces the effectiveness of TB treatment.
•Between 2000 and 2008, total costs attributable to tobacco in China more than quadrupled, from US$7.2 billion to US$28.9 billion.
•In Bangladesh, direct costs of smoking are estimated at US$386 million, or more than 1% of GDP.
•Between 2003-2008, 11.3% of Egypt’s total health expenditure was used to treat tobacco-related illness.
•In all World Health Organization (WHO) regions except in Europe, cigarettes became much more affordable between 2000 and 2010.
The World Bank has been a global leader on tobacco control.
•Since 1991 the World Bank’s policy has been not to lend, invest in, or guarantee investments or loans for tobacco production, processing, or marketing.
•A 1999 Bank report, Curbing the Epidemic: Governments and the Economics of Tobacco Control, contributed to adoption of the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control.
•The Bank’s Economics of Tobacco Toolkit helps researchers analyze the economics of tobacco policies in their respective countries.
•In Russia, the Bank engaged the government in policy dialogue on tobacco control through a report — Dying Too Young in the Russian Federation — which contributed to increases in tobacco and alcohol taxes.
•The Bank’s strategy for health, nutrition and population identifies tobacco control as one of the key interventions for health outcomes and tobacco tax increases as a cost-effective measure for tobacco control.
•The Bank is an active observer of WHO’s Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC) (pdf).
The Bank is actively supporting countries to halt and reverse tobacco use.
•In partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, WHO and Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Health, Nutrition and Population Unit of the Human Development Network has launched an initiative to support country tobacco control efforts, with a focus on increasing taxes.
•During 2012 and 2013, the Bank successfully provided technical assistance on tobacco taxation to The Philippines (pdf) and The Gambia, resulting in tobacco tax reforms in both countries.
•In 2013 the Bank launched the technical dialogue and a study in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
•The Bank partners with WHO FCTC’s (pdf) Secretariat missions to assess implementation progress and issues related to Articles 6 (taxation), 15 (illicit trade), recent missions included: Burundi, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
•The Bank collaborates with multiple in country and global partners, including academia and civil society to ensure coordination at country level on tobacco control and tobacco tax policies.
http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/health/brief/world-bank-and-tobacco-control-the-facts
Economic Blackmale is a tried and true profession………………..
Lets not forget the IMF and La garge she was Obamas hand picked IMF head about 3 years ago………………follow the money to the RWJF Ceo and J and J then the shoe fits perfectly!
The top of the list is AFGHANISTAN who signed this idiotic ‘treaty’ on 29/06/2004.
Clearly the WHO had no issues with the taliban. That explains a lot.
I have to correct myself; the taliban had been pushed out of the government in 2004. Nevertheless, little had changed with respect to basic human rights (especially women’s ‘rights’) in Afghanistan.
And don’t forget Frank, that reeeely dangerous chemical, DiHydrogen Monoxide!
LOL…………………….
This is complete madness. I recently watched again this documentary filmed in 1985. People smoking at their work desks (14:26 just an example, there are many more), all looked so normal. Fast forward 30 years, and they want to ban vapor. !! Unbelievable. What is this world coming to ?
Ups, I forgot to put the link
That’s tomorros world here today in Kentucky…………
This is all pretty predictable stuff, though, isn’t it? How many smokers, watching the revving-up of the anti e-cig movement in the UK (and no doubt elsewhere, too), could have doubted that this “recommendation” would come sooner or later?
I doubt if many vapers ever believed it would happen – unlike smokers, they still seem to believe that the objections to e-cigarettes are all about health and that therefore the lack of proof of any harm from e-cigarette vapour would be a sufficient argument against the same kind of persecution as real cigarette smokers suffer. I guess that it’s just one of those things that you have to have already been on the receiving end of the treatment meted out by these zealots to understand their true motivations and recognise that the whole health argument is just a red herring designed to distract opposition – as it is successfully doing in this case.
What a shame vapers didn’t listen to us from the outset and join forces with us against the whole anti-tobacco movement. Even if we hadn’t been successful in achieving a relaxation of the smoking ban, with our real, hands-on experience of Tobacco Control, and their hitherto “protected” status as obedient “non-smokers” we might just have been able to at least delay announcements such as this latest one. But no – just like Scott of the Antarctic refusing to take dogs on his expedition like all the experienced Nordic explorers always did, and insisting on doing things “his way” by taking horses – they preferred to go it alone. And, their attempts, without the guidance of we, the experienced “travellers,” are likely to end the same way as Scott’s trip did.
Don’t say you weren’t warned, vapers!
Yes, absolutely right, Jax. The twittersphere has been full of outraged disbelief at this (utterly predictable) latest pronouncement by the WHO. But then, as you point out, the vapers naively thought that the anti-smoking campaign was about health, making them untouchable, which is why you see vapers so often parroting the TC soundbites with an air of superiority. They are only now starting to realise that the pogrom on smokers is an ideological agenda, and as long as vaping resembles smoking in any way, shape or form then they will be categorised as ‘Untermensch’, along with us real smokers. It’s irrelevant whether or not vaping is a ‘healthier’ alternative. They are still, in the eyes of TC and its acolytes, nicotine addicts, and will be treated with the same contempt as smokers. In fact, as I pointed out on another blog, in many ways they are attracting particular ire because they are seen as circumventing the punishments so carefully constructed by TC. How dare they get away with vaping in all the places that are now non-smoking! Not only does it look like smoking, but worse, they enjoy it! This must be stopped! Smokers must be made to suffer, to be exiled from polite society, to be stigmatised and treated like vermin. It cannot be permitted for smokers to adopt this new technology and thus sidestep what has been so painstakingly created to humiliate and denigrate them. They cannot be allowed to rejoin society until they have seen the error of their ways and totally renounced (and preferably denounced also) tobacco and smoking in all its manifestations.
And so the wheels are in motion. Vaping will be regulated out of existence, and the smoker-haters will sleep peacefully again, having headed off this threat to their hegemony.
well said. I noticed in the comments section of dailymail that people are in denial…they believe that the WHO report was paid by Big Tobacco :)))
Ha! Yes, of course! It’s the default position TC has fostered; that Big Tobacco is behind every bit of skulduggery to do with smoking, enabling TC to neuter anything that runs counter to TC ideology. (“It’s BT wot dun it!”) People have been so indoctrinated with this belief (that ‘Big Tobacco’ is the cause of all mankind’s woes) that BT have become the standard whipping boy. For everyone on all sides! So of course the WHO report was paid for by Big Tobacco! The fact that the FCTC specifically forbids any intercourse of any sort with BT is just one of those inconvenient factoids best ignored. Because after all, those paragons of probity in the WHO wouldn’t deliberately misinform on e-cigs. Would they?
Well that just goes to show they ain’t done their research. Each of the big 3 have their own e-fag brand – and they’re hugely profitable as well.
Imperial has Puritine and just got all testy about acquiring Blu in the USA, a brand they intend to make a world leader.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/15/us-lorillard-reynolds-amricn-ecigarettes-idUSKBN0FK22G20140715
Japan Tobacco has E-Lites
http://www.jti.com/media/news-releases/jt-acquires-leading-e-cigarette-brand-e-lites/
While BAT has Vype
bat(dot)com/brands
(last one messed around to avoid the 3 link rule)
I still prefer totally wicked e-liquid disposables.
The amount of time and effort being expended on e-cigs (to their demonization) is quite extraordinary. A flurry of “studies” and a magnifying glass on the few ingredients in e-cigs.
Consider the case of “fire safe” cigarettes (FSC). They’ve been made mandatory in a number of countries. The fire-safe “technology”, involving added glue rings to the paper, increased the chemical load of manufactured cigarettes. There were complaints of immediate symptoms from smoking these cigarettes, e.g., coughing fits, constant phlegm, wheezing, “lung burn”. Given the magnitude of scrutiny on e-gizmos concerning their safety, it could well be asked how much research went into the health effects of this fire-safe design. How much scrutiny did they attract? How much research did Tobacco Control nut cases demand before advocating this design be made mandatory? And how much research has been called for since they became mandatory?
Unlike the very considerable attention now given to e-cigs, there was NO – none, zero, zip, nada – research on the health effects of fire-safe cigarettes, before or after their introduction. It sounded like a great idea to the Tobacco Control folk. So they went right ahead and pushed for them to be made mandatory. Immediate detrimental health effects from these cigarettes? The Tobacco Control folk couldn’t care less….. as has been demonstrated.
Below I’ll post as much as I know of FSC as a reference point.
1.
The very serious issue of Reduced Ignition Propensity (RIP) or “fire safe” (FS) cigarettes.
RIP cigarettes have been mandated in a number of countries, e.g., Australia, parts of the USA, Canada, and soon in other countries, e.g., Europe. These cigarettes were pushed in the USA by the rabid antismoker dentist, Greg Connolly, and, in Australia, by the high-profile antismoker, Simon Chapman.
Initially, FSC were supposed to have burn accelerants removed. However, the eventual design has been to add bands of glue running the length of the cigarette paper. The burning of this glue introduces an additional chemical load to smoking. This design of cigarette was never health-tested on people, yet they were made mandatory. Many smokers have reported immediate symptoms from these cigarettes, e.g., constant phlegm production, a burning sensation in the lungs, wheezing, headaches.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-brooks/fire-safe-cigarette-laws_b_519867.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-brooks/fire-safe-cigarette-laws_b_519867.html
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/repeal-fire-safe-cigarette-laws/
http://www.brandcigs.com/carbon_1776/
http://www.gopetition.com.au/petitions/stop-act-697.html
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/685697
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/health/fire_safe_cigarettes.html
Chapman was the first to push for RIPs for Australia in 2004. At the time the talk was about removing burning (accelerants) agents. By 2006, this had changed to “speed humps” (glue) added onto the cigarette paper. He was still pushing RIPs.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/where-theres-smoke-no-fire/2006/08/22/1156012541790.html
He was then very much behind fast-tracking RIPs for Australia in 2009.
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1009297/Fire-safe-cigarettes-to-be-fast-tracked
RIPs were introduced into Australia (mandatory) in early-2010. RIPs were never tested on smokers. For many, RIPs produce immediate symptoms, e.g., constant phlegm production, cough, wheezing, a feeling of “bruised lungs”.
Notably, when smokers experiencing these symptoms switch to RYO cigarettes, the symptoms immediately disappear.
The antismokers that pushed for FSC are in denial.
The research that backs up claims of elevated toxins in the new Fire Safe Cigarettes points to a 2005 Harvard study led by a man with the last name of Connolly. Connolly said people who regularly smoke cigarettes have become very acutely set off or cued by sensory stimuli, and that, “any change can drive a smoker crazy.”
EVA is used to slow the absorbtion or delivery of a drug into the human body.
Connolly led the 2005 Harvard study that found higher levels of some toxins in fire-safe
cigarette smoke. He said these differences were insignificant.
“There’s actually more variation in toxin levels among the different cigarettes within a brand than between fire-safe and conventional cigarettes, he said.
“The cigarette is the most lethal, toxic product in the marketplace,” Connolly said. Fire-safe cigarettes, he said, are “no more or less lethal.”
http://www.examiner.com/x-4874-Indianapolis-Music-Examiner~y2009m11d23-Firesafe-cigarettes-cause-headache-fatigue-naseua-and-more-says-rock-band-Black-Shirley
Connolly has also made such statements:
To Professor Gregory Connolly of the Harvard School of Public Health, estimates that smoking may be banned in the United States by 2050 aren’t good enough.
“I want to see the last cigarette sold to a child by 2020,” Connolly said. “I want to accelerate that because I want to go to the party.”
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/05/the-battle-of-the-butts/ 5/
Connolly is a long-time, high-profile antismoking activist. And, given baseless claims about untested health aspects of RIPs, is a liar. He cannot claim that there are no health effects from the FS design because no health effects study has ever been conducted. Connolly couldn’t care less about smokers. It is his life’s mission to eradicate smoking.
2.
Wherever Tobacco Control is involved, facts undergo considerable torture, e.g., “light” cigarettes. In TC’s hands, everything somehow is turned into a conspiracy of the “evil” tobacco industry; only TC is forever “saintly”, having to fix the “mess” created by Big Tobacco.
This from a 1992 tobacco-industry document. The RIPs that have been imposed on populations around the world are the same design that was purely exploratory in 1992. It was indicated that these paper banded designs were associated with higher mainstream deliveries, e.g., carbon monoxide.
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Burn retardants have been used on cigarette paper to reduce ignition proclivity, i.e. self-extinguishing cigarettes. The use of burn retardants, in this fashion can result in excessive increases in mainstream deliveries and/or a decidedly poorer quality smoking experience. Numerous patents and references are available (2, 3, 8, 9), but at the present time, the commercial viability of truly self-extinguishing products is doubtful. Most research into the use of burn retardants has been conducted by paper manufacturers such as Ecusta, Kimberly-Clark and de Mauduit. Samples of the new developments in reduced ignition proclivity papers are periodically reviewed by cigarette manufacturers. An example of such a review was conducted by Irwin in 1983 (20). In this technical note, Irwin described a “periodic burn retardant paper” developed by Ecusta, The paper was coated with transverse bands of magnesium oxide/nitrocellulose/maleic resin 8mm in width. The manufacturer claimed that the cigarette would burn but not smoulder through the bands. Therefcre, it would not remain alight for more than 5 minutes unattended. Irwin found that indeed the cigarette did not smoulder through the bands, but it did not self-extinguish under standard smoking conditions. Furthermore, all mainstream deliveries were elevated relative to the control cigarette. Carbon monoxide delivery was especially elevated, to twice the delivery of the control (28.1 mg/cigt. vs. 14.1mg/cigt., 20). There was also a distinctly unpleasant odour associated with the sidestream smoke.
Case also looked at burn retardants added to cigarette paper from the point of view of controlling sidestream emissions (9). The results are extremely difficult to interpret in terms of the effects of these additives on mainstream deliveries. The blend used contained 80% expanded tobacco which would greatly influence the deliveries of the cigarettes. However an excessive increase in mainstream delivery of tar and CO was observed (Table 9). P.25
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/fks46b00/pdf;jsessionid=A8B7F94131D876EA6065F7F2A21B538C.tobacco04
The idea of “fire safe” cigarettes has been aggressively pushed since the 1980s by TC. The issue came very much to the fore in early-2000s. TC was claiming that BT had long known how to make a fire-safe cigarette. TC was claiming that, by not introducing FSC, BT was responsible for cigarette-related fire deaths. It even introduced the idea of people affected by cigarette-related fires should sue BT for not having introduced FSC. Fire authorities were also brought in to pressure for FSC. The overriding theme was that to not introduce FSC was irresponsible and negligent. Through the 2000s, there was great pressure brought by TC to introduce an FSC to market. In Australia, FSC was fast-tracked and introduced in early-2010. It seems that the design spoken of in the 1992 report is what was eventually brought to market.
Here’s a 2007 article – the only reference in the literature to possible health hazards of FSC – by the TC advocate, Hemant Goswami. The major thrust of Goswami’s argument is that FSC had not been tested from the health perspective.
“We must do independent primary research before accepting and adopting concepts like fire-safe cigarettes, (also called Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarettes [RIP]) which are claimed to be less likely to catch indoor structural fires if left unattended. Such concepts have been only tested from the fire-safety point of view and no independent study has still been undertaken by the scientific or public health community to assess the effect of the engineered modifications in RIP cigarettes. The scientific community must do independent primary study to get a clear idea about things like, the effect on Nicotine delivery due to change in mass burn rate, paper porosity, chemical coatings, banding pattern manipulation on RIP; the increased toxicity levels in RIP; puff-to-puff count and changes in actual human puffing and inhalation of RIP so as to assess it’s effect on current smokers and know about any increase in addictiveness and other changes,” Hemant emphasised.
He also makes the baseless claim that it was BT that forced FSC, untested, onto the market. It’s the standard divestment of responsibility by Tobacco Control. He also refers to supposed secret studies code named as “Project Tomorrow,” “Project Hamlet,” “Project Delta.” etc. with an intention to develop a patented cigarette paper technology which could give it’s business the cutting edge and reduce the competition in the market. The company actually succeeded in its objective by developing such a patented cigarette paper and by managing to manipulate and strategically push it through the scientific and public health community in the name of “Reduced Ignition Propensity” cigarettes. The patented paper and the testing method developed by Phillip Morris (On which ASTM standard E2187-02b have been modelled) actually have been adopted in its totality in the name of fire-safe cigarettes. Such tactic has already increased the market share of the big tobacco in the New York by eliminating the smaller and unorganised tobacco industry players.”
This claim is extraordinary. The evidence clearly points to TC being the culprit for rushing FSC to market. Believing that nonsmokers are the priority, it is nonsmokers that should be “protected” from potential cigarette-related fires. FSC were only independently tested from the fire-safety perspective. But, as Goswami notes, FSC do not seem to prevent fires either. Whatever the spin by TC, FSC are a Public Health disaster. It is Public Health that should have required a health investigation of FSC. And, according to another Public Health advocate – Greg Connolly – there is no health issue with FSC. This statement is fraudulent because no health testing has ever been done.
There has been a dangerous cross-over as now many health departments across the globe are adopting RIP as fire-safe cigarette standards, unconcerned and unmindful of the fact that the initial concept of RIP was tested by the NY fire-safety department and the modification were also approved by the fire-safety department and not the health department. This crossing over of the concept from the fire safety departments to public health department is the biggest slip and manipulation ever in tobacco control.
The analysis of the structural fire related fatalities in NY also show that there has been no reduction in the fire-related deaths as was initially claimed. Moreover, contrary to popular belief, RIP cigarettes actually offer no protection from the California like forest fires.
http://www.prlog.org/10036553-science-and-public-health-duped-on-rip-cigarettes-hemant-goswami.html
Frank, I have a comment in confinement. Thanks.
When this news first broke yesterday, I wondered what the reaction would be and so far it has lived up to expectation. The responses here are as expected, but that’s not what I want to comment on. I’d like to look at the role of journalists in this and any other debate that includes science.
So far, all the reports I’ve seen and heard on radio, TV and newspapers have just repeated what WHO said with no real comment whatsoever. When they do get round to discussing it they will no doubt have a ‘balanced’ debate where they give each side ‘equal’ time without any appreciation that one side is talking utter bollocks.
I’ve become increasingly disillusioned with the complete scientific illiteracy of seemingly 99% of journalists. Where are the equivalents of Woodward & Bernstein to get to the bottom of these conspiracies? Second hand smoke, Man-made climate change and now the supposed dangers of e-cigarettes are subjects that those of us with some scientific nous can see straight through, but yet the journalists just let them get away with it.
Our only hope is that the antis become so complacent that they make a mistake in believing that they can get away with anything – perhaps this e-cig pronouncement is the start in revealing the ‘Emperor’s New Clothes’.
Inflammatory propaganda typical of an ideological, prohibitionist crusade promotes mental dysfunction galore. The more the zealots are appeased by the legislature, the more absurd and hysterical become there claims. It affects those that absorb the propaganda as “authoritative”. There is now a segment of the population that has dysfunctional reactions to ambient tobacco smoke. There are those that even have a reaction when there is no smoke. These dysfunctional reactions are fostered as “normal” by the very promoters of the dysfunction. It produces neurotic bigots – people who are dysfunctional but believe their dysfunction makes them “superior”. There is a rich reservoir of mental dysfunction ripe for study. Yet in the thousands upon thousands of “studies” on smoking, there is not one on the detrimental effects on psychological and social health from antismoking “education”. It’s dominant [medically-aligned] physicalism that’s produced this mess. When physicalism is dominant, all other dimensions – e.g., psychological, social – take a veritable battering. As the madness unfolds, it attracts no scrutiny from the mainstream. Below is an informal experiment conducted years ago by a journalist (that’s what we have to work with in the absence of formal studies).
From the book “Rampant Antismoking Signifies Grave Danger”, p.399-400.
Pat Michaels, a journalist for the California Newport News, reported on an informal experiment he conducted:
Anti-cigarette smoking has reached a fanaticism bordering on hysteria. It could be dangerous to your health. To prove that point, this fearless reporter used one of those smokeless cigarettes made of plastic that look like a real cigarette. They can’t be lit, though, and are normally supposed to hold some kind of inhalant to discourage smoking.
My first stop was at the Newport Harbour Elks Lodge and a seat at the piano bar in the smoking section. A lady at a nearby table kept getting up and opening a window that blew blasts of cold air on me. After I’d closed the window three times, and the woman had opened it an equal number, she said to me: “I’ll make you a deal; if you stop smoking, I won’t open the window anymore”. I told her I hadn’t smoked in 20 years and my “cigarette” couldn’t smoke. I also pointed out she was seated in the smoking section of the room reserved for smokers. “I don’t care”, she screamed, ignoring my statement, “It’s my table, I’m sitting at it, and you are making it impossible to enjoy my dinner”….
I went to Bandera in Corona del Mar. A waitress greeted me at Bandera’s door and immediately noticed my ‘cigarette’. “You’re not coming in here with that”, she said firmly. I told her it wasn‘t a cigarette. She claimed she knew it was a cigarette when she saw one and wasn‘t about to examine “that dirty thing”….. At ‘Marie Callender’s’ a woman in the next booth complained to the management she couldn‘t breathe because of my ‘cigarette’ and wanted me thrown out of there too…….(in Oakley, 1999, Ch.7, p.28).
Local council ‘smoking cops’ will get power to enter Victorian schools
Smoking cops’ will have school entry rights. Source: Supplied
CIGARETTE “cops” will have the power to enter Victoria’s schools, kindergartens and childcare centres to enforce new bans on outdoor smoking.
Council inspectors will be allowed in to investigate possible breaches and ensure the rules are being complied with.
The measure is seen as important if smoking rates are to be reduced and attitudes among the young changed.
Legislation now before Parliament would allow the inspectors into schools as long as they are accompanied and have permission from the principal.
MORE: Smoke detectors to catch students lighting up in toilets
As a last resort they will be able to issue $147 fines to those who consistently flout the restrictions.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/local-council-smoking-cops-will-get-power-to-enter-victorian-schools/story-fni0fit3-1227039191738?nk=993d499c2a875505e6b4d96a91a4364b
It seems Hitler used his Brown shirts and Hitler youth to perform the same functions! To enforce the Third Reichs Anti-Smoking laws.
“Hitler Youth had anti-smoking patrols all over Germany, outside movie houses and in entertainment areas, sports fields etc., and smoking was strictly forbidden to these millions of German youth growing up under Hitler.” (www.zundelsite – January 27, 1998.htm)
Left this comment at the above article which was deleted/censored within a minute.
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In all of the wide world, there were 2 major antismoking crusades early last century – America and Germany. The antismoking fanatics went after “the children” then, too.
In America, children took pledges to not smoke. In Germany:
“Proctor (1997) continues that “throughout this period, magazines like Genussgifte (Poisons of taste or habit), Auf der Wacht (On Guard), and Reine Luft (Pure air) published a regular drumbeat against this ‘insidious poison’ [tobacco], along with articles charting the unhealthful effects of alcohol, teenage dancing, cocaine, and other vices. Dozens of books and pamphlets denounced the ‘smoking slavery’ or ‘cultural degeneration’ feared from the growth of tobacco use. Tobacco was branded ‘the enemy of world peace’, and there was even talk of ‘tobacco terror’ and ‘tobacco capitalism’ …. The Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls both published antismoking propaganda, and the Association for the Struggle against the Tobacco Danger organized counseling centers where the ‘tobacco ill’ could seek help” (p.456-457); “Hitler Youth had anti-smoking patrols all over Germany, outside movie houses and in entertainment areas, sports fields etc., and smoking was strictly forbidden to these millions of German youth growing up under Hitler.”
I sent in 4 one got thru……………
Government run amok UN demands countries ban indoor e-cigarette smoking – See more at: http://rare.us/story/un-demands-countries-ban-indoor-e-cigarette-smoking/#sthash.pzOA7xrE.dpuf
On cig butt bio-degradability in beach locations
The filters are mainly made from a synthetic polymer called cellulose acetate. All sounds a bit scary, but not really. Acetic Acid (vinegar) is one of nature’s building blocks – life on earth needs it. Cellulose acetate is just lots of vinegar molecules joined together into a chain. Cellulose acetate is a short step away from cellulose (i.e. wood!). Most cigarette butts apparently still use natural cellulose acetate (i.e. tow from the wood pulp http://www.bat.com/group/sites/UK__3MNFEN.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/4572237B0C2D456CC1257314004EF667 ). Even if they do not, synthetic (i.e. man made) cellulose acetate is man’s copy of nature’s science. It is used all around you – wrapped a present with cellotape recently, kept any photographic film (pre digital!) – that’s all cellulose acetate.How fast cellulose acetate decays is directly related to the composting conditions – and principally the temperature of the heap (Q10 equation). You will often see quotes of 3,10 or 50 years as estimates for cigarette butt decomposition time. This is directly comparable the time it takes to decompose lignin (i.e. wood). Most of these tests are done outdoors (so an average of 10C is the temp for most tests). If you increase the decomposition temperature to 60C, you can divide this number by 32 and you’ll get the time it takes to hot compost it. So 10 years at 10C = 4 months at 60C (Again this is directly comparable to wood in an outdoor heap and wood in an IVC composting plant.
Beach sands normal range of temperature is at about 90-100 degrees during summer heat and penetrating down to about 6 inches.
The higher the temperature and the wetter the location cig s will bio-degreade rapidly in as short time as 3 months or less depending on conditions. The polymer you speak of is nothing more than VINEGAR!
So on the beach you have the best of both worlds for decomposition to happen wet and hot!
Lord the deeper you dig the more you find just how stupid and insane anti-tobacco claims get……….who would have ever thought the substrate holding cig butts together was VINEGAR!
The other so called toxins they claim in the butts after smoking are no more than whats found in burned timber after a forest fire! The same residues are left. All become the soil we farm and grow food from…………….The tide comes in and wets the ground.the tide rolls out and the heat kicks in.
I saw it on BBC news last night; the WHO wants to ban e-cigs indoors using the “passive smo… erm… vape damage”, stating that this was carcinogenic… The news flash ended there, rather abruptly.
They’d say that it ‘hadn’t been rigorously tested’, and that there were ‘4,000 chemicals’ in ordinary air, of which 60 or 70 were carcinogenic.
Considering that we all encounter flavours and vegetable glycerine when buying and eating our food, and propylene glycol is also found in asthma inhalers produced by the pharmaceutical industry.
As already pointed out by others here, the rest of the ‘4,000 chemicals’ are in the air we inhale and exhale.
And anyway, it looked like smoking. And chiiiiiiildren might see.
That vaping looks like smoking is something tobacco control&WHO need to be told to ‘get over it’ and ‘deal with it’.
The WHO is nothing more than a human rights abusing club, obsessed with saving fictional “lives” to justify their existence, thus pay cheque.
Only mentioning Ebola, I believe no WHO members can be found in Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone at this point in time.
WHO response
WHO provides expertise and documentation to support disease investigation and control.
The WHO is very busy fighting the cigarette and e-cigarette manufacturers, it has not even updated this:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs103/en/
I can’t speak for anyone else; I personally give the WHO ‘expertise’ a wide berth and trust in common sense.
Beo at some point even the most brilliant of Liars gets caught up in the LIE!
Once the lie is so big a yarn even magicians cant suppress the laughter as it all comes crashing down on the Liars Head…………Id say the WHO has finally lost all Credibility if they ever had any to start with.
Pingback: E-cig Hysteria | Frank Davis
Reblogged this on artbylisabelle and commented:
Yes, there is nothing more that could be said any better.
I’m sure I have more in my bookmarks
http://www.tobaccotoday.info/2010/04/26/so-why-do-my-fire-safe-cigarettes-taste-bad/