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American Lung Association Pushes For Ban On Electronic Cigarettes
Anarki2004 writes "The American Lung Association is jumping on board the ban-E-cigs-train. From the article: 'So, while the ALA admitted that electronic cigarettes contain fewer chemicals than tobacco cigarettes, they refuse to acknowledge the obvious health benefit that lack of the most toxic chemicals provides to the smokers who switch. Are lives and lung health the real issue here or is nicotine addiction? The ALA must know that numerous studies show that, absent the tobacco smoke, nicotine is relatively harmless and comparable to caffeine. The American Heart Association acknowledges that nicotine is "safe" in other smoke-free forms such as patches or gum.' For those of you not in the know, electronic cigarettes (also called personal vaporizers) are a nicotine delivery device that resembles a cigarette in shape and size, but does not burn tobacco. It is less a expensive alternative to the traditional tobacco cigarette that is by all appearances (though not thoroughly researched) also healthier."
But the ALA has an agenda to push, and logic and reason be damned.
Free Martian Whores!
As long as you continue to feed your nicotine addiction, you will never be able to break yourself away from these crutches.
Cold turkey is the only method that actually works short of medication (which has its own problems).
How about we sell cigs that don't contain so much bullshit? I mean honestly...is all that crap really necessary?
Living With a Nerd
Nicotine is far from harmless. Best to keep people away from it if at all possible.
Not by force of law necessarily, but by education and social support.
One has to wonder why they would even do this. Why push for a ban on something that is so obviously better for you than actual cigarettes? You have to think Big Tobacco is stuffing money in their pocket to strengthen the legitmacy of this ban request, but why make such an obvious move? It only weakens what credibility they might have had before this.
...give me a seat next to an electric cigarette smoker over a cigarette smoker any day.
There's a lot of FUD about nicotine, when it is not apparent that nicotine is dangerous, compared to all the other chemicals that get delivered with the traditional nicotine cigarette.
I've never seen the need for treating nicotine like a controlled substance outside cigarettes. If I want Nicorette for uses other than smoking-cessation, how is that any more dangerous than my ability to buy aspirin, acetaminophen, or caffeine tablets, all of which can be used to a harmful degree?
The moment drugs are being discussed, logic, sense and reason dissapear. And we're suprised every time.
People who derive gratification from telling others what to do and what is good for them. They always have a convoluted explanation, but it always comes down to others having to adapt to busybody's choices.
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant."
John Stuart Mill
I am not a smoker.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Wouldn't that be "electrical cigarettes"? Those things don't have transistors in them, do they?
Are lives and lung health the real issue here or is nicotine addiction?
Who said it's rational and not just a "I don't like cigarette smoke, therefore anything related to that is bad" reaction?
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
No, it isn't. It is just less harmful.
If you don't know the difference, probably you say a gunshot wound is healthier than stepping on a landmine.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
While they may be less bad than traditional smoked tobacco, they still aren't good for your lungs. Our lungs are, after all, living tissue that is tasked with gas exchange. That is a fairly complicated job to begin with, and if you start intoducting airborne solids into the mixture you are only making the job that much more difficult.
So while the rest of the toxic crap that is added to cigarettes (much of it to keep them burning) might not be present, the inhaled mixture itself isn't good for your lungs regardless. So the ALA has a pretty valid point that E-cigs are still bad, even if they are less bad.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I occasionally smoke cigarettes (we're talking a few times a month). They're horrible for your lungs, full of tar, and your lungs work like a sponge. Ask a smoking friend to see their cigarette when they're done and look at the filter.
The less people who smoke cigarettes, the better. It's terrible for them, but it's also bad for people around them inhaling the smoke. Good riddance.
But these e-cigarettes are nicotine and some flavoring, with a battery vaporizer. Now, nicotine's not harmless in the slightest - it is, in fact, rat poison. But nicotine alone vs. nicotine, tar, formaldehyde, etc... all in one package - it doesn't take a genius to figure out which you should be encouraging people to use.
Most smokers I know are acutely aware of how bad it is for them (actually, most are medical professionals of some sort). Some of them want to stop and can't, and some of them just don't care. But they know it's bad, they're not in denial about it. The people I hang out tend to be well educated about this sort of stuff, but many aren't. If the ALA were to come out and say "hey guys, smoke this instead! same great effects, no tar, woohoo... vastly vastly reduced risk of cancer" well they'd probably switch.
In fact, straight nicotine basically doesn't affect the lungs - it'll mess up your arteries and brain, but largely ignore your lungs. <conspiracy_theory>Maybe they're worried about being put out of business</conspiracy_theory>
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
So the ALA has a pretty valid point that E-cigs are still bad, even if they are less bad.
So we should ban E-Cigs, but not the "more" bad regular kind?
Ask Slashdot: Where bad ideas meet poor googling skills.
Why do I get the feeling Philip Morris USA has already bought and paid for the American Lung Association?
I'm an ex-smoker (yeah yeah I know reformed whore), & have switched to using a vaporizer for my fine herbals. I rarely smoke anymore, but now have realized I have no means of partaking outside my home without going back to old ways.
What electronic cigs have you used for a mid priced unit & what if any manufacturer would you recommend or stay away from?
Thanks
"(I) have this unfortunate condition that causes me not to believe a single thing any politician says when a mic's on.
Nicotine suspended in Polyproplene Glycol, or Vegetable Glycerine. Checking these two out you will find that not only are they safe but where considered in the past for vaporizing into the air within hospitals to make the environment safer.
Got Code?
That's not flamebait, it's human natue. Like all other self-righteous do-gooders and cause-sellers who want to tell you how to live your life, the ALA wants you to do it THEIR WAY and their way ONLY.
Also, an environmentalist doesn't want you to just pick any old way to reduce carbon (i.e. clean coal, hyrdro-electric, nuclear), they want you to pick THEIR chosen ways of doing it (wind and solar) and those ONLY.
Also, a bible-thumper doesn't want you to come to Jesus just any old way, they want you to do it through THEIR particular sect or denomination and theirs ONLY.
etc.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I used an e-cig to quit tobacco completely -- day one. Eight months later I was still using an e-cig but had cut out nicotine completely. Twelve months later I had stopped using an e-cig at all. It's now been four months since I put down the e-cig for the last time.
There are lots of ways to quit -- the cold turkey argument holds no water. It's just the kind of thing that gets bandied about when cigarette smoking and quitting gets mentioned -- it's a meme.
Furthermore, harm reduction is a perfectly rational and useful goal to pursue -- if people don't want to or can't quit, then providing them with options which reduce the harm they do to themselves should be promoted and not decried. There's really very little harm is using nicotine responsibly and if people choose to do so it's really nobody else's business. In the same way it's nobody else's business if someone chooses to use caffeine, for example.
Thought thinks itself.
I'm onboard with the bans on public smoking/second hand smoke. SH smoke can't be controlled, it can't be avoided and is largely forced on to other people. While I doubt smokers intend it, forcing SH smoke is really a selfish act that is detrimental to society at large. It's forcing others to accept your choice.
But if you want to smoke, full speed ahead! You do want you want with my blessing.
This thinking on banning electronic cigarrettes seems to be similar to a lot of the logic that goes on in pushing for more outlawing of thought crime. Nothing's taking place that is harming anyone whatsoever (even the smoker) but someone somewhere deems it wrong or immoral or whatever. We should have the right to kill ourselves in anyway we desire so long as there is no direct or indirect (to a couple of levels) harm to other people.
Going on a rant.. but I really hate our backwards false-puritanical society. Religion, god, faith, allah, $other_diety$.. it's all a crock of mind-control horseshit.
This is a philosophical battle. Some people believe abstinence is the only answer to addiction, while others think addiction isn't the problem, it is the harm addiction causes that is the problem. To the first group, devices like this are insidious evils which corrupt the innocent with the promise of harm free drug use. To which the second group usually responds with something along the lines of, "LOLwhat? Without harm, what's the fucking problem, you tightass sonsabitches?" It is basically a battle between the Puritan ideal that all pleasures of the flesh are bad, wrong, and evil, and the not so crazy idea that harm is bad while pleasure is good.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
From an epidemiological perspective, the perfect-but-difficult solution almost certainly saves far-fewer man years of life than does the merely-ok-but-easy solution.
The quit rate for nicotine sucks. Nicotine is just that addictive. It just isn't that harmful, though, so that isn't a huge deal. If you can skip the hard problem of getting somebody off nicotine, and attack the (much easier) problem of just getting them to use a delivery method that won't kill them and piss off everyone around them, you get 80% of the gains for 20% of the effort. A classic good outcome.
Hey retard,
Read the post I was replying to, which was pretty obviously referring to cigarettes themselves.
What is their agenda? (other than to promote lung health, which no reasonable person could criticize)
When their agenda includes banning a legal product because they think it sends the wrong message, then they've crossed the line. They've done noble work over the years, but they're becoming as bad as those fools from the Center For Science In The Public Interest. If you want to convince someone to change habits, more power to them. If you're trying to ban a legal product because, well, you just know what's good for them, then ALA can go pound sand.
Note: I don't even smoke. Never have. But ALA is just being a nannying busybody here.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Vaporizers are a whole lot healthier when comparing with smoking for medical marijuana, there's no reason they shouldn't be much healthier with tobacco also. The ALA looks pretty stupid here, a couple more moves like this and they'll seem as intelligent as those 'birthers' who refuse to believe Hawaii officials about who was born there.
because that works so well for pot, crack, cocaine, ecstacy, etc, ad infinitum
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.