Are Electronic Cigarettes Safe Or Another Cancer Causing Agent Of Big Tobacco

Reporting from Los Angeles - There may be no such thing as a free lunch when it comes to the e-cigarette.  For smokers in France, a country basically stereotyped with smoking, it may be time to quit smoking.  What will these men do when a piece of their identity is ripped from their ability to live fully?

"The e-cigarette is not an ordinary product," said French Health Minister Marisol Touraine.  "We need to apply the same measures as there are for tobacco."

Interestingly enough, France isn't the only country taking issue with the e-cig.  Many countries have already outlawed e-cigarettes all together.  Countries like Turkey, Brazil, Singapore, Argentina and possible next Italy.  Italian health ministers are recommending a ban on e-cigarettes in public and the sale to minors and pregnant women.

Marisol Touraine also said, "Smoking an e-cigarette is smoking."  I tend to agree with her.  While technically safer than the traditional cigarette, the so called water vapor also contains propylene glycol which is an irritant to the airways and (get ready for this) formaldehyde.  Right!  The liquid that held the two headed pig you saw at the county fair last year.  That formaldehyde.

If you're considering switching to e-cigarettes, hey, why not, it's got to be better than a regular one, but does that make it safe or safe-er?  Standing one legged on a 100 foot ledge is dangerous.  Standing on the same ledge with both feet; still dangerous.

Why should you raise a red flag or at least an eyebrow?  Because Big Tobacco is getting in on the action.  That's why.

Lorillard bought blu ecigs (so Steven Dorf now works for Big Tobacco) and Camel, which was my brand of choice when I was choosing to smoke is selling their e-cigarette called Vuse.

These are the same guys who manipulated nicotine levels to make them more addicting and then denied that cigarettes were addicting.  The same people who hired doctors, actors and opera singers to promote their deadly product.  How long will it be before some Doctor Oz looking guy is featured on an infomercial talking about the "safe and effective" use of the Vuse to quit smoking regular cigarettes?

My advice, is if you're going to stop smoking, then STOP smoking.  Cigarettes, electronic or otherwise are nothing more than a delivery device for nicotine.  So is the patch and the gum.  They even call it that.  NRT.  Nicotine Replacement Therapy.  Sooner or later you're going to have to combat the Nicotine demon.  Rip that sucker off like a band-aid.  Big tobacco has had enough of your money, time and life.

Do yourself a favor and throw 20 bucks at the book that will change your life, how you see yourself as a smoker and give you the tools you need to not quit, but just stop smoking once and for all.

FDA Sells Out Addicts By Loosening Restrictions On Nicotine

From Reuters:  "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is relaxing its restrictions on the use of over-the-counter nicotine patches, gum and lozenges."

As it sits, you get 12 weeks to get off cigarettes and nicotine.  After that you're expected to stop both.

Now, they're thinking this isn't enough time.

Right, I get it it...  I'll quit tomorrow....

Look, let's keep this simple - nicotine crosses the blood brain barrier intact.  It can be as addictive as heroin for many.  If you smoke, that's how you get your nicotine.  Cigarettes, as Jeffrey Wigand put it, are a "delivery devise for nicotine."  What other delivery devices for nicotine are there?  eCigarettes, Chew, Snuff, Pipes, Cigars, Patches, Gum, Lozenges.

Heroin can be smoked, snorted, shot up.

How would you like your nicotine?  Straight up or on the rocks?   Phillip Morris is evil for selling nicotine in the form of a cigarette and GlaxoSmithKline are heroes?

Or, like any good cartel, looking for a better, more efficient way to deliver the drug into the body.

Don't fall for it people.  Sooner or later you will have to do battle with your addiction to nicotine.  How do take a band aid off?  How do you dive in a pool?  How do you conquer a fear?  How much longer will you allow yourself to be a slave to chemical that is fatal at 30 - 60 mg?

From Wikipedia:  "Historically, most cases of nicotine poisoning have been the result of use of nicotine as an insecticide."

That's real.  You're smoking, chewing, sucking on, patching an insecticide.  Enjoy that!

Here's why I stopped.  I was tired of giving control of my state to a chemical known to cause...  you know the rest.

Take back control of your life and take control of your addiction.  Do not allow a so called legitimate drug dealer to convince you that you need nicotine replacement therapy to get off cigarettes.  You know what you need - you need you.   You can do it on your own.  That's the purpose of my book, How To Stop Smoking Without Killing Anyone.  To help people take back control.  NOT transfer it over from Big Tobacco to a pharmaceutical giant instead.  You don't need more nicotine.  You need to stop the cycle.

Stopping the War on Drugs!

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FDA to require graphic warnings on cigarette packages, ads

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-sci-1111-cigarette-packages-20101111,0,5986780.story   

Clearly, I gotta chime in here...  I've tried getting through the above article like five times.  The first time was right when it came out last week and since then I've looked at it and then had to look away out of frustration.  I finally was able to sift through half of it and then finished it this morning.

I'm going to commit to a general point of view here that as a non-smoking advocate may seem contradictory but honestly, I just don't get it.

Seriously, it's 2010.  If you legitimately do not know that smoking is bad for you in this day and age, I'm sorry, but you deserve whatever comes your way.  How can you not know smoking is bad for you?

Maybe because the people who make the decision to smoke are fully aware of the dangers, consequesces and the risk and for whatever reason, be it addiction, self-loathing, or a little bit of both, decide to do it anyway...

This article goes on to claim that daily 4000 young people try smoking and 1000 of them continue to smoke.  Here's the exact quote, "Every day, 4,000 young people try cigarettes for the first time and 1,000 continue to smoke."

One key word is left out of that equation.  Decide.  Smoking is a decision.   According to the article that means 365,000 "young people" take on the habit of smoking.  According to the CDC, smoking can be related to 1 in 5 deaths annually.  393,600 full time smokers die each year. Tobacco is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States.  However, when you do the math there's 28,600 more people dying from it than starting it.  Darwinism will eventually solve this problem.  Cruel?  Maybe.  True?  Yes.

So yes, smoking is a bad thing.  But...  C'mon people.  Don't you already know this?  If you're still puffing away at this point, is a picture of a diseased lung or some cat smoking through his trachea really going to change your mind?  I say no.  I say the only person, place or thing that is going to change the mind of the smoker is the mind of the smoker.

Many an addict will not stop shooting smack simply because he/she see's the effects of the drug on someone else.  An addict is simply that, an addict and they are the only one who can actually stop.  Notice I don't say quit.  Quitting is an impossible act for the addict if you ask me.

The American Heart and Lung Association state that "Pharmacological and behavioral characteristics that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to drugs such as heroin and cocaine."

So first off, if tobacco is that strong, why is it even legal?  Secondly, this mean that these 365,000 new smokers aren't just smokers, but addicts with a physical addiction as strong as junk and blow.  

So....  what's the plan?  As a government institution in the United States of America, let's tell an independent company how to package their product in a way that could drastically reduce sales and consequently close their business.  OK, so as Americans we can look the other way (for now) because smoking is bad.  But what happens when this logic gets plugged into video games, music, food?  Let's not set a precedent here.  Not to sound too paranoid (I'll go through an X-Ray at the airport and as long as they're gentle, I'm OK getting my junk brushed for the common good) but keep in mind, there are some civil liberties involved.  

Well so perhaps potential non addicts will get scared off so that's a good thing but what are we doing to address the root causes and issues of smoking addiction.  You can't communicate rationally with an addict.  They're addicted!  There's a chemical imbalance in their brain that is so strong they actually decide to over look the facts and do it anyway.


I know I did.  From 1991 to 2002 I looked the other way and enjoyed every single puff.  Why did I smoke?  Well for that you can read the book.  Same on how I stopped.  Excuse the shameless plug, but the bottom line here is that smoking is a choice.  Every time someone lights up it's a decision.  So how do we communicate to addicts?  

Parent's who smoke?  I say pass a law that puts smoking as a parent in the same category as abuse or neglect.  Sorry but if you smoke and have kids and then smoke in front of your kids, you're an asshole.  How can you do that?  I know how...  addiction!  Addiction is not logical and causes irrational behavior like putting known carcinogens in the direct path of your own flesh and blood!  What the *%$# is a picture of a black and brown lung sitting on the Camel's hump going to do to make that person quit?

Logic will not do the trick.  If you read my book you'll notice that I don't throw a bunch of facts and figures at the potential non-addict.  I show them how I did it and how they can too.  You decided to start smoking, now decide to stop smoking.  Here's How.  That's it.  Peanut Gallery's open...