Forestalling the facts
There has been quite a flurry of activity in the papers recently about e-cigarettes.
Over the space of a couple of days, three articles appeared in the Irish Times and two more in the UK's Daily Mail.
The first out of the traps was the Daily Mail with a piece –
More teens are trying e-cigarettes than normal tobacco cigarettes – which lead them to become addicted, study warns
This is a typically hysterical piece warning of an "epidemic of teen tobacco use", which to put it mildly is Richter scale exaggeration.
Then came two other pieces in the Times –
Some 134,000 e-cigarette users in Ireland, says cancer charity
and
Tobacco addiction ‘completely transferred’ to e-cigarettes
The first of these is basically Big Pharma ASH and the Irish Cancer Society making a desperate plea to the Department of Health to regulate them as medicinal products. Quote – “the Ash line would be that they are in an unregulated space, that there isn’t good evidence they work as a cessation product”.
The second piece is a strange one. Essentially it is how one person switched from cigarettes to electro-fags and became "addicted" to the latter. I'm not quite sure of the point of this piece as it neither informs nor entertains.
Then came the last two.
From the Times –
E-cigarettes as good as patches for quitting, research shows
and from the Mail –
E-cigarettes DO help people quit smoking: Review finds there are 'no serious adverse effects from short to medium term use'
Suddenly everything falls into place.
The last two are reporting on the same study whose conclusions are summed up in the two headlines.
My only conclusion is that Big Pharma the Tobacco Control Industry knew this piece of news was about to break and were desperately getting in their little bits of propaganda first before they were discredited. It also displays the blatant lie from ASH about there being no proof when they knew the proof was about to be published.
Is there any end to the lies?
damned if you do damned if you don't, nothing ever makes them happy
The only thing that will make them happy is for everyone to be forced to buy nicotine patches as an alternative.
I heard of the UK study on our local newscast. They went on about how E-cig's help people quit the real things but, of course, followed it with the fact that there is no long term study showing that they're safe. Assholes!
The "long term study" is a handy excuse as there is no definitive closing date. They can quote that one for years to come.
I wonder if there were any "long term studies" on Big Pharma's nicotine products? 😉
Screw big Pharma. I'm going "Herbal" but not the flower bud we call weed. I've been reading a book called Hedgerow Medicine. I'm sure you've heard of it. I'm doing my best to go back to nature for a pain, a scratch, or a hankering for something to relax me, i.e. whiskey. 🙂
They are panicking in the states over E-cigarettes because they have little control over them and how much they can be taxed. In the end, it's all about money.