I sent this letter to my local paper just the other day.... If you would like to copy this and tweak to your own special circumstances, feel free.... The more education we can get at even the local level the better....
Enjoy! Vicks
Editor, Daily Times
Please save me from Cigarettes! Many people, including myself, have turned to alternate nicotine delivery devices, stepping away from traditional tobacco products, which keep us chained to a dirty delivery method which statistically kills half of its users. My cleaner method: the Electronic Cigarette, or E-Cig.
This device uses a small battery and atomizer, which takes a solution of nicotine suspended in Propylene Glycol, and vaporizes it for inhalation by the user. An exhaled “cloud” contains only harmless water vapor. There is no smoke, second-hand or otherwise, no tar being inhaled into the lungs, and no ash or spent butts for litter, as there is nothing being burned by the device. The fluid used comes in different flavors and strengths of nicotine, and users can even choose “no-nic” fluids when they are ready to step away from the addiction.
I fear for the future of this devise, which has been my Holy Grail to quit a 20+ year addiction to cigarettes. These have recently come to the attention of the FDA, who last month issued a statement claiming that the devise and the liquid it uses are classified as “new drugs” and not approved.
And, it gets worse: legislation called the Waxman Bill has passed the House and is up for debate in the Senate later this year. This bill would hand control of all things containing nicotine to the FDA. What concerns me are the underlying concessions in the bill: The FDA would be allowed regulate nicotine content in cigarettes, but not to ban them outright; thus tobacco would maintain superior position over the US nicotine market, actually protected by the FDA. Anything poised to shake that position, such as the E-Cig and other harm reduction products, would be put to near-impossible standards set by the FDA to bring their products to market, as the agency would be reluctant to approve new methods of recreational nicotine use. In plain English: this bill would continue to allow a deadly product to be sold while suppressing any alternate products considered by many users to be a safer alternative. Philip Morris, producers of the Marlboro brand of cigarettes, has publicly supported this bill for unstated reasons.
If my E-Cig is banned, I will be back to the 2 choices regarding all cigarette smokers: quit or die. Traditional Nicotine Replacement Therapies do nothing to address the physical components of smoking (the inhale, the hand-to-mouth, and the oral fixation) and thus have an abysmal 5% success rate. Clearly, not a product line for the masses, nor one for me. The bottom line: I will smoke tobacco again if my E-Cig is banned.
I am one voice. I ask the community of Watertown to raise their voices with mine, to contact our senators and urge them to be informed when the Waxman bill comes due, and ask for harm reduction devises to be allowed, not suppressed.
Enjoy! Vicks
Editor, Daily Times
Please save me from Cigarettes! Many people, including myself, have turned to alternate nicotine delivery devices, stepping away from traditional tobacco products, which keep us chained to a dirty delivery method which statistically kills half of its users. My cleaner method: the Electronic Cigarette, or E-Cig.
This device uses a small battery and atomizer, which takes a solution of nicotine suspended in Propylene Glycol, and vaporizes it for inhalation by the user. An exhaled “cloud” contains only harmless water vapor. There is no smoke, second-hand or otherwise, no tar being inhaled into the lungs, and no ash or spent butts for litter, as there is nothing being burned by the device. The fluid used comes in different flavors and strengths of nicotine, and users can even choose “no-nic” fluids when they are ready to step away from the addiction.
I fear for the future of this devise, which has been my Holy Grail to quit a 20+ year addiction to cigarettes. These have recently come to the attention of the FDA, who last month issued a statement claiming that the devise and the liquid it uses are classified as “new drugs” and not approved.
And, it gets worse: legislation called the Waxman Bill has passed the House and is up for debate in the Senate later this year. This bill would hand control of all things containing nicotine to the FDA. What concerns me are the underlying concessions in the bill: The FDA would be allowed regulate nicotine content in cigarettes, but not to ban them outright; thus tobacco would maintain superior position over the US nicotine market, actually protected by the FDA. Anything poised to shake that position, such as the E-Cig and other harm reduction products, would be put to near-impossible standards set by the FDA to bring their products to market, as the agency would be reluctant to approve new methods of recreational nicotine use. In plain English: this bill would continue to allow a deadly product to be sold while suppressing any alternate products considered by many users to be a safer alternative. Philip Morris, producers of the Marlboro brand of cigarettes, has publicly supported this bill for unstated reasons.
If my E-Cig is banned, I will be back to the 2 choices regarding all cigarette smokers: quit or die. Traditional Nicotine Replacement Therapies do nothing to address the physical components of smoking (the inhale, the hand-to-mouth, and the oral fixation) and thus have an abysmal 5% success rate. Clearly, not a product line for the masses, nor one for me. The bottom line: I will smoke tobacco again if my E-Cig is banned.
I am one voice. I ask the community of Watertown to raise their voices with mine, to contact our senators and urge them to be informed when the Waxman bill comes due, and ask for harm reduction devises to be allowed, not suppressed.
