Calling all USA college students and bar hoppers!

[the88thcrazy]

In my oppinion, i do not believe that the online petition is going to do anything serious.

What we really need is a great big information spread, with a real petition in the mix.

While i definitely do not have the time to form a petition, organize all the data, and send it to the FDA, i believe that if we all get out there and inform smokers and non-smokers alike about the e-cigarette, it might help our cause, atleast a little.

if this forum was to put together small information packets (statistics, ect), all of us who are around analog smokers all the time could give little demonstrations outside of bars or buildings around our campuses. it might cause an overflow of new members to the site, but atleast we could have a chance at keeping our vaping devices.

I attend Bowling green state university in northwest ohio, which has a roughly 25,000 person student body + staff. i would be more than willing to do this for my campus.

[Lorddrek]

I have been preaching recruitment for a little while now. I think at least 20-30% of smokers will make the switch.

[CaseyNY]

I think we definitely need to start figuring out how to get a consolidated and wide spread message out there. We can talk about it all day and night long in the forum, but we need to figure out how to start taking actions that will educate and let the people who want votes know we are out there. We need the medical voices we have, we need the supplier and manufacturer voices, and user voices and stories and experiences.

So do we have any good PR people on here that knows how to get our information out?

Do we have someone in Stearns and other government districts that can contact them and ask them how we could best support them in this battle?

Do we have any media (tv, print, or radio) that can give us guidance on how to get our word out.

What is our unified message? We have to prove to people that their logic to ban these is totally ir-rational, especially since the alternative for us who quit analogs is to go back to them and as they say 'die'.

[Hangar]

what might receive some real attention would be airtime on Oprah via her Dr. Oz (or whatever his name is) interviews, if we could get Dr. Oz on the side of e-cigs...but again...no Dr. in his right mind would support anything without at least some good preliminary testing.

You folks just arent being realistic about this problem...once there have been some good tests provided to the FDA we WILL have our e-cigs back in some form or another...but with NO testing whatsoever how could you expect ANY action to actually STOP a temporary ban?...not gonna happen. You can blame this all on the products developer and investors but im assuming theyre in Chine so its a different world there. To bring this product to the U.S. though it will HAVE to be tested in a way thats acceptable to the FDA, period. Heck, you should WANT this thing tested so all the facts are clear and published, and you should WANT regulations for the manufacturing of the liquid for goodness sake. I wish some of us would stop acting like childish drug addicts and begin to instead act like responsible adults who realize that good official testing will actually HELP this product gain mainstream acceptance once and for all.

Instead of spending your time petitioning to stop the FDA from doing its job you should instead be thinking about how and who we can get to be the U.S. based spokesperson for the product and who can we get to seriously invest in this product and get together with the FDA and provide at least some solid preliminary testing.

[Steph2323]

what might receive some real attention would be airtime on Oprah via her Dr. Oz (or whatever his name is) interviews, if we could get Dr. Oz on the side of e-cigs...but again...no Dr. in his right mind would support anything without at least some good preliminary testing.

You folks just arent being realistic about this problem...once there have been some good tests provided to the FDA we WILL have our e-cigs back in some form or another...but with NO testing whatsoever how could you expect ANY action to actually STOP a temporary ban?...not gonna happen. You can blame this all on the products developer and investors but im assuming theyre in Chine so its a different world there. To bring this product to the U.S. though it will HAVE to be tested in a way thats acceptable to the FDA, period. Heck, you should WANT this thing tested so all the facts are clear and published, and you should WANT regulations for the manufacturing of the liquid for goodness sake. I wish some of us would stop acting like childish drug addicts and begin to instead act like responsible adults who realize that good official testing will actually HELP this product gain mainstream acceptance once and for all.

Instead of spending your time petitioning to stop the FDA from doing its job you should instead be thinking about how and who we can get to be the U.S. based spokesperson for the product and who can we get to seriously invest in this product and get together with the FDA and provide at least some solid preliminary testing.

I completely agree. I thought about Oprah/Dr Oz too, but she's not a smoker and Dr Oz relies on lots of research. I wonder about Ellen Degeneres? She quit in the past year or 2 so I don't know what her stance in at this point.
Have the developers and distributors in China addressed this issue at all? I haven't seen anything. If they haven't, I am pissed. Yes, the laws are different there, but the profits are going to be severly hurt as one by one, countries are making them illegal worldwide.
I have written to my senators and reps in Pennsylvania, Cancer Society,Lung association and Pelosi. The only real reply that I have rec'd was from someone at the lung association, stating that their was no testing. I forwarded the testing from here and am awaiting a response from him. I signed the petition, and am thinking of what else can be done. It's just so overwhelming that I am having a hard time thinking of what else would make an impact.
We need some direction for sure. Have the suppliers made any statements or recommendations? Maybe they could give us some ideas?
Stephanie

[DCrist721]

I don't understand, the ingredients of eliquid have already been tested as safe to inhale.
-Propylene Glycol is safe to be inhaled with nebulizers for people with breathing problems like myself
-Nicotine is already "safe" to inhale with nicotine inhalers and cigarettes
-And most of these flavorings are already in flavored tobacco products such as cigars, cigarillos, cigarettes, pipe tobacco, and hookah tobacco.

What is there left to test?

[Hangar]

The ingredients have only been tested individually and/or as a different compound than e-liquid. Scientifically...just because the effects of certain elements/ingredients are known by themselves does not mean they will have the same effect once you put them all together as a new compound, in various recipe formats, and then heat it at certain temperature ranges and inhale into your lungs.

Understand now?...its a chemistry thing.

...and by the way...the nicotine inhaler (which available via prescription in the U.S.) does NOT get inhaled into your lungs. It gets absorbed in your THROAT, sort of like a spray would...big difference potentially speaking.

***EDIT** - Steff, from the look of the websites and the way they are being marketed right now id say the sellers/suppliers (same thing) dont come close to having the expertise nor the funds to manage such a huge project once the FDA gets involved. Its going to have to come from large investors/manufacturers who are interested in bringing this product to market for real.

Is there even a U.S. patent on this thing?....there's another legal question, sheesh.

[Lorddrek]

Thinking more about it openly promoting on a college campus probably will not fly. Certainly bars are a good target though. Suppliers need to do some promotions.

[the88thcrazy]

Thinking more about it openly promoting on a college campus probably will not fly. Certainly bars are a good target though. Suppliers need to do some promotions.

I thoroughly disagree. there are tons of smokers on campuses. aside from this, college students are prone to speak their mind publicly and openly.

college students are also poor; and vaping is definitely a cheaper way to go. i took my e-cig on campus today, and handed out all 5 of the business cards that rob at alt smoke gave to me. everyone seemed pretty interested.

today alone, i generated atleast 15 new e-smokers. i gave little demonstrations to everyone who asked, told them about the prices (which surprisingly, the initial costs didn't scare off anyone i talked to), told them about how there's no tar or carcinogens; all that jazz.

i didn't mention the forum to too many people though (made it sound like a sales pitch, and e-cigarette-forum.com is a pain in the ass to say 20 times in an hour)

just educate those smokers. the more people who start using it, the more attention it draws. the attention just spreads until probably a newspaper or magazine publishes an article about it. get that attention, and i guarantee that someone, anyone, will want to do that proper testing for it.

Just a theory, but sitting here and talking to people who already vape isn't going to get anything done.

[Delite]

I it is a good idea becuase the students can do studies, reports, test markets on names, split testing, etc. It is a great idea for special projects! I say go for it 100%