Australian ban; Egar illegal

[sherid]

The reasons that the fight against smoking bans has so far been ineffective is that smokers wimp out and do not fight back. They also failed to effectively organize. Much has been accomplished since some smokers started waking up, but there remains a splintering of groups. You cannot organize and effectively fight oppression and bad science by creating still another splinter group. FORCES is one large group that has started to gain a smidgen of power. If you take the fight to include only electronic cigarettes, you will lose....not enough power or numbers. You must look at the big picture and what we are fighting. It is not about smoking and health, and it sure is not about e smoking and health. We are fighting a tyranny of health NAZIS that intend to take over every aspect of our personal lives. Take your fight to FORCES or to one of the large groups currently fighting smoking bans. There is strength in numbers. These people will go down because they are getting way too careless. The recent stories claiming third hand smoke dangers, the move to ban smoking from the home, a recent resurgence of a five year old study(the Pueblo heart attack study) that has already been proven false as have all other heart attack studies that claim a reduction following the ban, and this new story banning e cigarettes are going to call all of their claims into question. Science is being attacked, and the spineless researchers who fail to stand up and be heard will arise. Read Michael Siegel's column to see the history of the decline of the anti smoking campaign. They "appear" to be on a roll right now, but there are simply too many credible people asking questions. The NAZIS also appeared to be on a roll until over expansion of power and over confidence destroyed the suckers.

[Lithium1330]

This has a psicological aspect too, if you was told that you are killing yourself and killing the others around you by smoking, this affects you and you start to think that you don't deserve to fight back because they are right, because we don't want to kill ourselves or kill the others around us, i don't want to let everybody smoke regulars everywhere, the smoke is something bad, that is why when we start to smoke is so horrible, our bodys are telling us that this is wrong, i don't want to support smoking regulars, i think i have found a better way for my adiction: vaping.

If someone wants to join FORCES read carefuly what they are defending: The FORCES International Liberty News Network then make the right decition for you, vaping and smoking are very different things.

[PakaDay]

For those needing some juice I have some spare just Pm me as it is NOT illegal to send it from Queensland YET. It will be soon cant say when unfortunately.

Pak

[Trumpybloke]

Dr Murray Laugesen of Health N.Z. has just e-mailed me with his reply for posting on the board It appears below in full , the e-mail was entitled:

Victorian bans on non-medicinal nicotine inhalers-- salesban or more?


The issue is whether, as the Age reported 31 December 2008, possession and use of non-medicinal non-tobacco nicotine is illegal in the state of Victoria commencing 1 January 2009. Is this true? Has the Victorian government become nicotine-prohibitionist all of a sudden?

If so, non-medicinal nicotine for inhalation is now an illegal hard drug.
Yet smoking tobacco is sold on every street corner, and smokeless tobacco (snuff for sucking in inhaling up the nose) can still be imported for private use.

The way the system works, government classifies nicotine as either tobacco or medicine. If it is tobacco-free it must be a medicine! And if neither, it must be banned! What about backshed extraction of nicotine juice from tobacco for private use?
In NZ, people can still import nicotine privately for inhalation, and only the zero nicotine cartridges can be sold here along with the e-cigarette. Nicotine is a medicine. Anything else is permitted on a private basis.

However I was very shocked to read that its use and possession was banned. Is this true? If that is true, then private import would be banned. If you were to order some cartridges from the internet you would know the answer to this. Better, phone Customs today and tell them you want to order a months supply, and see if it is legal. Also look on the Customs website for Victoria. It may be there in black and white.

For smokeless tobacco Australia allows personal import I think, and charge duty. You may wish to contact www.stag.org.au or Dave Fullarton davef@teybros.com.au who runs the Smokeless Users group in Australia. Nicotine does not incur duty.

Once you have hard evidence that Nicotine for private use is being barred at the borders, then you have proof that nicotine is being treated as a HARD DRUG. You should contact your Civil Liberties Council if this is the case.
Meantime tobacco flows in duty-free with every incoming plane load.

Making nicotine into a hard drug would mean it was illegal to possess it, just like heroin and cocaine.
Seriously, this would mean you would have to organise yourselves, contact the manufacturer for a e-mailing list of potential supporters (or supply him with text if he wants to keep the list confidential), and write the Age and invite others to contact you.
Many people would be against the ban on possession and use of nicotine.
Will caffeine be next? And all other addictive activity that makes the heart beat faster and raises the blood pressure for half an hour? Even the Seventh Day Adventist Church would surely not want their views on nicotine and caffeine imposed on the community by rule of law.

While not recommended for those with heart failure, because it increases heart rate and blood pressure for the next half hour, nicotine does NOT cause heart attacks (coronary thrombosis). Cigarette smoke does so, by stimulating platelets to join together to form a thrombus or clot in the artery. (The world expert on this topic is Professor Benowitz at San Francisco and this information is from his book Nicotine safety and toxicity).
Nicotine is safe . It was given to thousands of people for five years as nicotine gum, did not cause one death or hospitalisation compared with a control group. This famous US study is called the Lung Study.

E-cigarettes so far tested, show much less nicotine in their puff than does tobacco smoke. For the Ruyan electronic inhaler it is no more than 9% of what is in a tobacco puff.

I dont disagree with the TGA's wish to regulate and require e-cigarettes and nicotine cartridges be regulated, to ensure quality control on imported nicotine formulations for human consumption. Under the prevailing laws around the world, that usually means it has to be as a medicine.

But it is essential that Government does not prevent citizens from exercising their own risk assessments and importing nicotine for private inhalation if they so wish, until the cumbersome process of developing and registering a new medicine for sale under TGA rules can reach a successful conclusion. Mostly it won't, because of the huge costs for unsophisticated manufacturers in China.

Meantime you could take all or some of the following steps.

a) First establish the facts. Is nicotine is now a banned drug for private inhalation? Or not?
b) Talk to Melbourne Age and get them to check it out, so they realise the implications.
c) Phone up your radio station and get on to talk back and get people to understand.

I wonder if the government is keeping the antis happy with smoking in cars ban, and display in shops ban,while keeping industry happy with ban on the e-cigs.

If Egar.com has sold 10,000 ecigs in Vic, after launching its website in June 2008 (can you confirm that with the company?) then that's a lot of e-smokers going back on the tobacco.!!! That does not help the Tobacco Control Strategy.

I calculate that 10,000 ecigs equals about one percent of all smokers. If any cigarette maker could seize 1 percent of the market within 6 months he would be very pleased.

Cigarette smoking over time kills one in two smokers.
So if those 10,000 are still using their e-cigarettes, that is 5000 lives saved over time. 5000 lives saved equals the 6000 lives saved annually by the Quit Campaigns over the past 10 years in Victoria (according to Vic Health's website). Vic Health says $741 million has been saved over 10 years, so on that basis, e-cigarettes could soon be saving government some $74 million a year.
One could argue the numbers, but the principle remains - electronic nicotine inhalers reduce health harm and improve the economy and longevity.

Nonsmokers find it difficult to understand that a smoker only needs a certain amount of nicotine, and the body treats all nicotine molecules the same, whether from tobacco or nicotine inhalers.

I regard e-cigarettes as the lever to get rid of tobacco cigarettes (see Untitled Document), and in New Zealand nicotine e-inhalers will over the next 10 years be part of the joint effort of all antismoking groups to end cigarette sales.

Keep tobacco smokers smoking, keep the tax revenue coming in.! I guess that is easiest, but the cigarette manufacturers will be pleased to have seen the Health Minister shut down a small but fast growing threat to their market share.

Also for clarification, ecigarettes are not the same as what Philip Morris was trying to sell last year, which was a tobacco cigarette, and ugly and ungainly to boot.

I have decided in the light of governments's action in Victoria, that I will stop calling them e-cigarettes and start calling them electronic nicotine inhalers. A change of terminology will I think help you in avoiding misunderstandings.

One suggestion I have is, just for now, forget trying to use the nicotine inhaler indoors, as this issue will win little sympathy, as it diverts attention from the main freedom you will wish to preserve right now - to buy nicotine on the internet from outside Victoria, for smoking in the privacy of your own car, home, and garden.

If the worst comes to the worst, other smokeless ways to get nicotine safely are found on Untitled Document but nothing can compare right now to the convenience of the electronic nicotine inhaler.

Murray Laugesen QSO
public health physician

Health New Zealand Ltd.

[sherid]

Originally Posted by Lithium1330

This has a psicological aspect too, if you was told that you are killing yourself and killing the others around you by smoking, this affects you and you start to think that you don't deserve to fight back because they are right, because we don't want to kill ourselves or kill the others around us, i don't want to let everybody smoke regulars everywhere, the smoke is something bad, that is why when we start to smoke is so horrible, our bodys are telling us that this is wrong, i don't want to support smoking regulars, i think i have found a better way for my adiction: vaping.

If someone wants to join FORCES read carefuly what they are defending: The FORCES International Liberty News Network then make the right decition for you, vaping and smoking are very different things.

Vaping and smoking are not very different things. Both involve a decision to ingest nicotine in any way we can. Vaping is different only because it suggests that we can still do what we love about smoking but in a safer way. We have not given up the desire to suck on something and see tons of vapor/smoke coming from the lit end of a cig or e cig. If we had, then we would not be searching for the e cig that offered "tons of vapor" We would also not be looking for an e cig that resembles a real cigarette so that we could still have the look and feel of a cigarette in our hands. We would not be looking for high nicotine content in juices and cartridges if all of us did not still have a love affair with smoking. That said, all of us are looking for a way to do this and possibly escape the diseases attributed to smoking. Many of us are also looking for something that will allow us to "smoke" in places with smoking bans. I know I am. If e smokers wish to allow governments and anti smoking forces to continue their march against personal freedom by simply sitting back and hiding behind our shirts as we vape away, then do so. You insure that these people will rip that e cig and liquid right from your hands if you allow it. Separating yourselves from the smokers weakens any possible power you might gain. The anti smokers still see e smokers as smokers, and they most decidedly ARE out to get you. If you wish to ingratiate yourselves to these people with the promise that you are doing something healthy, you are fooling yourselves. The right to choose whether to smoke or to vape or to eat two Big Macs at lunch is your right, but by wimping out, we have handed the power to the anti smokers. I am not a member of FORCES, but after reading their Constitution through your link, I am about to join. What do you object to in those guiding principles? Did you read what the zealots just did to Australians? Do you want them to take away your vaping rights? Sorry, but the time to be nice is passed whether you smoke, vape, or eat Big Macs. It is time to FIGHT.

[Trumpybloke]

Oh And Solution102 .. loved yer post

[TropicalBob]

That letter is a masterpiece of incredibly useful information. It should be read and thoroughly digested by every member of this forum. Graph after graph are just dead-on.

And forget suggestions to join force with smokers. Electronic nicotine inhalers have nothing in common with cancer sticks. Nothing. The tobacco smoking battle has been fought and lost. "Rights" that never existed will never be regained. If you enjoy living a life of futility, then insist on smoking in public.

If not, enjoy your electronic nicotine inhaler -- in private, as suggested -- and learn to use and enjoy snus and dissolvables.

[SuperStack]

"I have decided in the light of governments's action in Victoria, that I will stop calling them e-cigarettes and start calling them electronic nicotine inhalers. A change of terminology will I think help you in avoiding misunderstandings."

Bravo! That's exactly what I mentioned here the other day - "e-cigarette" & "e-smoking" are doing us no favours at all.

[gizmo]

Thanks for posting that Trumpybloke,just shows how quietly this was done & a great number are still unaware...

This Govt & past tend to pick their own panel of advisor's & so called experts to suit their own needs.

For the life of me this ban just doesn't make sense, so with any unjust law or ruling I tend to ignore it & go on my merry way.

Originally Posted by trog100

it doesn't matter how safe these things are future "drug" addicts are not wanted.. period..

trog

As long as cigarettes can be bought,there will always be a next generation.

Maybe a card system will need to be introduced,if you smoke you receive a card & can only buy if this card is flashed..if you dont smoke..no card.

[womblebat]

It seems this isn't a health issue at all but a money issue, the goverment arent getting their cut and are backed by the tobacco companies.

Isn't it sad we live in a world where money is held in higher esteem than human life, i'm so angry at these politicians and yes men right now and really feel for the people of Victoria, yet another right is ripped away, for your own good? no i think not its for the money and the ignorance of so called lobyists who are so narrow minded and ignorant of any advancement that will help smokers lead a healthier lifestyle,

I am however pleased to hear people like Dr Murray Laugesen saying what we already know, and i would be willing to bet that many more doctors would back up his claims, but we aren't dealing with common sense here are we, were dealing with greed and ignorance, here endeth my rant, sorry folks i just had to get it off my chest.

Please don't stop Trumpybloke, i'm sure your heading in the right direction here and if there is anything i can do to help, be it an online petition or whatever i will gladly put my name to it