Portland Oregon-KATU investigates ecigs

[happily]

You have a person from Kaiser and a person from the AMA representing one side (both organizations closely tied to big pharma) and on the other side you have some random, anonymous and arguably confused guy off the street. That's where the imbalance comes in. You can't put one faceless guy in a position to have to defend a product he doesn't seem to know much about or like very much against two professionals in the medical industry. Have a vox populi, but show a few more people and don't present it as if the "man on the street" is the only one available to give a weak defense of PVs. Additionally, they presented information from the Oregon AG as basically unassailable, but showed the NZ report as part of a scary looking layout with voiceover that only talked about how it wasn't valid research.

The two parties in this dispute are Smoking Everywhere and the Oregon Attorney General, so they're the only primary sources. The reporter provided experts supporting the AG's position but none supporting the SE viewpoint.

So, yeah. The notion that the report was balanced or fair is wrong.

I said your were right(sm)

[Surf Monkey]

I said your were right(sm)

I know. That wasn't really directed to you specifically.

[mmmvaping]

The caffeine comparison is always fruitful. People have been hammered with the idea that nicotine and cigarettes are one in the same thing. They typically have problems grasping the idea that the delivery method is the main risk in traditional smoking.

One argument you could use goes like this:

Lattes can make you fat if you drink too many of them. But it isn't the caffeine that's making you fat. It's the milk. Same deal with cigarettes. They can make you sick and kill you if you smoke too many of them. But it's not the nicotine that's killing you, it's the tar, CO2, fine particulate, combustion byproducts and chemical additives. Remove the milk from lattes and you reduce the risk of getting fat from them to virtually nil. Remove the burning leafs from smoking and you reduce your risk of serious smoking related disease to virtually nil. The dangers of caffeine and nicotine remain the same, but taken alone they represent only a small percentage of the overall risk.

But there's no way to fault KPTV for not talking about things like that, because their report was specifically about the SE case in Oregon. SE made (and continues to make) the claim that their electronic cigarettes are a quitting method and that they're "healthy." That language is highly problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that SE never filed the proper paperwork required of companies making health claims in Oregon. Furthermore, the Oregon AG is going after them for violating Oregon's prohibition on advertising cigarettes to children, but they're going to have a much harder time with that angle because the argument is based only on the existence of flavored carts... and the classification of PVs has yet to be finalized.

Well put....I agree that there report was unfare but better than most. And nicotine is not the killer in cigs. I guess cigs gave nicotine a bad name. But I will say SE are screwing it up for everyone....Yes the word is out there but there leaving a bad impression. that guy at the kiosk made claims and could not back it up....simple as that. Oh well......

[kameko]

Why does our society continue to view addiction as a moral failure instead of a human problem deserving of compassion and assistance?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31601393/ns/health-addictions/

well..because it IS a failure. its not a human problem, its an individual problem. face it...there is no legitimate reason to start smoking. people do it anyway despite knowing its effects. why would anyone be deserving of compassion and assistance if they're purposely doing it to themselves?

i'm a smoker too. but i'm not delusional in the idea that society is supposed to cry for me because i'm making my own self-admittedly stupid choices.

[Surf Monkey]

its not a human problem

Yes it is. Addictive behavior is universal. It's a core part of the human condition. Everyone is addicted to something, be it smoking, drinking, coffee, sugar, shopping, TV... the list goes on and on.

[kameko]

Yes it is. Addictive behavior is universal. It's a core part of the human condition. Everyone is addicted to something, be it smoking, drinking, coffee, sugar, shopping, TV... the list goes on and on.

i would hardly consider smoking anywhere near being addicted to coffee or shopping or tv.

i do not feel sorry for smokers who clearly got themselves into such a horrid habit in the first place.

[Surf Monkey]

i would hardly consider smoking anywhere near being addicted to coffee or shopping or tv.

I would. I've known people who have been just as dependent on those things as on nicotine. Caffeine in particular. Don't discount the level of addiction that people have to caffeine.

i do not feel sorry for smokers who clearly got themselves into such a horrid habit in the first place.

How sanctimonious. You do know that the health research we take for granted today barely existed when a lot of people started smoking, right? Furthermore, people often start at an age when they're not really capable of making very adult decisions anyway. It's a shame that anyone gets addicted to anything, but I don't think blaming the addict is a particularly productive avenue.

[Bigbob]

i would hardly consider smoking anywhere near being addicted to coffee or shopping or tv.

i do not feel sorry for smokers who clearly got themselves into such a horrid habit in the first place.

Kameko, you must be very young. When I grew up, smoking was acceptable everywhere, at the grocery store, in hospital rooms, on TV shows (dancing cigarette packs come to mind), in the movies, in other words EVERYWHERE!! In the military, they gave us 5 packs of smokes in our rations. There were no warning labels.

You shouldn't have to feel sorry, but we got a lot of help getting into the smoking habit, not so much for getting out of it.

[emus]

Yeah, I could tell from the reply to my email that that's where they were headed. Nicotine = smoking. Smoking = death. Therefore nicotine = death.

Weak.

It isn't the caffeine in a latte that makes you fat. It's the milk. It isn't the nicotine in a cigarette that kills you. It's the tar, CO2, fine particulate and chemical additives. Vapor is the new smoke. Spread the word.

Do analogs produce enough CO2 to damage health?

[Phayah]

Kameko does seem very immature. There are many people who were introduced to cigarettes before they were old enough to make rational decisions. There are also many other reasons for addiction. Not to mention, nicotine is a highly addictive substance and it doesn't take very much.

I'd also like to mention that sugar and caffeine addiction come very close. Sugar might even be worse than both.