The Canadian Lung Association Affair

Projectguy;8509234 said:

WolfeReign;8467063 said:

touché.

I guess i was looking at something else which was the transference in this case. CLA put the onus on HC, FDA, WHO, and a few others, so i was looking directly at HC, WHO, and FDA thinking that is where the this call to action should go. I mean get this out to the media...write the letters to the news stations, news papers etc....the government does not like bad press and i am sure this would kick HC's ....'s into high gear.....

(if i can flag down project guy or Dusty who seem to understand politics better then myself, they might correct me here in my logic)

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Some things to consider:

1. HC: They have huge issues to deal with. Its not just that e-cigs are IMO one of the most complex social issues that they will have ever dealt with, the other one coming to mind is abortion, they don't know where to start because it involves other branches of government specifically, the Canadian Revenue Agency. This is further complicated by the fact that this is a cross border issue.
2. CRA: Another government agency with more on its plate than you could imagine and some very painful lessons of the '70s. The lessons come from a first attempt to by governments to take on BT with massive increases in taxes on cigarettes. All it did was to drive the "problem" underground and effectively create the "First Nations smoke shop" and Grand River Enterprises of Six Nations.
3. BT: I'm certian that some of you are saying there he goes again - same old - same - old. Well I'll say it again and again but this time try to phrase it differently. BT is and continues to be a "dying business" but it is remarkably resiliant and has been able to weather many storms of government imposed fines in the countless of billions of dollars. Then along comes e-cigs. Well the corous of allaleuihas coming from the executive suites of BT is increasing and that means only one thing - get in and dominate. Wall Street has taken notice and is predicting the demise of alalogues within a 10 years time frame. No, that doesn't mean there will be no more alalogues what it will mean is a shift away by BT into the e-cig market with billions of dollars in R & D and marketing. The analogue market will be relegated to the LDC's, i.e., Africa.
4. BP: NRT's are just a product line and like thalidomide, a mounting data base of evidence will kill the Zybans and Champix of the world and a similar mounting data base of evidence as to the effectiveness of e-cigs will kill the patches, gum and inhalers. These data bases already exist you can find them in dozens of places on this and any other e-cig forum but every year they exist they grow deeper and more compelling and the more our community grows the better educated the general population becomes. "Owners" of these product lines, the non-executive managers of BP, will continue to justify their existance until the sales fall off and the negative data bases become impossible to ignore at the board level. The war on vapers is being waged by these middle managers who have the power to fund the CLA's of the world and keep the boards in the dark. As I'm sure you can all tell by now this has nothing to do with the health or well being of the users of BT products only the well being of the corporate entities that the respective boards of directors have a fiduciary responsibility to manage. Nothing personal its just business.
5. The Unholy Alliance: CRA and BT: Before discussing this we have to understand the dynamics surrounding why and when this unholy alliance will come into being. The best research I have been able to find is from the UK. The estimate is that in the OECD, excluding Japan there are 1 billion people. Rule of thumb is that the the percentage of the population that smokes is 20% (200 million smokers). Currently at least 25% of the smoking population is a vaper and has or will try an e-cig (50 million vapers). The numbers for North America are currently, today not tomorrow, TODAY is close to 4 million. On its own for a government vaping is its its worst nightmare:
   1. E-Cigs are an effective alternative to government sanctioned NRT products
   2. The e-cig consumer is middle class with sufficient disposable income to sustain the market and make it grow
   3. The e-cig consumer can withstand tax hits, prohibitions and misinformation
   4. The E-cig community has no identifiable leadership group. This is huge - how do you attack an organization when there is none? Attacking a community has huge downside because of an amorphous demographic. They are attacking a block of swing voters.
   5. The product itself - Nicotine aka Joose: Small packages and difficult to identify if there is Nicotine without in-lab testing.
   6. The Internet: Community, information, education, support, freedom of speech and TRADE & COMMERCE
   7. The E-Cig market is global and acts local
   
   All that to prep you for a theory. In a perfect world when government has come to the realization that it can't undo the e-cig market it will want to regulate and tax it. Government will gradually turn its policy on its head. It will approve the use of Nicotine in e-cigs but at a cost - joose will be taxed. And this is where BT comes in: they [BT] will be only too happy to act as the collection agent. They will make joose so easy to get and of such reliability and quality that the household names we know today will have no choice but and be happy to sell out to BT - Amen.
6. The Campagins Against E-Cigs: Well funded it is largely uneducated, poorly informed and ham fisted. Lets hope it stays that way. Campaigns such as the one the CLA mounted on 19 Jan 2013 has only served to teach us how to mobilize, to educate ourselves and others and to use our most effective subversive weapons of war ever invented; the internet and social media.
7. The Media: Acting like a drunken sailor at a bar at closing time looking for a date - the raunchier the better. Again as shown by the CLA, the 4th estate largely published without regard for accuracy or balance all that mattered was a flashy headline generating story.

The vaping Response: We are too dam busy to go out and march: jobs, family, friends but we have the net and we are getting much better at using it. That is where our response should be launched from. As a community my advice is to stay away from the media use the net and social media to give heart felt, teary eyed testimonials but leave the debate and expert accounts for the media and the EXPERTS. We as a community must be like vapor translucent and uncontainable. Enough said

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