Yep. Quitting is the only option they want to allow us.
But it doesn't stop at tobacco.
And if ecigs became approved smoking cessation devices instead, once people use them to "quit smoking," then they'll say, "Ok, now that you quit smoking, when are you going to quit vaping?" They'll see vaping as a "treatment" that should be eventually stopped when the patient is "cured."
They have their heads buried so far up their bums that they actually believe that people who use NRTs quit using them after a couple of months, when in reality, it's a chronic habit for most. They bounce between smoking and NRTs or just use the NRT until they die. Even if they manage to quit the NRT, they usually end up with another habit - overeating, gum chewing, nail biting, drinking, etc. I know very few ex-smokers who didn't replace smoking with another habit.
Remember, that 7% succcess rate is pretty much measured in 12 months. I quit smoking for 2 or 3 years once and fell right back into it. I don't think it's all that rare, either. So, how would people like me affect that success rate?
Vapers are between a rock and a hard place.
If we say, "It helped me quit smoking," then we're expected to then quit vaping soon after or we are "just replacing one bad habit with another." They don't care that it's no more dangerous than a few cups of espresso a day.
If we say it's a less hazardous "tobacco product" that we use recreationally, then the indoor ban people equate them with cigarettes and kick us to the curb. They don't care that the vapor acts and smells nothing like tobacco smoke.
We seem screwed either way.
My working theory is that to get vaping socially accepted is getting people to understand that it is nearly identical to the function and purpose as coffee/soda. It offers no nutritional or health benefits on it's own, but it is a reasonably safe consumable for the people who enjoy it and doesn't harm those around them. And it really is a consumable, because most people enjoy the flavor and it's largely reactive in the mouth and throat, not the lungs.
Is "smoking" really only applicable to tobacco?
This will be controversal, but I'm about ready to abandon the whole "well, it's not smoke, so I'm not smoking anymore" tactic. If you look at smoking as an
action and not at what is being inhaled, I can argue that is still smoking, i.e recreationally inhaling a vaporized foriegn substance. However, just as with drinking, there is a big difference in what is being consumed. You can drink copious amounts of water or copious amounts of whiskey. With both, you are "drinking," but they have hugely different consequences and health risks to the drinker and those around him.
"Smoking" a hooka, pot, cigars, pipes and ecigs all have severely different ramifications, but it's still the ACTION of smoking.
We shouldn't be ashamed of the action of smoking. There is nothing wrong with it, if what you are smoking is not a significant risk to yourself or those around you.
It's just like eating healthier. People aren't proud they "quit eating." They are proud that they quit eating foods that were bad for them.
So, in order for others to be ok with it, we need to be OK that we are still doing the action of "smoking" and instead be proud we are smoking healthier. We didn't quit "smoking, we quit "tobacco smoking" and that is more than acceptable and the rest of the world needs to accept that that is OK, too. It's just that up until now, we didn't have anything other than a dangerous substance to smoke. The world needs to understand that just as humans have developed safer/healthier eating and safer/healthier drinking, we now have safer/healthier smoking.
Now that there is a healthier way to smoke, smoking - like eating and drinking - needs to be judged by the
thing that is smoked, not the action itself.
Anyhow, that just sprouted of my brain just now, lol.
