Anti-THR Lies: On the complete absence of ethical etc. thinking in tobacco control

[BuGlen]

This is an outstanding piece from Dr. Carl Phillips on the recent discussion he had with a group of scientists on the subject of reducing nicotine in traditional tobacco cigarettes as a deterrent to smoking:

On the complete absence of ethical etc. thinking in tobacco control (in the context of denicotinized cigarettes) | Anti-THR Lies and related topics

Here's my favorite part of the article:

1. If someone were to mock-up a fake policy proposal to suggest that tobacco control is remarkably under-educated about ethics, human preferences and choices, social responsibility, history, and economics, I am not sure they could do a better job. This is the reason I bother to think about this train wreck in spite of the sentiment expressed previously about this mostly just being a dead-end waste of resources. These observations should be of as much interest to those in tobacco control as its critics, though the very characteristics that are illustrated here tend to be self-immunizing against such observations.

 

[Kent C]

I found it interesting but a bit muddled. Although he gets to the heart of it here:

"At least those ivory tower advocates for communism and fascism actually wrote about the big picture and tried to craft an argument for their position, rather than acting as if they were so clearly right that they did not have to.

5. Those who are just skimming this for nouns might think that I have descended into Godwin hyperbole. "

That he even has to include this 'explanation' shows he knows he's dealing with people who simply don't know history that well (or who haven't read Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism") where aspects of German fascism are quite separate from the actual political system of fascism vs. other political systems - capitalism, socialism, communism, etc. ... which he pretty much says in the last sentence here...

"But this is serious analysis, not snark or chat room babbling that is the equivalent of those freshman essays. There is something wrong to the core about tobacco control’s relationship with scientific epistemology; this is not limited to cases where they are trying to lie about ecigs and such, but shows up throughout the enterprise. There is something wrong to the core about tobacco control’s relationship with political philosophy; they basically do not even seem aware that there is more to ethics than personal opinion about what ends justify what means. There is also a remarkable lack of understanding of history, real-world human behavior, and what people actually care about; this would unimportant if they were just practicing medicine, but a huge failure given that they are practicing social engineering."

...but the crucial part before the last sentence, I have underlined. TC and many regulators have this 'perceptual level' of "understanding" (vs. conceptual level). They see 'smoking' (or nicotine) is "bad" and knee jerk into stopping it. The 'ethical' means of achieving that end is of no concern to them because their 'ethics' is simply "smoking = bad" so therefore stopping it by any means - lying, cheating, fudging methods, using junk science... is therefore "ethical". And all the unintended consequences, black market, history of non-workability - and what happens in the mind of the consumer at the conceptual level, never crosses the TC mind until they see the results. Then there's another knee jerk reaction to 'solve' that. - see my post link below, and recall the smokeless cigarette, 'light cigarettes, ultra lights, the increase of nicotine leaving low tar and now the idea of reducing nicotine - there will be more All 'solutions' to the failures of TC.

Godshall interview exposes how FDA deeming reg bans nearly all e-cig, how vapers can fight back

 

[nicnik]

This is an outstanding piece from Dr. Carl Phillips on the recent discussion he had with a group of scientists on the subject of reducing nicotine in traditional tobacco cigarettes as a deterrent to smoking:

On the complete absence of ethical etc. thinking in tobacco control (in the context of denicotinized cigarettes) | Anti-THR Lies and related topics

Real good article.

I raised the percentage of nicotine in my vaing so that I'd be consuming less of all the other ingredients, since the nicotine is of less concern to me. Had I had nic juice when I still smoked, I could have added some to my cigarettes, and that would've reduced the amount of smoke, with all it's much more dangerous than vape fluids constituents, that I would've been inhaling. I used to smoke strong cigarettes but take small drags, though not for the same reasons. I liked those cigarettes better, but now I realize it probably exposed me to less toxic material, too.