Big Tobacco and E-Cigs... A Winning Combination

[Ed_C]

And this is the free market business model that everyone loves so much. If you suggest any, not for profit system, you're a communist and un-American .

Absolutely, pharms and medical industries need sick people and not necessarily want to cure disease but prolong the treatments.
Why do you think most doctors are now under the umbrella of the area hospitals. They were driven out of self employment by high prices on supplies, insurance etc and now get a salary from the hospitals and work for them... It's about control at least according to my surgeon. You can bet they still charge the insurance the same amount or more for the surgeons contribution, but the profits go to them not the doctor. This is what my doctor told me at least.

PS I would take exception with the not wanting to cure disease. If one company came out with a drug that lessened symptoms and another came out with a cure, who's going to sell more pills? Also, I have a hard time believing that the whole medical industry is so corrupt that they don't want to cure people. There's always going to be sick people and new mutations that need new treatments.

 

[BillyWJ]

I have to say, CM, You make some excellent points.

Here's my take on the whole thing....

It is entirely possible that by big tobacco entering the market, that cost could be driven down, and availability of choices could shoot way up. It is also very possible that as you said, ecigs could become more mainstream with the help of the endorsement of bt. They have tons of money,but are losing hand over fist to vaping, and so it only makes sense that they would have an "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em" attitude to maintain solvency.

However.....

This is the caveat....
Big Government has been regulating Big Tobacco for *I believe* Longer than there has been acetone, rat poison, et al, in cigarettes. I don't think that gov't regulation is the way to go... Could just be me, but isn't one of the major tenets in Libertarian thought Leave us the Hell alone?!?! (in laymans' terms) Either the free market works, or it doesn't. Either we the people can practice self governance and be proactive in keeping e cig and eliquid company's feet to the fire to keep our products pure (it has worked for five years now, give or take), OR we need Big Brother to clean up our messes for us.

I have to tell you....I tried the e-cig back in 2009-2010, in what I would consider the extremely early days.... the products that I found were crap, and I didn't purchase again. In fact, I didn't try ecigs again until August of 2013, and I found that the quality of even the most basic "cig-a-like" was massively improved. This was not thanks to the almighty government, this was thanks to consumers demanding a better product. Why on earth would you insist that we need gov't intervention???

In the end....Do I think that big tobacco entering the scene could be a good thing? Simply based on capitalist thinking, yes, it could be a good thing. Do I think that Big Government regulation could keep us safe? Heck no. Every thing that Big <----operative word here Government touches gets screwed up.

I don't trust Big Tobacco. They engineered their products to make me more addicted to them, with no regard to the health implications, and lied under oath about it. I don't trust Big Tobacco to not put things in ecigs that are bad for you, to also make them more addictive.

IF Big Tobacco simply became a supplier of base nicotine, with no additives, I would probably be okay with that.

I doubt BT will ever get into anything more complicated than a cig-alike. It's not their business model, and they would be wide open to lawsuits for existing gear that's out there, or they'd have to invent something new, that nobody else sells. Kind of hard and expensive to reinvent the coil and the wick.

 

[Fisheeboy]

Lots of really good points made here from lots of folks with lots of info so I'm not gonna say much here. Just that I work at a store that has been selling Vuse since they were introduced and I tried one out of curiosity. Tasted pretty good actually but the whole thing is just plain junk!!! And as someone who has been vaping for a while it really breaks my heart to see the ignorant buying them faster than we can keep them in stock and on the shelf. As far as I'm concerned there is nothing positive about BT getting into e-cigs. I just hope that those who do use them will quickly come out of their ignorance and get a hold of the devices that we here have come to know and love.

 

[NiNi]

The hatred for the pharmaceutical industry here really takes me back a bit. While I'd agree that they have brought drugs to the market that should have never been released, it's advances in medicine, including pharmaceuticals, that allows us to live longer and longer. People with HIV are no longer sentenced to death and people survive cancer at a much greater rate than in the past, to name just two examples. If it wasn't for modern medicine, many of us would not be alive today. We live in a capitalist society that promotes development, but this same capitalism is also the cause of some of the abuses. Unfortunately that seems to be the trade off with this type of system.

No, no, no, no. Having a brother in law, and several friends who died from complications of AIDS, having a dad who has AIDS, 2 dear friends who died of Leukemia, and myself (and family and friends) being a guinea pig for psychotropic meds for over 24 years, I have to totally disagree with that. BP just gives you enough of a reprieve of what ails you, at a huge markup, to keep you alive and forking out $$$$ for their "bandage meds". "Cures" are not found by BP, they are found by privately funded scientists, who are then put on the slow track of trials easily going on for 15+ years. BP doesn't want healthy humans, they want sick humans, and the longer they keep you sick, the more money they make. And with all the side effects from the meds they produce, you are put on more meds to counteract those side effects.

Ask anyone being treated for depression or PTSD if most, if not ALL, their prescriptions carry the warning of suicidal ideologies? Treating depression with medication that might possibly contribute to turning the gas on and sticking your head in the oven? CYA, BP, CYA.

Prozac was the wonder drug for depression, a 20mg capsule averaging $5 a cap/$150 a month. By the time I was put in the hospital, I was on 80mgs a day/$600 a month and a hair's breath from killing myself. Hey, more is better, RIGHT? Cymbalta, RAT POISON. How many people have had their kidneys fail from that garbage?

BF LOVES my Panic Disorder, PTSD and Chronic depression......but hell will freeze over before they find a "cure".

 

[Ed_C]

I'm sorry for all your pain and suffering, but how do you explain that people are living so much longer? As for suicidal ideologies with meds that are for the treatment of people who already have suicidal ideologies, it doesn't seem unreasonable that suicidal ideologies would be listed. Granted that there are bad drugs out there and good drugs that can have very bad side effects. Doctors should be very clear what side effects are possible with any treatment and what the rates of occurrence of these are. We live in a capitalist country and money motivates people. Until we get profit out of medicine there will be abuses. Do you have any suggestions for a better system? I'd be happy to listen.

 

[NicoHolic]

There will never be a cure or preventative drug for Alzheimer's, ADA, etc. because it would probably be based on nicotine.

 

[zelda]

I honestly do not see that option ever being eradicated. One can look to other items that government forbids and see that options are available. Strictly controlled (or allegedly strictly controlled) markets still have options if options are truly the bottom line for you as a consumer.



I believe BT's association with eCigarettes will change, as eCigs are a game changer. To me, it is like saying you, who are (or were) smoker will not change. Even some of us experienced this when being honest about our own self, that we will not change. We were in this for life. Then eCigs came along and turned that perception upside down. Redeemed us in a very real way.

Yeah, I can very much understand hating on BT perhaps for rest of one's life, but if being honest, that hatred is on you. That caution to trust again is on you. BT is in the market of selling eCigs now and unless ANTZ succeeds in decimating the industry, BT will be in the new market indefinitely. Whether you choose to buy a BT produced eCig device or liquid, is entirely up to you.

But just to be clear, to think your current eCig manufacturer is beyond all public scrutiny sounds naive. Perhaps not here on a vaping forum where we can all more or less agree on what is top companies / best quality, but in general public, I think the scrutiny is taken to a level where objectivity is more viable.

I don't hate BT. No one forced me to pick up cigarettes and smoke them for 30 years. That was my choice.

But BT would be more than happy to corner the market for ecigarette products. And if the regulations are stringent enough they may be able to.

BT is not the enemy here - Big Pharma and the FDA are.

 

[mountainbikermark]

Regulate in the form of requiring ingredients be clearly visible. Let the consumer decide if they want to use it or not.
Now I mean TRUE ingredient labeling not the system with all the loop holes that now exists. Example , 999.9mg of trans fat? Still labeled as "0 grams of trans fat" which the average American reads as "trans fat free". All legal under the current regulations but potentially very unhealthy.
Expiration date. Not "best if used by" as currently done on otc products but "discard after", like on prescriptions.
End of my suggestion for regulations.
For those who are discussing curing this or that. Take a look at acne. How much would be taken out of the economy, jobs and profits lost, etc, by curing it? The common cold, same scenario if there was a cure. Neither if those are fatal and are a drop in the bucket in comparison to diseases such as cancer. To say they would never hold back on releasing a cure if one were found does not understand the human factor introduced into capitalism anymore than those that were shocked when the Soviet Union didn't turn into the utopia they'd promised. Would the power hungry, greedy, narcissistic CEO rather make a few billion today for the cure or keep the masses enslaved to the meds/doctors/systems/misery that help them survive a few more years while making hundreds of billions in the process.
Call me a tin hatter but I was also called one when I tried to tell folks the government was spying on them without their consent, which has now been proven over and over, even justified as necessary for the greater good.
Follow the money. It always leads to the truth.

Support Our Troops!!!
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I'm an "s pen aholic" Noteate

 

[DC2]

Also, I have a hard time believing that the whole medical industry is so corrupt that they don't want to cure people. There's always going to be sick people and new mutations that need new treatments.

I had a hard time believing that "they" would not want to find a way for smokers to really quit smoking.
How is that working out?

 

[Ohms Lawbreaker]

Hate to boil this complicated issue up into vapor, such great debate, but my 2 cents is always follow the money. Lots of Big Things competing for $$$. Agree that no one forces me to do these things, also agree that Big Things like Big Money and Big Power tend toward corruption.

And some good people just seem stuck in the system. Doctors and nurses and EMPs really get the brunt of hostility toward the medical insurance industry and pharma industry. The guy with a gas station selling smokes and/or e-cigs is a menace to society. A lot of grunts work for the federal government, they're just people, but some Timothy Mcveigh comes along and tries to change government with a bomb. Man it's all so messed up sometimes. The enemy often seems as amorphous as vapor.

 

[Ed_C]

You know, the idea that BP was holding back cures would be believable if there was only one company. The problem is, that the first company that patents a cure for say, the common cold, shuts down all his competition and corners the market. To believe that they were holding back cures, you would have to believe that all the companies were working together and had long range goals. I find that highly unlikely.

 

[NicoHolic]

You know, the idea that BP was holding back cures would be believable if there was only one company. The problem is, that the first company that patents a cure for say, the common cold, shuts down all his competition and corners the market. To believe that they were holding back cures, you would have to believe that all the companies were working together and had long range goals. I find that highly unlikely.

I don't. After a short period of time, the "cure" would be generic and prices would plummet. BP executives aren't that short-sighted.

 

[DC2]

You know, the idea that BP was holding back cures would be believable if there was only one company. The problem is, that the first company that patents a cure for say, the common cold, shuts down all his competition and corners the market. To believe that they were holding back cures, you would have to believe that all the companies were working together and had long range goals. I find that highly unlikely.

Well, be that as it may or may not be, why are they so vigorously opposing electronic cigarettes?

 

[BillyWJ]

I'm sorry for all your pain and suffering, but how do you explain that people are living so much longer? As for suicidal ideologies with meds that are for the treatment of people who already have suicidal ideologies, it doesn't seem unreasonable that suicidal ideologies would be listed. Granted that there are bad drugs out there and good drugs that can have very bad side effects. Doctors should be very clear what side effects are possible with any treatment and what the rates of occurrence of these are. We live in a capitalist country and money motivates people. Until we get profit out of medicine there will be abuses. Do you have any suggestions for a better system? I'd be happy to listen.

Better nutrition is the #1 reason people live longer, overall, although I could be wrong, and the development of antibiotics being the biggest factor.

 

[BillyWJ]

Well, be that as it may or may not be, why are they so vigorously opposing electronic cigarettes?

Because they have millions, if not billions, invested in THEIR delivery system.

 

[Ed_C]

I had a hard time believing that "they" would not want to find a way for smokers to really quit smoking.
How is that working out?

So absence of a cure is evidence of that they aren't trying? ....and btw I quit cold turkey............twice. I just relapse about every 8 years.

 

[DC2]

So absence of a cure is evidence of that they aren't trying?

No.

The fact that they are vigorously fighting a REAL cure is evidence that they are not only not trying to find a real cure...
But actively trying to block a REAL cure with all of the money they can summon.

 

[Jman8]

I think Ed_C covered it pretty well. It would be one thing if they sold unadulterated tobacco wrapped in unadulterated paper, but they never have and never will. They have done everything possible to market their products to the most people they can, including teens, and have done everything they can to deny the addictive properties of nicotine and to deny what they have done to enhance that addiction. (Again, see the Seven Dwarfs) The more people they get to start the more people they have as "customers" as long as they can enhance the addictive qualities of nicotine.

All this in response to "While those 'innocent' users of Big Tobacco have zero blood on their hands?"

Still curious what your honest response to that question is? Though I can perhaps accurately guess given your implications in your response.

Or for real insight into the moral compass of Big Tobacco, you could watch this:

Addiction Incorporated | The true story of the Tobacco companies' commitment to addicting the human brain, and how the world came to know about it.

Oh look, another hit piece that seeks to absolve users of responsibility for their choices.

It would be different if it was like alcohol, where some people have a problem with it and some don't.

I'd enter into that discussion/debate.

You could try it and put it down and no problem.

I quit cold turkey (for 8.5 years). I know of many alcohol drinkers that don't fit category of chronic alcoholic but do fit category of 'have problems with use of it' and who seemingly have no desire to stop forever. I think I could count on one hand the amount of actual social drinkers and not people who claim that but are essentially lying to themselves and whoever will listen. Becomes a game of relativity and then the fall back position of "well, it's legal."

Almost from the start, nicotine is terribly addictive to everyone who uses it.

Disagree, I know of several people who started/tried nicotine and didn't get hooked. I know of others who are social smokers in the vein of social drinkers above. I still smoke and don't crave them.

The sale of such substances, in any other language is criminal behavior. But if you want to say "that's just business," go ahead.

Thank you. I will and won't be shy about discussing this topic.

 

[Ed_C]

Better nutrition is the #1 reason people live longer, overall, although I could be wrong, and the development of antibiotics being the biggest factor.

Yeah nutrition was a big factor at one point and still an issue for much of the world. So many people still don't have a clean drinking supply. It's really criminal that this is the case in this day and age. Also you're right, antibiotics were huge. ....and we get antibiotics from the local witch doctor........oh wait, that's not right, we get them from pharmaceutical companies.

 

[B1sh0p]

Better nutrition is the #1 reason people live longer, overall, although I could be wrong, and the development of antibiotics being the biggest factor.

Pretty much this, but the complete opposite.