CBC VideoJournalist wants to do a story on Vaping...

[JayTheVapingGuy]

link in the Canada Forum... looking for advice, help, ideas and information about what to do and how to do it.
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/canada-forum/170100-cbc-videojournalist-wants-do-story-vaping.html

 

[Vocalek]

He has contacted CASAA and we are providing information and advice.

 

[JayTheVapingGuy]

LOL... preparing for the crash course on vaping activism... LOL...

 

[JayTheVapingGuy]

Hey guys,

I've done my reading and thinking and this is the email responce that i plan to give to the videojournalist... please check it out and let me know if there are any issues with the formatting and/or content.

I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to you... I had a lot of research and discussion to do. I wanted to interact with my community to find out what their thoughts and views were... as i'm relatively new to vaping (only 3 months now) i wanted to be sure that i wasn't going against the communal wishes by going on air with vaping.

I am definitely interested in chatting with you and letting the world know about Personal Vaporizers and my personal story. I'm not an expert, by any means, but i do consider myself to be relatively educated on the topic.... at least in comparison with the general public. Probably the most important things i can tell you are about my own health story and how Vaping has helped me feel and live a healthier life. I went from having two inhalers(one a daily multi use and another a rescue inhaler) and within two weeks of starting vaping, i had completely ceased use of them. My walk to work was once a 20 minute ordeal that left me short of breath and mildly sweaty, now i get to work in 10 minutes feeling great.

Due to the fact that there has been opposition from the Government, i do need to ask for an agreement that requires that i approve the story before it goes on air. The last thing i want is for my answers to be misunderstood and/or shown in the wrong light and then find myself at odds with my community because my thoughts may be taken as being in opposition with our collective viewpoints... I would also ask for a list of questions that you might ask so that i can be prepared and not come off as a local yokel who doesn't really know anything. I also have talked with some of the vendors, and because of Health Canada's stance on Vaping, they have asked that i do not say anything, on or off of the record, about their companies or their products... i can use and show a device that many companies carry, but i won't have any devices that may have branding on them.

I can provide some background information to you about vaping to help you prepare. There is a consumer activism organization, CASAA that has links to many independant reviews of Vaping that has been a great source of information for me. The following is information that i've been able to get from CASAA, which is predominantly located and works out of the US but supports Canadian interests as well:

E-cigarettes are just one of the tools that can be used to reduce the harm caused by smoking. Modern smokeless tobacco products such as snus and dissolvable tobacco products (orbs, strips, sticks, etc.) are another tool, as is long-term use of pharmaceutical nicotine. The medical establishment calls it “Nicotine Replacement Therapy” (NRT), but anyone who has ever tried it would tell you that it would more properly be called “Nicotine Reduction Therapy.” The directions are aimed at weaning you down and off nicotine. The methodology employed in Tobacco Harm Reduction is to provide long-term replacement of nicotine from a safer source than inhaling smoke.

See the 4 pages in CASAA’s Harm Reduction section: Casaa.org - Harm Reduction
Also, the FAQs on the Tobacco Harm Reduction organization’s site. (see links on the left side of the Home page): Tobaccoharmreduction.org

Researchers who at the time worked at the University of Alberta conducted a survey of e-cigarette users and there is some extremely useful demographic information on who uses e-cigarettes and for what purposes. It is posted online here: http://tobaccoharmreduction.org/wpapers/011v1.pdf

As far as specific facts about e-cigarettes, you might download the following documents from the CASAA web site:
Medical Infograph: http://www.casaa.org/files/CASAA M...aph(5).pdf
Tri-Fold Brochure, The Facts About Electronic Cigarettes: http://www.casaa.org/files/CASAA-Eci...d-Brochure.pdf
Myths about E-cigarettes: http://www.casaa.org/files/8 Bigge...ths(2).pdf
E-Cigarette Fact Sheet – 1 page Handout: http://www.casaa.org/files/FAQs sheet(2).pdf
Legislative Packet -http://www.casaa.org/files/CASAA_Legislative_Packet_Regarding_Indoor_Bans_Web .pdf

Health Canada recommended against the use of e-cigarettes shortly after the FDA held its infamous press conference in July 2009, claiming that there are carcinogens and toxins in e-cigarettes. The FDA report is debunked in several of the CASAA documents that are cited above.

Let me know if you have any questions that are not answered by the above documentation and to let me know if/when you would like to sit down and do the interview.

 

[JayTheVapingGuy]

Email sent... we'll see how it goes!

 

[DataPhreak]

Darn, too late. I was going to say to leave out this paragraph, or consider modifying it heavily:

E-cigarettes are just one of the tools that can be used to reduce the harm caused by smoking. Modern smokeless tobacco products such as snus and dissolvable tobacco products (orbs, strips, sticks, etc.) are another tool, as is long-term use of pharmaceutical nicotine. The medical establishment calls it “Nicotine Replacement Therapy” (NRT), but anyone who has ever tried it would tell you that it would more properly be called “Nicotine Reduction Therapy.” The directions are aimed at weaning you down and off nicotine. The methodology employed in Tobacco Harm Reduction is to provide long-term replacement of nicotine from a safer source than inhaling smoke.

Smokeless tobacco is considered by the conservative medical regime (and rightly conservative) to not be a safe or suitable alternative to smoking. Also, one of the biggest platforms that the FDA is moving on at the moment is that e-cigs are being marketed as a smoking cessation device without proper testing. They also have beef with calling it a safe longterm replacement. Although we know that nicotine is only proven to cause cancer in california, which means the rest of us vapers won't be getting cancer -_^, the PG is only a mild skin irritant, they haven't really been around long enough for anyone to do any kind of long term testing.

Other than that, your email is very well thought out. You should be fine.

 

[Vocalek]

Darn, too late. I was going to say to leave out this paragraph, or consider modifying it heavily:



Smokeless tobacco is considered by the conservative medical regime (and rightly conservative) to not be a safe or suitable alternative to smoking. Also, one of the biggest platforms that the FDA is moving on at the moment is that e-cigs are being marketed as a smoking cessation device without proper testing. They also have beef with calling it a safe longterm replacement. Although we know that nicotine is only proven to cause cancer in california, which means the rest of us vapers won't be getting cancer -_^, the PG is only a mild skin irritant, they haven't really been around long enough for anyone to do any kind of long term testing.

Other than that, your email is very well thought out. You should be fine.

DANGER, DANGER DATAPHREAK

You have fallen into the semantic trap left for you by the Tobacco Control Gang.

Safe = Free from danger or the risk of harm
Safer = Less likely to endanger or cause harm

Are you familiar with the message, "This product is not a safe alternative to smoking?"

Technically, the statement is true and will always be true. To prove anything safe, you would would need prove that it will never endanger or harm anyone.

But the statement is terribly misleading, because it implies that the product in question presents an equal risk of harm or danger as smoking presents. It implies that using the product is no safer than continuing to smoke. And that's a lie! We do not know of any alternative source of nicotine that is equally harmful.

When we are talking to the media, our audience is not (bless their little hearts) the conservative medical regime (CMR). Our audience, ultimately, is smokers looking for a way out of the health trap they are in, and the prople who care about those smokers. If, for fear of criticism, we go along with the CMR and hide the fact that, while nothing in this world is absolutely safe, there are safer alternatives to smoking, then we are just as bad as they are.

We must be careful to present the idea of long term use of an alternative source of nicotine as safer, and not use the word safe, which would actuallly be untrue.

Switching to any smokefree alternative eliminates the excess risk of lung disease seen in smokers. It won't correct any existing permanent damage to lungs, but it will stop bombarding the lungs with tar, carbon monoxide, particulates, and the thousands of chemicals created by the process of combustion. All of these smoke constituents increase the risk of cardiovascular disease to a much higher level than the nicotine.

There is no smokeless tobacco product that presents a higher risk of any type of cancer than smoking. That includes head and neck cancers.

Modern smokeless tobacco products have much lower levels of carcinogens than many of the older products. The public needs to learn these facts. People are dying.

I'm not saying that all of this needs to be said in the interview. I am saying that we cannot kowtow to the wishes of the CRM and go along with "quit or die" as the only choices.


This public service message on the conceptual framework of Tobacco Harm Reduction brought to you by the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA).

 

[DataPhreak]

You're absolutely right, but it doesn't doesn't really change what I was trying to say. It's not that it shouldn't be sold as a safer alternative, just that presentation is key. Ask a dentist what he thinks about all of these new oral tobacco contraceptives. By the way, love the new acronym, CMR.

 

[Vocalek]

You might be interested in the blog written by a dentist, Dr. Brad Rodu, who encourages smokers to switch to smokess as a means of harm reduction: Tobacco Truth

Doctors and dentists have been bombarded with the same propaganda campaign as the rest of us and this campaign has been going on for decades. I'm aware of the fact that most dentists think using smokeless tobacco dramatically increases risk of tooth loss and gum disease. However, I was unable to track down a single study verifying this in searches on PubMed.

This study was interesting: Summary of the epidemiological evidence relating s... [Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2011] - PubMed result

Regul Toxicol Pharmacol. 2011 Mar;59(2):197-214. Epub 2010 Dec 14.

Summary of the epidemiological evidence relating snus to health.
Lee PN.

P.N. Lee Statistics and Computing Ltd., 17 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5DA, UK.

Abstract
Interest in snus (Swedish-type moist snuff) as a smoking alternative has increased. This wide-ranging review summarizes evidence relating snus to health and to initiation and cessation of smoking. Meta-analyses are included. After smoking adjustment, snus is unassociated with cancer of the oropharynx (meta-analysis RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.68-1.37), oesophagus (1.10, 0.92-1.33), stomach (0.98, 0.82-1.17), pancreas (1.20, 0.66-2.20), lung (0.71, 0.66-0.76) or other sites, or with heart disease (1.01, 0.91-1.12) or stroke (1.05, 0.95-1.15). No clear associations are evident in never smokers, any possible risk from snus being much less than from smoking. "Snuff-dipper's lesion" does not predict oral cancer. Snus users have increased weight, but diabetes and chronic hypertension seem unaffected. Notwithstanding unconfirmed reports of associations with reduced birthweight, and some other conditions, the evidence provides scant support for any major adverse health effect of snus. Although some claims that snus reduces initiation or encourages quitting are unsoundly based, snus seems not to increase initiation, as indicated by few smokers using snus before starting and current snus use being unassociated with smoking in adults (the association in children probably being due to uncontrolled confounding), and there are no reports that snus discourages quitting.

That being said, I agree with you completely: Presentation is key.

My Otolaryngologist (ENT) was very supportive of my switching from smoking to an e-cigarette, but much less so for switching to smokeless tobacco, having seen young people with terrible cases of oral cancer due to chewing tobacco. I told him about snus and the fact that the modern smokeless products have a lower oral cancer risk than smoking. I'm not sure if he is convinced yet about smokeless tobacco, but it gave him something to think about. He is convinced about e-cigarettes. The next time I saw him after having shown him my eGo, he told me that he had purchased an e-cigarette for a doctor friend of his who has been unable to quit smoking.

 

[DataPhreak]

Enlightening article. I suppose most of the dental anti-smokeless hype is probably leftover from dip/chew, anyway. Glad to see more doctors being educated about e-cigs, too. I would think they would jump all over something like this, especially with them always harping about quitting. I truly am still astounded that ecigs are getting so much flak. It's a no-brainer!

 

[rothenbj]

E Cigs are great for some people as they completely remove the desire to smoke. There are others, such as myself, that they helped tremendously, but left me still going back to a handful of cigarettes a day even after a valiant effort over six months. I was pretty frustrated that somehow I wasn't strong enough to just give them up.

That was the point where I started asking questions about things like Swedish snus, Stonewalls and Ariva. My original thoughts were "I don't want to use these oral cancer products". Yup, they had truly brainwashed me. I still wasn't convinced that they were any less harmful than cigarettes until I started researching the truth. Ss was my main interest, I suppose since it wasn't one of the American products that caused all this disease. The only "real" evidence on increased risk was for Pancreatic cancer which moved from about 4/100k to around 8/100k compared to about 12/100k for smokers and that "real" evidence was footnoted by not analyzing the previous smoking habits of the snus users.

After a month of reviewing information and asking further questions, I decided to give Swedish snus a try. From the first portion I put under my lip, I completely lost the desire to smoke. I'll use 3-5 portions a day and I am completely satisfied to the point that I haven't had a puff on a cigarette in over 13 months and no desire to do so. I still use my PV occasionally but the nic level is either extremely low or non-existent.

I have some perio issues, probably due to 43 years of smoking and age (periodontal issues aren't isolated to smokers by any means). I've had at least six dentist visits since I started using my PV and Swedish snus and have only gotten glowing reviews by both the dentist and the oral hygienist. They know I use my PV, but have kept the snus usage to myself more as a test of their response in the future than to any concern. I figure I'll bring it up in another year after my Doxycycline script runs out.

I think his inclusion of this paragraph was very important in the whole discussion/debate. I wish I had known 30 years ago about Swedish snus. First, had I known of the relative safety of the product I would have tried it then instead of wasting my time and money on NRT/quit smoking products. Second, I would have a heck of a lot more money in my bank account by not wasting my money on cigarettes and Third and much more importantly, I would have found something that kept me "level" AND that I enjoy orders of magnitude more than I ever enjoyed smoking (and I thought I enjoyed smoking at the time).