DARE: Show Me The Money!!

[dwainew]

(sorry, this got long winded, but fun to write! Also, I like hyperbole, and won't apologize for that, as I find expanding a subject out to it's possible extremes allows you to find the range of emotion and then more easily explore the middle ground and come to real world answers for oneself)

I don't consider myself an ideolog. I write, not to pontificate, but to stimulate conversation on subjects I'm REALLY interested in learning more about. In this case, it's my health and the freedom to make informed decisions about it. I REALLY LIKE vaping, as I'm sure most of you do, too. But, if the darn thing is not safe, show me, I want to know. If the evidence is compelling, my attitude towards what I'm reading and hearing from the government and in the media changes TO "ok, how bad is it, should I consider stopping?" FROM my current reaction, which is... what the #$%@? I have learned, I guess with age, to question efficacy when any authority says I CAN'T do something. Why not? Does the law make sense? Is it a social necessity on a scale requiring legal intervention, or is it a slippery slope? No matter how cynical it sounds, It is almost a universal law that when questioning the motivations any action by groups of humans, if you follow the money, you find the motivations.


Door #1: tobacco companies
I DON'T sympathize with tobacco companies at all. I think their decades of nefarious, greed driven misdeeds are really despicable. I understand they may very well make gobs of money on vaping by leveraging their PAC money and marketing expertise to crush the little guys and rebuild their fallen empire.


Door #2: Government
I'm also not some anti-US government crackpot that thinks EVERYTHING they do is corrupt, evil, or misguided. Our way of life depends on our leaders making wise decisions and actions with unimaginable amounts of money (sorry, "managed debt"...) to keep our country safe from attack from within and without, maintain border integrity, infrastructure, Federal law enforcement, etc. But lately, they seem to be doing a worse job than would a room full of horney and hungry moneys (I mean that in a DIS-RESPECTFULLY bi-partisan way, since BOTH parties are screwing up OUR PARTY!).


Door #3: The Anti-smoking groups.
I smoked for over 25 years, then quit, mostly due to societal pressure based on common sense. Good job, guys. You got it all, bars, restaurants, airports, you deserve a pat on the back. Your job is done.... and now it's done done.


Door #4: The press....
Ok, you're right, @#$% the press!


The Quandary:
(I've always wanted to dismiss the press in such a disparaging manner, that felt great!) Ok, I know the press is a stakeholder in some fashion, I just got lazy for some reason and didn't feel like doing the research and writing required to fully present the facts.

Seriously, I simply can't understand the straw grasping by the Fed. Why am I waiting with bated breath to hear if the FDA will BAN ecigs, when I question their very jurisdiction to REGULATE it??!!??

Can anyone point out some precedent where the Fed decided to ban (or even regulate) something that was, for the sake of argument, a completely safe replacement for a known deadly killer that's already well regulated and controlled?

I'll assume, again, for the sake of argument, the answer is no, but, even if there are precedents....

What level of "Danger Reduction" displayed by this novel replacement is required for common sense and sensibility to force everyone in the room to look at each other, do a high five, have a celebratory vape (or whatever you choose) and then sit down and start to split hairs over the remaining questions?

10%, 50%, 80%, 99%, .... uh, 100%? Think I'm done? For the sake of argument (I AM going somewhere with this), what if the product reduced the danger by 200%; what if all the danger was not only suddenly eradicated with one stroke, but that it even IMPROVED the health of it's users? (search this forum for TRUTH: for less hyperbolic examples)?

I know nicotine is highly addictive. But this really just goes as an argument to choosing door 1. I've seen stats showing it is THE MOST addictive of substances. But can I be so bold as to say "So What?" It's my example, and I've asked you to think of a world where something is addicting, but now changing it, or isolating some part of it renders a completely novel product that is GOOD for you. Does it matter (so much) that it's addicting now?

And why was it decided to go THIS way? Why didn't the puppet master get up one morning and say, I'm going to CRUSH these new ecigs.... no wait, cigarettes! Yes, yes, I'm going to use the rules already in place and this new miracle product to force everybody to switch ecigs tomorrow! If that were the current situation, I'd probably ask myself the same questions I wrote here, but then wouldn't have written the questions, because it would have all made sense! I know I'd feel different if I were still using analogs!

There are towering STACKS of laws; TONS of money invested in enforcement (ATF), and policy (FDA), and research (CDC); and HORDES of hand wringing anti-whatever groups with vested interests, etc., etc. All of them ROOTED in the, now extinct, dogma that tobacco is dangerous, and that, BY EXTENSION, nicotine is dangerous because it is inextricably linked to tobacco.

What if all of those resources became not only obsolete, but an immense misappropriation, suddenly, overnight? Follow? (the money)


Give me your :

Who do you think has the most to gain or lose if vaping dominates the world? Or if it disappeared in a puff of... u know?

Which door do you pick, or have I missed a stakeholder? (I couldn't start a poll for some reason)



I recently wrote in this forum:

Big money interests, knee jerk reaction and personal bias guiding the all-powerful hands of government, journalism and other social institutions is ......ing the advancement of our nation and very way of life. These are the institutions that are, by their very nature, supposed to be protecting us from the toxic effects of these societal carcinogens.

 

[Shilo]

Wowzers that is quite an opening thread dwainew--- politics of vaping usually come a little further down the road and usually end up in the OUTSIDE area. You're brave. I think you make some valid points and with that I will say welcome to the forum.

 

[OlDogNewTricks]

While your post is most eloquent and well posed, you could sum most of it up to the simple idea... follow the money. Is vaping safe? No, of course not. Is driving safe? No, of course not. If flying safe? No, of course not. If you get caught up in the 'safe' argument, you will end up a very frightened person.

Case in point, when I was a child, we swam in the Charles river in Boston. That was later found to be an unbelievably polluted place. Did my Mother freak out, wash me down with Clorox wipes and sue the state for allowing anyone to come in contact with the river? No, of course not. You buys your ticket and you takes your chances, as they say. Pick your poison.

Will the Fed get involved and screw this up? Oh yes, they have become expert in that pattern. Will the groups that have a vested interest in stopping vaping screw this up? Of course, that is the way that things go today.

The answer? You will find your own as the landscape changes. Don't worry, as the Marines say "Adapt, improvise and overcome". The successful are those that adapt the best, ask the Dodo bird. Oh yeah, you can't, they were all killed to make hats. Sorry.

Take it easy, good luck and have fun! Just my one and a half cents.

 

[WarHawk-AVG]

Yes...follow the money...

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/general-e-liquid-discussion/465485-its-not-nicotine.html

 

[williebb123]

i agree with the oldog and would like to add " we all live in the yellow submarine ,the yellow submarine,the yellow submarine"

 

[North_Co]

If I were to list them, I'd say: tied for first place, tobacco companies and the gov't: big tobacco is just that, big. Make that massive-and corps of that size don't like having to change practices/products in the least. The government is, by definition, the biggest corporation around, and in the US it goes down in some places to state and even local level. As an example, I live in NYC and pay $12/pack for normal smokes, more than that for the good stuff. When you break that down, it adds up to almost $9 in taxes per pack. So, until I switched to vaping, the totality of the government structure would have had almost $4,000 a year from me, in addition to every other tax I'd pay. In fact, NYS alone (again, with the US, you can't just talk about "government" in the federal sense) gets $1.5B annually from tobacco taxes, excluding local/muni taxes and the state/local/muni taxes charged on cigarette sales. The reason I include sales taxes in this equation is that the EC community appears to mostly do business online and with overseas mfg'ers, which also has an impact on state sales taxation.

After the hard figures, you also have to take into account the effect of the tobacco lobby in this country, which is a not-insignificant value to the pockets of the people in the government.

The FDA is another beast entirely. Ever since the formation of the DHS, the FDA has had its responsibilities (and thus its funding) cut significantly-mostly due to all imports/customs screening being turned over to the DHS. The FDA has experienced a pattern of de-funding and loss of responsibilities, so part of the danger from them lies in simple straw-grasping: they need to justify their existence, and are thus liable to jump at any opportunity, however small, to expand their scope and responsibility. Compound that with big tobacco (I hat using that word, it always sounds like a conspiracy theory) for once being on their side, it makes a for a deadly cocktail.

Compared to all that, doors 3&4 are at most barely significant. The Press, with the 24-hour news cycle, will always find the next big bogeyman-and with tobacco being old hat, vaping may well land in the crosshairs until the next "cat heroically rescued from tree" story, but I doubt they have any kind of stake outside of getting the big headlines. Anti-smoking organizations will keep doing their thing and might include vaping in their list of TOTALLY EVIL THINGS, but I don't see them having a vested interest in ending vaping specifically. If nothing else, it's another bogeyman to collect donations against.



This is all a bit disjointed as it's almost 6 AM here, but you get the basics of what I'm trying to say.

 

[KjAthena]

very well put North_Co

 

[nmackan]

in 60ties, in my country they began to ill speak for olive oil (OLIVE OIL mind you?) They told corn oil is safe for people who has cardiologic sicknesses. They even ordered a popular song composed like "I cant eat food cooked with olive oil ..." Why? because it is agreed to get american help if we import corn from USA.
You are afraid of sun lights arent you? They say it causes cancer. They tell you to use oilments to keep you from sun burn. Farmers or open air workers dont get carcinogen sun lights but beach going people get (Because they use oilments which causes cancer themselves.) Fact is they want you to develop cancer. (Vitamin D Only to be acquired decently from sun is 45-65% anti carcinogen)
Is smoking dangerous? Yes? Does it contain 3-4 ingredients which e-cigs have? (E-cigs have 3-4 ingredient only and no chemical change at that) Smoking is free.
No. No big money from e-cig business. Because they can price smoking as much as they can but not e-cigs. After 7 months using e-cigs I can manufacture mine without any help from producers. what will they ban? Glycerine? Nicotine? silica? wire? Batteries? steel tubes? What?
Why are they very keen on us getting flu shots? Mercury in it makes us fool that is why it kills neorotic cells make all of us rain man (Look at the development of autistics against vaccines)
Governing wise people is hard they have to decrease wisdom to make us swallow above things.
Only flu shot people can understand
"Cigarette is very dangerous for your health" (Governments allow them to be sold)
e-cigs are far less dangerous (Governments try to ban them)

 

[InTheClouds]

Who do you think has the most to gain or lose if vaping dominates the world? Or if it disappeared in a puff of... u know?:

My humble opinion is we the vapors have the most to win or loose.

 

[business2091]

^^ No if the vaping dominates the world, why would vapors have the most to LOSE??

If vaping dominates the world, vapors have the most to win. If vaping dominates the world, all other "doors" you mentioned all have the most to lose, at least from the looks of all the recent anti-vaping events. Even Attorney Generals are acting like they would lose the their kids and families if vaping does not get regulated IMMEDIATELY. *cough* Like they haven't already lost them when their kids are living a high life full of supercars and cokes.