Honestly, if either big pharma or big tobacco get ahold of these for development, i would MUCH rather it be big tobacco, because then we can be certain of two things:
1) They will NOT reduce nic levels to be below any reasonable efficacy; they do want to keep us hooked, right?
2) They will make sure that these are affordable so people actually BUY them; whereas if big pharma sells them as a medical device, then (as pugzley pointed out) they will be initially available by prescription only for some ungodly price, and people will still buy them because they are so desperate to quit smoking.
I really don't believe the entire medical industry is intent on keeping us sick for profit (as most people who work in the medical field do so because they genuinely care), but i am certain big pharma is, and who do you think is holding the puppet strings on the entire medical industry?
My major point in my above post is that i simply don't think any of these organizations are beholden to cigarettes alone for profit; they have many other ways to make their money. They are simply taking advantage of what's already there (especially big pharma).
As for the FDA? From what i can see, they have no authority to make law, only to enforce it. They are just a gateway that allows only approved drugs on the market. The only way to change the way the FDA conducts its business is to change the laws that bind it.
That said, under current law, all testing for a new drug is to be paid for by the company who produces it, and there are no laws governing oversight of the testing process. The result? By the time the FDA sees the final results of the study, all incriminating parts are taken out so that all the FDA sees is a glimmering ray of sunshine instead of all the nasties (i know this from research i've done into how studies were conducted on antidepressants). ''Remember, if you really want to quit smoking, chantix is both successful and safe, according to the FDA.'' Truthfully speaking, the FDA only sees what's right in front of it and makes a decision on that basis. It's just a gateway. They have no legal jurisdiction other than that which has been handed to them, they cannot make their own rules.
Great world we live in, right? I sure hope the times are a'changin'.
I agree that it isn't the entire medical industry that wants to keep people sick. Does anyone remember Margaret Sanger? She fought from around 1912 when she left her job as a nurse to go underground complete with booklets, pamphlets, and even lectures to inform women how to prevent pregnancy and for doing so, she was threatened with jail. She actually had to escape to Europe to prevent going to jail all because the medical profession KNEW how to prevent pregnancies yet they were not allowed to teach the general population of women, many of whom died in childbirth because of complications due to health problems resulting from too many pregnancies, how to prevent getting pregnant yet still enjoy having sex with their spouses.
If it were not for women such as Margaret Sanger, imagine what this country would be like now? Despite the Pope, priests, and even Catholic nuns shunning her and any woman that approach her to find out how to stop pregnancies, many Catholic women came to her and many came with their husbands to find out how to prevent pregnancy without abstanince. After all, these were married women, not street women.
There is no doubt the view at that time in our history was to keep women down by keeping them barefoot, pregnant, and busy with other babies so they couldn't leave abusive husbands and could not work outside the home, which was a scandal in those days for many Catholics, which to me was stupid considering just how expensive it is today to raise 1 to 2 children without dual incomes from both the husband and the wife.
Please know that I am not in any way degrading the Catholic faith. My DH's oldest brother and his wife are Catholic but even so, they firmly believed in prevent pregnancy and despite having sex as a married couple, it did not mean that each time they were together intimately that it should result in the wife getting pregnant. This is the only rule I wish the Pope and the Catholic community as a whole would abolish. I have friends who are Catholic that are my age and they feel guilty, they literally FEEL guilty for taking birth control because it's against the church's beliefs.
Not using birth control, just as leaving analog cigarettes behind will leave a wide gaping hole of income as well as need for care and pharmacutical drugs in its wake. I've said this before and I will say it again here... The e-cig is one of the greatest inventions to come along in a very long time. There is NO proof that nicotine in safe doses will cause any bodily damage. If you don't believe me, just look at those who smoked 2 and 3 and 4 packs of cigarettes a day and now they are on e-cigs and feel better now than they have in decades! They aren't getting the bad things added to tobacco. They are only getting an ingredient already in a variety of foods but also water and nicotine - no tar or the other 4000+ cancer-causing carcinogens. We are getting the nicotine that hits the area of the brain that has a similiar effect on us just as caffeine in espresso and espresso-based drinks have on caffeine addicts.
I only wish the government would stay out of the e-cig business along with big pharma because if they get involved it will be only a matter of time before they add those toxins currently in tobacco cigarettes into the e-liquid we use today. If they get control, it will be the beginning of the dangerous times of tobacco all over again.
The government and pharmacutical companies have no business in our business when it comes to e-cigs except perhaps to be spectators but not participators or dictators. We are adults and the government is not our parents. We can make decisions without being led around by the nose.
Call me crazy but how does the government think they can get by saying that oh tobacco taxes go toward taking care of the tobacco smokers who are sick from smoking when those who switch to e-cigs and do not nor will they have the health problems of smokers need taking care of? They won't because the problem will be moot by then. Every dime the government takes if and when every smoker switches to e-cigs will be their gravy train to do with what they want - not what the American public needs or should have. It will likely fund more raises for congress and bail out even more richie rich Wall Streeters who lost money on the job yet still managed to get their billion dollar bonuses for running businesses in the ground and losing pension plans for people who worked their entire lives that were depending on that money. Imagine if Bush had been allowed to put our social security in the stock exchange? We'd be truly hard up and many would be dead by now, myself included.
It's all about greed... Nothing more and nothing less... Just pure unadulterated greed...
. Not to mention all the stories of steam cars, water-conversion cars, and electric-conversion cars that (smart) people have engineered for themselves over the years! So now we have hybrid cars that cost thousands more and get like 30MPG instead of 25! UGH! Makes me so mad!!!
