every day I come here I always hope for some good news....

[sqirl1]

....but I wind up seeing nothing but bad news that both scares me and pisses me off why are people so evil? screw these fear mongering drug companies! I hope these heartless disgraces to the human race all rot in prison some day, and I hope that if they do, they all get put with cellmates that beat them up daily. the world would be such a better place without them!

 

[Placebo Effect]

There is plenty of good news, with the big thing being that we're WINNING. California, Illinois, New York, and the FDA all failed in their attempts to ban e-cigarettes. Only one state bans them indoors, New Jersey, and that happened 18+ months ago. Utah failed to ban flavorings and online sales. And just this month, 3 bans that would have placed e-cigarettes in the same category as smoking failed, with 2 removing e-cigs entirely (Delaware County, Indiana and the Utah Board of Regents) and 1 drastically limiting the number of places where e-cigs are not permitted (Tacoma-Pierce County).

We're constantly being attacked, but the good news is that more and more journalists, politicians, doctors, etc. are being exposed to e-cigs, and that's great for us.

 

[James Wall]

You can get so overwhelmed by the challenges sometimes that it's hard to see the victories. Thanks Placebo for the positives.

 

[sqirl1]

that's true, we are winning at the state level, but organizations like WHO, whom everybody mindlessly believes, are starting to fight harder and harder. especially the EU is really getting screwed over. I hope everything turns out good in the end, but all the most powerful organizations are doing everything they can to ruin public perception of e-cigs. they're trying to make them to be the exact same thing as cigarettes only changed in a clever way to get kids hooked, which is total crap. more importantly, nicotine is getting further and further demonized, and I have autism and use nicotine, mainly in the form of dissolvables, and it really helps me. I'm worried they'll go the route of the EU and ban smokeless tobacco outright and take away the one thing that's actually helped me. I'm worried that in order to continue using nicotine, I'll have to smoke (which I wouldn't be able to do where I need nicotine the most, plus I don't want to die), or buy patches or that nasty ... gum and support the drug companies that put all those terrible drugs in me when I was a kid and fed me and my parents lies that I couldn't be normal without them.

 

[rolygate]

Yes, the world is full of injustice, lies, greed and profiteering at the expense of others. But look at it this way: that's just situation normal, so every win is a really nice bonus. Placebo laid out some above, and they are great news.

As you say, the world situation is different, because there we have no voice and no power. It's a question of money and influence: pharma is desperate to kill us because we will cost them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost drug sales right across the board - NRT sales will crash, then cancer drug sales will fall as illness rates fall in the West due to smokeless tobacco being used instead. Look at Sweden for example, where Snus use is prevalent, and where they have the lowest male cancer death rate in Europe - then imagine a country where both Snus and e-cigarettes are widely used: cancer rates would fall through the floor.

To prevent this happening, pharma has spent millions bribing and pressuring those who count. That process will continue and will never stop. It's just a simple business war - they have to kill us off before we hurt them too much. That hundreds of thousands will die is kind of ironic when it's being done by pharmaceutical companies - but it's a war like any other, and people die in wars. Of course, they don't care how many they kill, after all the success of a war might even be measured by how many you kill.

To have any chance of surviving we need a very large number of supporters. Numbers = a voice, and money. So don't preach to the converted, preach to those who have not heard the message. Convert more people because that is what we need - numbers on our side. It's hard to ignore 10 million people who make a lot of noise.

Eventually we will succeed because it's impossible to put the genie back in the bottle. However, there are tough times ahead, and the harder we fight, the smoother it will go.

 

[eyebrook]

Confused here,I live in the EU and dont know of any ban in force at the moment, when did this happen?

 

[rolygate]

The fix is in. No e-cig legislation as yet but they are clearly shaping up to try to prevent sales. The EU head honcho recently made the the typical statements about 'worrying new alternatives' and 'flavors aimed at kids' so we know who is paying for it all.

There is a while to go before they can get in down in black and white, but there is no doubt which way they are headed. Look at the Snus situation: proven safe, a user has a 'not statistically significant risk', virtually the same risk as a non-smoker (a user's risk is 0.3 on the scale of 0.001 to 100 where 100 = a smoker's risk and 0.001 = a non-smoker / average consumer), but it's a serious threat to NRT sales so Snus is strongly discouraged in the EU.

 

[eyebrook]

Thanks for the heads up Roly

 

[sqirl1]

Snus is strongly discouraged in the EU.

I thought snus was straight up banned in the EU?

 

[rothenbj]

I thought snus was straight up banned in the EU?

Yes other than smoke or chew, it's banned in the EU! I think that came about with the formation of the EU in the early 90s. Sweden was given an exception, probably as a concession to getting them to join. From what I've read on other forums, it does get smuggled in for those that are determined enough.

Money may not be able to buy happiness. but it can buy profits..

 

[sqirl1]

Yes other than smoke or chew, it's banned in the EU! I think that came about with the formation of the EU in the early 90s. Sweden was given an exception, probably as a concession to getting them to join. From what I've read on other forums, it does get smuggled in for those that are determined enough.

Money may not be able to buy happiness. but it can buy profits..

but see, these are the people we're up against here. they run EVERYTHING, and everybody just blindly believes them, if they say E-cigs are just as bad as smoking, everybody will believe them and demonize e-cigs just as much. we'll fight all we can, but can we really win against somebody who not only has money and power, but also has a general public who sees any tobacco user as a pathetic addict who "needs a substance to get them through life"? many people see smoking as a personal failure, and as a result from a lack of willpower and self-control. Nobody understands what a medical value nicotine really has, they just see it as "a toxic poison that our bodies aren't meant to have in any amount whatsoever", when that isn't true at all.

 

[rothenbj]

An interest poster, retired FDA is commenting to an article posted in another thread. I guess my last reply to him got squashed since it had a link to ECF, so I took out .com from the comment. It's now posted and I'm hoping he'll reply.

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/media-general-news/199924-first-analogs-next-e-cig.html

 

[sqirl1]

I saw that. but you know, the way I'm beginning to see the FDA, I'm starting to think they're really just the middle-men in all this. I think the guy is telling a half-truth; The FDA's approval process IS highly expensive, however if you're in the big pharma club (johnson&johnson, pfizer, etc.), you're guaranteed an approval if you shell out the cash. all this does is make it so SMALL drug companies can't make it, but the all the corporate giants have to do is shell out 8 figures (easy for them considering they make about 11 figures), wait a few years for the FDA to do their "testing", which is really code for "yeah just wait a few years so we can do some meaningless tests to make it look like we're doing something, you're going to get it passed no matter what since you could give us the money, but it looks bad on us if we don't wait 3-5 years at least". just like how flavored cigs are banned; in reality that just helps BT by eliminating the competition, none of them really made flavored cigarettes in the first place, except maybe peppermint in menthol or something to that effect. (WARNING: OFF TOPIC BEYOND THIS POINT) I will say it's a good thing they did that though as I LOVE Djarum's clove cigars, and I've always vowed never to smoke an actual cigarette, and to never inhale any combustible tobacco product, so now I get to enjoy it! I'm sure I wouldn't like a cigarette if all I know is pipe and cigar smoke, going off of what cigarettes smell like compared to those.