Fox News: John Stossel supporting e-cigarettes

[Petrodus]

Thanks for posting

Another great pro E-cig TV commercial

I know some would say it could have included this or that. However, that is always the case.

Viewing this segment as well as the original one... with the eyes of the general public
Wow, E-cigs are SAFE and an enjoyable alternative to smoking.
Proof: Openly vaping on TV and laughing about those opposed to E-cigarettes

Not only a great E-cigarette commercial but also an endorsement

 

[sailorman]

I turned to my husband and said, "Why couldn't he have interviewed someone from CASAA or Dr. Siegel??" Oh, well. At least the point was made about how stupid it is to ban e-cigarettes.

It had to be pretty intimidating and high pressure. Good for him for getting on the show and not saying anything stupid!

Hey, what do you want? Stossel's specialty is manufacturing outrage by means of oversimplification. I generally can't stand the guy, but I'll give him kudos on this one. Credit where credit is due; even a stopped clock is right twice a day and all that.

 

[Brutus Buckeye]

My email to John Stossel:

John, your piece on e-cigs has been talked about a lot in the vaping community and we applaud your honest and intelligent reporting concerning this situation. I would like to invite you to come and visit the ECF forum for e-cigs and see the positive impact these devices have had on so many lives.

I myself was a pack and a half a day smoker for over 30 years and on the first day I got my e-cg (actually I prefer the term personal vaporizer-PV due to the negative connotations associated with cigarettes. I stopped smoking and have not had a cigarette in 2 months and have no desire to have one ever again. My health has improved tremendously and in those 2 months I have been able to get 10 other people to try them and they have also quit smoking the true cancer sticks.

Just wanted to say thank you for responsible journalism which is so lacking in our country these days and please keep up the good fight. Would love to see you in the ECF forum and know that we support your journalistic integrity. Also would like to recommend you check out the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association.

Again, thank you for your time.

Glenn Cate

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/
CASAA | The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association

 

[Vocalek]

Glenn: I'd like to write to him, too. What is his email address?

 

[Brutus Buckeye]

john.stossel[AT]foxnews[DOT]com

I know you will be able to present this much better to him but just felt the need to send my thoughts to him.

 

[Vocalek]

I think you did just great! Thank you.

Hey folks, how about 100 or so of us write a short email to thank John Stossel. You could include a paragraph that tells your personal story.

 

[Petrodus]

My email to John Stossel:

John, your piece on e-cigs has been talked about a lot in the vaping community and we applaud your honest and intelligent reporting concerning this situation. I would like to invite you to come and visit the ECF forum for e-cigs and see the positive impact these devices have had on so many lives.

I myself was a pack and a half a day smoker for over 30 years and on the first day I got my e-cg (actually I prefer the term personal vaporizer-PV due to the negative connotations associated with cigarettes. I stopped smoking and have not had a cigarette in 2 months and have no desire to have one ever again. My health has improved tremendously and in those 2 months I have been able to get 10 other people to try them and they have also quit smoking the true cancer sticks.

Just wanted to say thank you for responsible journalism which is so lacking in our country these days and please keep up the good fight. Would love to see you in the ECF forum and know that we support your journalistic integrity. Also would like to recommend you check out the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Association.

Again, thank you for your time.

Glenn Cate

KUDOS for sending the email and supplying the email address

It is very important to any campaign to take time to congratulate and support
anyone supporting the movement.

Supporting those siding with our movement validates their efforts and can
motivate them to continue.

 

[Petrodus]

I think you did just great! Thank you.

Hey folks, how about 100 or so of us write a short email to thank John Stossel. You could include a paragraph that tells your personal story.

Excellent suggestion

One thing is for sure... Those opposing E-cigarettes will send emails.

We have the numbers and we have the truth. Sharing our personal testimonials
is something we all have been doing for a long time. Testimonials can not
be ignored and to a reporter testimonials confirm and validate.

I just sent an email and included my testimonial

 

[cyberwolf]

Great idea and email sent.

 

[Thulium]

I think thats a great idea. How often do you get flooded with POSITIVE feedback??

My email to John Stossel:

Mr. Stossel,

I wanted to write to thank you for your recent piece on electronic cigarettes. I first discovered them about 2 years ago at a mall kiosk, but it was too expensive to maintain and quickly fell into disuse until about 16 months ago when my daughter (then 8 years old) saw me going outside to smoke and said, “Daddy? Isn’t that ‘pretend cigarette’ better for you? You should use that.” I realized she was right and did some investigating online and found a better and cheaper model, learned how to refill it myself and tried some different flavors and eventually found something that I actually liked better than smoking. After trying cold turkey, the patch, the gum, the lozenge, and even hypnosis but constantly relapsing* I did not plan or expect to quit...but after relying on a Personal Vaporizer for a few days, regular cigarettes lost all appeal until one day I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had smoked. So on New Year’s Eve, I smoked one cigarette to mark the date and haven’t smoked an “analog” in the year+ since.

*Over 98% of smokers who quit with FDA approved medications, resume smoking within 20 months after ending treatment. When you consider that “public health” organizations like ACS, AHA, ALA, and CTFK receive monetary contributions through taxes and the Master Settlement Agreement from the sale of cigarettes, and the same groups ALSO receive donations from the Big Pharma from the sale of nicotine cessation drugs...it is no wonder that they are quite happy leaving smokers with only the option to “Quit or Die” as you correctly pointed out.

Unfortunately, in my research I discovered that the FDA was attempting to place a de facto ban on electronic cigarettes by classifying them as a “drug delivery device” so that they would have to undergo rigorous pre-market clinical evaluation—essentially an attempt to corner the market for the Pharmaceutical Giants. In order to fight this and promote awareness of Tobacco Harm Reduction by encouraging people who are otherwise unable or unwilling to quit smoking to switch to Smoking Replacement Products like the electronic cigarettes or other smokeless tobacco products, I helped found and am currently volunteering on the voting Board of Directors for the Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA). If you would be interested in interviewing one of our members, we would be happy to make arrangements and/or if needed we would be happy to provide additional information on this or related issues.

Although they have not been shown to be an effective medication for treating nicotine addiction, using smoke-free alternatives like e-cigarettes or smokeless tobacco as Smoking Replacements removes basically ALL of the known risks of smoking. The FDA has known for at least 30 years that nearly every form of smokeless tobacco is at least 98% safer than smoking, and products like e-cigarettes or reduced nitrosamine tobacco products like Swedish-style Snus have not been linked to any significant increase in health risks. All of the ingredients in e-cigarettes are either GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) like propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin, or they are FDA approved like pharmaceutical-grade nicotine and food flavorings. Most e-cig users/vapers only a few milliliters (often less than 1ml/day), so although further testing on e-cigarettes is needed, it is hard to imagine such small amounts posing much of a risk to the user...and there’s certainly no reason to imagine that it is harmful to others.

Thank you, again, for running a truthful piece on these life-saving products. I hope that you will follow up on this issue. Although District Judge Leon’s preliminary injunction against the FDA was upheld and Deputy Commissioner Sharfstein has stepped down, the FDA and the Alphabet Soup Gang are still trying to shoehorn smoke-free alternative tobacco products into a drug device classification rather than regulating them as Tobacco Products under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act of 2009. Judge Leon and the Appellate judges agreed that any concerns about the safety or marketing of e-cigarettes can be addressed according to the Tobacco Act. Instead, the FDA is attempting to expand their control over as many consumer products as possible (the e-cig is just one example) by having them classified as “drug devices” or “combination devices”. Apparently the FDA believes they know better than we do about what we should be allowed to put in our bodies and anything beyond the basic nutrients for survival, they believe, is the domain of Big Pharma. I suspect you will agree that this extra-legal collusion must end immediately.

Best Regards,
Thad Marney
Director, Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA)

 

[Vocalek]

Well he is hearing from more than one CASAA person. Also hearing from more than one about the war against e-cigarettes by "health organizations." My message (Subj: Thank You for the Truth about E-cigarettes)

Dear Mr. Stossel:

I was watching Fox and Friends, as I do every morning, and was delighted to see you appear and share the electronic cigarette. I posted the announcement on e-cigarette-forum.com (“ECF”). http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/e-cigarette-news/150549-e-cigarettes-fox-friends.html Someone else managed to find and post a transcript of that piece and then posted the announcement of your show at 9 p.m. http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...ews-john-stossel-supporting-e-cigarettes.html Video from that show has also been posted.

I smoked for 45 years. For the past 20 years of that time I tried nicotine gum, patch, lozenges, and inhaler, bupropion, American Lung Association’s Freedom from Smoking course, Nicotine Anonymous, and even hypnosis. I quit dozens of times, and relapsed just as many times. Did you know that the documented success rates for FDA-approved “Nicotine Replacement Therapy” (NRT) products is only 7% at 6 months, dropping to 5% at one year, and down to 2% after 20 months? What other medication would be considered “effective” with success rates like that? The problem with all of the approved “smoking cessation” treatments is that they require becoming abstinent from nicotine. When treatment ends, relapse begins.

Some of us with a predisposition to such problems as depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, mild cognitive impairment, chronic fatigue, chronic pain, and conditions governed by neurotransmitters become quite ill when we become abstinent from nicotine, because nicotine keeps those conditions in check. It is being studied as a treatment method for all these, plus as a prevention for Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases. See: Targacept: Biopharmaceutical Company - Product Pipeline

I finally came to realize that the only way I was going to be able to stop inhaling deadly tobacco smoke would be if I could find a safer source of nicotine in larger doses than the NRT products provide. Doses in NRTs are purposely kept very low to “prevent new addictions”. On March 27, 2009, I switched to using an electronic cigarette and I have been smoke-free ever since. Late in 2009 a group of us ECF participants decided to start a consumer organization dedicated to keeping e-cigarettes available. While deciding on a mission statement and goals, we learned that there are other products that provide sufficient nicotine without presenting the health problems caused by inhaling smoke. We were outraged to learn that the warning labels on smokeless tobacco products are a lie-by-omission. They state, “This product is not a safe alternative to smoking,” which implies to most readers that the products are no safer than smoking. We have since learned that some of these products are up to 99% less harmful than cigarette smoking.

One such product is Swedish snus, a type of moist snuff that is manufactured in such a way to greatly reduce carcinogenic Tobacco-Specific Nitrosamines (TSNAs). Snus has been in use in Sweden for decades. Approximately 66% of male snus users are former smokers. Snus users who switched from smoking live just as long as smokers who quit using all types of tobacco. The American Association of Public Health Physicians (AAPHP) estimates that electronic cigarettes are at least as safe as Swedish snus, and that telling the public the truth about these products and other reduced-harm alternatives could save the lives of 4 million of the 8 million people who would otherwise die of smoking-related diseases over the next 20 years.

It is stunning to us that the very groups who have been hounding us for years to quit smoking are outspoken opponents of safer forms of tobacco and especially of e-cigarettes. The American Lung Association, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, and Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids have mounted an all out war against e-cigarettes, pushing state and local legislatures to ban sales of the products and/or to ban indoor use. I’m attaching a copy of their Policy Guidance document for your edification. I’m also attaching a copy of my organization’s Position Statement that addresses much of the disinformation in their document.

We hope that the next time you do a segment on electronic cigarettes, you will consider having guest speakers who are knowledgeable about Tobacco Harm Reduction. Some excellent candidates would be Dr. Michael Siegel of the Boston University School of Public Heath, Dr. Brad Rodu of the University of Louisville, Dr. Joel Nitzkin of the AAPHP, and/or Dr. Carl Phillips of the Tobacco Harm Reduction organization. Our organization also has a practicing physician on the Board of Directors, Dr. Theresa Whitt of Abilene, Texas.

Thank you so much for speaking out and standing up for the truth.

Elaine D. Keller, Vice President
The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association
http://www.casaa.org

 

[Brewlady]

Dear Mr. Stossel:

I have thoroughly enjoyed your reporting over the years, but no more so than your segment on electronic cigarettes.

I started smoking at 13, and smoked for 36 years. With the exception of two pregnancies, I was unable to successfully quit smoking. I tried the gum, the patch, and Chantix, too many times to count, and yet I always returned to smoking. I even had rationalized in my head that if I did stop, I wouldn't really "quit", I just wouldn't start again until I turned 80. That thought actually made it a little easier to think about not smoking, but that's as far as I ever really got. Sad, but true. My last unsuccessful attempt to quit ended on December 13, 2005. That was the day my aunt and uncle were killed in a head on collision. My aunt was killed instantly. Later that day I was in the E.R. holding my uncles hand when the monitors all flatlined....I literally tore the patch off my arm and headed outside to find a cigarette. For the last five years, every time I thought about quitting, I associated it with the saddest day of my life.

I had seen e-cigarettes being sold at a mall kiosk last summer, while visiting my in-laws in Florida. We walked right by...me, my husband, and father-in-law all pack-a-day smokers. My father-in-law was diagnosed with lung cancer in April...received the diagnosis on a Wednesday, he died two days later. One of my biggest regrets will always be walking by that kiosk. Even if we didn't buy anything it may have given me the incentive to further research the product.

In August we were preparing to send my daughter off to college, and with Massachusetts taxes add on, a pack of smokes was $8.28. We aren't poor by any means, but I was still beginning to realize that the cost just insane. I was spending about $3,000 a year on CIGARETTES. Add that to my husband's cost, that could almost cover room & board for my daughter's freshman year. Then I read an article in our weekly town newspaper about a store selling electronic cigarettes less than two miles from my house. I had no excuse, so I headed over and bought my first kit. That was also the last day I bought a pack of Marlboro Menthol Lights.

I spent hours online, learning all I could about this fantastic device that finally unchained me from Big Tobacco. I joined CASAA, signed up for the e-cigarette forum, and jumped into the world of vaping with both feet. BUT WAIT, the FDA wants to BAN them.....WTF....what am I missing here? No combustion, that has to be better for my lungs, health insurers and the medical community should be handing out disposable samples to every current smoker. Any insurance company writing a homeowner or apartment dweller policy would reap the benefits, too, we could eliminate fires caused by the careless disposal of smoking materials. And since when did anti-tobacco become anti-nicotine? The American LUNG Association is AGAINST this? Something is wrong. Something is VERY VERY wrong. The ruling against the FDA in December has given us some hope. Dr. Micheal Siegel of Boston University's School of Public Health has written a paper that disputes the false perceptions precipitated by the FDA, and is currently doing research. Yet I work in a town that has banned the use of electronic cigarettes wherever smoking is banned, and across the country cities and towns, counties and states have considered banning this phenomenal invention based on the FDA's inaccurate and misleading reporting. What I am still trying to figure out is how will the South Hadley, Massachusetts Board of Health enforce a ban on vaping? My co-workers all think it is fantastic that I was finally able to quit smoking. So my productivity should be up? Not if I have to go outside. But if I vape at my desk, they could slap me with a fine. But how would they know?? It's just VAPOR.

Your segment on FOX was wonderful. I am so grateful that you are bringing attention to this issue. The very organizations that should be embracing this technology are the ones who seem to be it's worst enemy. Someone needs to introduce the naysayers to common sense and logic. And someone needs to tell them to keep their meddling, holier than thou attitudes out of my business.

Thank you,

 

[BCB]

Nice letter, Brewlady!

 

[Brewlady]

Nice letter, Brewlady!

Thanks, took me two hours to get it the way I wanted...so much for getting all the laundry done. This is way more important than my husband's tighty whiteys.

 

[Brutus Buckeye]

Awesome work all of you!

 

[DiggerP]

My e-mail was sent as well.

I sure hope we, as a community, could convince him to do a little further investigative reporting on some of the legislators' backgrounds who propose these bans. I have a strong feeling a lot of ties to BP and BT would come to light (e.g. the ex-tobacco farmer now legislator from NC).

 

[cigarbabe]

Excellent letters everyone and mine is being sent off shortly!
C.B.

 

[Lazerrred]

Letter /email sent. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[WomanOfHeart]

Email sent! Thank you so much for sharing this!

 

[Thulium]

My e-mail was sent as well.

I sure hope we, as a community, could convince him to do a little further investigative reporting on some of the legislators' backgrounds who propose these bans. I have a strong feeling a lot of ties to BP and BT would come to light (e.g. the ex-tobacco farmer now legislator from NC).

Other than the FDA's conflicts of interest, you don't really need to dig very far to see who is pushing for these bans: The National Association of Attorney Generals receives $25 Million annually through the Master Settlement Agreement funds from the sale of cigarettes. And the alphabet soup of so-called "Public Health" Organizations including ACS, ALA, AHA, and CTFK receive significant donations from Big Pharma corporations. State Attorney Generals and health boards (that frequently have VERY close ties with alphabet soup groups) who have been the ones pushing for bans just HAPPEN to be financially vested in keeping smokers on the smoke-NRT-relapse cycle. You don't need to look for backroom deals, this is the way our system is set up!