I just now sent you a copy. Will you or Kristin do the honors? I have to pack. Got a plane to catch in the wee hours of the morning.
Need Comments on US Plane Ban by Nov. 14
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I just now sent you a copy. Will you or Kristin do the honors? I have to pack. Got a plane to catch in the wee hours of the morning.
The comment by CASAA and the Competitive Enterprise Institute can be found below. Special thanks to CEI for putting in a great amount of work to co-writing the comment.
COMMENTS OF THE CONSUMER ADVOCATES FOR SMOKE-FREE ALTERNATIVES ASSOCIATION AND THE COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION ON ITS PROPOSAL REGARDING SMOKING OF ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES ON AIRCRAFT, 76 FR 57,008
COMMENTS OF THE CONSUMER ADVOCATES FOR SMOKE-FREE ALTERNATIVES ASSOCIATION AND THE COMPETITIVE ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE TO THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION ON ITS PROPOSAL REGARDING SMOKING OF ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES ON AIRCRAFT, 76 FR 57,008
We need to stop and use of cig/cigs in our definition of vaping. It is not an electronic cigarette, it is a nicotine vaporizer. In no way is what we use a cigarette.
What we use is a substitute for cigarettes that is marketed to cigarette smokers. If a nicotine vaporizer is designed to look like a cigarette, I see no problem calling it an "electronic cigarette". The problem is referring to the vapor as "smoke" since e-cigarettes are not lit on fire and not only produce NO smoke, propylene glycol vapor is a safe and effective germicide used in products like Ozium to remove smoke and odors in the air.
Check out the "Glycolized Action":
Totally agree! I have 3 little ones and keep caslling my Lavatube my cigarette when talikng to my husband but have been saying we really need to call it something else, especially around the kids, so they don't think they are actually cigarettes. As far as on planes that makes a lot of sense too. If they're just caaled PV's people will stop associating them with smoking.
The advantage of calling them e-cigarettes (or SmokefreE-cigarettes
is that it makes it clear WHO the product is designed for: Adult smokers. There is no need to make personal vaporizers attractive to children or non-smokers, so don't feel bad about referring to it as a "cigarette" around non-smokers because it works as a subtle reminder that it is not intended for them.The advantage of calling them e-cigarettes (or SmokefreE-cigarettes
It's a net loss. The word "cigarette" carries too much baggage. It plays into the hands of the antis. They stress every resemblance to cigarettes, including the name, in all their literature which, not coincidentally, never mentions e-cigs that do not look like cigarettes. The form and name of an analog lookalike evokes years of anti-cigarette conditioning and emotional responses from the public. The anti's PR pros know this and play it to the hilt.
The antis use the fact that e-cig look like cigarettes to claim that when people use them, they are confusing children to think cigarette "smoking" is acceptable. That's a common complaint they have and would be deprived of if they didn't look, and weren't named, like analogs. They could never make that argument about eGos that were marketed as vaporizers. Nobody confuses what I'm doing with my mod with smoking. If I explain to someone what my PV is, I call it a vaporizer and they listen to what I have to say. When I call it an e-cigarette, they instantly remember the FDA's warning and the anti's propaganda and they start making assumptions and don't listen.
People instantly associate the word "cigarette" with "smoking". We can never uncouple that association, and it's critical for us to do so, as long as we continue to use the word "cigarette". Even vapers will sometimes say they "smoke" an e-cigarette. It's natural. What do you do with a cigarette? You smoke it. While vaping, ask 100 people what you are doing with your e-cigarette and 100 of them will say you are smoking it. They are incapable of disassociating the word "cigarette" from the concept of smoking.
Take two identical toys that launch potatoes. Call one a spud gun. Call the other a spud launcher. Do a survey. The spud gun will get more negative reaction. Don't underestimate the power of linguistics.
No.. In the quest for sales, marketing types named it and designed it to appeal to smokers. What they didn't figure on was the animosity it would draw from non-smokers and anti-smoking zealots. I can't help but feel that if they had been called vaporizers and designed not to look like analogs, the sales would be lower, but we would not be fighting such a difficult battle. The public would be much more with us. Nobody has a knee-jerk negative reaction to a vaporizer. Virtually everyone who doesn't smoke hates cigarettes.
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Since this thread was recently resurrected, I decided to go back and read some of the comments left on the regulation.gov website. I randomly read quite a few comments and found them to be overwhelmingly opposed to the ban. Many were well written too. Just FYI and FWIW.
Actually, back in the old days, E Cigs didn't raise much of a stir, either with the FDA or the public. It wasn't until some momentum got picked up that the ?non-profit?"health" associations started taking notice (perhaps BP NRT numbers started slipping) that they went to the FDA and started complaining. Hence we saw the E cig study, well, the famous E Cig Presentment to sway the public as well as smokers.
I also don't think that virtually everyone that doesn't smoke hates cigarettes. There is a very vocal, belligerent set and there are others that have been brainwashed by the single whiff propaganda and the protection of little ones. Once you take the smell of cigarettes out of the equation and get people to understand that the primary danger in smoking comes from the smoke and not nicotine, almost all negativity goes away.
Finally, as much as I agree that PV is a good name for the device, what it's called today makes little difference to the ANTZ. I generally call mine a PV to non-smokers and a SmokefreE-cigarette to smokers.
Call Samuel L. Jackson! We've got VAPES ON A PLANE! Seriously, DOT is so ridiculous. I think there are Government agencies whose sole purpose is to suck the life out of every individual they come in contact with. What's next? Is the TSA going to start pulling people's Nic patches off?
I still get e-mail updates from Regulation.gov every couple weeks because someone posts a comment in opposition.
Overall, it was probably 65-70% in opposition, 30-35% in support.
They didn't raise a stir because nobody knew what they were yet. Once the antis mobilized, their cause was made easier by the name. It would have been much tougher for them had their public propaganda campaign been forced to attack vaporizers. They'd have needed to spend half their time explaining what's so bad about vaporizers instead of using the word cigarette and letting that word evoke whatever negative connotations it would.
If I want to eliminate the trade in Gerbils, I'd rather they be called Desert Rats.
So, we take away the belligerents, then we take away the brainwashed and the child guardians. Who's left? The 5% of people who are indifferent. Of course once you take away the negative aspects of cigarettes from the publics mind the negativity goes away. That's a tall order. That's a lot like saying once you take away impoverishment from the poor, poverty goes away. Trying to get people to understand that the danger comes from smoke is made much tougher when you are forced to simultaneously de-stigmatize a word that's been the subject of 30 years or more of stigmatization. If it wasn't for the name "cigarette", we wouldn't have to explain nearly as much that smoke isn't involved in the first place. If they had been called vaporizers from the get go, the natural assumption would be that they created vapor, not smoke. As it is, we're forced to take on an additional task beyond explaining that nicotine isn't, by itself, instant death.
The ANTZ aren't going to be the deciding factor at this point. We know where they stand. This battle is for the hearts and minds of the public, who the ANTZ rely on to support bans, taxes and whatever other restrictions they can dream up. When we call them "cigarettes", we are starting at a disadvantage. In the race for public support, we have move our own starting line back 50 yards.
I own a shop selling them, and I can tell you right now. Call it a "Personal Vaporizor" and people go, "Oh you mean for *plant material*?" Call it an eCigarette and they're interested in buying one. If they were just PVs, no one would buy them.
I'm not sure I buy that argument. It's the same argument that says they must look like cigarettes (another detrimental decision). But, you would naturally feel that way because your interest is in making money. That's why the marketers and advertising people named them e-cigarettes in the first place. I've made that point before. You don't see non-smokers in your shop. The people you see know that there are vaporizers for other things. Most people don't. You are seeing a demographic that is important to you, but not the critical demographic in the larger picture.
Call them whatever you want among smokers and people who are interested in using them. Those people, unfortunately, aren't the people who will be decisive in whether PVs are subject to regulations and high taxes and restrictions. Most of those people aren't the people who will be in charge of whether they are allowed in workplaces and public establishments. Those people aren't the targets of the propaganda campaigns. And 95% of the people who are, never even heard of a vaporizer for plant material. To them, the word vaporizer conjures up visions of a water vaporizer in a bedroom.
70% of the population neither smoke nor vapes. If your interest is in marketing, it makes more sense to name them something that appeals to the other 30% who do smoke. If your interest is in having their existence accepted among the 70% of non-smokers who ultimately will be calling the shots, call them something other than cigarettes.
Call them e-cigarettes to your prospects. But call them vaporizers or nicotine vaporizers when you refer to them among non-smokers, anti-smokers, the curious and the indifferent.
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All I know is that business increased by orders of magnitude when I put the poster in the window that said "Volcano Fine Electronic Cigarettes." Of course the core users are smokers, but it's not like I can hand out fliers JUST to smokers ... And the antis walking by (my store is located in a mall) see the same signs. Granted, none but the disposables look anything like a cigarette.
I'm afraid on this, I just can't agree with you. When I tried calling them PVs to smokers - at bars, wherever... They would get a glazed over look in their eyes, or else make a snarky comment about drugs. It does feel weird calling my LavaTube an "eCigarette" so mostly I just call it, well, a lavatube.
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