OK, I tried to mask my angst as much as possible.
My letter to my local TV station -- toned-down (hopefully enough), edited, added suggestions and links:
Final draft, already sent:
Mr. X,
Last Friday evening, I watched yet another negative news story about e-cigarettes on your 6pm news show.
Please do your viewers a valuable service -- by also airing some positive stories about e-cigarettes and the success people have had using them to quit smoking.
I quit easily after smoking 40+ years, as did my wife
and we know many others who have also quit by using e-cigarettes as a substitute.
Our health and well-being have improved dramatically, with no negative side-effects.
I respectfully suggest that when airing articles pertaining to human health, your reporters could also do some diligent research. Instead of simply passing-on what turns out to be proven misinformation, gotten off the wire they could use internet search engines; read internet forums related to e-cigarettes; or even interview real, local people who are using e-cigarettes to successfully quit smoking very harmful tobacco cigarettes.
Statistically, the success rate using e-cigarettes is much higher than nicotine patches, gum, or drugs. The failure rate of patches and gum, and the horror stories -- including suicides, and attempted suicides -- related to the use of Chantix, Wellbutrin, et al, are many and well-documented. The news article on your program quoted a study which said that 60% of people who tried to quit smoking using e-cigarettes failed. This is not a true representation and can be proven so by empirical evidence -- if one does the research.*
On April 27th, 2013, I got my first e-cigarette and have not bought a pack of tobacco cigarettes since that day. Yes, in the following 2-3 months I had moments of weakness and would bum a cigarette from smoker friends
but soon the craving for even the occasional cigarette subsided and eventually went away. A few months later, my wife decided to try e-cigs and still has the same unopened pack of tobacco cigarettes she had bought that day -- she has not smoked even one since January 2014. So the success rate in my house is 100%.
Are e-cigarettes 100% safe? Probably not. Breathing anything other than clean, pure air is not good for you, but anyone who lives in a city or near a busy highway is not breathing clean, pure air all the time either. I see e-cigarettes as harm reduction -- as opposed to inhaling the 69 known carcinogens, smoke particulates from burned tobacco and paper, and the thousands of chemicals in tobacco cigarettes.
In the past two years alone, e-cigarettes have evolved and improved dramatically. I have thoroughly researched both the hardware and the e-liquid used in e-cigarettes, mix my own e-liquid with FDA approved-for-human-ingestion ingredients which are also USP certified, and I know exactly what it is Im inhaling
something I never could say when smoking chemically engineered tobacco.
As a bonus, I have reduced the nicotine content of my eliquid from 24mg/ml. when I started to 5mg/ml. currently. I plan to reduce it further, and even possibly quit using e-cigarettes altogether eventually. My wife has stated that is definitely her intention.
Disseminating positive, factual information regarding e-cigarettes could help many many other people do the same with the first, main goal being to quit smoking cigarettes.
*Some links:
CASAA - The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives
A list of lab reports on the CASAA website
American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) American Council on Science and Health
An article on the acsh.org website directly refuting the news story from Friday April 17, 2015
Link to a PDF detailing the (lack of) contaminants in e-cigarettes
European Addiction Research paper
www.e-cigarette-forum.com The leading website for information, links, and resources for e-cigarette users (the forum will be upgrading their software soon and may be offline for a day or two)
If you or one of your reporters would like I can provide many more links and information. If needed, please contact me anytime via email or the cellphone number below I will be more than glad to help in any way I can.
Thank you,
My name
City, State
cellphone #
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The links in ~some of~ the bullet points didn't copy/paste, but all he has to do is click and read -- or hopefully forward it to a reporter who will.
if anyones familiar with the books.
