Here is my response to this article.
Nicotine is also found in tomatoes, potatoes, cauliflower and eggplant. There is no denying that "smoke" is bad for you. However, there is no smoke in a smokefree cigarette.
Smokefree products, including the smokefree cigarette, are much safer to use than smoking a cigarette.
Nothing in the world is 100% safe, and harm reduction should be taken very seriously. There is plenty of evidence that demonstrates that smokefree products are at least 99% safer than smoking.
While there are cigarettes on the market, people will kill themselves with them. I just don't understand all the hatred towards people who decide to use a product that is much safer for them, while they give up smoking in the process.
That is until you follow the money trail.
If big pharma put out a product that was seriously effective, in helping a person quit smoking, big
tobacco wouldn't care for it much. However currently they have absolutely nothing to worry about, because simply put, they aren't very effective. A person using a semi-effective product, is likely to fail and try yet another pharma based product in the future, and this suits both big
tobacco and big pharma just fine.
Big pharma pays anti use groups, to include smokefree products, so that they don't lose profits, when they are basically skipped over, for more effective products. Those people no longer will need as many pharmaceutical products overall, because they won't be the ones dying from smoking related diseases.
I find it ironic that people would rather have me smoke cigarettes than use something that will let me be healthier, and extend my life. You know what the result of smoking is. I'll quit using smokefree products for an entire year, if you can get every smoker in the United States, to quit for the same period of time.
It won't happen in the near future, so people will be smoking, and that's where having safer alternatives really makes a lot of
sense.
Anyone who says, that smokefree products, lead to smoking is simply lying to you. Smokers started smoking by smoking a cigarette.
The anti use groups know that many smokers have died to regular cigarettes.
Why target smokefree products then? Because without smokers there is no profit for big tobacco, big pharma, nor the government. Smokefree cigarettes threaten the reason for them even to exist, and they certainly cannot have that.
I agree these products are not really intended for the non-smokers, however the same thing could be said for cigarettes. Why not spend to make a better product safer and more practical?
You do realize that accidents do happen, with cell phones, laptops, cars, and unfortunately poor design and use of a limited amount of smokefree products. All of the education, funding, and demand for safer products in the smokefree industry however comes from the user of such products. Considering the large number of people involved, and Murphy's law, the low number of accidents in the many years of use of these products use indicates that most designers of such products do try very hard to make the best product they can.
With the logic of the anti use crowd though, you shouldn't ever do anything that has even the slightest bit of risk to your health. This not only includes smoking and drinking. It includes owning a cellphone, a laptop, or a car. It includes working anywhere that has the remotest chance of you getting hurt there. It also includes ever playing a sport, or even having sex in todays world.
I'm sorry but the anti use logic is flawed when it comes to smokefree products. Instead of trying to do the best in the world around them, they want to isolate themselves in a bubble because they or someone else in this world might get hurt. Then they want to isolate you in that same bubble. They would rather regulate these products out of existence, than work to make them better. It's lazy, and irresponsible to do this, and in the long term this logic will kill more people than it will help. This is why I oppose this logic as it stands right now.
The worst part of the anti use logic is when they outright lie to the public about a product, because the facts do not promote their reason for existence. The truth is out there, but more often than not, is completely ignored when convenient. They rely on the fact that most people who do not smoke, aren't very educated on smokefree products in the first place. I don't care to be lied to, and you shouldn't either.
I make nothing on smokefree products myself. Many people in organizations that are telling you that these are the same as smoking are being paid to tell you that. Some of them make six-figure salaries to do exactly that. I am basically volunteering my time to enlighten the reader a little. With so many obvious lies out there today, I really have to take what public health agencies say about health today with a grain of salt, and to be honest that is very sad indeed.
You see there is more to the story of smokefree cigarettes. I quit smoking over a year ago. I can breathe again. I feel absolutely great. This is terrible for the anti-use logic because, I'm living proof that its quite possible they are dead wrong. If it makes you feel any better, If I'm wrong as an ex-smoker, I had nothing to lose in the first place.
I will not comment on hookah use, I am not qualified to. I have enough respect for people who do use them, to let them speak for themselves.
Posted at 8:39am, Tuesday 3/13/2012
