Our Elected Officials are Ignorant Concerning E-Cigs!

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zoiDman

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In theory I would tend to agree. With current issue, I don't think 'taken away' is plausible. If nicotine were magically not found on this planet anywhere while people are still addicts, that would fit the theory of what you're getting at.

...

How about if it e-liquids were only sold Unflavored with a Maximum of 4mg? That wouldn’t be exactly taken away, right?

But that could Never happen.

http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2012/12/eu-wants-to-stamp-out-e-cigarettes.html
 

Jman8

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How about if it e-liquids were only sold Unflavored with a Maximum of 4mg? That wouldn’t be exactly taken away, right?

But that could Never happen.

I'll wager there will still be a market, doing big business, for eliquids that are flavored selling high dose of nicotine.

So no, not taken away.
Restricted? Perhaps.

There is difference between - it doesn't exist, you cannot have it, if you have it you'll go to jail for a very long time, but in reality you can't have it because it doesn't exist
- and -
It exists, but is a no-no, and if you chose to not obey the no-no, and if you somehow manage to get caught, you will pay a possession fine of, I dunno, $200.

Would seem very challenging to enforce nothing over 4 mg can be vaped, if 4 mg can be vaped. One would have to be either ignorant of the law or essentially asking to get caught for enforcement to be viable.
 

DC2

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In theory I would tend to agree. With current issue, I don't think 'taken away' is plausible.
I equate regulating them to the point of ineffectiveness to be the same thing as "taken away" in most cases.

Would this include fellow vapers?
If I understand the question correctly then my answer is no.
I would encourage anyone to switch to or continue vaping if it meant avoiding the inhalation of burning tobacco.

What health benefit would outweigh unknown long-term effects, if that is in fact the ultimate point you are making with this?
Again, I am going to stress that "encourage" is too strong a word, but I would not hesitate to inform people.

Depending on factors specific to each individual case, these could be potential possibilities...
--For treatment of ulcerative colitis
--For treatment of ADHD
--For reatment of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease

I imagine there are others that I have forgotten about or have not yet been discovered.

Then you get into some truly gray areas where I believe a person really needs to factor in their own level of concern for the long term effects...
--The possibility of warding off Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease
--To gain the benefits of improved memory, attention, or concentration
 
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Jman8

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I equate regulating them to the point of ineffectiveness to be the same thing as "taken away" in most cases.

I equate the chances of 'taking away' with 'ineffectiveness.'
IOW, neither will occur.

If I understand the question correctly then my answer is no.
I would encourage anyone to switch to or continue vaping if it meant avoiding the inhalation of burning tobacco.

So you could encourage someone to use eCigs despite the unknown long term effects or regardless of unknown long term effects. This contradicts what you said before, and just want to be clear. It implies that the unknown long term effects cannot possibly be as bad as inhalation of burning tobacco, even though said effects are unknown and previously were legitimate reason enough to be why you could never encourage anyone to use eCigs.

Again, I am going to stress that "encourage" is too strong a word, but I would not hesitate to inform people.

Depending on factors specific to each individual case, these could be potential possibilities...
--For treatment of ulcerative colitis
--For treatment of ADHD
--For reatment of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease

I imagine there are others that I have forgotten about or have not yet been discovered.

Sounds like something to leave up to medical professionals for distribution rather than allow vendors who are not medical professionals be in the business of distribution. Non medical professionals who are distributors may find reasons (i.e. profit motive) for encouraging persons to remain on the product indefinitely.
 

DC2

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I equate the chances of 'taking away' with 'ineffectiveness.'
IOW, neither will occur.
Well that's why you're not as worried as many of the rest of us.
And making them ineffective is exactly what the European Union is currently proposing to do.

So you could encourage someone to use eCigs despite the unknown long term effects or regardless of unknown long term effects. This contradicts what you said before, and just want to be clear. It implies that the unknown long term effects cannot possibly be as bad as inhalation of burning tobacco, even though said effects are unknown and previously were legitimate reason enough to be why you could never encourage anyone to use eCigs.
It is my belief that the long-term effects of vaping can not be anywhere near as bad as the long-term effects of smoking.
So I don't see anything contradictory about it.

Sounds like something to leave up to medical professionals for distribution rather than allow vendors who are not medical professionals be in the business of distribution. Non medical professionals who are distributors may find reasons (i.e. profit motive) for encouraging persons to remain on the product indefinitely.
If someone wants to leave such decisions in the hands of medical professionals, that is up to them.
But if it were me, I would use nicotine for such conditions long before I'd let them stuff any Big Pharma products into me.
 

DC2

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I hate it when I get into a big discussion right before I have to leave...
But yeah, I have to leave.

So you could encourage someone to use eCigs despite the unknown long term effects or regardless of unknown long term effects. This contradicts what you said before, and just want to be clear. It implies that the unknown long term effects cannot possibly be as bad as inhalation of burning tobacco, even though said effects are unknown and previously were legitimate reason enough to be why you could never encourage anyone to use eCigs.
Just another word about this before I go...

I never said I would never encourage ANYONE to use electronic cigarettes, just non-smokers.
I would encourage smokers to switch to electronic cigarettes all day long.
:)
 

Jman8

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It is my belief that the long-term effects of vaping can not be anywhere near as bad as the long-term effects of smoking.
So I don't see anything contradictory about it.

Then these long term effects for vaping that cannot be anywhere near as bad as effects of smoking may not be bad for current non-nicotine users. So, I'm not clear on what the issue would be for you.

What harm might come to a non-nicotine using person who is earnestly interested in trying an eCig? And I ask this specifically to DC2 who believes that nicotine is not as addictive as the world believes it is.
 

Jman8

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And if it were true that nicotine was not really all that addictive to anyone, and if I knew effective electronic cigarettes would always be available?
I still could not "encourage" anyone to use electronic cigarettes because of the unknown long-term effects.

Just another word about this before I go...

I never said I would never encourage ANYONE to use electronic cigarettes, just non-smokers.

I am observing otherwise.
 

babyk1352012

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What a fricking idiot! And yes ignorant as hell. e-cigs are not tobacco, people this high in office should really have more knowledge about a product before they speak such nonsense! E-cigs saved my health, i used to have a consistant hacking smokers cough. I no longer have one nor am i ingesting over 4000 toxins in my body. People really need to be more informed on these. I dont smoke tobacco, I vape ingredients used in most foods.
 

DC2

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Well, I am getting ready to go out for the night, but it turns out I have a few minutes to spare...

But to all those reading this, I promise it will be my last response for the night.
You can thank me later.
:laugh:

Then these long term effects for vaping that cannot be anywhere near as bad as effects of smoking may not be bad for current non-nicotine users. So, I'm not clear on what the issue would be for you.
There is a whole range of potential effects that lie between "can not be anywhere near as bad as smoking" and "may not be bad" at all.
My issue is that there might be some potential for harm, even if only minimal, which precludes me from encouraging vaping for a non-smoker.

What harm might come to a non-nicotine using person who is earnestly interested in trying an eCig? And I ask this specifically to DC2 who believes that nicotine is not as addictive as the world believes it is.
But that's the whole point, we don't know for sure.
The answer could be none, but right now, that is not a fair or accurate answer.

I am observing otherwise.
I was under the impression that the conversation was with regard to non-smokers.
Regardless, in order to remove any confusion, I was definitely talking about non-smokers.
 

Jman8

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There is a whole range of potential effects that lie between "can not be anywhere near as bad as smoking" and "may not be bad" at all.
My issue is that there might be some potential for harm, even if only minimal, which precludes me from encouraging vaping for a non-smoker.

And I'm interested in hearing some things that are in that range of potential effects. Some specifics please. For without them, it seems too hard to go along with. And strikes me as the type of thoughts I think parents of tee ball players might have where no one ever makes an out and everybody wins, and therefore THAT would equal happiness for all involved.

I don't know if I could encourage anyone to do anything if I subscribed to the idea that potential harm, even if only minimal, is reason enough not to do something. Things like - working, eating, going outdoors, and exercise are all items I'd have tough time encouraging someone to do, if this were the criteria being put forth.

But that's the whole point, we don't know for sure.
The answer could be none, but right now, that is not a fair or accurate answer.

We vapers speak often like we know more about potential harm from vaping than the idea of 'we don't know for sure.' If we don't know for sure, then we don't know that the long term effects are less harmful than that of smoking. So, if we don't know for sure, and we encourage smokers, we could be doing a huge disservice. But we generally don't go with that logic, and instead try to stay up to speed with whatever research is being done, plus take into account what our own experiences are, plus take into account what all our online vaping friends are making note of, plus observe that the 4 primary ingredients are, and pretty much always have been, relatively harmless. With that in mind, we feel confident that smokers are going to be better off doing this than smoking. But in reality, we don't know for sure. So likewise, I do not know for sure the potential harm that could come to a non-nicotine user who desires to take up vaping, but I feel very strongly and feel there is lots of evidence around to suggest it is going to about as harmful as 'breathing air in a U.S. city' and possibly a whole lot less harmful. As breathing air is pretty addictive and as breathing air in an U.S. city, for some people, might also be addictive, I think the addiction issue isn't that big of a deal with this particular activity. In fact, I would say it is negligible.
 

Berylanna

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And I'm interested in hearing some things that are in that range of potential effects. Some specifics please. For without them, it seems too hard to go along with. And strikes me as the type of thoughts I think parents of tee ball players might have where no one ever makes an out and everybody wins, and therefore THAT would equal happiness for all involved.

We vapers speak often like we know more about potential harm from vaping than the idea of 'we don't know for sure.' If we don't know for sure, then we don't know that the long term effects are less harmful than that of smoking. So, if we don't know for sure, and we encourage smokers, we could be doing a huge disservice.

That is like saying we don't know for sure whether there is life on other planets so we should never tell our brother-in-law that aliens are NOT sending hypnotic commands to his head.

Everything in e-cigs is KNOWN and long-proven OK to eat. Nicotine and PG are known and long-proven safe to inhale. Several medical studies show short-term health benefits from vaping. NO medical studies show short-term health problems from switching from smoking to vaping for people that are not allergic to the ingredients in vapor. MANY short and long-term studies show massive harm from smoke inhalation. Many long-term studies show lung cancer from inhaling radioactive radon or one other thing, I think polonium, which can be on unwashed tobacco and is in mines in Colorado.

So, we already have studies showing that COMPARED TO SMOKING, vaping is 99% harmless short term and medium-term. Dr. Carl Phillips has done some math based upon studies that show that AT WORST, if vaping is as harmful to lungs as short-term studies show it might be, a lifetime of vaping would do the same lung damage as 3 month of smoking. This makes vaping a really good bet for people who are already experiencing lung problems from smoking, especially if we don't have 30 more years to live. We don't know if clearing vg out of the lungs all day does long-term damage. But since the short-term for vaping is SO MUCH better than the short-term for smoking, and since we know of all kinds of damage from smoke that CAN NOT be gotten from vaping, we know that smoking is worse. (For instance, there is massive body damage from going around with arsenic and carbon monoxide in one's blood all day, and the carbon monoxide tests HAVE BEEN DONE for vaping. Same as a non-smoker.)

However, drugs that dehydrate folks are often also known to cause kidney damage. And not even chefs inhale artificial flavors as often as vapers typically do. So we can NOT say there is no harm, only that there is no harm COMPARED TO SMOKE INHALATION.

The only other people for whom, maybe ten years from now, someone might recommend vaping, might be diabetics or morbidly obsese folks who need something for appetite control, IFF vaping turned out to work for them.

For anybody else, we recommend against vaping for 2 reasons: 1. If they are adults they can ignore our advice anyway. I ignore advice all the time. 2. If we recommend otherwise, we make it harder to hit the FDA over the head for NOT comparing vaping to smoking, but rather they keep comparing it to quitting successfully by other means. Which most of us already tried. Hence we don't want vaping taken away from us.

As for why not to leave this to medical professionals, I don't need a prescription for Starbucks, and caffeine is comparable to nicotine in the quantities found in e-cig vapor. I can decide I like the effects of coffee on my mind and body without a prescription.
 

DC2

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And I'm interested in hearing some things that are in that range of potential effects. Some specifics please. For without them, it seems too hard to go along with.
I have come to the conclusion that you are being purposely obtuse.
If I knew the potential long-term effects we would not be having this discussion.
 

Jman8

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And now I am at the conclusion that you have very little to no reason to not encourage anyone / everyone to enjoy vaping just like many of us vapers who enjoy vaping.

If you happen to come up with actual (serious) harm of vaping, do let me know, so I too can be 'informed' and we can discuss these things minus obtuseness.
 

Berylanna

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And now I am at the conclusion that you have very little to no reason to not encourage anyone / everyone to enjoy vaping just like many of us vapers who enjoy vaping.

If you happen to come up with actual (serious) harm of vaping, do let me know, so I too can be 'informed' and we can discuss these things minus obtuseness.
Do you have everyone other than DC2 on ignore?
 

Jman8

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For anybody else, we recommend against vaping for 2 reasons: 1. If they are adults they can ignore our advice anyway. I ignore advice all the time. 2. If we recommend otherwise, we make it harder to hit the FDA over the head for NOT comparing vaping to smoking, but rather they keep comparing it to quitting successfully by other means. Which most of us already tried. Hence we don't want vaping taken away from us.

As for why not to leave this to medical professionals, I don't need a prescription for Starbucks, and caffeine is comparable to nicotine in the quantities found in e-cig vapor. I can decide I like the effects of coffee on my mind and body without a prescription.

I have no one on ignore and with a forum moderated like this one, I would be very unlikely to put someone on ignore.

I read this yesterday and again today (your post).
I saw / see nothing to discourage everyone (over 18) from enjoying vaping.
Your first point applies to people under 18. Just as when many of us were under 18, and being sold lies by the adult portion of society, we decided to ignore their advice and try smoking. Many years later, some of us were in the neighborhood of, 'oh my god, they were right, I should've never tried that, I'm so sad now to be a smoker.' And others of us were in some sort of deniability that allowed us to maintain the habit and be rather prideful in the fact that we choose to smoke, and to some degree enjoy it.

Your second point is, to me, a bit of a non sequitur. I hear you saying that in order for eCigs not to be taken away from us (and I'm assuming you mean as a perfectly legal item), then we must not recommend vaping to anyone other than smokers because FDA will see what we are doing and rigorously challenge us (the entire eCig community) on what it is we are up to - encouraging people to get into an addiction that they don't need if they don't already have (from smoking). And to me, that is not any one person's call in the eCig community unless they are something akin to expert medical professional who is somehow (I would say magically) able to maintain a sense of independent, unbiased professionalism. Right now, I don't believe those exist, or if they do, they are not without heavy criticism from the extreme element on either side of this larger debate.

IMO, the more people vaping, the merrier. Especially if eCigs are relatively harmless and if, in current times, the anecdotal evidence (at the very least) supports the claim of 'relatively harmless.' Currently, I'm not sure if I can think of a substance on this planet that is 'entirely harmless' and that includes air and water. Though with air and water, in some sort of pure form, I'd have pretty much no solid argument against it being 'entirely harmless,' but I'm not in contact with people who breath pure air / drink pure water.

Therefore, I feel strongly that relatively harmless outweighs 'potential for serious harm' especially if that potential is in same paragraph of 'unknown effects' or 'we just aren't sure.' Cause I could just as easily (really easy, mind you) make that case about anything - i.e. working, eating, exercising, etc. If I said there is potentially serious harm to eating because we don't know the long term effects from it, people might disagree with it, and exercise some sense of deniability. But I'd be able to fall back on the FACT that everyone that has ever eaten on this planet, has died. There are no exceptions to this fact that I'm aware of. And even with that, there would be denial of some sorts, and from pretty much everyone, including me. I'm still going to eat, even while the fact is observably true. I also purposely chose the one that has the least degree of truth in my mind - that is, it could be food that we eat that is causing long term effect of serious harm that leads to death. But, I do think there is around .00001% degree of truth to that claim. With exercise and working, I'd go above that percentage and say there is higher degree of truth to claims of 'potentially serious harm' in effect from those activities.

So, I think with vaping and all current studies I'm aware of (which might be few compared to others), I'm under impression there is degree of truth to the claim that there is (in fact) long term serious harm to continual use with eCigs. And currently that would show up to me as around 1%, possibly less. As is akin to breathing not so pure air in or near a major U.S. city. Then take into account that this vaper might be living in a U.S. city, eating foods which aren't entirely health, drinking water that isn't entirely healthy, thinking thoughts that aren't entirely healthy, working in a job or working in a way that isn't entirely healthy and so and and so forth; that I think at some point that person is going to die. And die a vaper. And then on hindsight, we'll plausibly be able to find something, anything, in their system that possibly lead to their death and is correlated from that which is found in eLiquid.

Which that right there ought to tell you that no one should ever vape anything.
Or you will die.
 

Berylanna

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I saw / see nothing to discourage everyone (over 18) from enjoying vaping.

There is a huge gap between "not encourage" and "discourage." I personally discourage non-smokers from vaping, but mildly, BUT I do not advocate discouraging them. I think silence is just fine....regarding non-smokers.

Your first point applies to people under 18.

Huh?

I was taught BY MY PARENTS to be freakin' careful about whose advice I follow. We just don't do "follow." We make a cloud of information then choose our own point in the cloud, which will probably not correspond to the advice of any ONE person.


Your second point is, to me, a bit of a non sequitur. I hear you saying that in order for eCigs not to be taken away from us (and I'm assuming you mean as a perfectly legal item), then we must not recommend vaping to anyone other than smokers because FDA will see what we are doing and rigorously challenge us (the entire eCig community) on what it is we are up to - encouraging people to get into an addiction that they don't need if they don't already have (from smoking).

I don't want to die earlier than necessary and I want to be able to run fast enough to catch my grandson before he runs into the street. AND I listened to the ENTIRE FDA hearing. I'm curious what your take is on the kinds of comments made by FDA personnel during the question period.


And to me, that is not any one person's call in the eCig community unless they are something akin to expert medical professional who is somehow (I would say magically) able to maintain a sense of independent, unbiased professionalism. Right now, I don't believe those exist, or if they do, they are not without heavy criticism from the extreme element on either side of this larger debate.
I was trained as a scientist and work as an engineer. I also took journalism. Journalists are trained to judge the truth by the number of people, including exremists, who disagree. Scientists are trained to look at the studies.

IMO, the more people vaping, the merrier.
I really really don't think you have been paying attention to the politicial content (or the scientific) in the current probable-upcoming-crisis.

The BIGGEST SINGLE MISSLE aimed at us is that we might convert non-smokers to vaping. It's a nuke. And it is very very effective.
Please wait until AFTER we win to start your conversion program.

Especially if eCigs are relatively harmless and if, in current times, the anecdotal evidence (at the very least) supports the claim of 'relatively harmless.' Currently, I'm not sure if I can think of a substance on this planet that is 'entirely harmless' and that includes air and water. Though with air and water, in some sort of pure form, I'd have pretty much no solid argument against it being 'entirely harmless,' but I'm not in contact with people who breath pure air / drink pure water.

Therefore, I feel strongly that relatively harmless outweighs 'potential for serious harm' especially if that potential is in same paragraph of 'unknown effects' or 'we just aren't sure.' Cause I could just as easily (really easy, mind you) make that case about anything - i.e. working, eating, exercising, etc. If I said there is potentially serious harm to eating because we don't know the long term effects from it, people might disagree with it, and exercise some sense of deniability. But I'd be able to fall back on the FACT that everyone that has ever eaten on this planet, has died. There are no exceptions to this fact that I'm aware of. And even with that, there would be denial of some sorts, and from pretty much everyone, including me. I'm still going to eat, even while the fact is observably true. I also purposely chose the one that has the least degree of truth in my mind - that is, it could be food that we eat that is causing long term effect of serious harm that leads to death. But, I do think there is around .00001% degree of truth to that claim. With exercise and working, I'd go above that percentage and say there is higher degree of truth to claims of 'potentially serious harm' in effect from those activities.
<snip>
Which that right there ought to tell you that no one should ever vape anything.
Or you will die.
You want to win the truth battle at the expense of the legal war. I want to live. I want it badly enough to publicly state that non-smokers should NEVER be encouraged to vape even though my actual opinion is "no big deal."

Because, UNTIL WE WIN, non-smokers should NEVER be encouraged to vape by anybody on our side.
 

Jman8

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There is a huge gap between "not encourage" and "discourage." I personally discourage non-smokers from vaping, but mildly, BUT I do not advocate discouraging them. I think silence is just fine....regarding non-smokers.

I think silence is fine on both counts. And I think being vocal (encouraging / discouraging) is okay, but does open one up for discussion if one is willing.

Huh?

I was taught BY MY PARENTS to be freakin' careful about whose advice I follow. We just don't do "follow." We make a cloud of information then choose our own point in the cloud, which will probably not correspond to the advice of any ONE person.

My point was about adult population and not just one's own parents. If your parent's advice was only advice from adult population that you were aware of, under the age of 18, then my point perhaps does not apply.

I don't want to die earlier than necessary and I want to be able to run fast enough to catch my grandson before he runs into the street. AND I listened to the ENTIRE FDA hearing. I'm curious what your take is on the kinds of comments made by FDA personnel during the question period.

Most don't want to die earlier than necessary, but all do not know when they'll die unless they actively choose it.

As I did not listen to the entire FDA hearing, I'm not as familiar with it as you are. Is this the Dec. 2012 hearing? If so, I did catch some of it when it happened and then got what amounts to crib notes for what was said there. If there are particular comments you'd like me to speak to, feel free to post them.

I was trained as a scientist and work as an engineer. I also took journalism. Journalists are trained to judge the truth by the number of people, including exremists, who disagree. Scientists are trained to look at the studies.

Cool!
My opinion is you are not without bias when doing either journalism or acting as scientist.

I really really don't think you have been paying attention to the politicial content (or the scientific) in the current probable-upcoming-crisis.

How might I demonstrate otherwise to you?

The BIGGEST SINGLE MISSLE aimed at us is that we might convert non-smokers to vaping. It's a nuke. And it is very very effective.
Please wait until AFTER we win to start your conversion program.

I have no program in mind. If the conversion thing to any degree is a nuke, then the battle is already over.
eCigs will be regulated as much, likely more, than smokes and vapers will have to deal with that.
I still think vapers can 'win' in a sense, but the free / open market is dead (if conversion of any sort is seen as a nuke).

You want to win the truth battle at the expense of the legal war. I want to live. I want it badly enough to publicly state that non-smokers should NEVER be encouraged to vape even though my actual opinion is "no big deal."

In answer to your first question - yes.

Because, UNTIL WE WIN, non-smokers should NEVER be encouraged to vape by anybody on our side.

Then apparently, myself as a pro-vaper, is not on your side.
 
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