Positive press in the UK

[laffs83]

Electronic cigarettes 'help nine out of ten smokers quit tobacco completely' | Metro News

Nice to see a bit of balanced reporting in the UK press. Can only be good for the cause.

 

[BuGlen]

It's mostly positive, with the exception of the last paragraph in the article:

However, Prof Britton said: ‘We don’t know what else is in the vapour. There are other chemicals which allow the nicotine to form droplets, disperse the nicotine, and we don’t know how harmful these solutions are.’

I am quite encouraged with the fact that on just about every article I see lately, positive or negative, there is an onslaught of vapers adding testimonial comments of their victory over smoking. As long as we (the community) continue to do this, we can add the much needed human element to these stories.

 

[tommy2bad]

@BuGlen.
Might not be as good an idea in the UK as it seems, any mention of ecigs and quitting smoking in the same article will be taken down and used in evidence against you. Theirs a concept 'medicine by function' and this is how they arrived at the conclusion that ecigs should have medical authorization. If a product is used as a medicine or in a manner similar enough to a medicine then it is a medicine by function.
What a male bovine produces has a similar smell and they have been told this several times but they persist.
We have to be careful at the moment not to give the regulators any ammunition for their medical argument.
I don't think that it a coincidence that the regulators have divided the ecig community by making quitting a losing argument on one side of the pond and a winning one on the other. Of course it coincidental and the result of previous legal history but I'm hyper paranoid with all the efforts to regulate ecigs out of existence.

 

[jtpjc]

We don’t know what else is in the vapour

Who is that "we" they keep talking about?

 

[BuGlen]

@BuGlen.
Might not be as good an idea in the UK as it seems, any mention of ecigs and quitting smoking in the same article will be taken down and used in evidence against you. Theirs a concept 'medicine by function' and this is how they arrived at the conclusion that ecigs should have medical authorization. If a product is used as a medicine or in a manner similar enough to a medicine then it is a medicine by function.
What a male bovine produces has a similar smell and they have been told this several times but they persist.
We have to be careful at the moment not to give the regulators any ammunition for their medical argument.
I don't think that it a coincidence that the regulators have divided the ecig community by making quitting a losing argument on one side of the pond and a winning one on the other. Of course it coincidental and the result of previous legal history but I'm hyper paranoid with all the efforts to regulate ecigs out of existence.

Not arguing against your point, but this is a bit of a preposterous way to do things. By this way of thinking, adopting a vegetarian diet as a healthy lifestyle choice could be considered medicine by function. I'm not saying that we in the US have a better methodology at all, and I would further say that it's only a different way of achieving the same goals by those that seek to control the e-cig industry.

In any case, I hope you're wrong about the testimonials being used against the movement in the UK.

 

[Petrodus]

I guess demonizing those with different views
and trying to shut them up ... is universal.

 

[Berylanna]

I guess demonizing those with different views
and trying to shut them up ... is universal.

Yes. I work with people from all over the world...in fact there are far too few Americans being hired in this valley but that's another story.

Whenever I see a comment "Only in America would XXXX happen" I think that maybe they're still smoking *something* even if they're free of combustible tobacco. A good half of the stuff that's mentioned in that manner is much worse in big parts of the world. The other half is probably the same most places.

I heard a joke from a third-world immigrant that I like:

One of our senators was visiting the U.S., and took dinner at the home of a U.S. Senator. The home was luxurious, overlooking a river. Our senator asked "How did you afford this place on a Senator's salary?"

The American replied "See that bridge down there on the river?"

"Yes."

"Half of the money for that built this house!"

A few years later, the American senator was visiting our country, and went to visit his colleague. Now our senator also had a big house by a river. "So how did you afford this place on your salary?"

"See that bridge down there?"

"No."

However, I agree that there are important nuances to the difference between the U.S. battle and the EU battle. Ours is increasingly coming down to "what it looks like" in states and local jurisdictions, and federally, down to "But Congress gave this to us!" (Like power over tobacco is a promised-land or something and Congress is God!)

Whereas a lot of things that are legal over-the-counter remedies in the U.S. are pharmaceuticals in Europe.

OTOH, in Europe the regulation is not yet a "done deal" that would have to be repealed, is it?

 

[djsvapour]

It's such a shame that the NHS decided to refute the whole article. They (the NHS) do not want to have anything to do with harm reduction.
I think it's a desperate situation; officially, all personal testimony or irrefutable cases where people have given up smoking for good, for ever, are to be quashed as "no evidence that e-cigs can help people stop smoking"....

You couldn't make it up.