Stan Glantz urges e-cig use ban in California, denounces SG Carmona for joining NJOY's board

[Bill Godshall]

Junk scientist, propagandist and prohibitionist Stan Glantz glantz@MEDICINE.UCSF.EDU launched two more attacks on vaping today at:
California legislature proposes to protect nonsmokers from e-cigarettes (just like cigarettes): SB 648 is a good idea | Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
and
In a triumph of wishful thinking over data, former Surgeon General Richard Carmona joins e-cig board of directors | Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education


[url=http://tobacco.ucsf.edu/california-legislature-proposes-protect-nonsmokers-e-cigarettes-just-cigarettes-sb-648-good-idea]California legislature proposes to protect nonsmokers from e-cigarettes (just like cigarettes): SB 648 is a good idea | Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
[/URL]

E-cigarette company v2cigs.com is trying to mobilize opposition to SB648, a bill in the California legislature that, quite sensibly, would protects innocent bystanders from e-cigarettes the same way that California protects them from cigarettes.

According to V2cigs, the bill “declares that the use of electronic cigarettes is a hazard to the health of the general public” and proposes to regulate e-cigs “to the same extent and in the same manner as cigarettes and other tobacco products.” If passed, the bill would:

- Ban smoking within 25 feet of a playground, punishable by a $250 fine.
- Prohibit the use of e-cigs in enclosed places of employment, punishable by a fine of as much as $500.
- Prohibit the use of e-cigs on any railroad, bus or plane that provides departures from the state of California
- Force landlords to prohibit the use of e-cigs on their rental property, including any exterior areas (balconies, patios, walkways, etc.)

As noted before, while e-cigarettes are not a polluting as (massively polluting) conventional cigarettes, there was still elevated levels of acetic acid, acetone, isoprene, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, averaging around 20% of what the conventional cigarette put into the air.

This is yet another example of how the e-cigarette companies are trying to have it both ways: They argue that they are cigarettes to avoid FDA regulation and argue that they are not cigarettes when it comes to things like nonsmoker protections.

This bill is good public policy.

Since Stan has a large following in California (he's from San Francisco), I suspect that many of Stan's cheerleaders will be urging CA legislators to ban vaping in workplaces.



In a triumph of wishful thinking over data, former Surgeon General Richard Carmona joins e-cig board of directors | Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education

I am among the many public health professionals who were shocked to hear that former Surgeon General Richard Carmona joined the board of directors of e-cigarette company NJOY.

Echoing justifications physicians gave for working with the conventional cigarette companies decades ago, Carmona told the Associated Press, “I’m probably going to be [the company’s] biggest critic. … I still look at my job as being a doctor of the people, and I’m going to look at the science. … If we can find a viable alternative that gave us harm reduction as people are withdrawing from nicotine, I’m happy to engage in that science and see if we can do that.”
The problem with this statement is that the e-cigarette industry is already aggressively promoting their products as safer alternatives to conventional cigarettes that can be used to help quit smoking.

In fact, the one and only longitudinal study published to date (from Canada, US, UK and Australia) conducted during 2010 and 2011 found that, although 85.1% of e-cigarette users reported using e-cigarettes as a cessation ad, there was no difference in successful quitting of conventional cigarettes between e-cigarette users and nonusers (P=0.516, which is not even close to statistical significance).

Equally important, there are very high levels of "dual use," where people smoke e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes at the same time. one US study found that 84% of e-cigarette users were dual users and another found 55%. It may well be that e-cigarettes have the effect of keeping people smoking conventional cigarettes.
And, while not as polluting as conventional cigarettes, e-cigarettes pollute the air with acetic acid, acetone, isoprene, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, averaging around 20% of what the conventional cigarette put into the air, that innocent bystanders are forced to breathe.

Dr. Carmona should reconsider and drop off the board.

 

[house mouse]

Since Stan has a large following in California (he's from San Francisco), I suspect that many of Stan's cheerleaders will be urging CA legislators to ban vaping in workplaces.

Will they also be urging workplaces to ban private offices and bathrooms? As long as those two areas exist in workplaces so will indoor vaping.

 

[Fiamma]

Stan needs to go play in traffic on the bay bridge.

 

[Bill Godshall]

I submitted the following comment to Stan Glantz posting advocating e-cigarette usage ban in California workplaces.
I strongly doubt he'll post it, just as Stan has refused to post the last three comments I posted on his blog.

Stan misrepresents evidence to scare people & ban vaping

There is NO evidence that electronic cigarettes emit hazardous levels of any substance to the consumers who use the products. And since e-cigarette consumers consume virtually all emissions from e-cigarettes (unlike cigarettes that continue burning), there has never been any detectable exposure (among nonusers, or even in an indoor environment) of any substance from any e-cigarette.

As you know, the intended purpose of smokefree policies and laws was to protect nonsmokers from tobacco smoke pollution, which is far more concentrated than outdoor air pollution. In sharp contrast, the policies and laws you advocate for banning e-cigarette use (and tobacco use) are intended to deny consumers of their freedom to use nicotine (and to make the product disappear from public places because a few well funded vocal prohibitionists don't want anyone to see or use them).

Besides, carpets, furniture, printers, dry cleaned clothes and many other things commonly found in offices and homes emit exponentially more (i.e. ten thousand fold or greater) levels of acetic acid, acetone, isoprene, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde than have been detected in any e-cigarette. If you are so concerned about human exposure to those constituents (which of course you aren't), you'd be advocating laws banning carpeting, furniture, printers, dry cleaned clothes, etc.

In fact, electronic cigarettes appear to be the most important public health invention in human history, as they:
- have helped several million smokers quit smoking or significantly reduce cigarette consumption,
- appear to be >99% less hazardous than cigarettes, and emit ZERO secondhand smoke, and
- are consumed almost exclusively (i.e. >99%) by cigarette smokers and smokers who quit smoking by switching to e-cigs.

Real public health advocates strongly support smokers switching to electronic cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and/or other far less hazardous smokefree alternatives.

While e-cigarette companies and consumers are protecting public health by reducing cigarette consumption, e-cigarette prohibitionists and propagandists have been protecting cigarette markets and threatening public health.

Bill Godshall

 

[Lessifer]

Here's the comment I posted, not sure if it will make it to the actual page or not:

First off, I'm a vaper, I'll get that out of the way right now so that you can promptly ignore anything I have to say because I'm "biased." I've been using a personal vaporizer for just under two months now, and I haven't had a traditional cigarette since the second day.

Electronic cigarettes(I hate using that phrase as they have only the slightest actual association to a cigarette) are not marketed as smoking cessation devices, otherwise it would fall under the classification of an NRT device, it is a tobacco product, a SMOKE FREE tobacco product like snus or chewing tobacco. It is an alternative source of nicotine. Along the same lines, they are NOT cigarettes, there is no steady stream of unfiltered smoke being released, any vapor produced is first taken into the mouth and/or lungs of the individual using the device, and depending on the set up of their vaporizer and the make up of their liquid, and their vaping technique there may or may not be any visible exhalation.

Now, it's been awhile since I took biology and chemistry but I read the study in your "noted before" link and for the most part, as I understood it, the mentioned VOCs were detectable but not quantifiable, meaning they were so trace that they couldn't actually be measured just noted that they were present. Also, the formaldehyde levels were no higher than what a non-smoker emits regularly, from breathing.

I can't remember the last time I went somewhere and didn't see a prop 65 warning posted, public buildings, apartment complexes, restaurants, you name it.

When did detectable but not scientifically proven to be harmful become basis enough for a ban?

I know this has been a bit of a ramble, and I don't have the time right now to edit it, but my point is you're reacting to something because it has superficial similarities to something that we know is incredibly harmful. Most users of personal vaporizers don't use them to circumvent laws against smoking, they use them as a healthier alternative to smoking, and regulating/legislating them to the point of extinction is going to do nothing but keep people on the path to a certain death by SMOKING related illness. If it were easy/possible for most people to "just quit smoking" they would do it, and any innovation that provides a reduced harm should be embraced and celebrated, not vilified. Your stance against alternative nicotine sources makes me wonder just where your ideals are. Do you actually want people to continue smoking, or do you just want all of the smokers to die sooner?

 

[Elnroth]

I like how the comments that show up are easy to counter our generally respond to. I guess trying to submit a well written comment is pointless. Also, for the record, aerospace engineering is a subset of mechanical engineering, therefore he is I'm fact a mechanical engineer.

 

[Berylanna]

Yikes!!! He's too close to Sacramento! We need a THOUSAND people there if he brings his idiots!

 

[Lessifer]

I keep checking back and neither mine nor Mr. Godshall's comments appear to have made the cut...

 

[Berylanna]

I keep checking back and neither mine nor Mr. Godshall's comments appear to have made the cut...

Where is the HATE button?

Didn't Mr. Godshall say that was par for the course?

My tummy hurts.

I can still pick someone (up to 2 people) up the night before at SJC airport if needed. And I can still share a hotel room in Sac with a female who owns some impressive earplugs.

 

[markdm4805]

Junk scientist, propagandist and prohibitionist Stan Glantz glantz@MEDICINE.UCSF.EDU launched two more attacks on vaping today at:
California legislature proposes to protect nonsmokers from e-cigarettes (just like cigarettes): SB 648 is a good idea | Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
and
In a triumph of wishful thinking over data, former Surgeon General Richard Carmona joins e-cig board of directors | Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education


[url=http://tobacco.ucsf.edu/california-legislature-proposes-protect-nonsmokers-e-cigarettes-just-cigarettes-sb-648-good-idea]California legislature proposes to protect nonsmokers from e-cigarettes (just like cigarettes): SB 648 is a good idea | Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
[/URL]

Since Stan has a large following in California (he's from San Francisco), I suspect that many of Stan's cheerleaders will be urging CA legislators to ban vaping in workplaces.



In a triumph of wishful thinking over data, former Surgeon General Richard Carmona joins e-cig board of directors | Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education
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I love how this guys degree is in aerospace engineering yet people in medical research worship this guy like he's god. This guy is obviously a shill put in to his position to cow tow to the antz and big pharma with his lies and stupidity.

 

[PhreakySTS9]

Does anybody have the link to that lab study that PROVED that there is virtually ZERO second hand effects as a byproduct of vaping from a few months back? My comment, lets see if it's left. Doubt it..

Claiming that most people that try to quit smoking via electronic cigarettes are equally likely to fail as those who don't is a complete lie. Check out the many internet message boards devoted to vaping, and you will see this is plainly false. The biggest, most well known and often the first forum found by those interested in switching to vaping is the e-cigarette-forum which literally has thousands of new members joining every month. I have been a member of many different forums since December 2001, and I have never to this day seen a more active message board with more members, along with the many other national and regional message boards devoted to vaping, there are millions of men and women in the world today that would never have been able to quit smoking if it weren't for electronic cigarettes.

The thing I simply don't understand is why. Why are you so determined to fight what has been a blessing for thousands upon thousands of smokers in the United States, let alone the rest of the world? Three years ago I was in pitiful shape. I was always highly athletic, and smoking robbed me of that. Thanks to vaping, I am now honestly in the best shape I have ever been in my entire life. No way could I run, or play basketball at the gym three years ago like I can today. I wake up to a breath of fresh, clean air rather than to cough up phlegm with a throat so sore I can hardly talk. Instead of my clothes smelling like they were pulled out of a house fire they smell fresh. My breath, my teeth and everything else are fresh and non smokers aren't disgusted to be around me. Not only the health benefits, but I can now go hours at a time without needing to use my electronic cigarette the way I did with smoking. It allowed me to taper my nicotine dose down to a minimal level, and also isn't filled with the harmful MAOI's and other highly addictive additives that are found in cigarettes. I'm one of millions of vapers in the US and you want to take that away from us but I ask why? There are LITERALLY millions of people that have quit smoking in the US thanks to this wonderful invention, why on Earth would anybody want to change that? There is for the first time in history a device that actually gives people a great chance at quitting cigarettes and nobody that cares for the health and safety of our fellow citizens the way I do should want to stop that.

 

[PhreakySTS9]

How is this even possible? "As noted before, while e-cigarettes are not a polluting as (massively polluting) conventional cigarettes, there was still elevated levels of acetic acid, acetone, isoprene, formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, averaging around 20% of what the conventional cigarette put into the air." How on earth can you take a drag of PG,VG and nicotine and have formaldehyde come out of your mouth? That sounds absolutely ridiculous to me, is there any scientific basis for this claim?

 

[Sikko]

What he isn't mentioning is that formaldehyde is produced as a natural byproduct of breathing. Someone who doesn't smoke still gives off formaldehyde in their breath. And acetic acid is vinegar. Maybe we should start banning pickles because they would produce acetic acid in your breath? Isoprene is produced by plants, actually released into the atmosphere so it's something we breathe in all the time anyway I would think.

From Wiki: Although a relatively weak sensory irritant, acetaldehyde is a common contaminant in workplace, indoor, and ambient environments.

The amounts of all of these things were very small if I remember right from the study. I'll try to find the link and repost it.

 

[Lessifer]

Why can't they concentrate their efforts on banning something that's actually been proven as a health risk, like air fresheners? Have you seen what's in those things?

The following is from wikipedia:
A report issued in 2005 by the Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs (BEUC) found that many air freshener products emit allergens and toxic air pollutants including benzene, formaldehyde, terpenes, styrene, phthalate esters, and toluene.^[2] A study in 2006 found that the prominent products of the reaction of terpenes found in air fresheners with ozone included formaldehyde, hydroxyl radical, and secondary ultrafine particles

 

[StereoDreamer]

I pray for the day when the Reptillian Overlords return to Earth and take their minions like Mr. Glantz and Diane Feinstein back to their unearthly realm.

Their slimy, slithering attitudes, and forked tongues have no place here among warm-blooded humans...

 

[Elnroth]

Does anybody have the link to that lab study that PROVED that there is virtually ZERO second hand effects as a byproduct of vaping from a few months back? My comment, lets see if it's left. Doubt it..

Claiming that most people that try to quit smoking via electronic cigarettes are equally likely to fail as those who don't is a complete lie. Check out the many internet message boards devoted to vaping, and you will see this is plainly false. The biggest, most well known and often the first forum found by those interested in switching to vaping is the e-cigarette-forum which literally has thousands of new members joining every month. I have been a member of many different forums since December 2001, and I have never to this day seen a more active message board with more members, along with the many other national and regional message boards devoted to vaping, there are millions of men and women in the world today that would never have been able to quit smoking if it weren't for electronic cigarettes.

The thing I simply don't understand is why. Why are you so determined to fight what has been a blessing for thousands upon thousands of smokers in the United States, let alone the rest of the world? Three years ago I was in pitiful shape. I was always highly athletic, and smoking robbed me of that. Thanks to vaping, I am now honestly in the best shape I have ever been in my entire life. No way could I run, or play basketball at the gym three years ago like I can today. I wake up to a breath of fresh, clean air rather than to cough up phlegm with a throat so sore I can hardly talk. Instead of my clothes smelling like they were pulled out of a house fire they smell fresh. My breath, my teeth and everything else are fresh and non smokers aren't disgusted to be around me. Not only the health benefits, but I can now go hours at a time without needing to use my electronic cigarette the way I did with smoking. It allowed me to taper my nicotine dose down to a minimal level, and also isn't filled with the harmful MAOI's and other highly addictive additives that are found in cigarettes. I'm one of millions of vapers in the US and you want to take that away from us but I ask why? There are LITERALLY millions of people that have quit smoking in the US thanks to this wonderful invention, why on Earth would anybody want to change that? There is for the first time in history a device that actually gives people a great chance at quitting cigarettes and nobody that cares for the health and safety of our fellow citizens the way I do should want to stop that.

People want to stop it because it is hurting the wallet of a group of very powerful people.

 

[BostonVape]

reading those articles made me sick to my stomach.. this ban and the people who actually follow this guy are both ridiculous.

 

[rothenbj]

Equally important, there are very high levels of "dual use," where people smoke e-cigarettes and conventional cigarettes at the same time.

In my nearly four years of using e cigs and the 7 early months when I was using e cigs and still smoking, I never once considered using an e cig and a cigarette at the same time. It's a totally different type of inhaling process and I like to keep at least one hand free for other activity, like holding my drink. In addition, wouldn't you be afraid that the wrong one would fall out of your mouth and land in your lap.

 

[rothenbj]

Stan needs to go play in traffic on the bay bridge.

Preferably during an earthquake.

 

[rothenbj]

Bill and Lessifer, you both would have as much success with Glantzonitus by printing your comments and turning them into paper airplanes flown into the wall in your rooms. He's deaf, dumb and blind to anything that doesn't speak to "quit or die".