Stigma Around Nicotine Is Destroying Public Perception of E-Cigarettes

Status
Not open for further replies.

mp25

Full Member
Dec 27, 2018
20
81
If you’re from the United States or probably any Western country, you will know how quickly our culture can go from one extreme position to the next on just about any issue. Around 25-30 years ago, nicotine went somewhat suddenly from being a socially acceptable vice that could be done in nearly every public place by almost anyone to a highly stigmatized addiction that turned millions of smokers into second-class citizens. Unfortunately, since the most common delivery of nicotine had been through traditional cigarettes that have been lethal for so many people including both my grandfathers, the stigma behind nicotine has persisted into the era of vaping. And it doesn’t help that the practice “looks like” smoking.

However, in and of itself nicotine is not dangerous. It occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables, and does not cause lung cancer. It’s a drug, just like any substance or activity that releases dopamine in the brain. I’m personally much more concerned about the consumption of highly-caffeinated, high-sugar drinks, which are not age restricted, “flavor” restricted, and aren’t taxed to death. I’m also much more concerned about the proliferation of flavored beer and spirits in the last couple decades, which have minimal restriction on advertising and haven’t been scrutinized by the FDA to any degree comparable to juul or the e-cigarette industry in general. And while those substances can be very addictive, they are often encouraged in social settings, can be “enjoyed in moderation”, and aren’t considered an epidemic. Without getting too political, I’m entirely convinced that progressives would rather have 400,000 smokers continue to die each year because they didn’t switch to vaping than a new generation take up a significantly less harmful habit.
 
Last edited:

Rossum

Eleutheromaniac
Supporting Member
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Dec 14, 2013
16,081
105,230
SE PA
Is the stigma really around nicotine, or is it around smoking and anything that looks like smoking? It seem to me that nobody cares if a person uses snus, nic gum, or lozenges. It's only if you exhale something visible that you get stink-eye from people.
 

United States

Ultra Member
ECF Veteran
Aug 17, 2018
1,888
6,388
RVA
Alcohol consumption has always been acceptable by elites.
Once upon a time Hollyweird was into vaping and those cartos were all the rage. However the actors just loved taking money from tobacco companies for being seen smoking on film. Vape companies weren't donating to the fund so actors dismissed the idea. If John Travolta had been handed 100 grand by JoyeTech things might have evolved differently. Perhaps he would've been seen not inhaling a vape instead of not inhaling cigarettes.

Ever notice an Omega watch in Bond movies was replaced by Buliva during the Pearce Bronsan episodes? It's kinda like that.

Nicotine has become the new crack in the eyes of society. The thing that surprises me is that nicotine itself is not being heavily taxed and regulated. One can buy gallons of the stuff and fairly cheap.

Now regarding nicotine in food, it's amount is so minimal that kids won't likely become addicted to tomatoes or egg plant. Heck, when I was a kid you had bubble gum cigarettes. Can you imagine Fleer or Wrigleys trying that today?
 

tw33k

Super Member
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Dec 20, 2013
694
1,356
Canberra, ACT, Australia
Is the stigma really around nicotine, or is it around smoking and anything that looks like smoking? It seem to me that nobody cares if a person uses snus, nic gum, or lozenges. It's only if you exhale something visible that you get stink-eye from people.

I've vaped in many non-smoking places and nobody has said a thing because I never exhale vapor. I recently spent 4 days at Disneyland and vaped pretty much the whole time but no one even noticed.
 

zelda

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Aug 21, 2009
7,433
11,278
Echo Beach
Is the stigma really around nicotine, or is it around smoking and anything that looks like smoking? It seem to me that nobody cares if a person uses snus, nic gum, or lozenges. It's only if you exhale something visible that you get stink-eye from people.

I agree it's the smoke. I cringe when I read an article or see a television segment and a vaper/vape shop owner blows a huge cloud for the camera.
 

AvaOrchid

Ultra Member
ECF Veteran
Sep 19, 2019
2,197
8,316
USA
If you’re from the United States or probably any Western country, you will know how quickly our culture can go from one extreme position to the next on just about any issue. Around 25-30 years ago, nicotine went somewhat suddenly from being a socially acceptable vice that could be done in nearly every public place by almost anyone to a highly stigmatized addiction that turned millions of smokers into second-class citizens. Unfortunately, since the most common delivery of nicotine had been through traditional cigarettes that have been lethal for so many people including both my grandfathers, the stigma behind nicotine has persisted into the era of vaping. And it doesn’t help that the practice “looks like” smoking.

However, in and of itself nicotine is not dangerous. It occurs naturally in fruits and vegetables, and does not cause lung cancer. It’s a drug, just like any substance or activity that releases dopamine in the brain. I’m personally much more concerned about the consumption of highly-caffeinated, high-sugar drinks, which are not age restricted, “flavor” restricted, and aren’t taxed to death. I’m also much more concerned about the proliferation of flavored beer and spirits in the last couple decades, which have minimal restriction on advertising and haven’t been scrutinized by the FDA to any degree comparable to JUUL or the e-cigarette industry in general. And while those substances can be very addictive, they are often encouraged in social settings, can be “enjoyed in moderation”, and aren’t considered an epidemic. Without getting too political, I’m entirely convinced that progressives would rather have 400,000 smokers continue to die each year because they didn’t switch to vaping than a new generation take up a significantly less harmful habit.
I'll premise this by saying I don't support bans for the most part. I feel that if we're going to talk about risk, alcohol is one of if not the riskiest items out there and the kicker with alcohol is somebody drinking doesn't only impact themselves. The victims of alcohol use are often people who are not using alcohol. I am thoroughly against any ban or severe restriction on a product that only hurts the user. And that is so long as the user has the ability to understand the harm that they may be doing so I would not be in support of companies corporations government entities promoting or obscuring information about the safety of a product. Like I don't believe that you should be able to say that e-cigarettes cure cancer. But so long as an individual with the intelligence and means to be able to purchase the product is also able to find out about the dangers of that product I don't think the government needs to intervene so long as that individuals use of that product is not going to directly harm others when used appropriately. Alcohol on the other hand when used as directed by drinking can be directly linked to the death of people who did not use alcohol. Do I think alcohol should be banned no... we have laws in place regarding what should and should not be done while drinking. But if something is going to be scrutinized perhaps it should be things that impact people who are not the user. Maybe some protection should be in place for those things like laws regarding drinking and driving. A ban is silly but the social acceptability of alcohol does not equate to it being a safe product for those around the person that is using it. Basically when your use of something impact others then I can understand some precautions and some laws and rules. But when your use of that product does not cause harm to other people and the information on harm is readily available I really strongly feel that the laws and rules should be very limited. At least as far as the end-user goes I mean I understand taxes and things like that I understand stipulations on what you can and cannot put in a product and I do agree that they should be labeled appropriately but beyond that I'm not a person who believes that the government or any entity should be controlling what a consenting adult does when that action doesn't harm anyone else and the person accepts the risk. And then was e-cigarettes it's a whole nother element that the risk is much less than other risky activities that they may do..
 

stols001

Moved On
ECF Veteran
May 30, 2017
29,338
108,119
I do agree society doesn't like visibly stuff coming out of people when they exhale (blood is probably my least favorite) and I do agree there are vapers and vaping styles that do vaping no favors, necessarily.

But I also kind of support the right of people to vape how they want.

I also don't think ANY of it (any, any of it) has to do with why vaping in under attack though. It's purely financial.

Anna
 

MacTechVpr

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Aug 24, 2013
5,723
14,403
Hollywood (Beach), FL
The anti-vape horde was failing in the public view imo until nic became worse than crack…and we [vapers] are all killers now. What gov and enterprise are doing to us is a war crime. No matter their allegiance or banner they are a combined martial force acting under the color of specious law indifferent to the number of us which may perish.

It's time for us to recognize who the real terrorists are and call them by their name.

We are not crack…we are Groot.

I exhale.

Good luck. :)
 

Blitzdonlife

Ultra Member
ECF Veteran
Apr 24, 2012
2,370
14,928
Central Texas
What is percieved on the surface of day-to-day life experiences has become more important in today's world for most people people, than looking for deeper truth is. Not all people, but the majority. Seeing is believing, and seeming now holds more weight than meaning does.

Advertising sells the idea that a product can satisfy a deep personal need. In the case of e-cigarettes, the trick was to use our aversion to death, for ourselves and our children, to paint e-cigarettes as deadly. Our survival instinct was used against us.

The vitamin E vaping health snafu was the perfect launching point. Even though it had NOTHING to do with nicotine vaping, vaping devices look the same to many people, which made it easy to lump the two in together. With the whole JUULing teenage crisis thing, it was simple to just add that in to the vitamin-E vaping crisis, once the steamroller was moving along.

Never waste a good crisis. Looks like they didn't waste this one.
 

stols001

Moved On
ECF Veteran
May 30, 2017
29,338
108,119
Other stuff is still sort of happening, visibly. The husband listens to liberal, conservative, and conspiracy radio as he works,. He always has, actually and now I ask him like what is going on. The "Impeach Trump" without actually using even the valid PROCESS to do so (I think, it's all a bit confusing.)

But no, vaping is NOT a distraction they genuinely want the money, our first born children, maybe BOTH kidneys, and then they spit in our face. Maybe they move us all to some horrible state like Arkansas (oh Arks if there are any like I'm sure PARTS of it are lovely. Like standing on the edge of the border looking out wistfully) and make it Vape Land and we get minimal dialysis enough to keep us alive but still make us suffer. No nicotine of any kind allowed..

Too harsh? IDK. Trump likes building fences or so I hear.

Ahna
 

United States

Ultra Member
ECF Veteran
Aug 17, 2018
1,888
6,388
RVA
Funny how it works:
Take drag off a mod, and get "those things cause popcorn lung."
Take drag off a pod, and get "those things are worse for you than cigarettes".
Take swig from $5 bottle of beer and get "that brand is totally awesome".

My old boss told me to be sure to carry a cocktail glass with water or sprite in it at cocktail parties. He said "those people look down on you if they don't see you "drinking" what they are "drinking". I tried it and it worked like a charm.

Later he said "never let them see you smoke". This was before vaping. I made sure they saw me smoke just because it was my way of saying "screw you fake people" as I walked around with a red Solo cup (with water before drinking water was cool).
 

StormFinch

Ultra Member
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Mar 22, 2010
2,683
4,812
Arkansas
Until the advent of nicotine replacement therapy, nicotine had never really been looked at outside of tobacco. If you saw a study about nicotine it was really a study about tobacco. After NRTs there were two catagories: nicotine in NRTs=good and nicotine in tobacco=bad. Funny how e-cigarettes got lumped into the bad category despite using the exact same nicotine as NRTs.

You are also correct that nicotine doesn't cause cancer, there is however one caveat. Studies have shown that it can stimulate new growth of blood vessels, it's even being looked at for diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Since the last thing you want to do is add extra blood supply to tumors though, if newly diagnosed with cancer it's best to eliminate nicotine.

Despite what you hear regularly, nicotine alone isn't even all that addictive. The FDA unknowingly proved that recently by studying low nicotine yield cigarettes. Unlike heavily filtered "light" cigarettes which made people smoke more, low yield cigarettes have all the other chemicals intact and the test subjects smoked the same amount as they did with their own brands. As it turns out, cigarette smoke also happens to contain chemicals that work as MAO inhibitors and MAOi drugs have proved to be extremely addictive.

The whole recent nicotine stigma can be reduced to one thing however: money. To start with, e-cigarettes reduced sales of NRTs and stop smoking medications, originally predicted to become a multi-billion dollar industry. Smokers were getting of the tobacco-NRT merry-go-round (NRTs have approximately a 7% effective rate) via e-cigs and quitting tobacco completely. This irritated the pharmaceutical companies and by extension their mouthpieces, the anti-smoking organizations. Not only was tobacco control losing pharma funding, if everyone quit smoking via e-cigs they were also out of a cushy job and would have to scramble for another cause like the March of Dimes did in the late 50s when we cured polio.

Vaping also reduced purchases of cigarettes, so the tobacco industry fought back with their own brands of e-cigarettes. When enough people didn't switch to their brands, they started trying to push legislation in state governments that would force people to use them. They met with limited success.

The real problem came because tobacco brand e-cigarettes, along with the non-tobacco brands, aren't included in the Master Settlement Agreement. States figured out that they were losing MSA funds, some of which they had sold off long ago in what basically amounts to payday loans. The states were also losing when it came to sin taxes. State health departments got hit three times, since they typically receive funding from pharma interests, taxes and MSA money.

So you see, it's not that everyone suddenly thinks nicotine is horrible, it's that the technology we're using it in is subversive, especially when it comes to everyone's bottom line.
 

stols001

Moved On
ECF Veteran
May 30, 2017
29,338
108,119
Yes it is imperative that the drunk do not see you observing them sober. Really. There is nothing worse than a tattletale who remembers clearly and did not do something dumb like look up the boss's wife's skirt on a coworker dare.

I always order a gin and tonic without the gin. I really loved gin and tonic and tonic on its own is NOT bad.

LOL though at my LAST Christmas gathering of providers, I am afraid my boss saw me just SWILL a "glass" of "gin and tonic" because I was really thirsty. I wanted another but I did not dare to go up to the bar and order ANOTHER.

That was bad ENOUGH.

Anna
 

OldBatty

Super Member
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Nov 28, 2014
555
1,377
North Georgia USA
“The chronic toxicity of nicotine in quantities absorbed
from smoking and other methods of tobacco use is very
low and probably does not represent a significant health
problem.”
- SURGEON GENERAL REPORT 1964
Chapter 4 page 32 of the original report, page 41 of the on-line .pdf.

Still as true today as it was then.
 

n9emz

Super Member
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Feb 8, 2012
352
460
79
Florida Space Coast
home.bluemarble.net
Is the stigma really around nicotine, or is it around smoking and anything that looks like smoking? It seem to me that nobody cares if a person uses snus, nic gum, or lozenges. It's only if you exhale something visible that you get stink-eye from people.

I've vaped in many non-smoking places and nobody has said a thing because I never exhale vapor. I recently spent 4 days at Disneyland and vaped pretty much the whole time but no one even noticed.

The "screw 'em" crowd blowing huge clouds in public hasn't done us any favors, although negative and not necessarily accurate media reporting is working hard to surpass that harm. Eight years of discrete vaping and I finally was called out about it today in a department store. CBD instead if nic.
 

MacTechVpr

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Verified Member
Aug 24, 2013
5,723
14,403
Hollywood (Beach), FL
The "screw 'em" crowd blowing huge clouds in public hasn't done us any favors, although negative and not necessarily accurate media reporting is working hard to surpass that harm. Eight years of discrete vaping and I finally was called out about it today in a department store. CBD instead if nic.

Collective Stockholm syndrome — If only we…

How far has that gotten us?

It's about real engagement with those who will listen, not disconnection.

Good luck. :)
 

DeloresRose

Vaping Master
ECF Veteran
Apr 25, 2014
8,610
63,106
toledo ohio
The "screw 'em" crowd blowing huge clouds in public hasn't done us any favors, although negative and not necessarily accurate media reporting is working hard to surpass that harm. Eight years of discrete vaping and I finally was called out about it today in a department store. CBD instead if nic.

Wow. Well I may be a cloud chucker on my own front porch, but I don’t vape in stores. And I have yet to see one person - myself included- blasting a big cloud out in public anywhere near other people, aside from their own companions. I do, however, see people vaping where it’s not allowed, and trust me, people notice even if they don’t get confrontational about it.
 

ozm8ey

Senior Member
ECF Veteran
Oct 7, 2014
146
180
melboune,australia
Nicotine isn't cancerous whatsoever. Its been proven with over 50 years of study. Its like caffeine, yes it's still bad for you "if" you have high blood pressure and heart rate issues and/or if you take it too much (which I do) but that's my choice. Alcohol lets see how many people die from that each year hmm: Around 3 Million! How many people die from cigs: Around 7 million! How many people die from consuming meat each year? around 125,000. Pretty much everything you do in life can be bad for you. People die from exercising, sleeping too much/too little, water intoxication, you can't predict when and what will kill you. It is our choice in what we do in our lives. I do know one thing, vaping is much much safer than smoking and I have never felt better (physically) since I switched from smoking to vaping.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Users who are viewing this thread