Two Cheers For E-Cigarettes: NY Times columnist Joe Nocera slams NYC e-cig bill and its unscientific proponents

[Bill Godshall]

Two Cheers For E-Cigarettes
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/07/opinion/two-cheers-for-e-cigarettes.html?ref=joenocera&_r=1&

For the past three months, Joe Nocera has told me he was interested in writing a column supporting e-cigs, and he's been on my e-mail list for more than a year. On Tuesday, I urged Joe to watch Wednesday's NYC Council hearing on the proposed e-cig usage ban, urged him to write his column ASAP, and I sent him the weblink for the council hearing on Wednesday morning (which he watched).

The timing of his column is excellent, as it could discourage the NY Times editorial board from endorsing Bloomberg's proposed e-cig usage ban, could help us derail Bloomberg's bill, could help us derail or amend FDA's yet-to-be proposed e-cig regs, and encourage others to endorse e-cigs.

Nocera's column has already generated more than 200 comments.

Some excerpts from the beginning and end of Nocera's column.

Imagine a product - a legal but lethal one - that kills 400,000
Americans a year. Public health advocates have been trying for decades
to persuade Americans not to use it. The industry has been sued and
sued again, but it is still operating profitably. One out of every five
Americans is addicted to the product.

Now imagine that an alternative comes to the market, an innovative
device that can help people wean themselves from the deadly product. It
has the same look and feel as the lethal product; indeed, that's a
large part of its appeal. It, too, is addictive. But the ingredients
that kill people are absent.

This, of course, is no imaginary scenario. The lethal product is
cigarettes, which use nicotine to addict and combustible tobacco to
kill. And the alternative is electronic cigarettes, which deliver
nicotine without the tobacco, and emit a vapor that almost instantly
evaporates. Yes, users can be hooked on nicotine, which is a stimulant.
But people who "vape" are not going to die, at least not from inhaling
their cigarette.

You'd think that the public health community would be cheering at the
introduction of electronic cigarettes. We all know how hard it is to
quit smoking. We also know that nicotine replacement therapies, like
the patch, haven't worked especially well. The electronic cigarette is
the first harm-reduction product to gain serious traction among
American smokers.

Yet the public health community is not cheering. Far from it: groups
like the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association and
the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids are united in their opposition to
e-cigarettes. They want to see them stigmatized - like tobacco
cigarettes. They want to see them regulated like cigarettes, too, which
essentially means limited marketing and a ban on their use wherever
tobacco cigarettes are banned.

Thomas Farley, New York City's health commissioner, trotted out most of
the rationales against e-cigarettes the other day at a City Council
hearing. (The City Council is considering a bill, strongly supported by
the Bloomberg administration, that would forbid the use of an
e-cigarette anywhere that cigarettes are banned.) E-cigarettes, he
said, "are so new we know very little about them." Thanks to
e-cigarettes, smoking is becoming glamorous again, and could become
socially acceptable. The number of high school students who have tried
electronic cigarettes doubled from 2011 to 2012. He made a particular
point of showing how closely e-cigarettes resembled old-fashioned
tobacco cigarettes.

The reason to fear this resemblance, say opponents of electronic
cigarettes, is that "vaping" could wind up acting as a gateway to
smoking. Yet, so far, the evidence suggests just the opposite. Several
recent studies have strongly suggested that the majority of e-cigarette
users are people who are trying to quit their tobacco habit. The number
of people who have done the opposite - gone from e-cigarettes to
cigarettes - is minuscule. "What the data is showing is that virtually
all the experimentation with e-cigarettes is happening among people who
are already smokers," says Michael Siegel, a professor at the Boston
University School of Health.

At that recent New York City Council meeting, one of the fiercest
critics to testify was Kevin O'Flaherty of the Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Kids. "If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck
and it sounds like a duck and it looks like a duck, it is a duck," he
said.

Is this what passes for science when you oppose electronic cigarettes?

 

[AgentAnia]

Thanks for posting this, and many many thanks for prompting Nocera to write it!

 

[2coils]

At that recent New York City Council meeting, one of the fiercest
critics to testify was Kevin O'Flaherty of the Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Kids. "If it walks like a duck and it talks like a duck
and it sounds like a duck and it looks like a duck, it is a duck," he
said.

Is this what passes for science when you oppose electronic cigarettes?
This statement is pretty telling of how ridiculous this whole indoor ban is! Great column. Thanks Bill! We really do GENUINELY appreciate your hard work. It is really sad that one can count on a single hand (roughly) how many experts are vocally in favor of e-cigs!

 

[Uma]

Fantastic!!! Thanks Bill and Joe, you both rock!!!

 

[DetraMental]

I love it! Thank you for standing up for ecigs!

 

[Texaslimo]

/cheer!!!!!

 

[Bill Godshall]

2coils wrote

It is really sad that one can count on a single hand (roughly) how many experts are vocally in favor of e-cigs!

Actually, there are several million experts who are vocally in favor of e-cigs (i.e. all vapers and all honest and ethical people who have objectively analyzed the products and users).

In contrast, there is only a small (but well funded and vocal) group that oppose e-cigs (i.e. Obama appointees at DHHS, GSK, J&J, Pfizer and their funded front groups at CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA, AMA, AAP, ATTUD, and their allied left wing Democrats, who have been lying about e-cigs and trying to ban their sales and use since 2009).

 

[squee]

(i.e. Obama appointees at DHHS, GSK, J&J, Pfizer and their funded front groups at CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA, AMA, AAP, ATTUD, and their allied left wing Democrats, who have been lying about e-cigs and trying to ban their sales and use since 2009).

If this is all some plot amongst left wing Democrats, why is t being banned in places like Oklahoma? Hardly a hot bed of progressive thought.

 

[Bill Godshall]

Because the head of the OK tobacco settlement foundation is not only giving state grants to groups to lobby to ban e-cigs, but has also offered them financial incentives if they get e-cig usage bans enacted.

 

[Thunderball]

Good work and thanks

 

[squee]

Because the head of the OK tobacco settlement foundation is not only giving state grants to groups to lobby to ban e-cigs, but has also offered them financial incentives if they get e-cig usage bans enacted.

Right. But they're not democrats, left wing or otherwise.

 

[Racehorse]

If this is all some plot amongst left wing Democrats, why is t being banned in places like Oklahoma? Hardly a hot bed of progressive thought.

And isn't the New York Times known to be a Liberal publication, you know, pro-choice, racially sensitive, feminist-friendly, gay-friendly, and secular?

So much for repeated attempts to keep making this a party issue, which has in the past, turned off many people here.

 

[Eric A. Blair]

If this is all some plot amongst left wing Democrats, why is t being banned in places like Oklahoma? Hardly a hot bed of progressive thought.

I am an unapologetic conservative/libertarian limited government believer. But I try to stay politically agnostic in these debates. I've learned. But…

 

[Eric A. Blair]

On a positive note the New York Times has run many positive electronic cigarette articles. There are plenty of heal the world make it a better place type big government activists. Look at the editors picks in this New York Times article. Almost all of them are people whose lives have been improved by e-cigs.

On the flipside be honest with yourself:

Roundup the usual suspects The Democratic People's Republic of New York California New Jersey.

Ban first "for the children" (TM) of course and then ask questions and deal with the unintended consequences of government activism later.

 

[soba1]

Thanks and all I can say is in this day and age in the NY Times real Walter Cronkitesque journalism...... OMG
We got folks on our side....don't fear and vape on

 

[Bill Godshall]

Regardless of what some divisive partisans may claim, liberal Democrats have sponsored 95% of the proposed state and local bills to ban/restrict the sale and use of e-cigs to/by adults.

Claiming this hasn't been a partisan issue (since Obama appointed FDA Deputy Commissioner Josh Sharfstein lied about e-cigs in defending the agency's e-cig import ban in 2009/10) is like claiming the earth is flat.

 

[Dave_in_OK]

Right. But they're not democrats, left wing or otherwise.

But some of them are Progressives.