The legislation attacks cigarettes that are candy flavored. As far as I know licorice is a candy flavor and is the main flavor ingredient in Marlboro lights according to Phillip Morris's website.
Ingredients by Brand - Philip Morris USA
Prior to switching over to
vaping via e-cigs I was an avid smoker of Sweet Dreams. The only downside to this brand is they only came 10 to the carton and they were considerably more expensive than what I paid for my Virginia Slims, full flavor - in the box; however, I loved the cherry flavored Sweet Dreams. I would only smoke cherry flavored and vanilla flavored. I tried chocolate but there was something about it that I just didn't like and I can't really explain it. It didn't taste as true to the flavor as their cherry and vanilla. I bought Sweet Dreams when I could but they lasted only half as long as my Virginia slims and at the time I could purchase a carton of 10 packs of VS whereas the Sweet Dreams only came 5 packs to the carton.
Nobody EVER said anything about Sweet Dreams and their having flavor. The flavoring wasn't just in the
tobacco. It was on the filter as well, which is why I believe these cigarettes became so popular. I didn't think it was flavored filter ends but sure enough, after having a debate with a friend of mine who smoked Sweet Dreams exclusively, I touched my tongue to the side of the filter and sure enough... the filter area tasted just like cherries on the cherry flavored type and vanilla on the vanilla type. The government didn't have a fit then. They weren't banned....
If Sweet Dreams can be sold with flavored FILTERS!!!!! Then what's the deal with flavors IN the liquid to e-cigs? It's not like the cartridge can be dusted or infused with the flavoring so in essence, the Sweet Dreams would have been MORE of an enticement to teens but that wasn't the case.
Just as an FYI, I have a 22yo daughter whose been with me her entire life. I've been an avid smoker since I was about 12 years old with exception to the 2 years I stopped when I became pregnant with my first child, my 22yo. This child grew up in a home and within a family - with exception of her dad/my husband but he dipped snuff - of smokers. My mother, birth father, all my stepfathers, uncles (both sides of the family), all my aunts on both sides except for one as she was the chief nurse on the OB and neonatal ward, my grams, her father/my papaw (smoked a pipe & cherry-flavored/aroma cigars), my paternal grandfather smoked stogie cigars, most if not all of my cousins were smokers yet my 22yo did not smoke.
I won't say she didn't try it because she did. She swiped a new pack of my cigarettes that I had only taken one cigarette out of and it was found in her room when I went to put her under-clothing in her drawer after doing laundry. She was busy with studying for her CNA certification state board test, Showcase of Stars where she performed in both the opening number and with the representative group from her school, not to mention she was an officer of the HOSA groups (Health Occupational Student Association), so I gave her some slack. I found the cigarette pack and later that night her dad and I had a talk with her. She owned up to taking the cigarettes. The only cigarettes missing was the one I took out and one more. She brought me the ashtray where she put the cigarette. It was only about a third of the way smoked. Through tears, she apologized to both her father and me. Then she told us how smoking that cigarette made her sick to her stomach, so sick that she ended up in the bathroom throwing up. I remember her throwing up only I didn't know why or what triggered it until that night. This was in 2005/2006 since she graduated in 2006.
Even when she was old enough to buy cigarettes and she bought them for me often since I couldn't drive, she never picked up the habit. She dated a few guys who smoked but they ended up calling it quits. Her fiance is trying to quit although it's difficult to even call him a smoker b/c he smokes maybe 5 cigarettes a day and those are ultra lights. She has him on the e-cigs now and he's at the 11mg level. I'm sure that he will quit before it's all said and done.
This may not sound like a major thing for a teenager, young adult but you have to take into consideration that we live in tobacco country. NC at one time, if not still is the top tobacco-producing state in the country. Tobacco money and moonshine money built Duke Hospital and Duke University. It built the local hospital where we live. Illegal moonshine built and purchased a large chunk of land that is now developed into a rather large community. Most large businesses that were once small but now are tremendously large were among those seeded and replinished with funds from tobacco money.
I barned tobacco in the summer months just as my husband did. My aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles, grandparents (both sides), and cousins, etc... all barned tobacco and not just our fields. We gathered to help our neighbors bring in their crops. The aunt who is closest to being a mother to me, or was before her death, used to run the tobacco market with her husband to re-weigh tobacco bales to ensure the companies were not ripping off the farmers. They saved the companies hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years so any kid within spitting distance of this area either tried smoking, was a smoker, or became a smoker and continued through adulthood.
The odd thing about all this is how the government talks about the dangers of smoking. My Papaw was in his mid- to late 90s when he died and that man smoked non-filtered cherry-flavored cigars and non-filtered cherry flavored tobacco in a pipe several times a day every day of his life since he was a teenager. He lived through to his mid to late 90s! He didn't die from lung cancer either and neither did his first wife. He was widowed. He remarried around 89 to 90 and his second wife smoked too yet he didn't die of anything relating to tobacco abuse and neither did his first wife, the love of his life or his second wife whom he widowed and she followed him some years later.
It's the crap that's been put into tobacco cigarettes over the last few decades that is killing people in my not so humble opinion. My paternal grandfather died in his late 80s, but again, he didn't die from lung cancer. He had Parkinson's disease and congestive heart failure; however, heart disease is a genetic marker on both the paternal and material sides of my family along with breast cancer, ovarian cancer, and cervical cancer not to mention a number of various autoimmune diseases. My maternal grandmother died from brown lung disease, which she got from working in the cotton mills before it was made public that cotton dust was deadly when inhaled. In addition to brown lung, she died from complications related to rheumatoid arthritis.
I was happy to hear, and I hope it's true, that Swatzenagger vetoed the ban in California. If this is so, CONGRATULATIONS Californiaians!
If tobacco was as clean as it was back in my great-grandfather's days, I believe we wouldn't have lung cancer problems. Clean tobacco smoked by Native American Indians didn't kill them nor did it kill those from my great-grandfather's days (my papaw). It's the crap put INTO the cigarettes that's killing people and now the governments are trying to state that smoking is bad for you. Well, when you add dangerous crap to the tobacco, heck yeah it's dangerous but if they'd remove the crap they add to it, I dont' believe it would be dangerous. That's what is so great about e-cigarettes and the
e-liquids. It's clean the way tobacco should be now but isn't.
Thanks for letting me rant. I'm stepping off the old soapbox before I fall off.
Again, if the information I read is true, congratuations to those in California. I wrote the governor as well on your behalf. If it comes down to it here in NC, I hope you can all return the favor. I can't stand the thoughts of losing access to my e-cigarettes. It's made a difference in my health and in my marriage.
