Vaping/flavour bans: let's marshal our arguments

General Health and advocacy
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This is the one great big, over-ridingly important topic of the moment, and there’s already a huge amount of vebiage to wade through on this forum and elsewhere. Indeed, our ever- vigilant members have probably already posted links to all the relevant artcles and official pronouncements, and expressed their opinions in 200-plus (soon to be banned) flavours

What I’m thinking is this: probably the vast majority of us are going to be involved in advocacy on one level or another, even if it’s just persuading our mates that the official line is a load of tosh. And that includes we non-Americans, because the whole world is looking at what’s going down in the U.S.A. right now, and being influenced by US news reports.

So we need a thread that gathers together all the most pithy and hard-hitting arguments, and all the most useful links, for use as ammunition and education; and that gathers together all known facts on related issues such as the recent deaths-by-vaping.

Hopefully, this is it. But I’m gonna need your help, guys.

If you guys want to post your suggestions , I’ll repost them as lists under the the following heasders (next few posts, which I’ll try to nab fast) . Not necessarily in this order (and I’m open to sugestions for further categories)

  1. Quotes. A) Arguments, observations.
    B) official statementsts (eg FDA, Trump) Try to extract the nitty gritty fronm those horribly wordy official sources
  2. Links A) relevant threads in this forum (see below)
    B) Research papers
    C) Official statements (links to full text)
    D) Media - for, against, and neutral for reference.( We want the best “for” articles, and a the most influential of the rest
    E) any particularly informative, or persuasive individual posts?

Please be judicious. The idea is to sort out the most useful material from the increasingly long and convoluted discussions, so don;t throw in everything you agree with or like, try to whittle it down.
Also check out what other people have posted here already. If it’s the exact same thing that you were going to post, don’t repost, just “like” the original post. I intend to use those likes as a guide to listing, i,e, i will try to put the most liked quotes etc. at the top of the list. A sort of manual upvoting process (apologies in advance for probable human errors).

Also, try to add quotes that throw a different light on the issue. not the same old point in different words 50 times over. I’m hoping to wind up with a complete set of relevant arguments

Please accompany any quote with the appropriate citation. . In the event that you’re quoting one of our members, that means a link to the post where they said it. That said, I doubt that any of us give a damn if our “original” points end up getting recycled elsewhere without acknowledgement . Chances are that somebody, somewhere said it first, anyway. And quoting ,say, "jay210 from ELR forum’ does not exactly add a stamp of authority does it? :rofl: . The point is whatever the point is, not who said it. However, citing the post might help the reader of this thread to put it in context…and give us a chance to pat ourselves on the back :wink:

OK, I’ll start us off with a list of relevant threads. Please add any that i’ve missed, but more importantly, go and get mining them! and bring the gold back to this thread

Flavor BAN!
20-22 people linked to health related vaping problems:
Michigan becomes first state to ban flavored e-cigarettes, cites dangers of vaping
Drums of War in the Ongoing FDA Flavorings Inquisition?
Stop Donald Trump from signing the federal flavor ban
New nicotine safety rule could hit vaping hard
Edmonton Alberta Just Banned Flavoured E-liquid Sales
“It ain’t over till it’s over” -Yogi Berra
Real, factual, rational conversation for prepping in light of bans

And remember, that your ‘‘likes’’ are gonna be used for upvoting. So try to "like’’ according to factors such as clarity and relevance, not just to say ‘‘right on, Bro ‘’ or ‘’ LOL’’

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QUOTES LIST 1: arguments and observations

Banning flavors would be a public health travesty… If a federal flavor ban is enacted, more than 10 million adults will be forced to choose between smoking again (something the FDA has said will happen if vapor products are pulled from the market) or finding what they want and need on the black market… This type of government overreach,… will surely shut down more than 10,000 American small businesses… We urge this administration to change course before millions of Americans are forced to switch back to deadly cigarettes, small businesses around the country are forced to close their doors, and tens of thousands of people are laid off.
Vapor Technology Association Responds to Trump Administration

‘’ I would argue that people are being given false and misleading information by suggesting that vaping is just as bad as smoking. There are a lot of adult vapers who are getting scared when they hear that vaping is just as bad as smoking, then they logically conclude, ‘Well, why don’t I just smoke? That’s a devastating public health consequence.”
(Dr Michael Siegel -a professor at Boston University School of Public Health whose research focuses on tobacco reduction- interviewed in Salon )

( Anti-Smoking Drug Chantix Linked To Over 500 Suicides: Should It Retain Its FDA Approval? )

It’s all black market THC Vapes, and to fix it they just started a black market for vaping.
(@Nobody4 Flavor BAN! - #183 by Nobody4)

After the U.S. FDA delayed what we termed a rather Draconian halt to vaping devices (despite our testimony at the White House) and shortly after the FDA met to consider a non-combustion tobacco alternative called iQOS, quit-or-die smoking groups began to attack a little-known product called Juul.
…
Authoritarian groups seeking bans on devices like Juul… isn’t going to prevent smoking. It will encourage it. And it is causing young people to ridicule AAP, odd bans based on ‘youth are patsies duped by a tiny company’ patronization makes them think pediatricians are out of touch. They are making videos strapping Juul devices to balloons floating into the sky with sad music in the background. They are not really getting rid of Juul, they are getting rid of trust that the AAP is about protecting kids.

by Dr. Charles Dinerstein, M.D., MBA, FACS , Senior Medical Fellow at the American Council on Science and Health.

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ARTICLES (links articles whose stance is mostly AGAINST banning vaping and/or flavors)


text from article can found in following posts:
(Vaping/flavour bans: let's marshal our arguments)
(Vaping/flavour bans: let's marshal our arguments)

Articles by American Council on Science and Health:




VIDEOS:

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OFFICIAL STATEMENTS 1: VAPER-FRIENDLY

PUBLIC HEALTH ALERT: Users of e-cigarettes and/or vaporizer pens must ensure that the products they purchase do not contain Cannabidiol (CBD) oil, CBD, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or synthetic cannabinoids.(Army Public Health Centre April 25, 2018)

ACSH’s Recommendation on Vaping

  1. If you are a smoker, switching to vaping may save your life. (While nicotine is an addictive substance, it is the combustion products of tobacco that cause the most serious harmful effects of smoking. Vaping has fewer of these substances.)
  2. If you are a non-smoker, do not begin smoking or vaping.
  3. Vaping devices like e-cigarettes should be thought of as medical devices meant to help smokers quit.
  4. Never add anything to a vaping device other than the liquid provided by the manufacturer.
    (American Council on Science and Health, September 10, 2019)

OFFICIAL STATEMENTS 2: SCAREMONGERING
2020-12-31 08:51 | Archive of HHS.gov

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(nabbed by OP, yet again )

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Great job @jay210 !!!

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OK, here’s a quote from a member here (@Nobody4 )that I really like.:

it’s hard to put it more concisely than that!

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Here’s a link to an article that I just found via another article. I don’t think this has been linked to, directly, on the board as yet:
https://phc.amedd.army.mil/topics/healthyliving/tfl/Pages/VapeOils.aspx
I think it probably comes under official statements?
The interesting things about it are the date (April 2018) and the Source (Army Public Health Centre) showing that the recent cannabis/vaping scare is not the first (just the worst, and the first involving lung collapse, so far as we know) Also that the Army saw fit to repond to the problem thus:

Per Army Regulation 600-85, The Army Substance Abuse Program, Soldiers are prohibited from using hemp or products containing hemp oil and are also prohibited from using synthetic cannabis, to include synthetic blends using CBD oil, and other THC substitutes (“spice”), or any other substance similarly designed to mimic the effects of a controlled substance.

Note: they didn’t respond by banning vapes!

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No one mental image seems to so brilliantly and succinctly sum up the erudite and incisive intellect, the lofty and faithfully virtuous ethical conscience and the steadfast selfless altruism of the conscientious Americans, so keenly aware of their critical role as the world’s kindly revered spiritual avatars and freedom loving socio-political trend-setters. Here we see in action their faithful humanitarian commitment to basic liberty, sanctity of human rights and the always and immediately evident kind, tearful, compassionate and inspiring hearts so characteristic of these venerable moral giants who graciously and so virtuously walk among us, always and ever reaffirming their profound and durable moral commitment to the basic grace and dignity of all humanity:

image

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This quote was supplied by Raven
(Salon, September 8, 2019)

: ‘’ I would argue that people are being given false and misleading information by suggesting that vaping is just as bad as smoking,” Dr. Michael Siegel, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health whose research focuses on tobacco reduction, told Salon. … “There are a lot of adult vapers who are getting scared when they hear that vaping is just as bad as smoking, then they logically conclude, ‘Well, why don’t I just smoke?’” he continued. “That’s a devastating public health consequence.”

https://www.salon.com/2019/09/08/as-teen-vaping-reaches-epidemic-proportions-experts-worry-over-future-social-costs/

(from following post: 20-22 people linked to health related vaping problems: - #216 by anon84779643)

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Here’s another good link, supplied by Raven here


Can you try to take this thread a tad more seriously, Raven? A string of adjectives, no matter how apt and elequent, isn’t exactly what’s required is it ?

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NB, the article in the Economist above, is marred by the fact that it comes out in support of a flavour ban! I’m sure I’ve read some very good arguments against flavour bans, incuding some sound economic arguments. Would like to post links and quotes , Need help tracking them down.

Besides, I really don’t like hogging this thread to myself. Now that I’ve come up with this plan of using likes as informal "upvotes’ I feel like I ought to to subject my selections to the same test * groan* , Knew i’d regret that idea.

Anyway, just found one such quote (plus link to complete statement)

Banning flavors would be a public health travesty… If a federal flavor ban is enacted, more than 10 million adults will be forced to choose between smoking again (something the FDA has said will happen if vapor products are pulled from the market) or finding what they want and need on the black market… This type of government overreach,… will surely shut down more than 10,000 American small businesses… We urge this administration to change course before millions of Americans are forced to switch back to deadly cigarettes, small businesses around the country are forced to close their doors, and tens of thousands of people are laid off.
Vapor Technology Association Responds to Trump Administration

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Did not get that picture in the brief section of the “abstract” visible above pay-wall. (That article) was referred to by the author of a recent ACSH article as supportive of their article. It occurred to me that some refer to the profession of Economist as a “dismal profession”. I take it that you have/acquired article-text-access ?

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http://www.ecigarette-research.org/research/index.php/whats-new/2019/274-us-lung

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Damn. No, I didn’t even know about the paywall. It’s not a publication that intersts me much, as a rule, so I’ve probably never used up my little bit of free acess that most of those sites give you. I ran into NY Times paywall for the first time, yesterday. :rage:
So there;s a problem. How the heck are are folk supposed to go about lifting quotes and checking citations? Nobody wants to pay a shedload of subscriptions just for that.

The bit I referred to was right at the end of the article, and I’m happy for it to stay hidden TBH :wink: So what does the abstract say? (I’ll show you mine if you show me yours :grinning:)

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Jay, here is all of the text that is visible (without paying economical treasures). It’s from the beginning:

“It’s time to stop vaping,” says Lee Norman, a health official in Kansas. Six people are dead in America, apparently from smoking e-cigarettes. More than 450 have contracted a serious lung disease. So Mr Norman’s advice sounds reasonable. The Centres for Disease Control and the American Medical Association agree: the country’s 11m vapers should quit. A new idea is circulating, that vaping is worse than smoking. On September 11th the Trump administration said it intends to ban non-tobacco flavoured vaping fluid (see article). Some politicians want a broader ban on all e-cigarettes.

The facts have gone up in smoke, as so often happens during health scares. Although more research is needed, the evidence so far suggests that the recent vaping deaths in America did not come from products bought in a shop but from badly made items sold on the street. In five out of six cases, the tainted vaping products were bought illicitly; the other involved liquid bought in a legal cannabis shop in Oregon. One theory is that the vape fluid was mixed with vitamin E. This is an oil - something that should not enter the lungs. If inhaled, oil causes the type of symptoms that the stricken vapers display.

Source (as you linked it):

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2019/09/12/dont-panic-about-e-cigarettes

The (visible free) text does not imply opposition to flavored e-juices (as you perceived):

The best kinds of problems are the ones that do not upon scrutiny seem to exist in the first place. Poof !

Having perused the “full monty” of “The Economist” piece, I still do not see what you personally perceived.
Is see the following general gist:

Prohibition usually causes more harm than good. Forbidding e-cigarettes will lead vapers to buy illicit products - the type that are far more likely to poison them. It will also deter many law-abiding smokers from switching to something less deadly.

The worst it gets is near the end (perhaps, your Lemon Tarts from your “cold, dead hands” ?):

Governments should also regulate how e-cigarettes are advertised. Marketing aimed at children is obviously unacceptable. So, perhaps, are fruity flavours that appeal especially to young palates. Government health warnings should be clear and measured. Vaping may be a dangerous habit, but it is vastly less deadly than lighting up.

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Thanks :slight_smile: well, then, I suppose it’s OK for me to quote a similar-sized chunk that comes next? (still good)

America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which is investigating the products involved, rightly refuses to panic. It says vapers should not buy products containing cannabis extract, or those sold on the street. This is sensible. When you buy an unlicensed liquid from an unregulated supplier, you have no idea what you are puffing. This is why governments also discourage people from drinking moonshine spirits, which are sometimes deadly. In Costa Rica, for example, 25 people recently died from imbibing hooch contaminated with methanol. However, just as with alcohol, regulators should draw a distinction between illicit products and the legal, unadulterated sort.

E-cigarettes are not good for you. The vapour that vapers inhale is laced with nicotine, which is addictive. Some of the other chemicals in it may be harmful. But vaping is far less dangerous than smoking tobacco—a uniquely deadly product. If people turn to e-cigarettes as a substitute for the conventional sort, the health benefits are potentially huge. Smoking kills 450,000 Americans every year, and a staggering 7m people worldwide. Anything that weans people off tobacco is likely to save lives.

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FDA fun fact
In the last five years, 544 suicides and 1,869 attempted suicides have been reported to the FDA as “adverse events” in connection with Chantix, according to documents obtained by America Tonight under the Freedom of Information Act.

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It’s a shame of that was the only thing for smokers to use…
They want to repeat the vicious cycle smoking families have…

over and over… mom and dad smoke… kids smoke… they grow up, mom and dad die from smoking related illness and the kids have yet more kids that smoke… rinse and repeat…

guaranteed money maker.

Break the cycle now! While there is still time.

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Very fun fact. That really helps put the vaping hoo-hah into context, doesn’t it? Can you give us a link for that?
@Raven-Knightly that ASCH ( American Council on Science and Health) article is a jewel ! Thanks!

I just lifted this very clear advice from ithe bottom :.

ACSH’s Recommendation on Vaping

Here’s the bottom line:

  1. If you are a smoker, switching to vaping may save your life. (While nicotine is an addictive substance, it is the combustion products of tobacco that cause the most serious harmful effects of smoking. Vaping has fewer of these substances.)
  2. If you are a non-smoker, do not begin smoking or vaping.
  3. Vaping devices like e-cigarettes should be thought of as medical devices meant to help smokers quit.
  4. Never add anything to a vaping device other than the liquid provided by the manufacturer.

I think possibly I can file that official statements?

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