Mondays News and Blogs at a glance

Scaring People About e-Cigarettes: A Public Health Disgrace. Science ‘wrong’ in EU’s proposed e-cigarette law. Keep Calm. It’s Only Poison- Clive Bates. Concern about Gateways- Robert Innes. Japanese Vapour Torture – Argvargen. Cloupor Mini – Safety Concerns. News from Poland. Nicotine Science and Policy – Daily Digest – Mon, 26 January 2015

Scaring People About e-Cigarettes: A Public Health Disgrace

Chief among that “anything else” are e-cigarettes, loved by users–because they do help you quit–but almost unanimously hated by officialdom.  Dr. Ross has been in the forefront of those criticizing the coordinated and baseless attacks on e-cigarettes for years, and fortunately he is not alone.  Other good guys include Bill Godshall, Brad Rodu, Michael Siegel, Carl Phillips, and Clive Bates.  However, there are powerful forces against e-cigarettes, including the proverbial strange bedfellows…

Science ‘wrong’ in EU’s proposed e-cigarette law

From the New Scientist:

Their argument is made in a letter to the EU’s health commissioner Tonio Borg. The scientists state that if the newly amended Tobacco Products Directive becomes law as it stands – which could happen as soon as April – it will severely limit the scope for smokers of real cigarettes to give up or cut down by switching to e-cigarettes, which contain nicotine but not the tobacco that contains tar and thousands of other substances harmful to health.

Keep calm it’s only poison

Clive Bates putting Poison into Perspective

Two factors are likely to explain these observations: (1) the rapid rise in e-cigarette and e-liquid use – a good thing as it displaces smoking; (2) the increased fear about these products arising from the negative publicity and fear-mongering in the press and by ‘public health organisations’.  But such rises have to be put in context… in the United States there were 2.6 million calls in 2013, and 0.06 percent of those related to nicotine. See American Association of Poison Control Centers Annual Report 2013 Table A17 (chart by Clive Bates from AAPPC data – plots the data points from 2013, 2014 alongside the top calls to poison centres – data in the appendix below)…..

I am Concerned

Another nice job from Robert – The Brainy Furball!

I could claim to be concerned that the moon might fall out of the sky, but my experience says otherwise, and no one would believe that this was a genuine concern.  I could express concern that the next car heading towards me will suffer catastrophic brake failure and run me down, but my experience says otherwise, and I would be mad to live my life thinking about this kind of possibility…..

Japanese vapour torture

More from Argvargen, assembling evidence:

One of the oldest tricks in the Glantzian book, and one that has been used for decades by the swivel-eyed curtain-twitchers of the tobacco control industry, is the establishment of a body of evidence.

It only takes a cursory look at Stan’s outpourings to see how it works. Write something, then write something else that cites the first thing you wrote. Then when you come to write your third piece, you can now cite your first two sources to demonstrate “a growing body of evidence”….

WARNING – Cloupor Mini May have Serious Charging Safety Issues

From The Grumpy Vaper: Users of the Cloupor Mini have been reporting melting and burning around the battery housing when charging the unit using a laptop, or car charger. Cloupor’s advice?

“About Charging Problems, Please use stable current charging device to charge our Cloupor mini or charge the 18650 battery independently. And you know, the computer and car charger’s output current is not stable, so we do not recommended users to plug cloupor mini devices into computers/laptops or car charger. Thank you.”

See Also from PBusardo:

Cloupor Mini – Heats… Ah I mean.. Heads Up

Buy, use and charge these at your own risk!

News from Poland

Electronic Cigarette Association Members’ WAPER “was established in response to the upcoming regulations, public demand for education and access to the wider knowledge and reliable information in the subject line of e-cigarettes.

The first members began to communicate in December 2013 and the first General Assembly of Founders took place in March 2014. The Association was formally registered 23 June 2014 year….

A Call to Dutch Vapers

The Dutch situation from Martijn Voncken regarding the early introduction of the TPD

Starting from 1st February, 2015 the AMvB “Tijdelijk Warenbesluit e-sigaret” is coming into effect. Translated this is the “Temporary consumer goods-decision e-cigarettes” It is temporary because it will go out of effect when the TPD is implemented in the Netherlands.

An AMvB is a General Measure of Policy(Order in Council).  AMvB’s are meant for implementing the law, not for making new laws.  A ministry creates them without going through parliament. AMvB’s do have to be approved by the “Raad van State” (Council of state), in their evaluationthey stated that there should be more focus on the benefits, instead of just focusing on the negatives, but they did approve the AMvB.

Nicotine Science and Policy – Daily Digest – Mon, 26 January 2015

Any veteran nicotine addict will testify that fancy packaging plays no role in the decision to keep smoking. So, it is argued, stripping cartons of their branding will trigger no mass movement to quit

At a small manufacturing plant in Walton-on-Thames on the outskirts of London, Andrew Korn makes luxury ecigarettes for the discerning user.

Airline passengers should add electronic cigarettes to the list of items that can’t be stored in their checked luggage.