In the News December 20th
Tuesdays News at a glance:
The Surgeon General’s Pack of Lies About E-Cigarettes – ‘I suspect we’ll be making some changes’ – A non-lethal nicotine e-liquid ingestion case reported – Vaping to be treated as smoking in Surrey – Switching to Vaping Improves Health of Smokers with COPD – Parliament Is Not The Government – Anti-Vaping Policies Are Bad for Public Health – Senator Ron Johnson Challenging FDA Vaping Regulations (part five) – NSP Daily Digest
The Surgeon General’s Pack of Lies About E-Cigarettes
The Influence
Fear-based lies are the foundation of most reports on drug use published by US government agencies sworn to protect the health and well-being of the public. And so it is with this month’s Surgeon General’s report, “E-Cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults.”
The entire report is based on a whopper of a lie. It is told first in the foreword by Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and then in the preface by Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy himself.
Frieden states: “Tobacco use among youth and young adults in any form, including e-cigarettes, is not safe…E-cigarettes are tobacco products that deliver nicotine.”
Murthy says: “These products [e-cigarettes] are now the most commonly used form of tobacco among youth in the United States, surpassing conventional tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars, chewing tobacco, and hookahs.”
E-cigarettes are not tobacco products: They contain zero tobacco. To describe e-cigarettes as a tobacco product is profoundly deceitful. And this factual misrepresentation to scare smokers into not using them is quite deliberate.
‘I suspect we’ll be making some changes’
CBC News
The mayor of Regina wants to know what people think about expanding a smoking ban to include outdoor patios, playgrounds and other public spaces.
Mayor Michael Fougere and a number of city councillors are putting forward a motion at city council tonight, which would have city staff come up with ways to consult the public on expanding a provincial smoking ban.
“I suspect we’ll be making some changes,” Fougere said in a telephone interview.
He says while he expects some people will oppose an expansion of the ban, other cities have continued to strengthen their own bans sparking concerns that Regina is falling behind other jurisdictions.
Saskatoon has had smoke-free patios for more than a decade.
A non-lethal nicotine e-liquid ingestion case reported
Jérôme Harlay, VapingPost
A case of non-fatal intoxication with liquid nicotine is diverted by the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) to support US Surgeon General’s unsubstantiated warnings against the e-cigarette. But the issue is somewhere else.
The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) reports to the media on the case of ingestion by a child aged of 6 years and links the incident to the recent warnings of the US Surgeon General that qualified e-cigarettes a “major public health concern.” On the other side, the scientific case report [1] published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, orientates the debate on the inconsistency of vaping products regulation.
Vaping to be treated as smoking in Surrey
PeaceArch News
Soon, those who vape will face the same restrictions as smokers, unable to puff at bus stops, near doorways and a host of other places.
Surrey council will be considering a staff proposal Monday to amend the city’s smoking bylaw to include vapourizing (vaping) and e-cigarettes.
“In June, 2015, Calgary City Council passed a bylaw banning the use of e-cigarettes and vapourizers everywhere the use of tobacco cigarettes were currently banned,” a staff report to council Monday states. “Surrey would be the first city in British Columbia to prohibit vapourizing and e-cigarettes the same way (tobacco) cigarettes are prohibited.”
Switching to Vaping Improves Health of Smokers with COPD
Michael Siegel, TobaccoAnalysis
A new study by Dr. Riccardo Polosa and colleagues, published in the journal Respiratory Research, finds that smokers with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who switch to electronic cigarettes experience an improvement in their symptoms and have fewer COPD exacerbations.
(See: Polosa R, et al. Evidence for harm reduction in COPD smokers who switch to electronic cigarettes. Respiratory Research. Published online on December 16, 2016. DOI: 10.1186/s12931-016-0481-x.)
An improvement in respiratory symptoms was observed both in smokers who switched completely to electronic cigarettes and in dual users, although those who switched completely experienced a more substantial improvement.
A Billion Lives – Demand Film
Coming to a Cinema near You – Reserve your tickets Now!
Mon, Jan 16th
Odeon Liverpool One
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-T2AvOWNYo]
Parliament Is Not The Government
Junican, Bolton Smokers Club
There was a time when it was thought that Parliament was ‘The Government’. Recent events have revealed that that is not so. The ‘Government’ consists of ‘Experts’.
It did not used to be so obvious when ‘giants’ on the political street strutted about, but it was always the case. Those ‘giants’ were, in reality, pygmies.
For example, Thatcher was regarded as a hero when she gave the go-ahead to the repulsion of the invasion of the Falkland Isles. But she did not decide that it could be done. It was the Generals who decided.
But what seems to have happened in the recent past is that the Generals now dictate what should be done. The people that we elect do not decide. They are imprisoned by their own ignorance.
Anti-Vaping Policies Are Bad for Public Health
Sally Satel & David Sweanor, RealClear Health
In 1964, public health experts began an all-out assault on smoking when the Surgeon General released his landmark report on smoking and health. Today, the reported smoking rate among adults is down to 15 percent.
Still, cigarette smoking remains the nation’s leading preventable cause of premature death due to 37 million people who can’t or won’t quit. These people could benefit tremendously if they switched to products such as electronic cigarettes that deliver nicotine much more safely than conventional cigarettes.
Yet, perversely, the very government agencies dedicated to fighting smoking have turned on smokers themselves by systematically distorting the ample evidence on the vast benefits of alternative products.
Senator Ron Johnson Challenging FDA Vaping Regulations (part five)
Tony Ottomanelli II, VapingPost
The severity of the FDA Vaping regulations have caused lawsuits and a number of other controversial reactions. Senator Ron Johnson made written demands for an explanation to be received by specific dates he set. In all, Johnson has written the FDA three times and he finally received a response in which the FDA seemed to only create a more questionable and unclear scenario.
All of this is important to research and reflect on, but what’s even more significant is the overall repercussions that countless American workers, business owners and families will be negatively affected by this transition the FDA felt the need to install and enforce.
Does the FDA truly understand what it is that they’re doing? It could be interpreted that they have no idea what it is they’re creating and destroying simultaneously.
Call to Action
Changing how YOUR Council sees vaping
Vapers in Power
There is only one council in the entire country with a decent attitude towards vaping.
Thanks to the work of Freedom to Vape we now know that the vast majority of councils lump vaping in with smoking, against the advice of both Public Health England and the Health and Safety Executive.
Visit Nicotine Science & Policy for more News from around the World
