E-Cigarettes a Smoking Alternative
E-Cigarettes. You need a tobacco license to sell their products, but the industry says they don’t contain tobacco, except for the ones with tobacco flavoring of course. Right now because little is known about potential harmful long-term effects of vaping there are few regulations on them in Minnesota. And with the typically fruity flavors they tend to appeal to young adults.
Local electronic cigarette shop and lounge Vapor North says the e-juice they sell only contain 4 ingredients: propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, food grade flavorings and nicotine which makes it healthier than regular cigarettes.
Although cigarette smoking is down almost 7.5% in Minnesota over the last 3 years, with the addition of e-cigarettes smoking plus vaping use is up about 5.5% during that same time.
Crave the Change says Minnesotans should be cautious before using e-cigarettes because they aren’t regulated and most bottles don’t have a list of ingredients and contains nicotine.
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I challenge Alicia Bauman to PROVE her false statement about
“some young adults”. This is based on NO proven studies and is a
scare tactic. At least Scott reported that the reason that smoking is down is
because vaping is up. Just a small
amount of research into credible studies will show that nicotine, when removed
from tobacco, is about as addictive as caffeine. Yet “Crave the Change” doesn’t
caution use of coffee, which is not currently regulated. The news piece states that tobacco flavored
e-liquid contains tobacco. It does only
if tobacco is used to flavor it, as most flavorings are artificial, including
the tobacco ones. Check flavor sites and
they will state “Ingredients: Artificial Flavors, PG”. Most vapers would like
to see sensible regulation of vaping, however. Not these based on misleading
and false claims.
Vapor products are not tobacco products and should not be
labeled as such. They should not be sold to anyone who is below the age of 18,
should contain a list of the ingredients (wouldn’t take much space for that),
and should use child proof caps.
So… they should be regulated by the same group that brought you Chantix? Although if you count the number of people who committed suicide as “no longer smoking”, it makes the success rate look better.
Do NOT put e-cigarettes in the same class as cigarettes. Any idiot can see that if you’re not burning something, it’s different. As far as nicotine is concerned, I just found that eating a stuffed bell pepper has the same amount of nicotine as smoking a cigarette.
EVERYONE ON THE PLANET tests positive for nicotine, because it is in the foods we eat. It has been called the new “wonder drug” for parkinsons, alzheimers, and colon cancer. Once you take it out of burning plant matter, it’s not only considerably safer, it actually HELPS.
I am 59 and quit a 35 years cigarette habit 8 months ago using Vapor Products. This was after I saw my 75 year old Mom using a Electronic Cigarette. I feel much better ,the odor of tobacco smoke is gone from my life also. Also I freed up about $100 A month by switching to Vaping. I am considered an intelligent person and I have long believed in Medical Harm Reduction Policies. Tobacco Control Arms of Public Health Agencies have lied for many years about Reduced Risk Nicotine Products like Swedish Snus and now Electronic Cigarettes. I believe they have a conflict of interest in that much of their funding comes from The marketers of Nicotine Gun Patch etc. They also rely on Cigarette Sin Taxes for much of their funding. The adult smoking rate was stuck at 20% for many years until Vapor Products became popular. Now nationally it is 18% and dropping. States are loosing Tobacco Tax revenue and Tobacco Control Organisations are very worried about reduced funding if the National Smoking rate continues to decline.
This is just ….UGH.
We DO NOT SMOKE. Is NRT considered a tobacco product? Erm No. Because those people aren’t smoking either. How stupid does one have to be to consider that Pharma Grade Nicotine (used in ecigs and NRT but NOT tobacco) IS tobacco? FFS. The ignorance of the world is amazing.
Crave Change is not only lying, but also hiding from the facts on ecigs. They are so unwilling to listen to opposition that they have blocked most of the ecig industry from their twitter.
I cannot actually believe what I’ve just seen here. There is an ever growing body of evidence that is demonstrating that Personal Vapourisers (PV)are orders of magnitude SAFER than regular combustible cigarettes.
Many users of Personal Vapourisers switched from combustibles BECAUSE of the flavours available, and many of those that switched were long term smoking adults. So far the surveys conducted DO NOT SHOW a substantial take up of PV use in young adults.
If the smoking rate is DOWN (as a direct result of vaping) why combine the vape users AND smokers to show an “increase” when vaping IS NOT SMOKING?
Finally, if you want regulated products be aware that they have their own list of side effects… Just because it’s regulated, doesn’t make it safe.
We’ve tried it their way and have HAD new generations of nicotine addicts taking up cigarettes at a rate of 3000 kids a day for many years. Those are the recent numbers with the present anti-smoking methods. If ecigs are getting even half those kids to never try cigarettes that’s a huge win because those kids are NOT likely to become addicted to the nicotine in ecigs. A new study says, “E-cigarettes may be as or less addictive than nicotine gums, which themselves are not very addictive.” Unlike me who was trapped smoking for 35 years and couldn’t quit until ecigs were invented these kids who would take up smoking but pick up vaping instead will be able to wise up and easily drop the habit when they want to.
Tobacco Control needs to face the reality that no matter how much they brainwash kids some are going to rebel against it and smoke. The majority of them are not going to be able to quit with the traditional NRT methods that Tobacco Control insisted were made undesirable. Nobody believes adults don’t like flavors, that’s ludicrous. Studies on flavors show that they are not important to underage smokers. It’s not cool to vape candy flavors. The cries against flavors are simply an attempt to make ecigs undesirable and thus ineffective like the NRT that have 90%-93% failure rates.
Harm reduction methods make sense for sex and drugs, why not for nicotine use? Tobacco Control needs to stop insisting people either do it their way or die for not letting them dictate how we live our lives.
This is about the fate of nearly a half a million lives that die each year from smoking related illness. We all want our children to grow up without knowing the premature loss parents and loved ones. There is a new technology that is making this dream possible for tens of millions of Americans every day. Despite sensational headlines there is an ever growing body of solid science demonstrating the effectiveness of a safer alternative to smoking.
It is of interest that the politicians that are pushing so hard against e-cigarettes are from states that have
over-leveraged their MSA funds and / or have substantial contributions from the pharmaceutical industry. With ever mounting desperation state public health officials are pulling all the stops and using scare tactics rather than facts to kill the only solution that smokers actively want to try to get off cigarettes.
Many warned when states began to leverage MSA funds. It was destined to create problems as the states
would be dependent on a fixed payment under the MSA that by the very nature of the agreement could not be sustained. With the funds from the MSA targeted at reducing smoking, what would happen if it was actually effective? The payments would go down of course! So anything that accelerates the decline in these payments is a threat to the state’s solvency on these bonds. Clearly something more effective than the status-quo puts revenues ahead of peoples lives.
The pharmaceutical industry derives greater than $9 Billion per year from the sales of COPD medications and about $3 Billion annually from smoking cessation products (gum, patches, lozenges, and drugs like Zyban and
Chantix). When a consumer product threatens these revenues you have to expect them to take notice. Clearly these companies are placing profit ahead of health. FDA regulated medications kill nearly 100,000 people each year, yet the push is on to have this same agency regulate electronic cigarettes to protect the profits of pharmaceutical companies.
The opponents of electronic cigarettes will give you reams of data that take not one care for the lives that are affected by their actions. I can cite solid scientific evidence that refutes their claims. But that doesn’t get us anywhere. In truth we both want the same thing. What our opponents have forgotten is that this is about
people, not numbers; lives not revenues. It’s about families growing old together. It’s about a world where the choices are less harmful than the choices we grew up with.
What matters now is context. Are you going to vote against giving people more opportunities to quit? Will you
vote to condemn a significant portion of our population to die because the current methods fail 94% of the time? Or are you going to vote to give more opportunities to those same people to live.
The choice is yours. The lives are ours.
Unreal, what happened to fact checking for accuracy?
Your report contains information that simply isn’t true, as well as hyped statistics. You should be ashamed to have put your name to it.
Electronic cigarettes are at least 95% lower risk than smoking. You should be reporting on the better quality of life, and lower risk of disease, that benifits those who have switched.
I have not slept with my husband in years. His snoring and his constant waking up to puff on his inhaler was preventing me from getting a good nights sleep. This is what smoking and COPD have done to him. God, I wish he had discovered vaping as a young man and had never puffed a cigarette! He is now an ex-smoker, but the damage is done. The wheezing, the shortness of breath. We live with the constant fear of sick people being near him. Influenza, bronchitis, pneumonia – are all even more dangerous for him than for others. The very medications (which cost over $500 a month!) that keep him breathing and alive, reduce his immunities and make it easier for him to catch respiratory illnesses.
Last July my 29 year old son was airlifted to St. Cloud. He was having a major heart attack. We almost lost him that day!!!!! He had 3 clogged arteries and had to have a stent put in his heart. He survived and is now on 6 medications to keep him alive. No family history of this kind of heart problem, no high blood pressure, no high cholesterol – the doctor said what caused the blockage was my son’s 2 pack a day smoking habit! Yep, I wish he had discovered vaping and not smoking, when he made those choices in his life. He has quit smoking. Vaping helped him quit smoking in a couple of weeks. His doctor is pleased he quit smoking and now vapes. My son is already healthier than he has been in years! He has more energy, his color is better, he is breathing better, it is so wonderful to not see him coughing all the time anymore!
Vaping is NOT smoking. The tools used to vape should have never been called an e-cigarette, they should have been called a personal vaporizer, which is what they are. I’m not talking about those crazy things at the gas station that look like a fake cigarette, my family wouldn’t touch one of those with a 10 foot pole! I’m talking a PV – something you put e-liquid in and use a power source to vaporize the fluid. These are one of the BEST tools I have seen to help people finally break the cigarette habit.
I am really disappointed that there are folks out there who are spreading misinformation about PV’s to the public and to lawmakers. Please go pick on cigarettes, drunk drivers, meth dealers, and child molesters. Those issues could use your efforts, those are the things / people we need off our streets to protect our children and all members of the public. PV’s (e-cigs) are not an evil thing that deserves your energies or good intentions.
“Although cigarette smoking is down almost 7.5% in Minnesota over the last 3 years, with the addition of e-cigarettes smoking plus vaping use is up about 5.5% during that same time”
So 40% of the reduction in smoking is unaccounted for (with 60% due to e-cigarettes)? Sounds like you missed the story, bub.
To add to Christians comment, Minnesota law says that vaping is not smoking. So, it contributes to 0% increase in smoking.
“there are few regulations on them in Minnesota”
What say what? You mean other than the 97% wholesale cost tax on eliquid, or the fact that it’s illegal to use these products even in a specialty ecig shop in multiple MN communities (one just corrected this)?
Crave the change is a complete contradiction simply by the very nature of their position to this life saving alternative technology. I’m living proof of its benefits! #Improof
First, they’re called VAPORIZERS, not e-cigarettes. This language needs to go away. Second, there is ABSOLUTELY NO SMOKING involved. Vaporization and Combustion are two totally different chemical processes – one leaving harmful chemicals behind, the other none or a negligible amount. Vaping actually helps people quit smoking and the reason the vapor industry is being attacked is because it is cutting into Big Tobacco’s profits.
I agree with comments via @rodgerScheafferffer +@PaulBarnes @AlexCarlson made and pretty much second their respective statements.. We all know that you cannot say NRT.. It’s really smoking and I know NRT aka “vaping” IS NOT COOL or ATTRACTIVE to any currently smoking teenager I know of…WHY…because it’s something “old people do”…Most Smoking Teenagers Smoke WHY? I know why we did!!
Beacuse they can HIDE them, they are easy to get, transport and GET RID OF….
(Do u have any idea how much work it takes to correctly assemble, charge, refill, transport much less hide a basic NRT Device aka “vape”…Try It)
Come on this is hardly a” it’s just a ☆FAB☆” “newsworthy” story. .Reality dictates by numbers alone Its just something that the “Big Brother” just didn’t catch on to to tax it to or regulate it to death !
Now the States+FEDs +Big Tobacco are In a huge a uproar..Including the pocketbooks of their lobbyists!
I Mean if FOX NEWS (The Ultra Conserative News Channel)reports on (Did I mention that they usually have something to complain about ) +( Did In case you didn’t know yet did a feature on)
The Former Smoker Now NRT user/”PRO-Vape” Journalist Greg Guttfeild and the ENTIRE
FOX “Outnumbered Crew” said it best…”I bet if “Vaping was around 20 even 30 years ago we would probably have more of our family members around!”
I have to say …. (My Dad Died in 2005 starving for breath, My Uncle Died 2007 Starving for Breath and my Mom is Dying Currently Starving 4 breath while on an Oxygen Leash all due to still smoking and related heath-related smoking illnesses like COPD)
AND
As a person working her way down SAFELY while on NRT..aka vaping..while under Doctors Supervision and Aderant Support…
=
Your / This Fad Story Missed The Boat” not just any “Boat” the “Navy Aircraft Carrier!”…Big Tobacco Kills People Slowly, Painfully and Financially Exhorts it’s Victims, Families and the Health care System as a whole….And your writing this up..
This argument is as wasteful as the war on drugs was on the economy..BIG Tobacco, Lobbyists and the Statesmen & Women that make $$ off of cigarettes…they might want to find another racket to get into!
There is nothing to debate about NRT will save my life and will many of people who I love, know and care about…The Topic of Newsworthy discussion should be about “Why don’t Parents Connect With Their Kids To Know Reduce The Smoking Amngonst Teens ” or Feature the Lung Cancer Patient Who Had Chunks Removed and Chemo Switches to NRT and StaY’s In Remission or even ” “What Cigarettes Will Cost You..The hard $, heath reality and what “teens” think about what you”smell-like” -How to never have a life…
Those are all great “News-Worthy” this is just abother sorry attempt to turn a great topic aka “whole bunch apple theory” and miss the real deal with a run of the mill “One Bad Apple” story approach…
The Master Settlement Agreement, most of the 50 States have received Billions in pay-out Bonds off the projected sales of smoking, burning, tobacco cigarettes. Tobacco Settlement Monies that smoking smokers make possible as an added tax when they purchase cigarettes. This way Big Tobacco can afford the Attorneys States Generals, $435 Billion Dollar Settlement to paid by them, in Perpetuity. So basically, if I say this correctly, Minnesota and all the other 49 States are in hock, in debt to huge financial institutions as they were propositioned by these Investment Firms, to draw Billion Dollar loans, against the future sales of Tobacco Cigarettes.These loans have added interest as time acrues Some are due in 20 years, 30 years even up to 50. So, when the Master Settlement Agreement reaches it’s conclusion and when the bond’s term limits are up, Your States will have huge deficits and very little revenue sources other than taxation in which to pay down the debt, that your Attorneys States Generals made possible for funds that were supposed to help with the healthcare costs of aging smokers and the related diseases that attributed to smoking. All it has been used for is a lucrative present economy for politicians, civil servants, and Tobacco Control Groups that intiate local bans on smokers ever broadening them and of course now, with the admitted declining numbers of tobacco sales, are eyeing NON-TOBACCO, NONE CONTAINING TOBACCO PRODUCTS SUPERIOR TO SMOKING BECAUSE IT ISN’T SMOKING THE ELECTRONIC CIGARETTES THAT MILLIONS WORLWIDE WHOSE NUMBERS ARE HIDDEN BY MEDIA AND THE CDC REFERRING TO US AS MERE ANECDOTES…, WE HAVE QUIT LIFELONG SMOKING HABITS, IMPROVING OUR LIVES AND THE LIVES OF THOSE NEAR AND DEAR TO US, THANKS TO THIS INCREDIBLE TECHNOLOGY!. Your trusted politicians are decimating the future economy of your future generation’s States, dependent on the sales of so-called cancer sticks. E-Cigarettes if you can get past the word (cigarette) are a replacement an Adult consumer product. Invented in China by a Chinese man Hon Lik, who watched his father suffer and die of smoking related diseases. Hon Lik a smoker himself hoped to make a replacement for smoking, as pleasureable and as close to resembling the real burning tobacco cigarettes as could be done. That could be used instead of smoking. He succeeded, and in 2006 or 2007? E-Cigarettes made it to the open market in the United States. “YOU WILL NOT FORCE US BACK TO SMOKING TO TAX US TO DEATH.” YOU WILL NOT SIN-TAX E-CIGARETTES AS TOBACCO!”
“And with the typically fruity flavors they tend to appeal to young adults.”
Statistically, more adults consume candy (fruit flavored or not) than children do. Fruity flavors appeal to all age groups. They also appeal to peckish fruit bats, hungry chimpanzees, rapacious gorillas, ravenous parrots and fruit-obsessed grizzly bears which apparently excrete the pips in the woods! ……….Now what’s your point?