e-cigarettes debate

[Weechancer]

The Scottish Parliament Health & Sport committee is holding a public consultation on e-cigs so i have started a change.org.uk petition to open up this debate.

MNHQ has edited this post as petition links and such must be posted in our Petitions board, however for those who are interested it is easy to find from the information above

He doesn't like harm reduction or answering questions, NiNo.

From his petition page (with 35 supporters currently):

The highlight of the week has been the enormous discussion I generated on Mumsnet. in less than 24 hours. In particular the myth that nicotine is no more harmful than caffeine has dominated this discussion. This has proved to me once again that my theory that health myths are harmful because as people come to believe the myths, these myths become established as facts.

Please provide evidence that nicotine itself is significantly harmful.

Thanks op for giving me the push to ask, what is the best type of ecig? I need to stop smoking but don't know which one to go forfor.

ducky come on over to the Stop Smoking topic. There are some great suggestions for starter kits on this thread.

Thanks pubegardens

California? Mmmm! The state that is, as usual, beating a problem with the biggest stick it can find...

www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article26824945.html

I am guessing that this is the report you refer to, www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/tobacco/Documents/Media/State%20Health-e-cig%20report.pdf

The main concern, and reason for banning/controlling is that the 'juice' is an unknown, the contents are not regulated or listed... so you can't really say what danger really is or is not present.

So... tell me again why it is a bad thing that a 'juice' manufacturer here in the UK is trying to frame law and regulations that would bring the product under closer control?

Oh and, according to Prof Robert West, director of Tobacco Studies at University College London (a man who would surely know such stuff) there is no sign that ecigs are becoming popular with children in the UK - the only country he knows where the uptake is monitored closely.

Which is probably why this very recent California.gov doc does not include vaping in its methods used to quit list, page 54 of 60

www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/tobacco/Documents/Resources/Fact%20Sheets/2015FactsFigures-web2.pdf

I can provide more, these are the bits that are openly available. Anyone who works with Support to Stop can lay their hands on a lot of such stuff. None of which matches OPs take on vaping.

you could not be further from the truth, i have been on of the drugs workers in Scotland who has beat the drum of harm reduction for decades against massive opposition from the politicians.

I am curious as to why you thought i was against it?

see post above, I most certainly am for harm reduction. I would for instance support teaching people how to more safely use cannabis. we do it with alcohol, heroin and other drugs so why not cannabis and e-cigs. The problem with e-cigs is thee is still no hard evidence and the e-cig's industry like the tobacco industry are never going to dar to put clear instructions on their producs to advice us of how to use safely. I wonder why?

I am curious as to why you thought i was against it?

Your persistent mangling of topics, ignoring of evidence, avoidance of meaningful questions... including the upthread quote from your sadly ignored petition!

And as you have just repeated! You are only wondering why because you have, again, ignored evidence that would answer you!

And again you have conflated illegal drugs with ecigs...

your snide comment about only a few hits on the petition are hardly worth mentioning except that there has been a technical hitch which has been reported and is being investigated by changer. This happens from time to time they say. Evidence of nicotine harm should be clear to anyone if you look at the history of tobacco use over nearly 4 centuries. I will spell it our again. Nicotine is a highly addictive drug, which is why the tobacco industry does not sell nicotine free cigarettes, they would not deliver the profits they need. e-cigs are another cunning tool to entrap nicotine addicts to keep spending their money on nicotine products.

happy to look at any evidence you can provide.

I am not confused about legal and illegal drugs. In decades of my work with young people on this it is absolutely clear to me that if tobacco and alcohol were to arrive on the scene as the new drugs for us all to try governments across the world would either ban them or have far better controls over them than they have now. 13,500 deaths a year in Scotland and 120,000 I think in England and Wales from smoking related diseases does not enamour me to the tobacco industry and it's other activities. There were last year only 613 drug related deaths and 1,200 alcohol related deaths in Scotland.

What Blanche said. Also, since all the evidence we do have, and has been linked to repeatedly above, shows that e-cigs and nicotine by itself do negligent if any levels of harm, and you're still jumping about linking it to all manner of things with no evidence whatsoever, it's hard to see how you're all for harm reduction.

I would for instance support teaching people how to more safely use cannabis.

How does that statement fit in with this one:

How long I wonder will it be that Vaping Cannabis is the new craze?

And, btw, cannabis vapourisers have been a thing for a while now, longer than e-fags. No I've never used one. I think they're generally marketed as 'herbal' vapourisers and remove the need to use tobacco alongside cannabis. Harm reduced right there.

Personally, I think if kids are vaping to give up smoking, that's a good thing. If kids are taking up vaping instead of taking up smoking, that's a good thing. If the many, many adults who find it hard if not impossible to give up smoking are turning to vaping, that's a good thing. I fully support an 18+ regulation on the purchase of all nicotine-related products and see that that vast majority of (online) vape suppliers already have this in place.

And really, even though you say it's a myth without providing any evidence whatsoever that nicotine is more harmful than caffeine, I don't have much of a problem with adult people taking up vaping because they enjoy it. We all have our crutches, foibles and pleasures. If they invented the calorie-free burger that tasted better than a Big Mac and did no harm at all, I'd be stuffing my face too.

Ah well, if the machine says no...

I know you are not confused re drugs and nicotine, you choose to conflate them in the mistaken belief it makes your point about nicotine more strongly. It doesn't. Nor does trying to use nicotine and tobacco interchangeably.

Nor does persisting to assert that Big Tobacco runs the ecig commerce.

Evidence has been linked to upthread, you seem not to have noticed.

You may have spent decades in the sector but your attitude does not jibe with that of the other professionals I have worked with over the last 15 - 20 years, nor that of the people whose peer reviewed research has been pointed out for you.

You said "The main concern, and reason for banning/controlling is that the 'juice' is an unknown, the contents are not regulated or listed... so you can't really say what danger really is or is not present". You are right, we do not know, but surely the public has aright to know exactly what is being sold to hem when they buy e-cig products. Many of you have argued that switching to e-cigs is safer because you avid the 4,000 chemicals in tobacco sigs. The fact is that we do not even know what all of the 4,000 additives are in them. But we do know the health harms that come from them. I asked the assistant in a shop selling e-cigs las t week where they got their supplies from he said on line from the USA and from China. That rang bells for me as a drugs worker because we know only too well that the UK is flooded with contaminated cigarettes, alcohol and the so called Legal High's from where - china. Why on earth should we trust supplies for the sources?

Happy to look at any evidence you have. This all helps the open public debate, which is I hope what we are having.

Nicotine is a highly addictive drug, which is why the tobacco industry does not sell nicotine free cigarettes, they would not deliver the profits they need. e-cigs are another cunning tool to entrap nicotine addicts to keep spending their money on nicotine products.

1. The tobacco industry may or may not sell nicotine-free e-cigs. Hundreds upon hundreds of other vape retailers do.

1. Vaping is far cheaper than smoking.

1. Big Tobacco did not invent vaping and does not lead the market. Its market share is tiny as it was so late to the party. Its products are shite.

Read back through the thread for the information, it is there.

As is my having repeated what others had linked to: it is a big ecig company that is currently, right now, trying to get the UK government to frame real, meaningful regulations for vaping. And another who has paid for research that gave us the information regarding , UK manufactured 'juices'.

Here is another UK company making sure people have that information
www.vapouriz.co.uk/vapourizlive/vaping-news/uk-made-e-liquid-vs-unregulated-e-liquid-the-truth.htm

The part of my post you quoted was referring to the US report, you seem to have misunderstood that, or deliberately taken it out of context to make a point. See my post about the Californian information you referred to.

All of the above has been provided upthread, some of it more than once, form more than one source.

OP it's really hard to work out which posts you are responding to. If you quote people and/or their names as you go along, it would make far more sense. Like this:

OP said - i have been on of the drugs workers in Scotland who has beat the drum of harm reduction for decades against massive opposition from the politicians.

So what did you think of what Gerry Stimson had to say? the video again, in case you missed it.

Clearly you and lots of other do agree with restricting e-cigs to the over 18's. Why should we bother do that when so amy of you are arguing that they so harmless and safe? Can they harm 16 year olds more than a 19 or 25 year old?

Our existing drugs laws are a mess. you can smoke at any age, but cannot purchase tobacco products until you are 18. A child cannot be given alcohol before eh age of 5 yrs, at 16 and 17 they can buy cider,beer, perry and wine along with a meal in a restaurant as long as someone over 18 buys it, at 18 you can buy what you like but not unless you can provide ID to say that your are under 25. Illicit drugs have not mention of age restraints in the laws. So any suggestion that sales of e-cigs can be curtailed by the law is a joke. only if we had a law that says it is illegal to purchase and consume a drug at a certain age would such laws have any chance of working. No politician has even been prepared to discuss that proposal with me. They say it would criminalise kids, but so does laws that stop them buying guns, driving vehicles, having sex under 16. etc. But my proposal would put the onus fairly on at the door of adults who make and sell the substances that are harmful but also those adults two think it is alright to called with kids in their drug use. For decades nobody was charged with selling or providing cigarettes to kids. The main source of alcohol to long kids is adults. Likewise illicit drugs.
There is a thought for public debate.

Ye gods! Talk about cutting cloth to suit!

Evidence of nicotine harm should be clear to anyone if you look at the history of tobacco use over nearly 4 centuries.

No, that's evidence of smoking harm.

Sorry to hear your petition isn't working properly. Is that why you had to sign it yourself, twice?

This all helps the open public debate, which is I hope what we are having.

No, it really isn't. 'What we are having' is a continuous cycle of you spouting BS and us pointing out the many ways in which you are badly wrong. You have not backed up a single one of your bogus assertions and have paid no attention to the copious evidence people have taken time to provide for you. Instead you just spout the same bollocks all over again.

Maybe that passes for 'debate' in your circles but on MN we're used to a rather higher standard of discourse.

I am going to hit my local vaping shop tomorrow and get myself kitted out but right now, I am going for a fag and I won't be signing that petition

Yes. It'll be nice not to smell bad and not have bits of tobacco from rolling All over the place!