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

Well, the very first thing you could get your head round is that there have been no personal digs. Not to forget your own attempt at emotional blackmail that all we bad mummies ignored...

There have been plenty of expressions of exasperation, disbelief and non agreement. But I doubt anything has been typed here that the person involved would not say to your face. As I said way upthread, given you expressed opinions here, which is all I can 'know' you by, if you worked in the NHS centres I work in you would have been censured and offered workshops to update your working knowledge of the current understanding of ecigs. I doubt you would be left to mentor any of our client base alone.

Your current, highly personalised, fingers in the ears, and frankly slightly hysterical, maunderings are simply NOT professional or underpinned by any research. And, as I have also previously stated, your continued refusal to read or to process any of the information that people have taken time to offer, your inability to accept any other belief/viewpoint/evidence other than your own, makes you part of the problem with regards to ecigs, their usage, regulation and appropriate recommendation and promotion.

And please, do not belief you have opened up any debate. You have not. Your posts have, if anything, stifled any debate and muddied the waters when posters have disagreed with your or shown evidence that disprove your assertions. I would hate to think that you would, again, misrepresent this thread to promote your petition and viewpoint.

Max, I think your time would be better spent looking back over this thread, reading the links, watching the videos and having a proper think about what posters are saying.

If this was a face-to-face discussion you would not be able to get away with ignoring people's questions and the points they are making in the way that you have here. You assumed that a bunch of mums would know nothing about this topic and would be easy to whip up into a 'think of the children' frenzy. It feels very much like you are insulting our intelligence and I think that would go down just as badly in real life.

Meanwhile, there are around 5 hours left for people to add their support for Totally Wicked's legal challenge. They now have over 70,000 signatures!

Who should sign:

• vapers
• smokers, because you might want to try switching one day
• friends and family of vapers
• friends and family of smokers
• people who don't like being around smokers or who worry about SHS
• people who care about harm reduction and saving lives
• people who are concerned about tobacco industry involvement in the vape market

I am happy to take up your advice to review the entire discussion so far before continuing with it. Thanks for that. It will take me couple of days because of family commitments.

I am happy to take up your advice to review the entire discussion so far before continuing with it. Thanks for that. It will take me couple of days because of family commitments.

Dear All,

I was directed to this thread,oddly enough,by an e-cig manufacturer whose products I have been using for a little over a year -JacVapour-as it happens, based in Scotland !

I am a lawyer, and a dad (several times over) and I have read every single post in this extended thread. I was so impressed by what I have read that I wanted to contribute my humble observation.

From a personal point of view, I started smoking cigarettes about 23 years ago when my first marriage broke up, and having a second family later in life decided a year or so ago, that I wanted to quit. I did a lot of research, and bought a product from JacVapour just before a family holiday abroad.

I had already tried a first generation e-cig over the counter - which failed miserably, so I was amazed that the starter kit I got from this company actually did the trick, and I have not had a cigarette since I got it - over a year ago !

I have read very extensively about the various reports on e-cigs generally and have seen the research develop over that time and, of course, the numerous biased and un-scientific observations that have, until recently, been aired in the press.

as a lawyer, I have to be rational and logical when analysing a problem for a client. it won't help my client if I let emotion or personal bias intrude on my thinking. What I have seen here greatly exceeds the kind of "debate" I have seen elsewhere on the internet, so I just wanted to say that I really admire the people on this site for such wisdom and rationality - I wish you ran the country !

Sadly, not the OP unless he really does look at all the evidence that has been posted so well on here.

No, we don't yet have evidence that e-cigs are totally safe - what the hell is-but we do have quite a lot of evidence for the good -and any rational person would go with that.

I do get a very strong impression that the OP has his own agenda and that, as I know from around 50 years of experience as a lawyer, there are people who simply will not listen, whatever you do.

It would be nice to think that all the incredibly sensible and rational responses on here will, indeed, cause the OP to rethink. I will not hold my breath !

Whatever, a truly impressive thread, so thank you all.

And, yes, there is plenty of evidence that the right devices will help you give up the cigs !

All the best,

Nick.

What a lovely post Randoms
Maybe inspired by this thread, I haven't had a cig since Saturday - only vaping. I didn't think I could do it, but vaping is being my saviour at the moment

Sorry for delay in returning to the discussion, family commitments must always take priority over this discussion activity.

I am very grateful for the advice of last three posts. So I have gone back over the whole discussion stream. Discovered to my horror that my inexperience in the social media and Mumsnet discussion in particular, has clearly caused big problems. I was so caught up in the flow that I lost focus. I did in fact think that I had answered almost all of the early posts, but clearly did not, to everyone’s satisfaction.

Doubts about my motivation and professional integrity have been raised by some, so let me try to clarify where I am coming from.

After 7 years in engineering I switched to youth work in 1961, working in an experimental night club in Edinburgh to work with problem street gangs. After professional training, of to New York to work with a street gang and heroin addicts. Managed the experimental, biggest youth centre in Scotland, it was run by young people for young people - the kids appointed me to manage it. This was the start of my passion to find ways to empower young people, which led to me managing a Youth Empowerment project, YES, that covered a third of Scotland. The outcome included the establishment of youth information projects across 32 European countries. Youth health issues especially drugs, sex and mental health were major issues that young people wanted addressed. Early retirement at 56yrs so set up A Right Pair of Chancers Company, to deliver youth health workshops across Scotland. Ran over 4,000 such workshops and discovered that Myths about Health, drove the beliefs of all of us. Wrote book Fags booze drugs + children, to try to empower parents in some understanding of how and why children use drugs.

My commitment to the harm reduction ideal has been questioned. There are many definitions of this, to me it is about empowering people with the facts and information they need to improve their lives. I nearly lost my business for opposing the two Scottish police led, Scotland Against Drugs Campaign ( the just say no approach) and also for campaigning against the Youth Curfews in Hamilton, my home area. Delighted to say both these ridiculous schemes died a death and have not been repeated in the UK.

So back to this discussion stream. I stated at the very start, that I was seeking the myths around e-cigs and vaping, as this is a completely new form of drug use, which I know almost nothing about. It is not yet an issue for young people in the UK, but I knew it was elsewhere. I also knew that vaping had been around since the 60’s and could be useful in using Cannabis more safely. Fat chance in UK.

My health workshops always start by asking the participants to share what they believe are the good and bad points, of the drug we are discussing. Tobacco, alcohol,cannabis or whatever. This always provides the agenda for the entire workshop, as it reveals immediately what the group believe, about a particular drug.

In this discussion stream I make no apology for poking a stick at what adults believe, about the safety or success of this method of addressing their addiction to Nicotine, via tobacco or e-cigs. Some new myths have been revealed, and hopefully we can continue discussing this in an adult way, so that all of us can contribute to a better understanding of whether
e-cigs and Vaping really are a superb invention, capable of assisting millions of our friends and families to quit using combustable tobacco products.

Having seen 50 years of new drug trends come and go, I passionately believe that prevention is always better than cure. If our honest sharing, of our experience and views, nudge us towards preventing a new drug misuse disaster, the world will be a better place and I will die a very happy man.

Finally it is of no consequence to me whether any of you support my change.org petition or not. It does not take thousands signing a petition to succeed. My last petition, to get the vote for 16-17 year olds in Scotland, was taken up by our parliament and passed with total all party agreement in less than one month. It had under 100 supporters.

Congratulations. You have found what motivates you to quit. Thanks for sharing this with us all.

Random thank you for your lovely post! Also well done quitting after smoking for so long. Stick around, there's lots of really good discussion on MN on all sorts of topics

Dolly well done, that's fantastic

Weechancer on MN we tend to address posts on their content, rather than the credentials of the poster. Most of us value our pseudonymity on here and so most of the time we have no idea whether we are talking to a checkout worker or a world-renowned professor. Your background is very interesting but not really relevant as this is a topic you 'know almost nothing about'.

My commitment to the harm reduction ideal has been questioned. There are many definitions of this, to me it is about empowering people with the facts and information they need to improve their lives.

Surely harm reduction is about reducing the harm from substance use Ecigs do that - massively!

Facts and information are part of harm reduction but are not sufficient on their own. You 'know almost nothing' about vaping so how do you think you will be able to empower people with facts and information? Instead you are spreading dangerous misinformation. Does it not give you pause for thought when you read stories like lorelei's about her friend's mum, who has gone back to smoking because she's worried vaping is more dangerous? Or when you consider the rapid fall in the number of people who correctly believe that vaping is safer than smoking? The reason that PHE have published such a strongly worded report and statement is because the constant tide of dangerous misinformation about vaping is doing actual harm by dissuading smokers from switching to a much, much less harmful alternative.

It is not yet an issue for young people in the UK, but I knew it was elsewhere.
You keep making vague references to this. Unless you are going to link to some actual studies it's hard to discuss it sensibly. There's a new study published about every 2 days on this topic and the majority are absolutely useless and don't show what they claim.

You also need to think about why ecig use among young people is a cause for concern. Regular use is almost entirely among children who already smoke. Smoking rates among young people continue to decline. Ecigs are less addictive and far less harmful than lit tobacco.

as this is a completely new form of drug use and as you state, your starting point is this. This automatically indicates a mind made up.

Vaping is not a new form of drug use, it is a modification of an existing one. One that does now have a weight of research behind it, funded by those who sell the product but are not Big Tobacco. More multi cohort, longitudinal studies are in the pipeline. The current health message in the UK and other EU countries is as close to " Please switch to e-cigs" as you can get -

Source: BBC morning news, sometime last week, PHE representative referring to Stoptober and this www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-an-emerging-public-health-consensus

We all agree that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful than smoking...And yet, millions of smokers have the impression that e-cigarettes are at least as harmful as tobacco and we have a responsibility to provide clear information on the facts as we know them to be. It is our duty to provide reassurance for the 1.1 million e-cigarette users who have completely stopped smoking to prevent their relapse.

This is the myth you are flying in the face of. This is why you are finding that non of us is giving your posts much credence. You are positioning your unsupported opinions against research and reports such as this. And out own experiences too. So you can see, I hope, why we are still here, still plugging away at this.

Dolly, Plenty, Thank you for your kind remarks. Dolly, great, keep it up. By the way, I found the JacVapour E Series excellent - you can read about it on their site.

Weechancer, Max, your post contains many soothing statements, but from a debating point of view sadly contains absolutely no relevant information or reasoning, let alone any evidential support.

Two statements, first you know almost nothing about vaping, second, that you have gone back over the whole thread.

With regard to the second statement, I take it that you also read all the reports and articles that the thread directed to you. So now you should know quite a lot about vaping and the research that has been carried out, not to mention the scientific conclusions in those reports and the misinformation that those conclusions debunk.

After all that, your last post contains absolutely no rational argument or reference to any evidence whatsoever to counter what those reports say, yet you indicate that you are ploughing on with your petition regardless, notwithstanding the fact that your petition contains numerous assertions that the reports you have read have disproved on the weight of the evidence in them.

In any serious debating society, let alone a court of law, that would lose you the argument/ case.

More importat, however, Max, is the fact that as we now know, you are apparently a fairly high profile expert on drug and alcohol abuse. People look up to you and take what you say seriously because of your position. It seems to me that this carries with it a heavy burden of responsibility to be objective, balanced and rational. I am sure you would agree with that, and if indeed you are objective, rational and balanced you would also agree that proceeding with the petition in its current form, with all those "myths" in it, is not compatable with having read those reports.

The only other conclusion I could rationally come to is opined in my last post, namely that you have your own agenda and "will not listen".

It seems to me that it is hardly surprising, then, that many very intelligent people on here cannot take your arguments seriously, and indeed are literally horrified at the damage that those arguments could do .

You are not the only one, look at today's Times letters page - a certain Martin McKee - you will find some familiar misinformation there.

All the best,

Nick

OOPs I had rather thought that my post earlier today would be the end of my involvement on this thread.
Thanks for putting me right on the protocols and etiquette for being on Mumsnet, I don't know where I would have discovered this accept from you. So kindness is perhaps the new theme for us all.
I daed to revealed a tiny bit about my self because I could not think of any other way to counter the personal criticism, that i was a danger to young people, that I did not understand about Harm Reducation, That I didn't listen to other points of view etc. Surely who I am is what I believe in and what I believe in is expressed in the views I dare to share with others?

Knowing nothing about e-cigs is not only an advantage to me, it is how for decades I have had to form views on the dozens of drugs that I spent my time discussion with young people and adults. In my career, Cannabis has been seen as harmless then not, LSD was seen as a killer =then not, aids could be caught by kissing - crack cocaine would never catch on here - then it did, kids were dying of ecstasy because thousands of them had died of using it - but it turned out that the deaths in Scotland averaged one per year, until very recently. So my approach to all of these things is don't believe a word of it and poke a stick at it relentlessly until you get some real facts, not myths.

Many of those posting on this thread have raised said that the report from Public Health England is the place to go for confirmation of how safe e-cigs are. I saw that the day it was published, I read the report and then wrote to PHE to seek clarification on several points. They have not even acknowledged my correspondence. At the same time the Public Health Minister at Westminster, announced that on the strength of the PHE research she would be asking parliament to consider making e-cigs available free on the NHS. I wrote to her too. A stalling reply came back, telling me as I was Scottish I had no right to ask her questions, ( so much of better together I thought) so I should either write to her department or ask my MP to raise the matter with her. Three weeks on no response so far. So, at the moment I am not a fan of the report that claims that "it is 95% safer to use e-cigs than smoking tobacco. What I wonder have these people got to hide?

IN the mean time I spoke to outlets of one of our nation chemists chain, the local one had withdrawn all e-cigs prodigies as they were concerned about their quality and safety. That pharmacist told me that when they did sell them that her team had all been told that "under no circumstances should they tell customers that e-cig products were suitable for use in quitting smoking" ? The bigger branch of that same chemists would only say that they did not sell them and would not say why?

You say I have no evidence of use of e-cigs by young people, or any harm they might do. You are right I only so far, have limited evidence. An article from a major Californian magazine siting that they, like us have got smoking by teens down from 23% in 2000to to 9%, today. BUT, e-cig experimentation by tens has tripled in one year to 23%. They went on to say that That same report highlighted some evidence of e-cigs use by teens staring to show evidence of the Vapers moving on to tobacco smoking again. Californian already has a big issue with teens smoking cannabis.

I have personal experience of young relatives in France moving from smoking to Vaping and reporting that many of their friends are doing likewise. The French have a much bigger problem with teens smoking than we do.

Sadly in my lifetime drug use trends in the USA come our way very soon afterwards. That is why I have particular concerns about out finding ways to ensure that our young people do not come to any harm from such a development.

You suggest I listen to nobody. I think that is a very unfair comment, I always seek the widest possible range of opinion on any new drug trend, because it has been my responsibility to ensure that young people and adults are as up to date with the facts as they can be. Sadly too many of us turn to the internet to find out about our drugs of choice. Have a look for yourself by typing in Cannabis or Legal Highs and see if you can find reliable sources of facts to advise anyone, including children. Since I started this discussion thread I have had every sort of email and text from dealers and realisers of e-cigs. Can yo advise me which are the most reliable???

Forgive my typos's I do struggle with dyslexia and have no staff or team to check and correct stuff for me.

I give in. I already reposted the California data and pointed out how they cannot say how many of any age group use ecigs, they don't measure such usage! The latest full report says so, page number given upthread.

So there is one example of you not taking on board a correction.

And no, we can't advise you on reliability, we don't have the information, you do!

And be very honest with yourself here, did you really 'dare to reveal' some detail or did you think that no one else here had such 'credentials'? Because we do...

Knowing nothing about ecigs and then demanding to have your opinion to be treated seriously is closely akin to asking a heart attack victim to trust you to undertake a heart transplant. No one will take you seriously. An informed opinion is vital when you demand action from anyone.

Then again "it is 95% safer to use e-cigs than smoking tobacco. What I wonder have these people got to hide? fully demonstrates just how closed you are to information you do not agree with, and why you remain clueless as to ecigs in general!

Forgive my typos's I do struggle with dyslexia and have no staff or team to check and correct stuff for me.

Oh dear

I don't really understand what you want from us, Max.

So my approach to all of these things is don't believe a word of it and poke a stick at it relentlessly until you get some real facts, not myths.

Oh pack it in! YOU have come here posting myths. We have spent a lot of time posting facts and information from trustworthy sources and included links so you can check things out for yourself. I'm tempted to tell you exactly where to shove your pokey stick.

How very dare PHE not take the time to reply to you personally! Could it be that those PHE members with ecig expertise were all a bit busy giving evidence in the Scottish consultation and the Welsh consultation, rolling out the new advice to Stop Smoking Services in time for Stoptober and participating in the informed debate about their report that's going on in the Lancet and the BMJ?

Ecigs on prescription isn't really worth writing letters about. It was just a headline that went out with the press release, it's pure click-bait. There aren't any ecigs that could meet MHRA requirements for medicinal regulation and there are unlikely to be for some time, although one or two have been trying for a while now. MHRA were criticised in the PHE for setting the bar too high - there's a real concern that the only companies that would be able to afford to jump the hoops are tobacco companies. But you know that because you've read the report. If you want to know anything about prescriptions in Scotland it's surely better to contact your MSP or whoever because the system's different up there.

her team had all been told that "under no circumstances should they tell customers that e-cig products were suitable for use in quitting smoking" ?

Yes that's because they're not allowed to, it's a medicinal claim apparently, and MHRA say you can't make medicinal claims for something that isn't medicinally licenced.

So, you've read an article in some Californian magazine that hypes up a report (the one OurBlanche linked to, way back in the thread) that references another report (from the same department) that references four studies on youth ecig uptake in the US, two of which have Stanton Glantz's name on them. I think PHE have already covered the problems with the quality of data coming out of the US here. Their conclusions:

The most important feature of the NYTS data was the fall in smoking prevalence over the same period

and

These findings strongly suggest that EC use is not encouraging uptake of cigarette smoking (on the CDC findings).

You do understand that smoking is the actual problem, don't you?

You have said you know nothing about vaping so you will also know nothing about the dirty political battles that are going on around science funding and the regulation of vaping in some parts of the world, perhaps most notably in California. I'd love to think this was pure tinfoil hat stuff but California (along with a couple of other states) really are because they have gambled on smokers carrying on smoking. I'm not saying don't read Californian studies, I'm saying read them very carefully.

Since I started this discussion thread I have had every sort of email and text from dealers and realisers of e-cigs. Can yo advise me which are the most reliable???

That's because you've chosen to disclose personal info on here, I'd imagine. That's a (small) part of why I prefer pseudonymy - I don't get spam. You might want to have a general think about your online security and how much personal info is out there attached to your real name. Not everybody on the internet is as nice as MNers.

I love you, PlentyofPubeGardens. I was one of those heavy, mental health diagnosed, 15 years smokers who struggled to even quit when pregnant, tried EVERYTHING, and I have quit completely thanks to e-cigs.

FWIW I don't believe you have read the PHE report.

Your vaping myths and responses to the Scottish consultation make it clear that you have read nothing and are just making stuff up off the top of your head.

Well done, Cersei, that's fantastic

I find it interesting that this discussion stream is stuck on why Weechancer, is not listening; not knowing enough about e-cigs or Vaping, not taking enough time to fully understand all the data people are suggesting would enlighten me, tra la, tra la. tra la. This I fear is a fun, but unhelpful diversion, from addressing the two, far more important aspects of the smoking cessation problem. The COST of smoking and WHY people need to smoke?

So let’s look firsts at the cost of smoking. The UK tobacco cessation strategy has for years included a range of measures to try to reduce smoking. Stopping kids from starting to smoke, controlling the retailers, with blinds over the shelves, banning advertising, stopping discount selling, offering classes and nicotine patches to reduce the craving etc. With one very important action of year on year increase in the price of smoking, to levels that made it so prohibitive that smokers will quit. Fags have gone from £4 a pack to £10, and across the world, as the price goes up, another 1-2% of smokers try to quit. What a wonderful success!

Sadly though, the hard core of seriously addicted, reluctant quitters, will always, like any addict, seek cheaper alternatives. The smart entrepreneur’s are alway open to a challenge, and will find a solution. These solutions included a massive rise in the black market of imported tobacco products, and some smokers have moved to the ever cheaper drug alcohol, and the even cheaper alternatives, of illicit drugs, like cannabis, cocaine and the new “Legal High’s”. Unfortunately all efforts by governments to stop this drift to alternative drugs has had very little impact. Then, just when the government thought it was losing, along comes the solution. The entrepreneur’s have come to their rescue and offered an even cheaper, healthier alternative. Bingo - E-cigarettes and Vaping arrive. Smokers can now stick safely to their nicotine habit with the added bonus of their weekly costs dropping by up to 95%. They no longer spend £50-70 a week on tobacco, they switch to e-cigs at well under a tenner a week. So now everybody is a winner. Well nearly everybody, because the taxman has lost even more billions of pounds from tobacco sales.

So back to square one, when getting our hit of nicotine from tobacco was cheap. I will dare to predict one further and inevitable thing will happen. The tax man will want in on the act, and the greedy entrepreneurs will want to continue to grow their market and their profits. So ten years from now, we will all be scratching our heads and asking where do we go now?

I live in hope that the Dalai Lama’s free happiness classes or Mindfulness Meditation, become our new addictions! But is that just the dreamer in me?

Oh, and yes, I will return to the even thornier issue of WHY on earth we got hooked on tobacco and nicotine, but that is for another day. Time for a Vaping-break now perhaps.

I live in hope that the Dalai Lama’s free happiness classes or Mindfulness Meditation, become our new addictions! But is that just the dreamer in me?

Yes. Ever read anything at all on the Prohibition?