It could be the ultimate accessory for smokers out to beat the tobacco ban.
Health chief steps down after crude ‘e-cig’ rant on Twitter: Professor stands aside after online attack on supporter of quitting aide
•Professor John Ashton quit role as president of Faculty of Public Health
•Doctor was involved in venomous spat on micro-blogging site Twitter
•Feels strongly about long-term effects of smoking electronic cigarettes
13 September 2014
By NIGEL BUNYAN
A prominent Government health adviser has been forced to stand aside for sending abusive messages on Twitter.
Professor John Ashton stepped down as president of the Faculty of Public Health yesterday following a venomous spat on the social media site.
The doctor, who is strongly opposed to e-cigarettes, called one supporter a ‘c***’.
In another tweet he said: ‘These abusive ecig people remind me of the lads who used to play with themselves behind the bike sheds at school.
‘They are even more pathetic than that.
‘Need ecigs to get aroused.’
He had been involved in a debate about the merits and dangers of e-cigarettes.
Advocates say they help smokers quit, while objectors such as Prof Ashton – who want tighter controls – are concerned about their long-term effects.
They also believe the tobacco industry is using e-cigarettes to lure youngsters into smoking.
In the online debate, Prof Ashton complained he was being abused by e-cig ‘trolls’ and accused them of being apologists for the industry.
He hit back at one, saying: ‘Have you always been an anonymous c***.’
And he told another: ‘I think I have identified a new species of human being this week.
‘Obsessive, compulsive, abusive onanist with ecig tendencies.’
As president of the faculty, which is independent of Government, he gives advice to ministers on public health.
A statement posted on its website stated the faculty ‘apologises unreservedly’ for Prof Ashton’s comments.
It said: ‘Professor Ashton used inappropriate and offensive language, which unnecessarily personalised a public health issue, and we do not condone its use. An investigation is currently under way.’
Earlier in the week Prof Ashton tweeted: ‘I very much regret my choice of language to describe some vapers… and any offence caused.’
E-cigarette advert saying ‘Love your lungs’ is banned because it implies they’re a health product
LeoLites poster features slogan ‘Love Your Lungs’ with photo of e-cigarette
Manufacturers E&L; Distribution said there was no health claim being made
Added that it had wanted to use catchy, alliterative language in the advert
But ASA ruled the poster was in breach of rules on misleading advertising
12 August 2014
By Sophie Jane Evans For Mailonline
An electronic cigarette advert featuring the slogan ‘Love Your Lungs’ has been banned for implying they were beneficial to users’ health.
Watchdogs launched an investigation into the LeoLites poster campaign after receiving a complaint it suggested that there was evidence the e-cigarettes were not harmful.
Manufacturers E&L; Distribution argued there was no health claim being made as the advert did not state that the products would improve users’ health or benefit the health of their lungs.
They added that they had wanted the slogan to be catchy, alliterative and relevant to both the product and the action of inhaling vapour into the lungs.
However, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) found the advert to be in breach of its rules regarding misleading advertising and substantiation and banned it from being used again.
Read More
They don’t like it up ‘em, Captain Mainwaring.
June 16, 2014
A phrase instantly familiar to those Of A Certain Age but for the youth who might not have heard of it, here is a quick summary.
It seems there is now a Cult of Vapeology that has it in for the control freaks of tobacco control. The control freaks have no idea what these people are so upset about, you know. Since they think vapers are a cult, they quite clearly have absolutley no idea about anything at all and are even more out of touch than the average politician.
Australian and UK health campaigners are being targeted with abusive, four letter emails and Twitter rants from a ‘bizarre’ online cult who oppose their stance on electronic smoking.
Um… the ‘bizzare cult’ are the people who use electronic cigarettes and who, strangely, do not want them banned by interfering bastards. We smokers didn’t get a ‘cult’, all we got was accusations of working for Big Baccy and being ‘pro-smoking’, neither of which is true. But then truth and the Righteous have never met, have they?
The Professor of Health Policy at Curtin University told MailOnline most e-cigarette dealers in Australia are ‘dodgy’ and are ‘out to make a quick buck.’
They consider themselves immune to libel laws also. If you are a legitimate Electrofag seller in Australia, you might want to have your lawyers look at that statement.
What are these naughty vapers sending to this poor, oppressed, self-important vicious little dictator, I wonder?
‘Four letter emails starting with C and F,’ Dr Daube told MailOnline on Thursday.
Oh, now calling him a cart and a frog is just beyond the pale.
‘Really vile, vicious and nasty stuff. ‘I couldn’t tell you who they are, all I know is that there is this quite bizarre group called ‘vapers’ writing them.’
Vapers are bizarre? Have you looked in a mirror recently, Daube? How are vapers trying to control your life? How many businesses have vapers destroyed? How many governments are they trying to control? Look in that mirror again and think ‘bizarre’, you arrogant self-serving wannabe petty godlet.
He claims to be an expert on the Electrofag and how dangerous it can be and has never heard the word ‘vaper’? Governments listen to these people! How mind-numbingly shallow does a politician have to be to fall for the unresearched made-up spoutings of these so-called ‘scientists’? They haven’t even bothered to look at whose lives they plan to destroy. All they care about is the destruction. Politicians hang on every word that spews forth from their mouths like a bad reaction to a festering pizza, then those politicians get down on their hands and knees and just lap it all up.
When the people affected by the control freakery react, they are branded a ‘bizarre cult’ because there isn’t yet a Big Electrofag that the Righteous can pretend are funding them.
Dr Daube, who is also the president of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health, said he had never before experienced such vitriol in his 40 years of research in tobacco.
Well it’s about time you did. You destroy people’s social lives for fun and profit, you despicable excuse for flesh. You lord it over governments who you believe are only voted into office to do your bidding. They you call smokers disgusting. Dare to look in that mirror one more time?
Oh, I am sure you have no trouble with mirrors, Daube. Narcissists never do.
And here is the UK version –
In the UK, Professor of Public Health Martin Mckee wrote a skeptical piece in the British Medical Journal on e-cigarette smoking, and straight after its publication received a trail of hate tweets from vapers.
‘I have been overwhelmed by the response to my paper’ he said. ‘Within a few hours of it being posted on the BMJ website I was attracting hundreds of messages on twitter, almost all personally abusive … ‘vile cretin’ was one of them.’
He said he ‘had no idea that the e-cigarette lobby was so well organised.’
The e-cigarette ‘lobby’? Well organised? What planet are these people from? These are ordinary people venting their hate on people who have built their careers on hating whole swathes of the population at once. What you give is what you get, and here it comes, Righteous.
Absolutely zero sympathy here. The hate they are seeing directed at them is a mere drop in the ocean of hate they, and their pet politicians, have orchestrated against so very many others.
It’s just the beginning.
Where Vapers Go Wrong
(Comments)
28/04/2014
It has taken quite a while for the WHO to direct its minion, the EU (and, therefrom, the EU’s minions) how best to deal with e-cigs. It must have taken quite a few sessions in ‘the WHO committee’ to decide. We can see now how the thinking went:
“About these -cig things, how about changing the emphasis from tobacco smoke to nicotine?”
“Great idea! Let’s do it!”
“Do you think that we could sneak the control of nicotine into a tobacco directive in the EU?”
“Um…. If the wording is right, I see no difficulty. The trick would be to shout a lot about the evils of nicotine in advance – like, how dangerous nicotine is to children. We could then demand very stringent controls, but be prepared to ‘negotiate’ some relaxation. That should work. The result will be that we will succeed in getting e-cigs defined as tobacco products by default”
“Well, Yes, but why should Governments actually agree at all with the inclusion of e-cigs into the directive? There is no smoke”
“I see what you mean……… How about creating an atmosphere where everyone believes that people use e-cigs for no other reason than ‘SMOKING’ cessation? Thus, e-cigs and SMOKE are linked together. What we can do is go on and on about how ineffective e-cigs are as a tool to stop smoking. Vapers will have to defend themselves by concentrating on how e-cigs have actually helped them to stop smoking. They will have no alternative. Pleasure and cost will not figure”
“Great! Set the wheels in motion. Pass the message down”
======
What can vapers do to avoid this trap? It really is difficult because the Zealots are directing the debate into ‘smoking cessation’. Is there an answer? There could be:
“I smoked a lot for thirty years. I was always conscious that there may be ill-effects health-wise, but I really enjoyed smoking. Also, the cost of tobacco was becoming horrendous. I was really thankful when a friend told me about e-cigs. The shop that I bought my e-cig from was really helpful. The staff asked me how much I smoked (thirty a day) and suggested that I needed a higher nicotine content to start with. They also asked me what flavours I like – vanilla ice cream, chocolate, etc. It took me a while to change over mostly from my tobacco cigs to my e-cig. I have arrived at a situation now where I am very pleased. I enjoy my ecig most of the time, especially the chocolate-flavoured juice, but I still enjoy the odd packet of fags. Funnily enough, it is at home where I use my e-cig most. I generally buy fags only when I intend to go to the pub. It is nice to pop outside for a fag (although I would rather not have to!) with my mates. I don’t like scrounging. I don’t find it difficult to save the unused portion of the packet of fags until next time I go to the pub. I suppose that it is a question of habit! Generally speaking, I get as much pleasure from my e-cig as I got from my tobacco cigs, and the cost is massively cheaper!”
———-
I wonder if vapers could get it into their heads that they MUST re-direct the debate from ‘cessation’ to ‘pleasure’? They MUST stop saying how much their health has improved after six months of vaping. (That is impossible since, according to tobacco control, the damage of smoking for thirty years will take a decade to correct itself – if you are lucky) Any such benefits are psychosomatic. Oddly, the psychosomatic benefits are actually real benefits! They originate, not only from the effects of nicotine as a relaxing influence on mind and body, but also from contentment induced by the money saved by not buying Government tobacco. Make no mistake – the Government’s profits from tobacco (about 90% of the cost of a packet in terms of profit) render them all but outright owners, despite the fact that tobacco companies do all the work.
It really is very, very simple. Whenever vapers comment on newspaper articles and such, all they need to do is ignore cessation of tobacco smoking and speak about the pleasure they derive from their e-cigs, and the money that they are saving. SAY NOTHING ABOUT IMPROVED HEALTH! Take the matter out of the hands of Health Zealots.
“I am really pleased that I moved over to MY e-cig. MY preferred flavour is ‘Farley’s Rusks’. It is a taste which I remember from when I was a tiny child [the children!!!]. It is a delicious taste. I have saved loads-a-money over the last twelve months. I have already been on holiday twice this year. It has been a revelation!”
———
Further, vapers must announce loud and clear that they will DISOBEY! They will source their juices from wherever the like. And, most of all, they WILL NOT be defeated. Only in that way will they retain the ‘moral high ground’.
The pointlessness of the prohibitionists. It’s in our genes.
7 APRIL 2014
by vapingpoint Liz
Clive Bates has put in comments on the E-cigarette advertising code consultation
Thank you Clive – pleasing indeed to see you are trying for the most sense to be practised there.
I think part of the desperate fear the anti smoking industry has, is of a future where everyone vapes as they used to smoke. When all the “old smokers” like me have transitioned to vaping, and the now smokers vape too, who does the e cig industry sell to? The people who will be the vapers of the future are likely to be those who have never smoked or those who look back on their smoking years with nostalgia and the new crop of adults, simply doing what adults enjoy. With all the controls on advertising alcohol and gambling (and smoking) and now electronic cigarettes, the new customers are always the children grown up. There will forever be consumers. There is eternally a new generation, no matter what.
What DOES happen if ever vaping becomes as normal as smoking was and there is no money to be made from tobacco, or for the NRT producing drug cartels? And “Smokefree” becomes a defunct, irrelevant concept. And the profitable and expensive anti tobacco movement falls into disrepute?
Thank you for your efforts towards sensible advertising, Clive. But REALLY the anti tobacco ideologists will influence our near future because they are currently the most powerful, intransigent, self righteous prohibitionists and they are seemingly unconquerable. Their downfall will come as cultures change and new generations arise. Smoking has been practiced as a pleasurable activity since we climbed down from trees. Over the passage of time, the anti smoking drive can only fail in the pointlessness of it.
Whether “smoking” is practiced technologically, as in vaping, or by using combustion, as in the old way, the practise will never be eradicated. Neither will alcohol, or gambling. It’s in our genes.
***********
E-cigarette advertising code consultation
April 6, 2014
On 27 February, the UK Committee of Advertising Practice published a consultation document on new rules to cover advertising of e-cigarettes – the closing date for responses is 28 April. This would cover all UK e-cigarette advertising until the Tobacco Products Directive Article 20(5) is implemented in 2016, and would continue to cover all advertising not then banned under the TPD. I hope the TPD advertising ban will be subject to legal challenge – it deserves to be – and will be replaced by something much more like these rules. The Tobacco Advertising Directive 2003/33/EC bans all tobacco advertising that can theoretically have cross-border effect (TV, radio, publications, internet etc), but this is justified at Recital 3 on the basis that smoking kills in excess of 500,000 people per year in the EU. No such justification applies to e-cigarettes. The proposals from the UK regulator are are much more proportionate and realistic balancing of the various risks and opportunities. Here is my response to the consultation, which I hope also gives my views on why I think e-cigarette advertising is positive for health, justifying a liberal approach to the commercial freedom to advertise …
Read More.
Approx. 40,625 smokers are switching to e-cigarettes each month.
February 8, 2014
MEPs need to stay focussed on the bigger picture
In the UK each year 114,000 people die from tobacco related illnesses according to figures produced by the NHS.? Policy makers need to focus on reducing this number.? Conventional nicotine replacement therapies are not tackling this in any significant number, but e-cigarettes could.? Already 1.3 million smokers have switched to e-cigarettes.
?
ITV Tonight – The Rise of the E Cigarette
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebnQ37Mndp4
Published on Jan 24, 2014
the complete video of the story from the site below..
*******************
It’s time to clear up the confusion over E-cigarettes
23 Jan 2014
Chris Choi: Consumer Editor
If you are not doing it yourself, doubtless you know someone who is trying to quit smoking.
What I’ve discovered in researching E-cigarettes is that many highly-respected experts believe we have the chance of a lifetime to turn the tide on tobacco.
E-cigarettes seem to offer the best opportunity in generations to end our fatal affair with the conventional cigarette – yet there are some big problems.
I found that concerns about the regulation and quality of these devices can be traced all the way back to China, which is where the vast majority are made.
Two manufactures spoke to us about their concerns regarding the lack of quality control standards.
I was amazed to hear how strongly the World Health Organisation is willing to express its reservations about E-cigarettes.
This United Nations health body thinks we need much more safety testing before we start using them.
Closer to home, the authoritative British Medical Association is also unwilling to back the electronic smoking alternative until more is known about long term effects.
Even the NHS website is peppered with warnings that we still don’t have proof they can help you quit smoking.
Despite these concerns, so many individuals have told me their stories of quitting the killer weed thanks to E-cigarettes.
One of the most significant was Ron, who I had the great pleasure of meeting in South Shields.
He’s been diagnosed with terminal cancer after years of smoking. Thanks to e cigs, he told me, he has managed to end the tobacco addiction – and he wants to spread the word to prevent others suffering.
I suspect that the real scandal here is that seven years after E-cigarettes arrived in the UK, our officials and regulators have still failed to catch up.
There has not been the clinical testing that some medical authorities deem necessary.
The end result is that the public is left not knowing who to believe: How can consumers make an informed choice without the essential information?
While arguments rage over the future of E-cigarettes, there is one thing we already know – that every year around 100,000 are dying from tobacco smoking.
That is surely reason enough for officials to make every effort possible to clear up the confusion and doubts.
12/22/2013
The massed ranks of vested interests – financial and moral – lined up against e-cigs have come up with some pretty lame and laughable “justifications” for banning them so far, but I think we have found a clear winner for the title of the most pathetic.
I can almost hear the e-cig enthusiasts now: “But vaping is totally harmless! You can’t even smell it! It’s just water vapor!” But let’s be honest. It’s a little bit gross. If you’ve ever walked through a cloud of second-hand vapor, you’re breathing in tiny little water droplets that were just inside some stranger’s body.
I take it, then, that – rather than venture out in public on a cold winter day – this neurotic chimp hides away indoors for fear of all that visible breath drifting close to him.
15 December 2013
It looks like the Daily Mail group is ending 2013 in the same shoddy fashion as they started it.
Back in January, the Mail on Sunday published an appalling article on e-cigs which they were forced to retract by the Press Complaints Commission.
A Health article on January 27 said some experts believe electronic cigarettes can be more harmful than real ones. In? fact we are not aware of any experts who hold this view compared to the risks of cancer, heart disease and lung damage from real cigarettes. We apologise for any contrary suggestion.
That particular pile of trash was written by an appallingly incompetent journalist called Susannah Butter. But, incredibly, the Mail seems able to boast another equally bungling, substandard hack in the form of Emma Innes.
She wrote an article along almost identical lines which was published on Friday.
The vaping bans – life with the smokers
24 OCTOBER 2013
By Vapingpoint
As I have been foretelling, our biggest problem in the future – the VERY NEAR future – i.e. – now, will be anti tobacco and its “smokefree” ideologists, lumping us into the smoking ban.
Town hall ban on staff using e-cigarettes in public view
Manchester Evening News-19 Oct 2013
Salford council has banned staff from using the devices – which taste and feel likecigarettes without the tar – close to any of its buildings.
London restaurants consider E-Cigarette ban
ITV News-22 Oct 2013
… want diners to go outside if they want to puff on electronic cigarettes. … it happened for the first time quite recently, because [the e-cigarette] ..
?
The smoking ban itself needs to be re-assessed, which was what smokers were promised, but which did not materialise as the Government fell deeper and deeper into the anti-smoking pit.? And as smokers have progressively been made invisible even though there are millions of them in the UK.
The smoking ban has always offended me. I see it as an act of vengeance rather than anything to do with public health (not Public Health). Public Health is a body that is used to promote the anti smoking ideology.
Millions of people smoke despite years of persecution. And I consider myself a smoker. I haven’t actually smoked a cigarette for over two years, but I think like a smoker and the smoking ban turned me into a recluse like so many other people my age. I remain an angry smoker.
So now that I am a 50 year habit smoker who vapes, I point out that I am old and wise – and healthy! My wisdom tells me us vapers are in for a hard time. Everyone else considers us to be smokers and therefore the smoking ban must be applied to us too.
I’m not bloody having that happen AGAIN! I feel, as a smoker who vapes, that the smoking ban needs to be re-assessed. And as a vaper, it really does need to be re-assessd. By banning vaping as has suddenly started happening all over the place, it exposes to me that the smoking ban has been a kind of insanity that has gripped the nation? and the world.?
The smoking ban was put in place to make life as awkward as hell for smokers so they would desist from smoking. And have they? Hell no. They just carry on smoking. Some have switched to vapng like me, or (worse! in the anti’s eyes) they dual use.
I don’t mind if people smoke or vape – there are millions of smokers and vapers. I will be voting for the party that restructures the smoking ban sanely in favour of public health, and not insanely in favour of an ideology that has perverted society into blind and deaf intolerance.
Lefty Media Lie About E-Cig Advert Bans
29 September 2013
By Dick Puddlecote
As gleefully reported by The Guardian, Independent, Huffington Post, Metro, BBC 5Live and Watchdog, all current TV and radio e-cig adverts have been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority. Most notably, the E-Lites one featuring Mark Benton.
Read more.
Taking the pleasure out of e-cigarettes
The authorities’ attempt to classify e-ciggies as medicinal effaces the real reason people smoke – they enjoy it.
19 June 2013
By Christopher Snowdon
E-cigarettes to be classed as ‘medicines’ in attempt to tighten regulation
MHRA to ensure consistent standard across all licensed products as manufacturers of electronic cigarettes face tough new tests
12 June 2013
Electronic cigarettes are to be classed as “medicines” under new proposals to tighten up the regulation of nicotine-containing products.
Manufacturers are to face tough new tests before they can sell their e-cigarettes as licensed products, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has said.
The move will also mean that licensed e-cigarettes can be prescribed by doctors to help smokers cut down or quit.
It is estimated that 1.3 million people across the UK use battery-powered e-cigarettes, which can look like real cigarettes but users inhale a mist of nicotine instead of smoke.
When the user sucks on the e-cigarette, liquid nicotine is vapourised and absorbed through the mouth. When they breathe out, a plume of what appears to be smoke is emitted but it is actually largely water vapour.
In the past, experts have said that if all smokers were to use e-cigarettes instead of normal cigarettes, millions of lives could be saved, because they do not contain harmful tar like real cigarettes.
But others have raised concerns about the safety and regulation of the products.
Experts said users could not be certain of the purity of the nicotine contained in the products. Indeed, MHRA research found that nicotine levels can be “considerably different” from the level stated on the label.
Furthermore, the amount of nicotine in each product was found to differ from batch to batch – which casts doubt on how useful the products are to people who want to cut down or stop smoking, a spokesman said.
But now the MHRA will regulate the products so that there is a consistent standard across all licensed products sold over the counter.
While the regulator is not planning to recall unlicensed e-cigarettes – saying that the benefit does not outweigh the risk of users turning to real cigarettes – it is hoped that in the long term all products will be licensed.
“Reducing the harms of smoking to smokers and those around them is a key government health priority,” said the MHRA’s group manager of vigilance and risk management of medicines, Jeremy Mean.
“Our research has shown that existing electronic cigarettes and other nicotine-containing products on the market are not good enough to meet this public health priority.
“Some NCPs (nicotine-containing products) are already licensed and the government’s decision to work towards medicines licensing for all these products is designed to deliver quality products that will support smokers to cut down and to quit.
“The decision announced today provides a framework that will enable good quality products to be widely available. It’s not about banning products that some people find useful, it’s about making sure that smokers have an effective alternative that they can rely on to meet their needs.”
The government’s chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, added: “Smokers are harmed by the deadly tar and toxins in tobacco smoke, not the nicotine.
“While it’s best to quit completely, I realise that not every smoker can and it is much better to get nicotine from safer sources such as nicotine replacement therapy.
“More and more people are using e-cigarettes, so it’s only right these products are properly regulated to be safe and work effectively.”
Deborah Arnott, chief executive of health charity Action on Smoking and Health (Ash), said: “Regulation will ensure that e-cigarettes meet the same standards for quality, safety and efficacy as medicines while remaining as readily available to smokers as they are today.
“Crucially, it will also ensure marketing of e-cigarettes and other such products is controlled to prevent their promotion to children and non-smokers.”
Clare Gerada, chairwoman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said: “Rates of smoking in the poorest in our communities remain high, and as a GP in a deprived area of London I see at first hand the deaths and disease this causes.
“The RCGP supports MHRA regulation of novel nicotine products such as e-cigarettes as this will ensure that they are of good quality and reliability, and are effective in helping smokers who want to use them to cut down and quit.”
THE ANTI-TOBACCO RECIPE FOR SUCCESS
1. Choose an industry.
2. Regulate the industry.
3. Tax the industry.
4. Sue the industry.
When one source of money dries up,
return to Step 1 and repeat.
By S. Phillipe
ASH Scotland reacts to new e-cigarette regulation
12 June 2013
Welcome for licensing rather than ban
ASH Scotland today responded to the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) announcement that electronic cigarettes sold in the UK will be regulated as medicines from 2016.
Sheila Duffy, Chief Executive of ASH Scotland, said:
“We believe that e-cigarettes and other nicotine replacement products have a role to play in helping smokers and welcome this approach of regulating rather than banning these products.
“However, we are concerned at the long lead-in time before implementing regulation for electronic cigarettes. What will happen over the intervening three years to ensure the quality and consistency of the devices and tackle the capacity for promotion to children and other new markets, which are already a worry?
“We want to achieve the right balance between helping smokers move away from tobacco and protecting the next generation from commercial companies seeking a market for addictive products.
“Electronic cigarettes should be a lifeline for smokers, not a back door for tobacco companies to target children
“Any nicotine-containing device should be taken on its own merits. If it is truly effective in helping smokers, then it should be made available to them.
“Yet we are seeing a growing trend for tobacco companies buying up these companies. The tobacco industry has a long record of prioritising increased profits over reduced harm. We remain concerned over their involvement in this field.”
**********
10 reasons not to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines
June 12, 2013
So the MHRA will regulate e-cigarettes as though they are medicines – press release. 10 reasons why is this a bad idea.
5 December 2012
By Daniel Nasaw
A new TV advert for a brand of electronic cigarettes marks the first time in decades cigarettes of any sort have been promoted on US television. Anti-smoking campaigners fear the rapid growth of tobacco-free cigarettes could undermine years of successful anti-smoking efforts.
A handsome actor poses and struts on a beach in a stylishly shot black-and-white television spot. He puts the cigarette to his lips, takes a puff, and exhales a rich flume.
“Blu lets me enjoy smoking without it affecting the people around me, because it’s vapour not tobacco smoke,” says Stephen Dorff, the scruffy heartthrob star of The Immortals.
“We’re all adults here, it’s time we take our freedom back.”
The launch this autumn of the advert for blu eCigs marks a turning point in the fast-growing US market for electronic cigarettes, which use an electronic mechanism to warm a liquid nicotine solution and release mist into the lungs.
Most living Americans had never before seen a cigarette advertised on television – they were banned in 1971.
But the electronic cigarettes fall outside that law, since they contain no tobacco. That is just one way they fall into what one anti-smoking campaigner calls a regulatory “no man’s land”.
Electronic cigarettes have exploded in popularity in the US since they first appeared on the market in 2007. Blu is just one brand, with NJOY, SmokeAnywhere, Joye eGo, and many more also available.
Their appeal stems from perceptions – as yet untested by science – that they are safer than tobacco cigarettes and can even help smokers kick the habit.
And because they contain no tobacco, the e-cigarettes seem exempt, for now, from ever-stricter public smoking bans.
Since their emergence onto the US market, US sales have risen from $5m (?3.1m) to an estimated $250m, according to UBS estimates.
Amid the explosive growth, smoking opponents are eyeing the devices warily.
“We know that smoke-free laws encourage smokers to try to quit,” says Danny McGoldrick, vice-president of research at Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
If electronic cigarettes keep people smoking who would otherwise quit, that is harmful, he says.
Once sold mostly online and in small kiosks, they were given a huge boost in April when US tobacco giant Lorillard Inc purchased blu from the brand’s creators for $135m (?84m).
Lorillard executives said they foresaw rapid growth and were keen to put their weight behind the brand.
Since the acquisition blu has seen a five-fold increase in its retail availability, and will be available in some 50,000 shops by the end of this year. The national advertising campaign launched in October.
“They’ve come in and put in their tremendous resources and experience and they’ve put us on steroids and given us the resources to grow well,” blu’s creator and president Jason Healy said of the Lorillard acquisition.
“We’ve established blu as a lifestyle brand for smokers.”
Electronic cigarettes have been subjected only to minimal scientific study – not enough to demonstrate whether they are safer than tobacco cigarettes or effective as a smoking cessation product like nicotine gum or patches.
The World Health Organization has warned electronic cigarettes “pose significant public health issues and raise questions for tobacco control policy and regulation”.
And a 2009 test by the US Food and Drug Administration of electronic cigarettes – none from blu – found traces of cancer-causing chemicals and other toxic chemicals.
Electronic cigarettes are either banned or heavily regulated in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany and several other countries.
But in the US, at present electronic cigarettes “are essentially unregulated” says McGoldrick.
Unless they make a therapeutic claim, for example that they can help people quit smoking, they fall in the cracks between federal tobacco regulations and rules covering drug devices like insulin pumps,
In the new commercial, Lorillard appears to have reached into the bag of advertising tricks that got previous generations of Americans hooked on cigarettes, tobacco industry critics say.
“It feels like what they’re trying to do is re-establish a norm that smoking is okay, that smoking is glamorous and acceptable,” says Cynthia Hallett, executive director of Americans for Non-Smokers’ Rights.
The blu advert stokes the spirit of rebellion that appealed to smokers when they first started as adolescents, says David Abrams, executive director of the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at Legacy, an anti-tobacco organisation.
This time around, instead of defying parents and teachers, the ad encourages smokers to rebel against more recent anti-smoking social norms.
“They’re capitalising on that with adult smokers by basically saying ‘don’t let society tell you what to do’,” Abrams says.
“‘You have the freedom to smoke. Thumb your nose at the anti-smoking policies and the FDA.'”
The thick flume of smoke streaming from Stephen Dorff’s mouth creates the urge in smokers to reach for their pack, even as the seaside setting evokes associations of clean, fresh air, says Joseph Cappella, a professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
“The environment is presented as a way of making clear there is a cleanliness, a healthiness linked to this nicotine delivery device,” he says.
Electronic cigarettes are sold in a variety of flavours: The Eonsmoke brand, for one, sells cartridges in apple, menthol, strawberry, “mojito”, “tobacco” and others.
Extensive research has shown flavoured tobacco appeals to young smokers and adolescents who are not ready for standard cigarettes, Abrams says.
Anti-smoking campaigners including the American Cancer Society fear electronic cigarettes could get young smokers and adolescents hooked on nicotine – and later onto tobacco.
Healy rejects that. He says blu’s target customers are 35-55 years old and have been smoking for years.
“This is about giving smokers freedom and choice,” says Healy, an Australian former professional basketball player.
Soon after e-cigarettes arrived on the market the FDA moved to regulate them under its authority over drug delivery devices, but a court rejected the move.
The FDA has since hinted it may regulate them like tobacco products and an extensive rule-making procedure is underway. That would give the agency authority to restrict how they are marketed and labelled.
Healy says regulation could help the category in the long-run by reining in makers of poor-quality products.
“There’s a lot of cowboys out there who can’t afford to do a lot of things you need to do to ensure product quality and safety,” he says. “It’s going to be great for the consumer.”
Anti-tobacco campaigners say they’re keeping an open mind about electronic cigarettes.
“We are not against them being on the market but they should be responsibly regulated and marketed and tracked over time in a way that protects the public health and fully informs consumers of their effects and indications for use,” says Abrams.
“The introduction of these new non-combustible products that are appealing like e-cigarettes could have great public health value.”
Ash Refuses To Debate Electronic Cigarette Issues
Action on Smoking and Health accuse E Cigarette Direct of being a “bully” – but refuse to address the real issues
Published on August 28, 2009
by James Dunworth
(OfficialWire)
LONDON, ENGLAND?
Recently E Cigarette Direct challenged ASH to directly answer the issues surrounding the electronic cigarettes.
Pfizer manufactures nicotine cessation aids that are threatened by the electronic cigarette. These aids includes Champix.
In contrast to the electronic cigarette, numerous serious serious side effects have from Champix have been reported. As far as E Cigarette Direct are aware, ASH has yet to publicly criticise Champix. See Is ASH Financially Compromised? for details.
2. Health Claims.
3. Anti-smoker or anti-smoking?
“That’s an incredible thing for an organisation which claims to be based upon science to do.”
“This is a serious debate about the electronic cigarette, freedom of choice and public health. We call on you not to reply with personal and emotional attacks, but instead to respond to the issues, and to defend your scientific claims directly.
“By refusing to do so, you risk damaging whatever reputation you may have left.”
E Cigarette Direct is an online retailer of the Electronic Cigarette.
Electriciggy: The battery-powered nicotine fix that helps smokers beat the ban
7th July 2007
It could be the ultimate accessory for smokers out to beat the tobacco ban.
