Vaping

Vaping should be seen for what it is: an alternative, allegedly safer, way of continuing in thrall of nicotine addiction.

The statement from Public Health England that ‘vaping is a least 95 per cent safer than smoking’ – it has almost become a mantra – has been heavily criticised in the medical literature, for example, in the British Medical Journal:

“Due to many methodological problems, severe conflicts of interest, the relatively few and often small studies, the inconsistencies and contradictions in results, and the lack of long-term follow-up no firm conclusions can be drawn on the safety of e-cigarettes. However, they can hardly be considered harmless.”

These blogs, together with those in the category ‘E-cigarettes’, explore the matter further.

Does Vaping Make You Grumpy?

In previous blogs I have dealt with how vaping makes you feel bad, induces vulgarity, and is an activity from which you will get no satisfaction. Now I have to add another downside to this abnormal and potentially harmful behaviour: it can result in vapers being grumpy, as I shall explain. Do you know what INNCO means? It’s [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-04-22T07:15:03+00:004 August 2022|Categories: E-Cigarettes, INNCO, Quit Smoking, Vaping, Vaping (e-cigarettes)|

Cotton Candy to Blue Raspberry Disposable Vapes

Here we go again. An article on BBC News (14 June 2022) shows everything that’s wrong with the current approach to smoking and vaping. Let’s start with the headline: ‘Vaping – it is a risk-free option?’ An option for what? For a way of taking nicotine into your body? You don’t need options for this purpose because you [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-04-22T07:15:15+00:0015 June 2022|Categories: Disposable vapes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping, Vaping (e-cigarettes)|

Quit Vaping and Reboot Your Mind!

I have just read a book called Allen Carr Easy Way To Quit Vaping. But taking a second glance at the cover one can discern in small print the words ‘with John Dicey’. Did they both write the book? Obviously not, since it was published in 2021 and Allen Carr died in 2006 (ironically, from lung cancer). The [...]

Gabriel Symonds2024-07-19T00:50:42+00:004 June 2021|Categories: Allen Carr, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping, Vaping (e-cigarettes)|

Vape On!

Vapid thinking about the vaping problem is shown in a seven-author Research Letter in an online publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association called Network Open (2 April 2021). Six of the authors are Doctors of Philosophy and one has a Master of Science degree. (It's part of the PATH study about which I've written before.) [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-08-16T03:32:40+00:008 April 2021|Categories: E-Cigarettes, PATH study, Vaping|

Further up the Garden Path

Since I first wrote about the PATH (Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health) study (https://www.nicotinemonkey.com/up-the-garden-path-to-reduce-tobacco-related-death-and-disease/) how far along have our intrepid researchers got? They now proceed, we are informed, not in steps or stages, but in waves. We’re now at Waves 1 – 3 with a paper released in March 2020 by Saul Shiffman and Mark Sembower. These [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-03-16T13:07:17+00:0019 October 2020|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, PATH study, Vaping|

E-Cigarettes on Prescription!

It has been claimed that ‘The English tobacco control/smoking cessation community is internationally regarded as being utterly, hopelessly smitten with e-cigarettes. It's become almost cult-like.' See https://www.nicotinemonkey.com/hopelessly-smitten-with-e-cigarettes/ Now it seems this community is about to take leave of its senses. A certain Martin Dockrell, the Tobacco Control Programme Lead of Public Health England, is quoted (Daily Mail, 23 [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-04-22T07:16:19+00:006 July 2019|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Vaping, Vaping (e-cigarettes)|

Vaping is Magnificent!

Some illuminating insights can be gained into the smoking problem by different people’s comments on my answer to a question posted on Quora (a US based question-and-answer website). The question was: What is your opinion on vaping and e-cigarettes? I answered thus: E-cigarettes should be seen for what they are: drug (nicotine) delivery devices. There’s enough trouble already [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-01-24T01:00:32+00:0011 January 2019|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

A New Way To Poison Yourself

Do you know what formaldehyde cyanohydrin is? The answer will be revealed shortly, but first, kind reader, consider the following: A BBC news item (20 September 2018) shows TV presenter Jeremy Kyle sitting at his desk, looking rather serious. He boasts he’s quit smoking twenty cigarettes-a-day after thirty-five years: ‘I am proud to say that I quit smoking [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-04-26T05:53:01+00:0031 December 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

How E-Cigarettes Make You Feel Bad

It seems these days everyone is jumping on the e-cigarette bandwagon—the debate is swirling back and forth. Are e-cigarettes harmful or good for smokers? If they’re harmful, how much less so than smoking? Should vaping be permitted/banned everywhere/on public transport/in classrooms/hospitals? Should they be regulated, and if so, how and how much? As an example of this of [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-08-20T05:37:42+00:0021 September 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, How to Quit Smoking, Vaping|

Does Vaping Induce Vulgarity?

When you think of charities, what usually occurs to you next? That they are, no doubt, deserving, and the fact that they all want money. For example, the Tibet Relief Fund, Yorkshire Cat Rescue, or the National Trust—all worthwhile charities in need of funding from the philanthropic public. Now, let us take the so-called New Nicotine Alliance (NNA), [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-11-06T01:13:59+00:0011 September 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

Wonderful Tar-Free E-Cigarettes

In The Times (2 September 2018) there is an article by the liberal democratic politician, Norman Lamb, MP, (pictured) with a title that it must have given him a chuckle to write, ‘It’s time to stop tarring e-cigarettes and tobacco with the same brush’. Mr Lamb is a solicitor. Nonetheless, he is Chair of the Science and Technology [...]

Gabriel Symonds2019-05-03T07:27:50+00:0010 September 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

Anti-Nicotine Alliance

You will not have not heard of this organisation because it’s still in the process being set up. When the Board of Trustees is established – Dr Gabriel Symonds has volunteered to be the honorary Chairman – we intend to apply to the UK Charities Commission for registration. The main aim of ANA is to educate the public [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-03-28T00:34:08+00:0026 August 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Vaping|

Hopelessly Smitten With E-Cigarettes

How to enjoy poisoning yourself ‘The English tobacco control/smoking cessation community is internationally regarded as utterly, hopelessly smitten with e-cigarettes. It’s become almost cult-like.’ These words were written by Professor Simon Chapman, the well-known Australian public health expert and anti-smoking campaigner, in response to a debate in The British Medical Journal (28 April 2018) on the question, ‘Should [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-07-17T21:19:16+00:0027 June 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Smoking Alternatives, Vaping|

Feeding Nicotine Addiction With E-Cigarettes

Under the guise of protecting public health, the pro-vaping lobby gets into some curious twists and turns. For example, there is an official-looking 2017 paper, Reshaping American Tobacco Policy. It is written by three people, one of whom, Clive Bates, oddly designates himself as ‘Director, Counterfactual’, evidently being unaware of what counterfactual means: pertaining to or expressing what [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-06-06T23:52:30+00:002 May 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

Juul – the Safer Way to Poison Yourself with Nicotine

Or so the makers of this latest e-cigarette device would have us believe. And what a clever name, suggestive of the jewel in the crown, no doubt. All right, Dr Symonds, that’s enough cynicism. What is Juul all about? Their website describes it as ‘The Satisfying Alternative To Cigarettes’. Do you know what the best and most satisfying [...]

Gabriel Symonds2019-05-03T07:41:58+00:001 May 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Smoking Alternatives, Vaping|

Nicotine Addiction and Risks of E-Cigarettes

Professor Colin 'Nicotine' Mendelsohn, a self-styled tobacco treatment specialist, is a man with a mission. He has the noble goal of wanting to cure smokers of their dangerous habit of smoking – but he wants to do this by encouraging them to switch to e-cigarettes. I am sure our good Professor would agree that smokers smoke because they [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-07-23T22:17:51+00:0021 April 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

Key Influencers and Decision Makers for E-Cigarettes

Why should you have to do this all day, every day, for years on end? Now here’s something to ponder. A recent article in the online International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health reports a study of vaping with the wordy title of the sort commonly found in scholarly medical articles: ‘A Qualitative Exploration [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-11-18T10:04:29+00:0011 February 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

A Fun Way to Quit Smoking

Isn’t this fun, or isn’t it? Let’s hear it from a lady called Sarah in a video The Switch. The title reminded me of The Great Switcheroo in Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected—a collection of rather sinister stories for adults. […]

Gabriel Symonds2019-12-19T00:28:04+00:0026 January 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

Why Regulate E-Cigarettes?

Inhale deeply To understand the smoking problem one needs to understand smokers. And the way to do this is to talk to them. Two of the questions I ask all smokers who come to see me for help in quitting are, ‘At what age, and why, did you start?’ […]

Gabriel Symonds2023-04-04T05:33:31+00:0021 January 2018|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Vaping|

Air Rage and Other Nicotine Notes

Is this what smoking does to you? According to The Independent (12 December 2017) a 24 year-old woman was arrested in the US after she smoked in the toilet on a domestic flight. When confronted by the crew she caused a ruckus and ended up being arrested. Later, when asked why she decided to smoke on the plane [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-04-04T05:36:10+00:0028 December 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Vaping|

Is Smoking A Mental Illness?

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) would seem to think smoking is indeed a mental illness, since it has plunged into the debate about e-cigarettes. It takes a wonderfully fence-sitting position in its July 2017 submission to the ‘Inquiry into the use and marketing of electronic cigarettes and personal vaporisers in Australia’ of the [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-08-08T00:42:44+00:0027 December 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Smoking Health Effects, Vaping|

Four Professors and a Counterfactual

All the fun of the fumes The long-windedly titled The National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT) recently produced a video called E-cigarettes safety: The facts explained. The trouble is that there are precious few facts available at the moment; but there are plenty of opinions. The film features four Professors who are well known e-cigarette enthusiasts, [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-09-22T04:29:27+00:0011 November 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

Parliamentary Enquiry into E-Cigarettes

A headline in today’s online BBC news (so it must be true) announces ‘E-cigarettes: Cross-party group of MPs launches inquiry’. The main point of this exercise is to try and fill the ‘significant gaps’ in what is known about e-cigarettes including how effective they are as a stop-smoking tool and how they are (or should be) regulated. But [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-04-04T05:43:50+00:0025 October 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Vaping|

Inhale Poison to Stop Smoking

Since I'm on their mailing list, I've once again started receiving notices of the forthcoming 2017 version of the so-called Stoptober anti-smoking effort put out by Public Health England (part of the UK Department of Health). It’s not my intention to mock this campaign. Smoking is a serious problem and anything that helps people to quit is to [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-11-24T00:02:09+00:0026 September 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Nicotine gum, Nicotine Patches, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

Nasty Juice Yummier Than Fruit

There is no doubt that e-cigarettes are big business. The flyer I received recently about the forthcoming Vapexpo conference in Paris lists around two hundred brands of e-cigarette liquid from sixteen countries. Promoted on the misleading meme that e-cigarettes help smokers quit, if anyone has any doubts that vaping is drug addiction by other means, they only need [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-05-30T10:19:26+00:0020 September 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Smoking Alternatives, Smoking in Pregnancy, Vaping|

Stigmatization of Pregnant Smokers

When I used to work in obstetrics (care of pregnant women) certain routine tests were carried out at each attendance, such as checking the urine and measuring the blood pressure. The reason was that these tests can give early warning of serious problems such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and then the appropriate action could be taken. [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-10-23T00:32:11+00:0030 August 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine gum, Nicotine Patches, Smoking in Pregnancy, Vaping|

Stopping Smoking Through Vulgarity

‘Smokefree’ is a catchy neologism used by the NHS Smokefree campaign. It’s supported by Public Health England which is part of the UK government’s Department of Health. So it’s quite kosher. But what’s this? The Leicester City Stop Smoking Service at a quick glance looks similar: As we can see, it offers not just any old licensed products [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-06-24T02:23:42+00:0021 June 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Nicotine Patches, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Vaping|

Up the Garden Path to Prove the Useless about E-Cigarettes

Why not just eat a banana? The latest breakthrough since lunchtime, if you’ll pardon the cliché, is revealed in the result of a study carried out at Penn State College in the US, styled Population Assessment of Tobacco andHealth (PATH). Did they think of the acronym first and then juggle the words to find a match? (Report in [...]

Gabriel Symonds2023-04-26T07:39:01+00:0017 June 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

They – Will – Cause – Death!

Dave Dorn is a trustee of the so-called New Nicotine Alliance (astonishingly, a Registered Charity in the UK). He claims that 80% of smokers who have taken up vaping have successfully switched from smoking because of what he calls the pleasure principle. The gold necklace-wearing Dave gave a talk at the Global Forum on Nicotine in Warsaw in [...]

Gabriel Symonds2022-05-16T04:31:05+00:0013 June 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Smoking Alternatives, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

Exploding E-Cigarettes

Why bother with all this? The doughty online publication, ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) Daily News, on 9 June 2017 carried a warning headline: ‘Safety advice given after e-cigarette fire’. A woman called Leanne Williams had a potentially serious problem with an ‘88 Vape’ brand e-cigarette apparatus. This is how 88 Vape advertises these contraptions on their [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-07-23T22:28:35+00:0010 June 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|