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.

Vaping Forever!

Here is a fantastic piece of news about an undercover investigation by the Royal Society of Public Health, reported in April 2017. They found that nine out of ten retailers of e-cigarettes ‘are turning a blind eye to their use by non-smokers, and effectively pushing them as a lifestyle product.’ Very wicked! What are vape shop staff supposed [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-07-17T21:35:14+00:0020 May 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Smoking Alternatives, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

Over 600 Flavours!

The UK Ecig Store likes to make a splash: they boast of ‘Over 600 e-cigarette flavours’! So much for e-cigarette regulation in Britain. If this sort of advertising is not to entice young people to ‘vape’ and get hooked on it I don’t know what is. Now let’s go to the small print at the bottom of the [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-07-23T22:26:30+00:0017 April 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Smoking Alternatives, Vaping|

Vaper’s Lung – The Disease That Will Never Be, I Hope

There was an interesting article two days ago in the online Manawatu Standard titled: ‘Government legalises e-cigarettes in effort to make New Zealand smokefree by 2025.’ Why 2025? Because this is a nice round figure? Why not sooner, say, 2019? Apart from the date by which the New Zealand government is trying to achieve this noble goal, it’s [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-06-15T06:03:24+00:0031 March 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

Vaping for Fun

Smoking used to have a certain cool image. When Sherlock Holmes had a difficult problem to solve he would smoke shag tobacco in his pipe and think it through. He also used cocaine and morphine to escape from ‘the dull routine of existence’ as he put it. […]

Gabriel Symonds2022-01-16T02:19:43+00:0016 March 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Vaping|

Smoke-Free but Nicotine-Trapped

I hope the copywriters of Public Health England’s ‘Smokefree’ campaign will forgive me for my satirical review of their efforts which I put in a chapter of my book, Smoking is a Psychological Problem. At least they were trying, however misguidedly, to help smokers quit. Now, the other day I wished to refresh my memory about a detail [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-07-23T22:34:11+00:008 March 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Addiction, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

E-cigarettes are 95 per cent safer than smoking! Or are they?

Is this what we want to see? Among those involved in public health who see it as their task to ‘control’ tobacco by supporting measures to ‘drive down smoking rates,’ as they put it, a new refrain has arisen that has almost become a mantra: e-cigarettes are 95 per cent safer than smoking tobacco! Some tobacco controllers get [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-11-03T01:10:22+00:0020 February 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Vaping|

Australia Leads the Way: Vaping is Verboten!

What’s this? A smoking doctor? No, a vaping doctor! He has the unusual name of Attila Danko, which seems to be of Eastern European provenance, possibly Hungarian, and I hope he will forgive me for saying that this perhaps explains his passing resemblance to the actor Christopher Lee in his role as Dracula from next door Romania. He [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-11-25T02:03:45+00:0014 February 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Nicotine Replacement Therapy, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

What’s the Harm in Smoking Harm Reduction?

Smoking ‘harm reduction’ advocates seem to be working from the premise that some degree of harm is inevitable or unavoidable in relation to smoking. But this is manifestly untrue. The harm from smoking could be eliminated rather than just reduced – if there were the political will to ban tobacco products. In the meantime the prevailing view seems [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-04-09T02:38:15+00:007 January 2017|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

Keys, Wallet, Phone – Vaporiser!

If you’re like me, before you leave your home you need to check, and double check, that you’ve got your keys, wallet, and phone. Women do not have this problem because they keep everything they need, and probably a lot more besides, in their handbag. However, life has just become more complicated, at least for some people, according [...]

Gabriel Symonds2020-08-30T02:29:40+00:009 December 2016|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Vaping|

E-Cigarettes: a Public Health Disaster Waiting to Happen?

Heavy smog in Piccadilly Circus, London, December 1952. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) Do you know what a pea-souper is? You don’t really want to know, at least not at first-hand. It was the humorous name given to an decidedly unfunny atmospheric condition, not uncommon in the winter months in London in the nineteenth century [...]

Gabriel Symonds2021-10-20T00:23:54+00:007 December 2016|Categories: E-Cigarettes, How to Quit Smoking, Vaping|

To Vape, or Not to Vape: That is the Question!

I recently signed up for the Vaping Post, an online publication that ‘brings information on vaping’. They add, ‘We consider that the electronic cigarette (vaporizer) is a method of risk reduction for adult smokers who can’t or don’t want to quit smoking.’ Having set out their raison d'être they rightly caution that: Vaping exposes the user to the [...]

Gabriel Symonds2024-03-21T08:04:01+00:0028 November 2016|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

E-Cigarettes Poised to Take Over the World!

Amazing discovery! Now you can enjoy poisoning yourself with nicotine without doing yourself any harm at all! Guaranteed 95% safe! You can get the same satisfaction as smoking cigarettes without the tar! Really? I can’t get-no satisfaction…a man comes on to tell me…but he can’t be a man ’cause he doesn’t smoke the same cigarettes as me…’cause you [...]

Gabriel Symonds2024-02-14T14:27:25+00:0029 October 2016|Categories: E-Cigarettes, Vaping|

Millions and Millions of Vapers

In support of the suggestion that e-cigarettes (‘vaping’) should be available on the NHS, there is a clip shown on the BBC Radio 5 Alive program (19 August 2015) featuring Professor Kevin Fenton from Public Health England. He points out that “more than 2.5 million smokers have already purchased their own e-cigarettes…some are using them to quit, some [...]

Gabriel Symonds2018-06-14T01:09:09+00:0021 August 2015|Categories: E-Cigarettes, How to Quit Smoking, Smoking Harm Reduction, Vaping|

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