My e-Cigarette Experiences…

And the WHO (World Health Organization) and the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and ANY other government funded and run health organization that is going to tell me the risks of using e-cigarettes.  Here’s the bottom line.  I CHOOSE TO SMOKE!  Yes, I’ve tried to quit many times and several different ways to prolong my health.  I KNOW THE RISKS!  You’ve spent billions making sure that we all do.  Yet there are over a BILLION people in the world that still smoke for one reason or another.

So let’s talk about this for a few minutes… Specific to Health Canada’s recent warning:

First on the list – e-cigs don’t vaporize tobacco.  They create a vapour of liquid nicotine, propylene glycol and other flavour ingredients.  You can’t publish a warning to anyone that carries any meaning if you don’t have the facts right to start with.

Next – and I’ll run into some people that won’t like this one for sure – I KNOW the risks.  You’ve spent a fortune proving that smoking IS killing me.  Now along comes a product that offers me the choice to stop smoking tobacco products and switch to inhaling a mist of specific ingredients that, on their own, are PROVEN to be magnitudes safer than the products that I inhale from a cigarette, yet you tell me that it may carry some unknown risks.  OF COURSE IT DOES!  But I know for certain that MIGHT is far better than WILL when it comes to something causing me health problems, and eventually DEATH!

I actually laughed at the part in the Health Canada warning that advised that e-cigarettes ’may pose risks such as nicotine poisoning and addiction’.  OF COURSE THEY WILL!  And if someone I know that is a non-smoker picks up an e-cig, I’ll smack them!  Nicotine Addiction is one of the main reasons that I still smoke.  And all of the ‘approved’ methods to cure me of that have failed!  And as for nicotine poisoning, have you ever swallowed a piece of nicotine gum!?  Swallowing a 4 mg Nicorette gum during a flight a few years ago caused me to be ill for 3 of the 6 days that I was visiting with my family.  Not at all a pleasant experience, and I’m quite sure that would qualify as a low grade nicotine poisoning.  To get the same level of nicotine into my system from an e-cig, I’d have to tear open the cartridge and start drinking the juice.  Not something I’m ever likely to do by accident.

Here’s another fact for you regarding nicotine replacement products.  Look at the recommended dosage for a pack a day plus smoker starting their programs. 

• Nicorette Gum – up to 15 per day at 4mg per gum.  Total daily dose is 60mg.
• Nicorette Lozenge – 8 or more per day for a minimum dosage of 32mg.
• Nicorette Inhaler – up to 12 cartridges per day!   I don’t have the dosage information for this one.

Now…  compare those to an e-cig:

Even at full strength, an e-cig cartridge contains 16 mg of nicotine, and is rated to last as long as 12 to 15 normal tobacco cigarettes.  So…  if you smoke a pack a day (20 cigarettes) the total MAXIMUM dosage of nicotine is below 30mg per day.  Seems that less is a good thing, even if just a little less. 

Now I’m the first to admit that there are indeed a number of unknowns here.  And I recognize that the folks at Health Canada have to at least warn us of the risk, but what I end up seeing is a failing model of ‘concern for the public health’ where a product that is tested and PROVEN deadly is still permitted to be sold on the market to the millions of people that are already addicts.  Let’s look at the past efforts of this mandate:

• HC have forced laws requiring warnings on the packages – INEFFECTIVE!
• HC have spent huge money on advertising to increase knowledge – YUP…  WE KNOW SMOKING KILLS
• HC have tested and re-tested tobacco products for decades – BUT STILL WE CAN BUY THEM!
• HC have most recently forced stores to ‘hide’ tobacco products – WE STILL KNOW THEY ARE THERE!

I could go on…  and on…  sure, they’re getting the message out there, but is it REALLY doing any good?  Are my tax dollars doing something really useful or just helping to pay for the health care costs related to all of us that continue to die slowly while inhaling killer products that are KNOWN to be killer products?

So I would like to invite all of these government agencies to do something REALLY useful with all of our money.  Come up with a program and TEST E-CIGS.  Prove them safer than tobacco and perhaps even get us making them here in Canada.  Get the tobacco companies involved.  Create jobs – or at least minimize the impact of a change in tobacco sales on the workforce.  Sure… tax my e-cigs.  There – I said it!  Yes I would be willing to pay a 20 to 30% tax on my e-cig products if it were proven they were safer and they had a solid obligation to uphold certain health and safety standards that may not currently be enforced in China.  Of course this is also based on the fact that current e-cig products are 70% or more CHEAPER than tobacco cigarettes.  If they were made here, sure I’d pay more, but in the long run, I would hope that the end cost for a ‘pack’ of e-cigs would be lower by at LEAST 50% than tobacco products.

Then give me the CHOICE to have a safer, cleaner, endorsed product that I can still use to actually ENJOY my nicotine addition, without the costly, deadly, and smelly side effects.

I know I’m speaking to a small audience here, but hey…  I still need to express my opinion and hope that at least one other person reads and agrees with what I’m saying here.  Who knows…  maybe someone up at Health Canada may read this and start a new train of though on this topic.  Could happen!

Regardless of all of this, as long as I can find a supplier, I will order, and use, an e-cig product!  Of that I am certain – because even if there are risks to my health in doing so – I am 100% certain that it will be a smaller risk than I face today as a tobacco smoker.  And there ARE studies right here in Canada that are starting to say the same thing.

So Vape On my friends… and tell everyone to keep the pressure on Health Canada, WHO, US FDA and anyone else that tries to prevent us from making the choice to lower our risk factors.

Cheers!

njw

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