8 BS Lies about E-Cigarettes

There’s a lot of talk going on concerning the “truth” behind this crazy, new E-cigarette phenomenon.  Unfortunately, there’s an element in society that has decided that they are going to eradicate anything even remotely related to smoking from the face of the Earth!  Well-intentioned though it may be, this loud and obnoxious segment of the population has (d)evolved from “cigarettes cause cancer” to “Everything that even looks like a cigarette is the Devil and is going to devour your family in their sleep while raping your parakeet.”  In short, they abandoned science a long time ago, and are simply relying on marketing manipulation to further their political and financial lobbies.  So, below is a short list of some of the more obviously bullshit lies that have been spread about electronic cigarettes and the practice of inhaling atomized vapor in general:

1.  E-Cigarettes Contain Antifreeze:  False!  E-cigarettes, or to be definitionally accurate, E-liquid contains to a greater or lesser amount Propylene Glycol, which is found in many foods that you already have in your kitchen.  Diethylene Glycol is a dangerous chemical found in antifreeze liquid.  These two chemicals are not the same.  They are, in fact, different… which can be seen by the visible lack of similarity between the words “propylene” and “diethylene,” among other, more scientific differences.  The misunderstanding comes from the fact that a few cartridges (not separately bottled E-juices, I might add) contained trace elements of diethylene glycol.  This, however, isn’t enough information to back up the claim that E-cigs contain antifreeze because A. antifreeze is more than just diethylene glycol and B. the trace amounts were so insignificant that one would need to vape hundreds of thousands of puffs off of an E-cigarette each day to come anywhere close to the amounts that the FDA themselves have identified as unacceptable levels of Diethylene Glycol.  So, as we can see, this is complete and total bullshit, based on bullshit that kind of sounds like something that could possibly be dangerous at much, much higher levels than are present during the entire vaping experience.

2.  There isn’t Enough Research Yet to Say that E-Cigarettes are Effective Smoking Cessation Tools:  Really False!!  I’m not even going to dignify this one with a long-winded response.  Just head on back to a few of my earlier posts like Studies Warrant Further Investigation into E-cig/Smoking Cessation.  Or try The Rest of the Story for some enlightening information.  Suffice it to say that there is more than enough properly conducted scientific studies that all lead to one, undeniable fact:  electronic cigarettes are effective as smoking cessation tools, more so than the patch, gum, and inhaler (non-vapor based).

3.  E-cigarettes Cause Young People to Start Smoking:  Idiotically False!!!  We all need to take a step back for a moment and try to realize that minors generally tend to become interested in doing the things that adults do across the board because they are impatient to become adults.  This includes smoking and vaping and drinking and sex and road trips and voting and graduating college and buying a nice car and having children and etc., etc., etc… I know plenty of minors who go around smoking Camel Crushes because they like the little popping ball of menthol in the filter.  I know minors who drink Goldschlagger because it has gold flakes at the bottom of the bottle.  I know minors who have menage a trois because they saw it in a porno online.  Were these things marketed to minors specifically?  Because I know adults who smoke Camel Crushes, drink Goldschlagger, and join threesums for the same exact reasons.  E-cigarettes are technological wonders, which tend to impress the youth and their technophile minds.  But do they cause the youth to start smoking?  If you’ve ever tried vaping, with all of the flavors available in E-juice form, and then smoked a cigarette for the first time in your life afterwards… I’m pretty sure you would immediately find the analog cigarette disgusting and go right back to your apple pie flavored personal vaporizer.  And let’s not forget that you still have to be 18 to buy E-cigarettes and/or E-liquids!  Minors will still get their hands on them anyway, just as they do with alcohol, analog cigs, illegal drugs, and pornography… but they are breaking the law to do that just as they are breaking the law to purchase E-cig supplies.  Either make all of those things illegal, or don’t ban E-cigarettes!!

4.  E-Liquid Production Needs to be Regulated:  Retardedly False!!!!  In fact, the true version of this statement would be, “Regulating E-Cigarettes will make them UNHEALTHY and DANGEROUS.”  That sounds backwards to us, because we’ve been conditioned to feel that regulations make for better quality products.  The problem is that Big Tobacco, in their own words, are supporting the regulation of E-cigarettes (which they are now manufacturing themselves) to “require consistent product performance and reduced variability.”  Big Tobacco also goes so far as to define these phrases as they are read by the (analog) cigarette conglomerate.  Consistent product performance and reduced variability are achieved by the inclusion of additives which have been designed by the tobacco companies to be more addictive than regular, naturally-occurring nicotine.  E-Juice manufacturers, on the other hand, almost all disclose their ingredients up front… and these ingredients are just four simple, additive-free, stable, and safe ingredients: propylene glycol, vegetable glycerine (vegetable oil), nicotine (in a PG or VG base), and flavoring.  This list is significantly shorter than the 4,000 ingredients used in the production of tobacco cigarettes (most of which are additives used to produce consistent product performance and reduced variability).  Read more at my previous article: How Philip Morris Plans to Screw Us.

5.  Second-Hand Vapor is Dangerous:  The-Stuff-of-Bad-Science-Fiction False!!!!!  The FDA has released official statements that claim they have found the following dangerous chemicals and substances in “second-hand E-cigarette smoke” (they use the word “smoke,” that wasn’t a misprint): tobacco-specific nitrosamines, volatile organic compounds, acetone, form aldehyde, acetaldehyde, benzo(a)pyrene as well as silicate and various metal particles (sodium, iron, aluminum, nickel, copper, magnesium, lead, chromium, manganese, while potassium, and zinc).  I find it interesting that these are the chemicals found in second-hand Tobacco smoke: word for word!  Maybe they just read the wrong report, but I tend to doubt it.  I’d like to suggest that they add a few more items to that list.  Let’s add adamantium and carbonite to the metals list.  Then… let’s see… we could include blowfish poison, bantha poodoo, and concentrated, acidic alien blood as well.  Also, there would undoubtedly be a significant amount of bull feces particles in addition to all the other stuff.

6.  E-Cigarette Batteries Explode:  Insanely imbecilic Falseness!!!!!!  Has it ever happened before?  Yes.  Does it happen on a regular basis?  Well, since there has only been one reported and verified case of this happening, I’m gonna go with “No” on that one.  I wrote about this last month in my article: Couple Sues over Exploding Battery.  All batteries are capable of exploding if they are defective to begin with and are subjected to the right series of conditions.  This includes cell phone batteries that you hold right next to your brain on a regular basis.  As with all stories of disaster, the media has taken this story, which involves the already unpopular E-cigarette devices that threaten to actually help people stop dying, and turn it into a terrifying horror story about a creature that sleeps under your bed and eats happiness and love.  Let’s also point out some other important parts of this story that are generally glossed over in order to stress the aforementioned happiness-devouring creature aspect:  The E-cigs were of a cheap, gas station brand… not “real” E-cigarettes as most of us know them.  The female victim in question here was charging the battery off of their car cigarette-lighter plug, and resting the battery near her leg.  They also just happened to be on their way to some third world slum to do mission work, and were robbed of their saintly act by those conniving, devilish E-cigarette companies.  While I don’t wish to say that this story was completely fabricated, I do feel it necessary to point out that there are a lot of extremely convenient, dramatic elements to this entire account that smack of narrative fiction.  Just saying…

7.  Nicotine is Bad for You:  More False than the Falsiest Falsitude!!!!!!!  In 10 Things you might not have Known about Nicotine, I pointed out just how untrue this is.  The only health condition that can even remotely take ownership of this ridiculous claim would be hypertension (high blood pressure), but even that is a stretch, especially if the E-cigarette user is vaping one of the lower nicotine strengths.  But nicotine has actually been proven to help your memory, it is not carcinogenic, it reduces approach-avoidance behavior, promotes synapse communication in the brain and increases cognitive abilities, it helps Alzheimer’s patients, and more! (read the article for the rest of the list)

8.  E-Cigarettes are a Fad:  Time will tell… Obviously, nobody can know this for sure until E-cigs pass the test of time, but one could easily have said (back in the first days of the automobile) that cars were just a passing fad, or that personal computers were going to fade away over time, or that this whole Penicillin thing was a waste of time.  This technology could easily evolve into so much more.  It could become a new way for human beings to ingest nutritious chemicals… it could help to improve people’s memories and retention of learned facts… it could help the horrors associated with Alzheimer’s disease.  There are so many positive and exciting possibilities for the future of E-cigarettes that I can’t believe that anyone could convince themselves that they are just a “passing fad.”  What a ridiculous notion.

The above list includes just a few of the lies that are being spread about a new cultural phenomenon that, while possibly not being as desirable as complete nicotine abstinence, is extremely helpful and life-saving to people who are attempting to quit smoking in an effort to improve their health and overall quality of life.  It’s truly disgusting that there are people out there that are rallying against this beneficial technology simply because they swallow the first thing that they hear without any further research into the issue, because they refuse to take the time to fully understand something new and alien to them, because they are blissfully unaware that the sources of their information are not exactly admirable for reasons of honesty and uncorrupted nature.  Please take the time to spread this list around, in an effort to counter lies with truth, and to inform people of something that not only is an extreme reduction in the harm suffered by nicotine addicts, but also may very well save the life of someone close to them… someone they love.

Informative Sites:

-The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-Free Alternatives Associations (CASAA)

-Government Reports on E-Cigarettes (look at the “Related Citations” section in the right sidebar)

-The Rest of the Story

-The Smoke Free Alternatives Trade Association (SFATA)

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