Most living Americans had never before seen a cigarette advertised on television - they were banned in 1971.Step back, nanny.
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."...
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.
I'm waiting for the day when there will be legal THC-delivering eCigs. And here I am smoking a blu eCig. I've never been a tobacco smoker. So I think these things might be nice for people who want to play-smoke and have a bit of nicotine — which is a stimulant and a relaxant.
Nicotine appears to enhance concentration and memory... It also appears to enhance alertness.... Arousal is increased... Pain is reduced... Anxiety is reduced...Anyway, watch the ad at the first link. When I showed it to Meade — who, like me, loved the "take our freedom back" slogan — he said that was the key to understanding the famous "smoking guy" ad for Herman Cain.
Research suggests that, when smokers wish to achieve a stimulating effect, they take short quick puffs, which produce a low level of blood nicotine. This stimulates nerve transmission. When they wish to relax, they take deep puffs, which produce a high level of blood nicotine, which depresses the passage of nerve impulses, producing a mild sedative effect.
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75 comments:
Nothing wrong with a little nicotine.
Tobacco smoke, OTOH, that's a killer.
The L.L. Bean catalog always tries to work in a puppy or two.
Abortion is the only freedom left.
Smoking is a substitute for ....
Paul Henreid and Bette Davis come to mind.
Ann Althouse said...
I'm waiting for the day when there will be legal THC-delivering eCigs.
Let me guess, you wouldn't do it, but you think people should have the freedom?
I have advocated providing nicotine to Alzheimer's patients, but that just freaks people out for some reason.
The FDA will regulate 'em. They can't help themselves, they're bureaucrats.
Nicotine is available in chewing gum and in body patches. So why go all politically correct on imitation cigarettes?
Banning high fructose corn syrup is a more rational use of resources.
Useful as a study aid. Should be advertised as an ideal gift for children. Use Elmo as the spokesman.
I just don't understand why someone who never smoked tobacco would have any interesting in eCigs. I thought that they were just a way for smokers to wean themselves off cigarettes, rather than a potentially new habit for thrillseekers. I doubt if they are completely harmless -- I don't think that nicotine is good for the body, whether from smoke, chewing tobacco, nicotine gum/patch, etc.
"It's time to take our freedom back", WTF that window slammed shut decades ago.
Smoking is an addiction WRAPPED in a habit. It is not just getting the nicotine effect, but the experience of doing it (having a cigarette).
Non-smokers do not comprehend this. eCigs deliver the nicotine, but until recently been rather poor in creating the experience. The feel of the cigarette in the fingers and the lips, the "draw", the feel as the smoke hits the throat and the density of the smoke have been in development for a while now.
Now with "disposable" products, one does not need to carry required accessories like chargers, and liquid bottles.
So gum, lozenges and patches are not capturing the feel, but more for those who want to quit.
ecigs are now poised (with a little more refinement) to virtually replace traditional cigarettes, and perhaps revolutionize smoking and cessation as well.
Clyde - I am not an alcoholic but do enjoy a little tip once in a while.
MadMan - I sadly agree - their fangs drip...
I have never been a smoker, but I completely understand the allure of the physical act of smoking. I'm tempted to try these myself, but I just don't want to start a new addiction. Most of our day is occupied by addiction to one thing or another. I'm in the middle of one as I type this. I just don't have any more time left for another one right now.
I gotta go grab a coffee I don't need, then go to work to make some more money I don't really need, then come home and do some remodeling to the house that doesn't need it, then watch some unsatisfying TV before I finally get down to something I do need: sleep. If I could break that addiction to sleep, I could enjoy my other addictions a lot more. That's an invention I could really make use of: a sleep substitute.
I know folks who quit smoking decades ago and just chew Nicorette. It was made a lot easier when the put it on the counter w/o script.
don't think that nicotine is good for the body, whether from smoke, chewing tobacco, nicotine gum/patch, etc.
You know I haven't checked recently but I recall not being able to find any solid evidence that nicotine itself had any more deleterious health effects than ethanol or caffeine.
I like to smoke once in a blue moon, and I wish I could find out how bad it would be for an elderly person like me to light up once or twice a day.
Everything I read is all spun toward never never never start or you'll get addicted!1!!1
If your not hooked on nicotine already, don't start.
If you are hooked, switch to TC. Much healthier in the long run.
There's a good probability that I lost my incredible wife and artistic partner, Myrna, to her smoking habit.
It was what she wanted to do, and she enjoyed it. She had her reasons for being attracted to the habit.
When I see a beautiful young woman smoking, I often have to restrain myself from yanking the fag out of her mouth and giving her a lecture. But, I know it's futile.
Myrna was entitled to make her own decision without all the government interference and nagging, and so is everybody else.
Leave people alone. That goes for pot, too. The first and best thing that government can do is to leave people alone to do what they want.
Let me guess, you wouldn't do it, but you think people should have the freedom?
you are a statist edutcher. only different from the left in style not substance.
wiki "This stimulant effect is the main factor responsible for the dependence-forming properties of tobacco smoking. According to the American Heart Association, nicotine addiction has historically been one of the hardest addictions to break, while the pharmacological and behavioral characteristics that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those determining addiction to heroin and cocaine. The nicotine content of popular American-brand cigarettes has slowly increased over the years, and one study found that there was an average increase of 1.6% per year between the years of 1998 and 2005. This was found for all major market categories of cigarettes.[8]" -- Because like many addictions the body gradually needs higher doses to get the effect.
Surprisingly silly to think that developing a nicotine addiction is a healthy thing to do. Not to mention the rest of the chemicals you are ingesting which haven't been tested or evaluated. How about what the vapors contain and whether it is wise to be exposing children or people with sensitive lungs to that? If you want to do it in your own home, fine. But let's not have this back door method of bringing smoking back to public areas, as if there's no bad effects for anyone.
Want to relax, learn to meditate -- it's been proven through hundreds of scientific test to be effective in lowering blood pressure, etc., and has no harmful side effects. Want some stimulation? Take a walk, which also produces healthy benefits.
If people want to do things which are harmful to themselves, that's a choice they should be free to do. "Informed consent" once again.
Initially cigarettes were referred to in the tobacco industry as "nicotine delivery systems." The whole point of the cigarette was to get the person addicted to the nicotine all along, and that's what sold the cigarettes. That's why the industry added nicotine to the tobacco, and in increasing amounts.
I use nicotine in the form of cigars and enjoy them occasionally without problems or cravings. But I remain afraid of cigarettes 30 years past the day I had my last one.
Those things got a hold of me and stopping sucked. I will never go back to that!
Trey
Pogo, I use nicotine whenever I can when I am fighting off a migraine. It does not happen frequently (thank God) but some quick caffeine and nicotine can really help.
Trey
I used a nicotine patch to help me quit smoking. If I forgot to take the patch off before bed, I'd have the most funky, vivid dreams. So there is a recreational use for nicotine.
@R. Chatt
Aside from expense, what is the downside to occasional use of nicotine by itself?
That is just one way they fall into what one anti-smoking campaigner calls a regulatory "no man's land."...
That same regulatory "no man's land" that includes chewing gum, breathing, or thinking.
In some people's minds, if anything is unregulated, it is a clear indication that we need more regulation
I've heard that you can smoke for 20 years and it may not kill you. Anything beyond that, and you are very suseptable to lung cancer and other smoking caused illinesses.
I am old enough now (late 30s) that I have friends who I have known for over 15 years. Some of them started smoking in high school, or shortly after. So they have been smoking for 20+ years, and have no intention of quiting.
That bothers me. Knowing that if they don't quit (and maybe even if they do), they will die a horrible death from it.
That bothers me. Knowing that if they don't quit (and maybe even if they do), they will die a horrible death from it.
I have not observed a pleasant method of dying, yet. Chuck, and I've buried more than my share, including two wives.
X said...
Let me guess, you wouldn't do it, but you think people should have the freedom
you are a statist edutcher. only different from the left in style not substance.
When some idiot high on pot plows into you on the interstate, get back to me, or are laws against drunk driving statist, too?
Again, some people don't drink for the purpose of getting drunk and there are very few drinks where one will make you drunk.
who's against drunk driving laws? you want to jail people for smoking a joint whether driving or not. that makes you a statist.
are you saying you only drink non-alcoholic beer? so you're an idiot too?
high doesn't equal drunk. high equals one drink.
The movie 'Looper' has a beautiful scene where the woman in the piece is making odd gestures to herself. When she brings her empty fingers to her lips you figure them out: she was shaking out an imaginary packet of cigarettes, withdrawing one, lighting it, and pretending to smoke. Obviously she does it because she's trying to quit.
And then later, after the obligatory sex scene, she actually smokes a real cigarette, and it's an ugly letdown.
I think the problem we are are having is that people who haven't smoked weed think it is somehow like when they are liquored up. it isn't. people who are high are never as out of control as a drunk. don't correlate your drinking experiences to it. it's different.
Except that all e-ciga are made in china, so they can go to hell.
X....do you favor repealing open container laws? I can drink 2 or 3 beers while driving and it will not affect me. Open container does not equal drunk driving.
you can smoke for 20 years and it may not kill you.
Jeanne Calment, the supercentenarian who lived the longest, smoked for 96 years. She quit the habit at age 117.
"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.
Does she realize that there's no "smoking" involved with one of those?
And that because there's no smoke, there isn't any damned impact on other people, and thus no "rights" for "non-smokers" that are impacted by them?
She might as well just rename her group to the Anti-Fun League, or the Anti-Nicotine Association, because plainly this isn't about the "rights" of non-smokers.
If it was, she'd have made some point about how it actually affected non-smokers somehow, rather than handwaving about "smoking being cool" again, despite there being no smoking involved.
(I get the suspicion that her ilk are the kind who wail about candy cigarettes*.
* Which, while not often found on store shelves, are easily acquired over the internet.)
"Banning high fructose corn syrup is a more rational use of resources."
Banning statists is a more rational use of resources.
I have been a smoker for more than 13 years (more than a pack a day).
A few months ago a friend turned me onto a great "e-cig" site where I built a custom vaping (what we actually call it) rig.
Let's say.... 4 months without a single cigarette. And I don't miss them.
I've offered to make my wife a nicotine free batch just so she will know what it feels like to be a smoker, but so far I keep forgetting.
Tobacco smoke, OTOH, that's a killer.
It may be the radioactive elements like Polonium in the plant fertilizer that do the deed. My brother is a health physicist and it is his belief that radioactivity and tobacco inhalation are like two components of a binary chemical weapon. He has some fun stories to tell about work, like suiting up to enter a house at 4000pCu radon level. Seems they built it with bricks made from tailings of a uranium mine.....
"We're all adults here, it's time we take our freedom back."
How quaint. The election last month proved otherwise.
"...but so far I keep forgetting."
Ask your doctor if upping your nicotine dose is right for you.
Note the totalitarian mindset that if something doesn't fit the existing regulatory framework, there must be something wrong with it. The nannies bleat, "how dare they do something that we can't control! Let's pass another law!"
I'm in favor of laws that punish people for operating a motor vehicle under under a compromised mental state, whether they're drunk, high, or lacking sleep. And I'm also in favor of laws that punish surgeons for operating under such conditions, of airline pilots flying, boat drivers, heavy machine operators... basically any activity where the lives of other people depend on your mental state not being compromised.
But all that is a completely separate issue from whether or not I think the use or abuse of a substance by an adult outside such situations should be illegal or not.
I bought Polaroid at seven, its probably worth millions by now...
I guess I don't get their "freedom" concept.
It's sort of like those ads that target youth, the ones that tell us to be non-confirmists- by consuming their product, just like all the other non-conformists do.
We're free to smoke, but smoking is not freedom.
In time the pleasure one once got from smoking becomes just a memory, as one smokes not because one wants to but because one is compelled to.
Is it necessary to point out that addiction is slavery, and slavery is not freedom?
Althouse: So I think these things might be nice for people who want to play-smoke and have a bit of nicotine — which [is] a stimulant and a relaxant.
Coakley: So you have a woman that quit smoking. She’s tense, she’s hungry. It all adds up to what?
Fred: That woman needs something in her mouth.
Peter said...
I guess I don't get their "freedom" concept.
that's because you're a statist.
edutcher,
Let me guess, you wouldn't do it, but you think people should have the freedom?
What's wrong with that. I'm in my mid-fifties, and I've never smoked marijuana or taken any other illegal substance.
I believe the War on Some Drugs is a War on the Constitution. It's done far, far more damage to our society than the drugs themselves.
The issue is power-hungry crooked politicians, police and judges grabbing more control over people's lives and more money for themselves.
Unfortunately the ignorant and gullible in this country don't understand that their freedom is just as at risk as that of a few potheads.
Leave people alone. That goes for pot, too. The first and best thing that government can do is to leave people alone to do what they want.
If only Progressives weren't such fascists to demand that their desire be the only one possible...
That is refreshing. My employer conveniently discovered that e-cigs fall under the penumbra of their no smoking/tobacco-use policy. Even though it's not listed under the long list of tobacco products they saw fit to include, contains no tobacco, and produces no smoke.
Also, I'm told e-cigs confuse security guards, who have trouble distinguishing them from the real thing at a distance. Once you've decided to police arbitrary human behavior, behavior must be restricted to suit the convenience of the police.
That is just one way they fall into what one anti-smoking campaigner calls a regulatory "no man's land."...
That "regulatory 'no man's land'" is what we used to call "freedom".
She might as well just rename her group to the Anti-Fun League, or the Anti-Nicotine Association, because plainly this isn't about the "rights" of non-smokers.
Well, being a Puritan isn't any fun unless you get to bonk other people over the head with it.
"Is it necessary to point out that addiction is slavery, and slavery is not freedom?"
No, addiction isn't slavery. And enjoyment isn't addiction.
Most of the time, even "addiction" isn't addiction.
"I have never been a smoker, but I completely understand the allure of the physical act of smoking."
In my experience, honest photographers will agree that the act of smoking does, in fact, look really cool.
Smoke'em if you got 'em, but not in any public place! Indoors or out!
I don't want to inhale your THC or nicotine!
"I'm waiting for the day when there will be legal THC-delivering eCigs."
You're going to be waiting for quite a while. This idea has already been investigated widely and dismissed as not workable, because THC is not soluble in the base liquids that are used in personal vaporizers (e-cigarettes).
Peter, your thought isn't lost on me. I don't think I'm a statist for acknowledging the fact that addiction is not freedom. The only people suited to freedom are those that don't abuse to the nth degree that freedom. I suspect the nation at large has, at this moment, the degree of freedom it deserves, sadly.
"I'm waiting for the day when there will be legal THC-delivering eCigs."
Theres always Iolites, DaVincis, and numerous other portable vaporizers and of course for home the almighty volcano.
I understand the iolites are seen all over the NY var scene, not that there's anything wrong with that.
@Pogo "Moderation in everything," right? Occasional use of nicotine or medicinal use is not the issue. However most people are not moderate, don't smoke a cigarette or two every few days or so. It's the habitual use and addiction to unhealthy substances that's the problem, what starts out as a benefit turns into a liability. Instead of getting up and taking a walk or dancing or playing with a dog, or finding a healthy release of tension the person sits there and lights a cigarette, or whatever the drug. It doesn't solve their problems, it adds to their problems. We'll all human, better not to get addicted in the first place.
Dr. Freud supposedly smoked twenty cigars a day. "Freud did stop for a time at one point, but his subsequent depression and other withdrawal symptoms proved unbearable. He described these symptoms vividly:
'Soon after giving up smoking there were tolerable days. Then there came suddenly a severe affection of the heart, worse than I ever had when smoking. ... And with it an oppression of mood in––– which images of dying and farewell scenes replaced the more usual fantasies. . . . The organic disturbances have lessened in the last couple of days; the hypo-manic mood continues. . . . It is annoying for a doctor who has to be concerned all day long with neurosis not to know whether he is suffering from a justifiable or a hypochondriacal depression.' 3
Within seven weeks, Freud was smoking again.
On a later occasion, Freud stopped smoking for fourteen very long months. 'Then he resumed,' Dr. Jones reports, 'the torture being beyond human power to bear.' 4 "
The rest of the terrible story, his jaw cancer: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu24.html
mccullough said...
Abortion is the only freedom left.
12/6/12 11:08 AM
Properly said, it's not a freedom. It's a power. Freedom comprises the things you do for which you bear the bulk of costs. Power comprises the things you do for which others bear the central costs.
take our freedom back
Yes, take back your freedom to fill public spaces with clouds of stench. Play-smoking is glamorous and sexy--don't even suspect that it makes you look like a complete dork.
@R. Chatt -- But that is their business, not your business, and spare me the "public health cost argument. Just exclude illnesses from that cause.
It doesn't solve their problems, it adds to their problems.
Adds what? As far as I can tell, that's all Pogo wants to know, and he remains unanswered.
@Smilin Jack -- Reading comprehension FAIL. You can see an ecigarette, and you might be able to hear one in a quiet room if you stand close enough, but you're highly unlikely to smell one.
I believe that people have the right to do stupid things, I also believe they should bear the consequences for those stupid choices. That said with bad information out there it is difficult to make an informed decision.
Nicotine is not a benign drug. It is a vasoconstrictor, which means every drag on a cigarette/cigar or dip of chew makes your blood vessels, including the coronary arteries that feed the heart, constrict and reduce needed blood flow. This increases the risk substantially for high blood pressure, which uncontrolled will lead to heart failure. It increases the risk of blood clots greatly which means strokes and heart attacks. Over years it means peripheral vascular disease, arterial vascular disease and reduced blood flow to the fingers which can bring about Raynauds. All of these last three bring substantial long term, chronic pain. Your biggest risk of smoking is not cancer. It is chronic disease that affects your life and the lives of the people around you while they struggle to take care of you and pay the medical bills. I haven't even touched on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that at the end of life has people having to sleep sitting up in order to breathe, gasping for breath with anxiety so severe they literally can't sit still which makes it even more difficult to breathe.
I have been a nurse for 21 years and at this point when I get the youngish folks(40s-50s) in which a heart attack or other cardiac related issues I make certain presumptions, that this person either is a heavy smoker, a drinker and/or drug user or they are diabetic. Obviously this is not always the case, but it is often enough that only someone who doesn't want to see would miss it.
The problem is that people want to live as libertines, or look and act "cool" but they have no intention of living with the consequences of their decisions. They want you to pay for their choices be it nicotine use or other decisions that are poor and not only impact the life of the person who is indulging but the lives of the everyone around them, including complete strangers who are paying through taxes for their "free" health care, or through higher insurance premiums to pay for others. It is the refusal to allow people to feel the consequences of their poor choices that leds to a nanny state and people will continue to make poor choices and demand other people pay for them as long as people are misinformed about what certain risk behavior can and most likely will, lead to. When people convince themselves and other that marijuana is harmless I recall once upon a time no thought cigarettes were all that bad. We know that marijuana increases the risk of mental illness. Just like not all people who drink will become alcoholics not all who partake in marijuana will become mentally ill, but we certainly recognize that alcoholism can result from drinking, it even seems to be genetically driven in some cases, why is it then that we will not acknowledge that marijuana can have very undesirable risk factors as well?
I am not making an argument to ban all these things, I making an argument to take off rose colored glasses and state the real risks of certain decisions and to make the argument that people then should bear the consequences of the decisions they make. Why change your life or your choices if you never have to deal with the damage they bring?
@Grace
"I am not making an argument to ban all these things, I making an argument to take off rose colored glasses and state the real risks of certain decisions and to make the argument that people then should bear the consequences of the decisions they make. Why change your life or your choices if you never have to deal with the damage they bring?"
So really, yours comes down to a monetary argument. Though OTOH it does help to keep you employed.
The thing is, is when does it stop. Right now it is the easy addictions to pick on that are receiving attention. When do we start in on other aspects of living a life, which though less morally suspect, also have an impact on shared societal cost. Skateboarding, baseball, football, soccer, mountain climbing, rock climbing, solo sailing, etc. True, most injuries incurred in these endeavors aren't life ending, but they can be very expensive to mediate. I mean, the nerve, skateboarders causing me to pay higher insurance rates, those bastards... ban'em I say. And all others who engage in activities that might cause injury to themselves that I'll be expected to bear the cost.
"We know that marijuana increases the risk of mental illness. Just like not all people who drink will become alcoholics not all who partake in marijuana will become mentally ill, but we certainly recognize that alcoholism can result from drinking, it even seems to be genetically driven in some cases, why is it then that we will not acknowledge that marijuana can have very undesirable risk factors as well?"
I think we've had people smoking pot long enough in this country to know if this is true or not. Personally, I've never seen long term pot use lead to any sort of mental problems. (I've seen that happen with other drugs, just not pot.) I don't personally know anyone that has gotten lung cancer from smoking pot. I did have a friend that smoked and was also an alcoholic that almost died from bleeding into his stomach. That was alcohol related though.
People are going to do stupid things, especially when young, and sometimes that stupidity will kill them. My boyfriend's wife died from lung cancer and he wishes that he could have stopped her somehow from smoking. If you try and regulate people from doing stupid things, most of the time they will ignore the law and become criminals instead. It leads to disrespect for law in general. Far better to let people make their own decisions. If you worry about the costs to society to clean up the mess, then put the taxes they pay for the product into funds used for medical treatment. Don't allow politicians to use it for their general funding.
"It leads to disrespect for law in general."
Is that not what started this great country?
Followed and sustained by 'risk takers', who, against all odds and conventional wisdom neglected to consider the societal cost of their wounds. Actually, little expected that society would consider them at all.
I've been vaping (using e-cigs) for three years now. I was a 2-pack a day smoker; "the switch" for me was immediate - I haven't touched a "stinky" since.
Not everyone who tries these devices experiences the same result; there are numerous other compounds (usually a variety of alkaloids) in cigarette smoke that are just as addictive as simple nicotine. But it works for probably 75% of people who try them seriously.
They are best viewed as an "alternative" to traditional combustion-based cigarettes. Most vapers treat them that way (i.e. vape in the smoking area, etc.), out of politeness and a desire to generate a positive image of responsibility for the vaping community.
But honestly - WRT the issues involved in smoking, nicotine is the LEAST of the concerns - the nurse above notes that nicotine is a vasoconstrictor, but CO is a MUCH more powerful one, and among the 5000-odd compounds generated by the combustion of cigarettes (to include the artificial chemicals added to the tobacco by the cig companies) only one more of several... and that's without even getting into the cancer-causing and other "unknown but dangerous" chemical compounds.
E-Cig juice, on the other hand, is generally made up of 4 or compounds mixed together, all food-grade. In fact, most flavorings used in juice are made for commercial baking establishments (think of the little bottle of concentrated vanilla flavor you have in your spice drawer, but flavors of all kinds). The base is either vegetable glycerine or propaline glycol, both of which are food-grade and used in dozens of edible products you use every day.
I'll take my chances on a small, battery-powered fog machine that has flavor and nicotine vs. a dubious combustion process that generates thousands of poisons and twists compounds into mysterious and incomprehensible alternative structures that have never been studied.
Aside from expense, what is the downside to occasional use of nicotine by itself?
top e cigs 2013
Ok, it's time to take our freedom back? I just love the irony of this commercial...what freedoms are you "taking back" by walking down a deserted beach sucking stale air through a palstic freaking straw? Smoking IS NOT A CRIME! But prople will make a criminal out of you if you don't bend to the will of non-smokers. Wanna take back ur freedom? You are a SMOKER! OWN IT! Don't be cruel or blow smoke in peoples faces, but smoke! Throw down that sissy little air vapor tube you bought to impress the masses, and be yourself! Jesus.....
Looper E juice is best when it comes to vaping. No other e juice give me as much pleasure as it does.
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