Last weekend some friends and I were conversing in Twitter about a recent Miami Herald article on e-cigarettes, written by eminent journalist Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley (pictured below). A former Food editor for the Sun Sentinel, she is also a “certified master gardener“.

Were you expecting more eminence, dear reader? Hey – if having opinions about food and knowing your way around a garden isn’t qualification enough to automatically merit credibility on e-cigarettes and health reporting, then what is? Lesser publications would claim that being well-educated and up to speed on a subject is a desirable, even necessary prerequisite to writing published articles about it.

Not the Miami Herald.

By now you can probably tell that Ms. Hartz-Seeley’s article is not a good one. However, over the last few days a slew of articles even more egregious than hers have appeared. This made me wonder whether hers was still worth addressing. When it comes to vaping in the media, things can move so fast that it’s hard to keep pace. No one has the time or energy to adequately address all the dung that is flung; one must pick and choose. So while there’s certainly worse to be found (the standards for anti e-cigarette propaganda are remarkably low), this is the story I’ve chosen to take on today.

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Right away, my friends and I noticed something amusing while reading the article. Our intrepid reporter Debbie is so exceptionally knowledgeable about health, smoking and e-cigs…that she apparently doesn’t know how to spell nicotine. See below:

More than a week after publication, this spelling error remains uncorrected.

Now people do make spelling mistakes. Hmm. The I key is nowhere near the E on a keyboard. I can’t see auto-correct deciding to replace “nicotine” with an imaginary word, either. Can you? Given the numerous lies and dog whistles in the article (e.g. “to make them appeal to the young, e-cigarettes often come with added flavorings” – yeah, no one over 18 would ever want anything with flavours), I’m going to err on the side of caution and suggest that Deb may not be the brightest bulb.



But I place twice the blame on the Miami Herald’s editors – not only for publishing such a poor, one-sided article without fact-checking it, but for being so disengaged from their duties that no one noticed an obvious spelling error in the byline. Right under the headline. In big letters! The whole point of having editors is to have them edit content for a whole host of things, including spelling. If they aren’t even doing the basics of their job, why are they still employed as editors?



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Back in Twitter, the dangers of “nicotene” had us chuckling. One friend said “Nicotene sounds like some sanitary product, if you ask me.” This set strange, funny wheels to turning in my head. Did Deborah truly err in her spelling – or was she referring to some new sanitary (or personal hygiene) product that we hadn’t heard of yet?

My quest for knowledge uncovered some interesting things straightaway. Did you know that Pantene shampoo maker Procter and Gamble has owned a (now-expired) patent on an e-cigarette – albeit a medical one – since 1988? (Source)

The patent’s abstract describes a battery-powered device capable of delivering nicotine “in the form of tiny aerosol particles to the mouth and lungs of the user.” It goes on to say that the “device is used to provide nicotine to a cigarette smoker in a form and a dose that closely mimics a burning cigarette to satisfy the smoker’s craving for nicotine, but without subjecting either the user or any non-users in the vicinity to the tars and carbon monoxide of tobacco smoke. A preferred device comprises a battery powered resistance heater housed in a cigarette-shaped tube.” Who knew???

P&G left their e-cig on the drawing board; it was never made. But might they be behind Nicotene?? A quick search* revealed the following shocker.

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Click the image to view in full size:

Why they waited so long to commercially pursue their wild, fantastical nicotine dreams is a mystery – one that will surely confound analysts, philosophers and even gossipy extraterrestrial beings for centuries to come. But it’s a new day now! I even found an advertisement for this incredible new product. Click the image below to view full size:

Were you dazzled by the brilliance of Nicorette’s “smober up” slogan? Now with a portmanteau of its own, Nicotene encourages you to “smoap up! Tell temptation you’re a smoaper now!”

What more can be said? Without exaggerating, I sincerely predict that smoaping will be bigger than smoking or vaping in no time at all. Global smoking rates will drop to negative 14% within months. E-cigarettes will disappear as though they had never existed. Bad hair and society’s ills (all of which are invariably caused by enjoyable forms of nicotine use) will forever vanish into the mists of history.

Right??

And your hair will smell like broccoli.

*OK so there’s no such thing as Nicotene, and the advertisement above is a parody. My “quick search” was a search of my thoughts before coming up with this, lol. I’d like to thank my sweet friend Stefan Didak, who set this lightbulb off in my head without realizing it. (hugs) His lovely, beautiful wife Sallie is a lucky lady – though I’d surely die of embarrassment if she saw how hideous this blog currently looks. She does WordPress consulting for a living!

But what’s really embarrassing is how in real life, anti-smoking groups seem to believe that quit campaigns using tortured portmanteaus like “smober” or “smoaping” somehow contribute positively to public health. Smokers see these creative exercises in language and laugh. So do vapers. Though they do say laughter is the best medicine…

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So let’s look at Deborah’s article in more depth.

The piece relies heavily on an FDA “study” from ages ago – an old chestnut that the mainstream media has been presenting out of context ad nauseum for more than five years running. I guess Deb just wanted to join in, no matter how late she is to the party. And who can blame her? Doesn’t everyone enjoy lying by omission, in order to frighten readers who don’t know any better? Deborah seems to.

Since this is so old and has been firmly addressed by so many, I will not re-hash it at length. (People would do well to note that in the the world of e-cigs, 2009 is in a very real sense ancient history, given how profound growth and change has been since then.) Anyway, in 2009 the FDA tested a whopping 19 now-obsolete e-cig cartridges from two companies.

Think about that for a second. Imagine if they had tested 19 hamburgers from two companies; Americans eat nearly 50 billion burgers a year. Would anyone in their right mind draw conclusions about hamburgers based on such an unrepresentative test?

1) Exactly one cartridge from a company that no longer exists was found to be contaminated with a small, non-lethal amount of diethylene glycol (DEG). DEG used to be a primary ingredient in antifreeze, but has long since been replaced with non-toxic propylene glycol (PG) – an ingredient used in foods, drinks, medicines, theatrical fog and more.

2) The cartridges marked as nicotine-free, again from a company that no longer exists “in some cases had very low amounts of nicotine present” said the FDA. So low in fact, that you would get the same amount of nicotine by eating less than 3 cups (700 g) of aubergine (eggplant).

Above: a bunch of eggplants – way, way more than 3 cups.

In 2011, the CDC estimated that there were approximately 2.5 million US vapers. The US market has grown exponentially since then, so a current estimate of 4 million US vapers would be very conservative; the real figure is likely much higher. But for argument’s sake, let’s say we have 4 million American vapers. Why does Deborah think this is worrisome? Is her reason really because five years ago, a grand total of five cartridges which aren’t even made anymore had a quality control issue – and not much of one at that??? Come on.

It should be obvious, even to Deborah, that the FDA data she sourced has no statistical or practical importance whatsoever in 2014.

3) The nicotine cartridges did contain carcinogenic nitrosamines (TSNAs), but this was not unexpected. Medicinal nicotine replacement therapies also contain them; they are are invariably present in trace amounts whenever nicotine is extracted from tobacco.

What Hartz-Seeley fails to mention is how much was in there. The e-cig cartridges contained only 8.1 nanograms of TSNAs – virtually identical to the medicinal nicotine patch’s 8.0 nanograms. One Marlboro cigarette contained 11,190 nanograms. And we’re only looking at nitrosamines. Let’s not forget that cigarette smoke contains all kinds of other stuff, like lots of tar and many other carcinogens – things which aren’t present in e-cig vapour at all!

Using the FDA’s study figures from 2009 alone (and presuming a rate of 4 cartridges a day) it would take a vaper over 56 years of daily vaping to receive the same amount of TSNAs that a pack-a-day Marlboro smoker will get in three days. Even if the amount of TSNAs in an e-cigarette was 1000% higher than the FDA’s test revealed (which it isn’t), it would still take a vaper 52.4 years to take in the same TSNAs that a pack-a-day smoker does in one month.

As others have done before her, Deborah chose to ignore this relevant context – implying that because of what the FDA found in 2009, we all need to worry and avoid “carcinogenic” e-cigs. By pointedly failing to mention how those teeny, tiny trace amounts of TSNAs (parts per trillion) are found at comparable levels in nicotine patches too, she was deceitful.

At best, she was irresponsibly ignorant – and should not be writing e-cig articles for a major newspaper.

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Moving on, Deb raises concerns about youth potentially catching a glimpse of any advertisements for e-cigs. One can’t help but wonder: why isn’t she raising the same concerns over alcohol advertising? (Perhaps because the Sun Sentinel paid her to write fruity drink recipes that cheerily call for vodka?)

I’m being a bit facetious here, but let’s consider this. We’re led to believe that alcohol is addictive! Alcohol is “marketed at sporting events, concerts and other places where youth gather” which is exactly what one of Deb’s sources says about e-cigarettes – in fact, it’s marketed just about everywhere (television, magazines, billboards, the internet, etc).

Not only is booze sold in attractive, brightly coloured packaging – it comes in all kinds of so-called “child-friendly” flavours too! That simply can’t be true, can it? Alcohol is for adults – but our plucky Miami Herald writer claims that flavours are a ploy, only added to products in order “to make them appeal to the young“. How dare these companies put all these childish flavours into an adult product like liquor, when adults don’t want them?

Surely grown-ups everywhere are refusing to consume the products pictured below, saying “yuck – we hate flavours and cool bottles!” Right?

Does Deb need more convincing?

The harms of prolonged alcohol abuse (emphasis on abuse, not drinking itself) are well known. But our author’s real pet peeve is carcinogens. Hmm; the US government’s National Cancer Institute says alcoholic drinks may “contain a variety of carcinogenic contaminants” and “regular alcohol consumption increases the risk of developing cancers.”

You know what else increases the risk of cancer? Eating, breathing and living. Have a drink if you want to, and enjoy it. Life is meant to be lived!



These companies are also well-known for using active ‘youthful’ living, sex appeal, and rebellion in their advertisements – “the same slick tactics long used to market regular cigarettes to kids” as Tobacco Free Kids puts it when denigrating e-cig advertising. (Since we’re mentioning them, I should point out that Tobacco Free Kids is a fundamentally corrupt organization. That’s really a blog post for another day, so for now I’ll just mention one thing. Gary M. Reedy sits on their Board of Directors. He also happens to be the Worldwide Vice President of Government Affairs and Policy at Johnson & Johnson. They make Nicorette. Apparently the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids doesn’t know what “conflict of interest” means – or they do know, but having long ago traded ethics for cash, simply don’t care.)

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The hypocrisy at play here is astonishing.

As human beings, many in public health happen to be social drinkers. Naturally they view this as socially acceptable. On that point, I would agree. But smoking – and vaping, if evil gets its way – those are reprehensible? “Oh that’s different” they’ll say, talking about second-hand this and second-hand that. Hold the phone. We all stand an infinitely greater chance of being killed by some drunken fool behind the wheel or in a rage, than by a wisp of cigarette smoke or e-cig vapour.

Is public health bothered by its own hypocrisy? Not really. The “in it to win it” volunteer busybodies are often driven by an almost religious fervour that can’t be reasoned with. (If they were reasonable people, they wouldn’t be busybodies.) And the paid professionals? I’m afraid they’re too busy adjusting their bum-warming seats on the tobacco control gravy train – which is well-funded by corrupt pharmaceutical corporations.

This is how we end up with double standards and obtuse, over-reaching policies that push citizens into a corner – increasing harm instead of reducing it. How ironic that the WHO, now calling for an end to the “war on drugs”, is simultaneously renewing it as the “war on nicotine” – with the same failed tactics of abstinence-only messaging, prohibitive laws and “get tough” enforcement.

Prohibition does not work. Neither does “just say no” abstinence messaging. And that matters.



These things have never worked, and never will. No matter what the health impacts are – no matter how much you or I may disapprove of certain activity – people are going to drink, smoke, vape, have sex, etc. Forever. There is no end game. We know this because human beings enjoy enjoying themselves – and because prohibition has been tried on a large scale before, with bad results. Additionally (and no one likes to say this out loud) for some, the harmful nature of an activity like smoking is the very thing that makes it attractive. So society needs to make a choice here. Will we provide access to good information on relative risks, and encourage harm-reducing policies that give those who want safer choices access to them? Or will we rabble-rouse and fear-monger our way towards outlawing those risks – which doesn’t prevent them, and only makes them more harmful?

Asking this question brings us to a key realization:

Many public health professionals have (by choice) grown profoundly disconnected from the very public they claim to serve – because that makes it a lot easier to “stay on message”, stay well-funded, and ignore the consequences of their harmful actions. Clive Bates wrote an excellent post on this not long ago. I highly advise reading it.

They’re not all jerks. But in allowing the radical neo-Puritan fringe to take charge – the jerks who opt for legislative force over reasoned advice, every time – public health has become a public menace. Nestled in their echo chamber, far too many of these folks see open-minded engagement with anyone who even might disagree with them as a direct threat to either their ideological purity, or their funding. (Some of them swallow their own Kool-Aid, so it can be a mix of both.) Essentially their positions are so weak and stupid that they cannot bear to be challenged; more to the point, they do not want their positions to be challenged. “Whoa. You want me to talk with vapers? Smokers? Clive Bates? I’d rather do anything else. Oh, I’ve got another Pfizer-funded conference to attend. Byeee!”

Case in point: earlier this year I was waiting in a moderately busy mall to have coffee with my sister, when I saw Melodie Tilson – a dislikable and very recognizable policy director for Canada’s Non-Smokers’ Rights Association. Tilson pretends to be a moderate (emphasis on “pretends”). She joins Health Canada in failing to acknowledge that appropriate regulation of e-cigs with nicotine already exists within Canadian law. She joins the WHO in wanting smoke-free, tobacco-free, non-lethal e-cigs to be treated exactly the same as lethal, smoked tobacco cigarettes. Amongst other wretched consequences, this would ban flavours, online sales, retail display, public use, advertising, etc.

You see my point, dear reader. She’s a peach!

Suffice to say I recognized her immediately. She seemed calm at first, doubtless thinking I was just another person in the mall. But when she saw the large e-cig that I held at my side (a ProVari) and then used, her eyes bulged in recognition – big time – and she quickly scurried off as though she’d seen a ghost. I walked after her for a moment and politely said “Melodie?” With a freaked-out look on her face, she turned and said “no”. Her tone did not sound as though she expected to be believed. “Oh okay” I replied, and left her alone. I knew she was lying – but given that fact, pursuing further conversation seemed a fruitless venture.

You never saw someone so visibly relieved to get away from a situation as she was that day. In a perverse way I’m glad it happened, because it was such a telling moment. The mere sight of a vaper who recognized her in an uncontrolled setting threw her into a near panic. (Guilty conscience?) Remember this: the true nut-bags view engagement of any sort as a threat.

Public health should note that, sexual proclivities notwithstanding, most people in the real world do not have a stick up their behinds. Smoking – yes, that dirty habit that 1.3 billion of us refuse to stop enjoying – is far more socially acceptable to the average person than the neo-Puritans would have us believe. And as for e-cigarettes? I know from personal experience that the vast majority of people (non-smokers and non-vapers included) not only find e-cigs acceptable, but positively delightful. You see, they comprehend that it’s much safer than smoking. They can smell for themselves that it’s not offensive. They can see the positive differences in their family members, spouses, friends and co-workers. They understand what the realistic alternative is. They want their loved ones to have the option to vape.

Before we move on, one last thing about the alcohol double-standard. Dr. Metee Comkornruecha (try saying that three times fast, lol) is one of the sources quoted in Deb’s article. Regarding e-cigarettes, he says:

“Children who would never think of lighting a cigarette are now being tempted by these alternative smoking products.”

How exactly does he know these youths would “never think of lighting a cigarette”? He doesn’t – which explains his failure to back up his words with evidence. But when it comes to booze, Metee is singing a different tune. He “doesn’t believe liquor ads play an overwhelming role in getting kids to drink” and “doesn’t think liquor ads should be banned from TV as tobacco ads are.”



“I think it’s a minor role. A lot of responsibility is to teach kids about media literacy. While we can’t shelter all our kids from everything, the important thing is teaching them how to react and how to interpret the messages they are seeing.” – Metee Comkornruecha



I agree that media literacy, not a ban on advertising, is the way to go. But I would apply that to tobacco and e-cigs as well. In any event Metee should take his own advice, and stop contributing to media illiteracy on vaping.

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If a 21st century temperance movement still isn’t Deborah’s style after all we’ve seen, I’m sure we can find something else for her. Perhaps she should avoid coffee and sell some new panic articles about that.

There are many parallels. For one thing, she’d be carrying on a tradition that dates back to the 1600s:

The full text of the 1674 “Women’s Petition Against Coffee” can be read here (it’s wordy but hilarious). The “Men’s Answer to the Women’s Petition Against Coffee” can be read here (also wordy but amusing). Both of these are rather sexually dirty in parts, lol. You have been warned.

But yes, I’m holding my breath waiting for Deborah to write that the coffee industry may as well merge with the tobacco industry – after all, they have so much in common. Are you aware that coffee contains an “addictive drug” (caffeine)? Did you know that coffee – the world’s most popular drink (water doesn’t count, lol) and most heavily-traded product after petroleum – also contains carcinogens? Just like alcohol, foods and e-cigs, coffee is available in “colorful packages” and comes in many flavours:

Unencumbered by legislation, children can buy this irresistible brew of evil at will. It’s available on practically every corner, and advertised all over the place. Some coffee companies are even using “the same slick tactics” of Big Tobacco (filthy, filthy sex and sensual pleasure) to advertise their addictive wares!

Oh my! The only thing I find offensive is the way they censored the nipple in the last one, lol. Sorry Deborah – but I love coffee. ♥ I’m convinced it comes straight from heaven. For that matter, I love nicotine and erotic enjoyment too. I’m afraid I won’t be signing on for any ‘new and improved, we’ve been working on it since 1674’ Petition to Ban Coffee, Porn, Smoking or Vaping.

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Moving on, you may have noticed the following section:

Since the 1990s, the number of high school students who smoke cigarettes has dropped by about 50 percent. “That’s a big change in the last 10 years,” says Dr. Maria Franco, a pediatric pulmonologist at the Miami Children’s Hospital.

The last ten years? According to the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), the number of US high school students smoking cigarettes rose in the nineties, until 1997. So this 50 percent drop “since the 1990s” cannot have started until 1997 and ends in 2013 (the most recent year for which survey data is available).

That’s 17 years, not 10. It may seem like a fussy point to make…but when an article’s author, editors, and pediatric pulmonologist source all appear to lack basic counting skills and seven years go amiss, it raises eyebrows.

Above: A lot can happen in seven years.



Next, the article sources the 2013 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey (FYTS) for figures on increased e-cig usage by students. And yet again, Debbie regrettably gets points for dishonesty.

1) The Florida survey has some serious flaws. They did not ask students whether they were “frequent” vapers (that is, whether they vaped on 20 or more of the past 30 days) – but did ask students whether they were “frequent” smokers. Why the discrepancy? Perhaps they knew the answer would show that hardly any students are regularly vaping, and so chose not to ask.

2) Hartz-Seeley reported Florida’s ever-use figure for vaping, meaning students who had ever in their lifetimes tried even one experimental puff on an e-cig – but made it sound like this figure represented current or ongoing usage. Here’s a figure from the same survey that she evidently didn’t want you to see:

In 2013, 1.8% of middle school students and 5.4% of high school students used an electronic cigarette at least once during the past 30 days.

As you can see above, much smaller numbers. And even this figure does not indicate regular use! Newsflash Deb: we have the Internet now. We can and do check things.

3) At no point does the survey attempt to ascertain whether any of this e-cig usage is with nicotine or not. Nor was any attempt made to find out how many of these vaping students were already smokers. Fortunately we can look at the smoking prevalence ourselves:

In 2013, 12.0% of middle school and 27.6% of high school students had tried smoking a cigarette at least once. In 2013, 2.6% of middle school students and 8.6% of high school students smoked a cigarette at least once during the past 30 days.

Funny how the above figures indicate that in the majority, experimentation does not lead to a lifetime of sustained use and “addiction”. We still don’t know how many of the Florida students experimenting with an e-cig were already smokers, because the survey didn’t directly ask. But given the figures above, it’s virtually certain that most if not all of them were already smokers. We do know that good British data from anti-smoking charity ASH London, spanning 2010 to 2014, revealed the following:

There is no evidence of regular electronic cigarette use among children who have never smoked or who have only tried smoking once.

That’s right! Finally, at no point does the Florida Youth Tobacco Survey explain why teenagers using e-cigs instead of smoking cigarettes is just as bad as smoking, or worse than smoking, or a bad thing at all. We sometimes get so caught up in statistics that we forget to ask ourselves “what are we objecting to here, and why?”

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The article ends with nurse Melissa Iglesias stating that “no form of nicotine or tobacco is safe.” Oh Melissa (don’t eat any eggplants or tomatoes). As we all know, nothing at all in life is “safe” – every activity and product comes with risk attached. I saw a woman trip and fall just this morning, as she was walking home from the coffee shop. “No form of walking is safe.” Only crazy neo-Puritans chase after the impossible goal of making everything absolutely risk-free. In the real world people consider the relative risk of their choices, to help inform those choices.

Deborah S. Hartz-Seeley made a bad choice (and not the good kind of bad choice) when she tried to dangerously misinform the Miami Herald’s readers about e-cigarettes. Regrettably, there are many others out there with similar goals and a wider reach. But take heart, dear reader. We will prevail.

In a strange way, I think we’re witnessing society going through the classic stages of grief as it wrestles with loss and irreversible change. The “quit or die” world that we lived in for ages simply doesn’t exist anymore; e-cigs have changed everything. The idea cannot be un-thought. Millions have found a new world, and they refuse to leave it. When change is both significant and unstoppable (as it is with e-cigs) it can be frightening. Those whose profits depend on a lack of choice and the old way of things are none too happy either. Consequently many in the media, public health and government can now be found in the Denial and Anger stages. A few are tentatively entering the Bargaining stage.

We can only hope they reach the Acceptance stage soon, and do what we can to help get them there. Old ideas and institutions never go quietly into the night when progress comes a-knocking. They invariably go out kicking and screaming – but they go out. So take heart. We’ve got this, because we’re not going away.

Stand proud in Twitter. Fight back in Facebook. Wear your passions on your sleeve. Share with others. Tell a friend who’s feeling blue about this “incredible Nicotene” that they have to see, haha! And have a coffee on me. : )

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Second blog post achievement: unlocked! Thank you, dear readers…I know that was a long one. If nothing else, hopefully the parody bit put a smile on your face. I’m off to Timmies for some wonderful coffee and nicotine…and perchance to draw an unbeaten cabbage. (See here if you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, lol.) Until the next post, I wish you happiness in all the indulgent pleasures of your choosing. ♥

Above: “Obeying sour old cranks who live to restrict life’s pleasures? No thanks. We’d rather be happy!”

~*~