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There is a pretty significant imbalance in the debate over electronic cigarettes right now. Not 5 years ago, we knew very little about the products and couldn’t argue much against prohibitionists that warned of extensive possible dangers. Now, even with a litany of tools and information in our court, a campaign of ignorance keeps people from knowing what to believe about the devices.

Electronic cigarettes certainly seem to have the facts on their side. Research into them continues to find that they can succeed as cessation devices, pose no risk to bystanders (and hardly any to the users themselves), and — perhaps most importantly — they have the ability to make smoking completely obsolete. But none of that matters right now because tobacco prohibitionists can’t see them as anything other than a loophole in their war on smoking.

Electronic cigarettes have a lot of enemies. Even tobacco companies stepping into the market seem content to allow and even encourage regulating e-cigs into oblivion so they can keep their control of the nicotine market. No matter how much information and research comes to light, there appears to be a campaign to intentionally deceive the public by all factions involved — with the one exception of the industry itself which is ham-stringed by FDA codes and past court rulings on what these companies can say about their own products.

Tobacco prohibitionists in particular (mostly running under the guise of public health, cancer awareness, and family watchdog groups) continue to hit every local, state, national, and international discussion concerning electronic cigarettes. With the facts pretty well set on the side of electronic cigarettes at this point, the effort seems pretty calculated with one goal in mind — add enough uncertainty to the debate to keep the facts from mattering. They do this by saying that we don’t know enough, or that we can’t trust the tobacco industry (which is not synonymous with the e-cig industry), or that we aren’t sure how they will affect the children (often insinuating that e-cigs will cause youth to smoke).

And thus far, it’s working. Electronic cigarette businesses can’t talk honestly about their products for fear that they will be called to task on any “health-related claims” they might make. Many experts believed very early on that e-cigs posed 99% less harm than conventional cigarettes and research now supports that claim. Smoke represents a substantial portion of the harm of cigarettes — the portion that causes the complications that eventually kill most smokers. By getting rid of the smoke, e-cigs get rid of the problem and, according to some experts, are no more an issue than a cup of coffee or some french fries.

There is scientific evidence supporting this, but e-cig companies aren’t allowed to feature any of it — not even really, when advocating for fair legislation. Consumers can make these claims, but they tend not to be listened too in governmental halls when held alongside presidents and directors of watchdog and public health organizations.

Meanwhile, there are no checks against the statements and arguments of those opposed to electronic cigarettes. Wild claims are made regularly ranging from e-cigs might be more dangerous than smoking, to e-cigs cause kids to start smoking. There is no research that (without significant misdirection), supports these claims. The best e-cig opponents can do is take evidence showing correlation between e-cigs and harm or e-cigs and smoking and call it causation.

A recent example of this can be seen in a public spat between e-cig researcher Clive Bates and tobacco prohibitionist Stan Glantz over Glantz’s misleading use of Bates’s survey data. Even data from the CDC was misrepresented by the CDC itself to make e-cigs seem scarier than they are.

The problem is that none of these groups have to be right to succeed in their goals. They don’t need to make compelling, evidence-based arguments to see their side benefit. All they have to do is instill the sense of uncertainty (make it sound like no one knows for sure) and argue for “best guess” or “safe bet” legislation. This is how they get bills in place that treat e-cigs like conventional cigarettes despite being fundamentally different in every important way except cosmetic.

In all this, they even get to claim the moral high ground in the debate because while businesses are arguing for their livelihood, these tobacco prohibitionists are arguing for lives (even though in the long run anti-e-cig efforts could cost lives instead).

So we’ve fostered a political and scientific landscape in which it is all to easy to drown out sense and reason in favor of fear mongering and pandering. If electronic cigarettes are 99% less harmful than tobacco cigarettes, are they not due 99% less of the rules that are based on harm? No, they say, looking like smokes is enough. If that’s the case, then green Kool-aid should be regulated the same as anti-freeze.

In short, the deck is stacked against electronic cigarettes where these individuals are concerned. They can easily justify misleading the public if the ends are a safer, largely smoke-free world. Problem is, they have no evidence that the ends are that world. In all likelihood, the support of something that obsoletes smoking (the way that e-cigs do) is what would make that possible.

Unfortunately, many prohibitionists have spent decades fostering a hatred of all things smoking. They see e-cigs as just another enemy on the battlefield, when the entire industry could be a great ally — even if Big Tobacco companies are directly involved. But it’s difficult to get over that much venom for that long. They even fight against what would be reasonable legislation (like age restriction bans) because they fear heftier controls will be harder to pass if the sensible stuff is already in place.

All this means that the public is not seeing a very balanced view of electronic cigarettes. And confusion and distrust (largely due to past tobacco industry sins) tends to support the against side of things. So politicians and regulators are pushing for “play it safe” legislation that keeps electronic cigarettes from causing harm — harm that there is already evidence doesn’t exist. This is exactly what has already happened in Los Angeles and New York City where e-cigs are now being treating like smoking for the purposes of workplace and public smoking bans despite an absence of evidence that public vaping causes any harm to anyone.

There is some hope though. Some places are starting to see through the crap and realize that getting regulation right is far better than getting regulation first. Utah legislators recently killed an anti-e-cig bill in favor of a year of study on the issue because those pushing the bill didn’t seem to know what they wanted and couldn’t justify what they were asking for. And despite a significantly hefty anti-e-cig bill working its way through the Hawaiian government, a tax element was removed to soften the sting of the bill to the average e-cig user.

Despite all this, we still believe that reason will win out. For now, the playing field may be unfair, the refs may not know the rules, and the other team is cheating like nothing else, but that won’t last. Electronic cigarettes have one great thing on their side. They work. This day in age, if something works, people find out, they tell others, and they don’t accept juvenile efforts to control otherwise free adult activities.

We’ll continue to follow the world of e-cigs as it develops. It’s certainly given us no lack of things to talk about.

Vape on, friends.