One company alone, Philip Morris International (Rothmans, Benson & Hedges parent company in the US), spent $10.5 billion to develop smoke-free nicotine products. Most of this money was spent on e-cigarettes, devices that heat tobacco and release a vapour containing nicotine.
Nicotine exposure among young people is linked to cognitive impairment, hyperactivity, and increased risk of suicide. And young people who vape are 3.6 times more likely to become cigarette smokers than those who do not. To capture a new generation of life-long, nicotine-addicted customers, Big Tobacco puts enormous effort into staving off public health restrictions on vaping. It wants vaping to be free of the regulatory constraints imposed on smoking.
In what seems to be a common formula for corporate misinformation campaigns, pro-vaping citizens groups are funded and influencers are hired and to normalize vaping for vast audiences on social media. University professors with vaping company grants publish articles in journals and newspapers opposing government regulation and disputing the science around vaping’s harmful effects. Not surprisingly, a UN study found that articles whose authors declared they had conflicts of interest because of ties with tobacco or pharmaceutical companies were 29 times more likely to be favourable to vaping.
Pro-vaping sites can masquerade as health promotion. If you visit the website https://www.unsmoke.ca/ of Rothmans campaign to deregulate vaping, you might think you were on a Canadian Cancer Society page so strong are the messages about the need to quit smoking cigarettes – cigarettes that Rothmans itself continues to produce. Rothmans though makes itself out to be addicted smokers’ best friend, doing what it can for them by providing e-cigarettes as this wonderful, advanced method of “harm reduction”.
I personally was exposed to this far-reaching campaign for vaping deregulation when, as a member of the Canadian Association of Retired Persons (CARP), I got an email inviting me to participate in a CARP focus group on vaping. I was initially going to sign up until I read the fine print at the end of the invitation saying “The funding client for this project is Unsmoke Canada, an initiative of Rothmans, Benson & Hedges (RBH).”
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the harm caused by vaping and why it is not a good way to stop smoking
I’m not up to date with the latest research on the dangers of vaping. When I did look into it some years ago things were very much inconclusive. The only thing that was really clear was that it’s nowhere near as bad as smoking, despite many well-funded people trying their hardest to prove otherwise. Presumably more evidence has come in since then.
But I do know that it is still a very good way to quit smoking. The only way that works for some people. There’s been plenty of research to support that, but it seems pretty damn obvious to many of us who’ve done it.
It’ll probably be a little less easy if the tobacco companies succeed in fully taking over the market with their shitty cigarette-shaped disposable products, so perhaps we can hope that someone considers that when deciding how to regulate the market.
The biggest issue with vapes is that it’s emboldened smokers to expose everyone (once again), and here in Australia, you even had vape shops selling to kids, pretending they weren’t, and then touting they were saving smokers
It’s tabacco 3.0, and there is lots of evidence when I last checked including heavy metals in the vapour from the heating coils
The only people it’s helping are smokers, but it’s still exposing everyone else
It’s similar to weed. I don’t care if people want to get high and ingest edibles, provided they aren’t driving. Chewing tabacco? Don’t care.
But selling to kids, and telling customers it’s safe and having them smoke inside people again? Yeah nah…
In my experience many people are disconnected from the possible down sides of vaping. Many figure it isn’t ciggarettes so it’s harmless, which isnt exactly true. Nictotine is still very addictive, even if it had no health concerns just getting financially tied to the substance is concerning. We should defintely be doing more to educate youth about these risks, do more to keep nicotine out of minor’s hands, and bring large fines or even jail time for people caught selling to underage users.
