In a recent press release, the city of Chicago has announced it will help smokers to quit vaping with the launch of a new public health and social media campaign aimed at educating young people and their families about the dangers of vaping. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) Commissioner Dr. Julie Morita have taken an aggressive approach to provide Chicagoans with resources and “scientifically proven” health information with regards to the use of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems / Vaping electronic cigarettes. While taking the guise of protecting the next generation from nicotine dependence, we are looking at another city administration who are taking aim at the solution and declaring it a problem. We are going to take the next few minutes to look at the claims made by the City Of Chicago and its educational tool kit.
The Tool Kit
Here we have a city who have seemingly spent a great deal of time, energy and tax payer funding to create an in-depth view of the problems associated with vaping. We see a plethora of well designed anti vaping slogan boards, studies and linked headlines from Twitter and Face Book informing us of every possible illness and potential health implications currently known to be caused by the use of vaping devices.
“Chemicals linked with severe respiratory disease found in common e-cigarette flavors”
“Nicotine, the primary psychoactive ingredient in e-liquid, stimulates pleasure pathways in the brain. It is a highly addictive neurotoxin that is as addictive as heroin and cocaine”.
To the untrained eye, such claims with links to well-known scientific establishments would be a cause for great concern. If this material was the only information I had read on the use of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems / Vaping electronic cigarettes I would probably be alarmed. What the tool kit fails to mention is the fact that every claim made in this “scientifically proven” health information has been disproven many times over. Many of the studies have been picked apart as bad science, the kind of experiments where the parameters are changed until a predetermined notion has been achieved. They believe that by using terror headlines linked to a big university medical laboratory the general public will take it at face value and dig no deeper. The claim that nicotine is as addictive as cocaine has a desired effect, we hear heroin and cocaine addiction and immediately think of the societal ramifications those bring with them. The truth is that nicotine is no more addictive or dangerous than caffeine in the correct doses. They fail to mention that the majority of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems / Vaping electronic cigarette users are former smokers, the gateway evidence that they constantly refer to has been disproven by the very same government body that they are quoting to prove their point. The CDC has stated that while the number of youths who have used Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems / Vaping electronic cigarettes once is high, almost all that use them regularly ( all but 0.02%) were former or current smokers. By using out dated and disproven data to promote their rhetoric, we have to look closer at the truth behind their “vaping truth” campaign.
The Truth Behind The Vaping Truth Campaign
For those who wish to become better educated on the vaping phenomenon, they only need to look up a single piece of evidence. The British Government, an entity responsible for the health care costs of its citizens released a paper earlier this year titled “E-Cigarettes: An evidence Update”. It stated that Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems / Vaping electronic cigarettes were 95% less harmful than traditional tobacco products and are poised in the new year to help as many smokers as possible make the switch. Just last week, the British Prime Minister made the remark:
I believe e-cigarettes are a legitimate aid use by people to help break the habit of smoking…certainly as somebody who has been through this battle a number of times, eventually relatively successfully, lots of people find different ways of doing it, and certainly for some people e-cigarettes are successful.
Becoming the first world leader to publicly endorse Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems / Vaping electronic cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool, it makes one wonder why so many in the United States are seemingly hell-bent on outlawing vaping. The tool kit and campaign may be aimed at youth, but the truth of the matter is that many current smokers will see this information and decide that they should just keep smoking. Cook County and the City Of Chicago have some of the most aggressive vaping taxation policy in the nation at the time of writing this article. By raising prices and removing access to the safer alternative, many will believe that they should remain in the grips of the combustible cigarettes they have used for years. This leads us to believe that rather than concentrating on prevention of tobacco use, they are actually looking to ensure that which ever rout a person chooses, they are on the hook for the same amount of money to the Government coffers. One is a much safer alternative that is being embraced in the sane world as a device no different from nicotine gum, allowing a person to still get nicotine without the majority of the associated side effects. While aiming the campaign at “the youth”, this city administration are subliminally telling their adult population that they may as well keep killing themselves with tobacco, because the alternative is no better. While I am the last person to encourage a member of the next generation to pick up either cigarettes or vaping, this group allegedly concerned with the health and well-being of the community should step back and look at the ramifications of their actions. By discouraging adult smokers from what is rapidly being shown as the most successful form of tobacco replacement in history, they are increasing the likelihood that the very children they are seeking to protect will become nicotine dependent in a society where no safer alternatives exist. One would think that in the City Of Chicago, the mayor would have many other more pressing matters to attend to than the destruction of an industry that has the potential to reduce the number of smoking related illnesses and save his city billions.
As always, enjoy your vaporizer and vape safe!
