smoking facts

Mr. Schroeder

by Bill
(WA)

I quit a 25 yr chain smoking addiciton using ecigarettes. I DO NOT use nicotine, and can go a week without an ecigarette - no cravings. 99% water steam from vaporized vegetable glycerin and food flavorings are the total ingredients. I buy them in any grocery store.
You've made it clear you've decided not to endorse ecigarettes and on your 'advantages of smoking' page, you refuse to acknowledge nicotine's beneficial use in treating parkinsens, turrets, dementia & other memory problems.
We both want people to quit smoking, but just pointing out the problem instead of offering solutions comes across as judgemental. Smokers already know they should quit - ask them.
The FDA says they can't stop Zyban from killing people, yet they want to ban ecigarettes before even studying them. Closed minds like those are why people remained trapped in smoking. Why would smokers want to imitate them?

Comments for
Mr. Schroeder

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May 20, 2011
 It's not the kick, but the process.
by: Charlie Thrun

Have you ever seen or attended a Japanese tea ceremony? One may vary from simply steeping a teabag to drink before breakfast to a two-hour official occasion including registered Geishas. These ceremonies can?t be too popular in the US, in that they tend to honor men more than women. I love that part, he-he.

In any case, they?ve been perfected for hundreds of years to make a person - men - feel good. On the high end, every move is stylized to perfection. Simulated sex can be one feature, though not overt, of course, only simple petting.

I can say that it?s a very relaxing experience, often the prelude to important business deals.

Well, with that in mind I can see Bill?s point. The familiar process of smoking a cigarette is important to a smoker. Even though Bill has conquered a physical addiction, he still retains a love for the taste of tobacco, as well as a ritual he has perfected to his own satisfaction over 25 years.

The very acts leading up to a good smoke are so important that Rudyard Kipling, at least in a poem, preferred them to sex. Given a choice, he kept his cigar and let his wife leave.

In a stressful situation, Bill knows that relief is only a shirt-pocket away. That fact helps him throughout the ordeal. With a real cigarette, the familiar weight of a lighter reminds him that he?s an adult.

His labors at least temporarily fulfilled, he takes the time to sit back, put his feet up and take out a zero-level e-cig. Putting it to work, he inhales the familiar sweet taste of tobacco, blowing it out in a cloud. That cloud, even though not toxic, is also important in that he can see obscure figures drifting and shifting in light from a lamp.

His mind drifts among that cloud, drifts as if a butterfly, former cares going along with it.

Another puff, and another, as flavor flows freely through sensitive nostrils, reminding him of better days, carefree days, such as with his first smoke. It?s a happy time, a personal time, completely under HIS control.

A few minutes later, he comes down to earth, a smile on his face, the process complete and much more relaxed than when he started. In effect, a miniature and private ceremony.

Yes. I can easily see it. I do it often.

Charlie
May 14, 2011
 The Electronic Cigarette for Quitting Smoking
by: BEV

You used the e-cigarette for help to stop smoking cigarettes. I congratulate you on your success. I firmly believe, however, that you deserve the credit for quitting smoking cigarettes not the e-cigarette. Let's place the credit where it is due and that is to you.

I am a little confused however, as to why you would continue to use an electronic cigarette if you did not want to obtain nicotine? Aren't there other ways to obtain vegetable glycerin and food flavorings? What would be the purpose of inhaling them? Jelly beans would be a great way to obtain those two ingredients would they not?

Perhaps you still enjoy "smoking" the e-cigarette and if that is so, then you have not really made the changes that are necessary at all levels of human behaviour change. You have stopped smoking cigarettes but you are still engaged in the behaviour of smoking so you must be getting something out of that otherwise why would you do it? (See Quitting Smoking Facts)

I have acknowledged and explained the action of nicotine on the brain. It is a psychoactive drug.
Many psychocactive drugs are used to treat certain illnesses and if nicotine is useful in treating illness then I am sure the drug companies will be all over that. However, I have yet to see a drug made from nicotine reach the market. None of my pharmacology texts contain any reference to nicotine based medications that are not used for nicotine replacement therapy. If there are bonafide advantages to nicotine, that is quite different from advantages of smoking cigarettes. Nicotine can be delivered in many other ways if indeed it can proven to be beneficial.

I object to the use of the e-cigarette as a way to deliver nicotine because it is imitating tobacco smoking in every way and leaves children and others who may be vulnerable to the start smoking decision thinking that "vaping" is an enjoyable social activity when in fact it is a drug delivery method. (See Family Smoking Facts). I feel an obligation both as a parent and as a health care professional to make sure that children get the real facts about smoking not the illusions that the electronic cigarette provides.
May 14, 2011
 Electronic Cigarettes will not Reduce Tobacco Consumption
by: Bev

When you understand the real reasons why people smoke it becomes evident that use of the electronic cigarette is unlikely to reduce tobacco consumption in a society.

"Closed minds like those are why people remained trapped in smoking. Why would smokers want to imitate them?"

In fact they already do Mr. Schroeder. It is the closed mind hanging onto smoking fiction that keeps smokers in denial. It is the closed mind that keeps smokers smoking and interferes with success when they try to quit. Even though smokers know that smoking is bad and quitting smoking is good, it is the closed mind that hangs onto beliefs that quitting is too difficult, that cigarettes are a necessary friend or required for stress management. And isn't it a closed mind that keeps smokers thinking that "I will quit but I have to wait until I am ready"?

You seem to believe that you have quit smoking when in fact you are still engaged in the act of smoking but just not using nicotine - isn't that smoking fiction as well?

It is the smoking fiction part of the name of this website that is the most important part because changing the way you think is essential for success in the quit smoking decision. For some addicts this is harder than enduring the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal.

This website is a work in progress and more pages are added all the time. Perhaps since you submitted this comment I have added more information about quitting smoking that was not here when you originally stopped in for a visit and left this comment, but I can assure you that more information about quitting smoking will be added as the site matures.

As you have indicated in your comment "We both want people to quit smoking". You believe that the electronic cigarette was part of your success and you would like to see it available so that others could benefit like you have. You are taking an individual view of the situation and think that the e-cig could be beneficial to individuals.

I am taking a broader more social view of the issue and considering the effect not on individuals but on population health.
In my country considerable resources have been invested into lowering the smoking prevalence. Canada now enjoys one of the lowest smoking prevalence rates in the world (18% nationally). I would hate to see this trend go in any direction but down!

If the notion that smoking was an enjoyable,social and harmless activity became popular once again, then it is more likely that tobacco use would increase not decrease.

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