Focusing on the idea that people should quit altogether, at the expense of not encouraging the switch to e-cigs, seems... I dunno... ignorant, at best. Murderous at worst. Am I off base here? Not that the article or OP are against e-cigs, it just seems so taboo to suggest that e-cigs are a good idea for some people.
From personnal experience : For a smoker health is not an issue. You can see everyone die of cancer around you and keep smoking. Nicotine is a really addictive drug. May be you should switch to e-cig. You'll still be dependant, but you'll be alive.
But being alive is not that great when you keep being a slave. So yeah, you're right, I'm kind of murderous. Sorry. Edit: I'm probably biased and irrational here. I'm very angry at myself for being addicted to such a stupid drug for 20 years Edit 2: Sleeping on it, I know why I despise your comment: You promote the long and false idea that quitting is hard. We've been told that for year. Even former smoker for their own ego boost say it 's hard to quit. If you want people not trying something tell them it's hard. Tell girls mathematics or chess are hard, and they stop trying. Tell adult playing the piano is hard, and they never learn an instrument. Tell Americans learning another language is hard, and they'll stay monolingual.
My point is : quitting is easy. It's far more easy to quit, than to switch to patch/gum (previously) or e-cig (now)
I have no will, no self control, could not stop smoking for more than 1 hour.
But once you stop for 48h you're done with the shit. And those 48h are not that hard. I suppose we both want the best for smokers around: that they stay healthy. You think that e-cig can do the trick. I fear that e-cig wont help that much, and is a false hope, it's more easy to quit smoking.
Because, the day you e-cig is empty you'll get yourself a normal cig in a heartbeat..
It's like this: Tobacco is largely grown in the American mid-atlantic and south. Because of health reforms of the past half-century, smoking has been declining precipitously in the US and Europe since the '70s. China and India, however, are growth markets for tobacco... particularly American brands. ecigs, on the other hand, are largely manufactured in China. It's been extremely difficult to discuss e-cigs honestly for economic reasons, not health ones. Start talking about how e-cigs are substantially better for you (in addition to being vastly cheaper and produceable domestically for the largest nicotine markets) and its over for the tobacco industry. So... it's a $35 billion dollar problem.
I've been told that producer for the vap industry are your old cigaret manufacturer: Philips Morris, Imperial Tobacco and the like. Being produced in China is irrelevant if the producer are the same. I mean, everything is produced in China, your phone, your laptop, and your clothing. The benefices are still paid to the west shareholders.
None of which are electronics manufacturers... or chemists. Economics: Shanghai Tobacco Products Ltd. can make an ecig for $1.83. They can sell it for $2.99. That's great profit. Marlboro can sell a branded ecig for $3.99 - for now. But they can't make it for less than $1.83. They can't make it at all. They'll have to buy it from Shanghai Tobacco Products Ltd who will either sell them to Marlboro for $2.99 or give them a volume discount because they're selling a six month run. Shanghai Tobacco Products makes $1.16 for each ecig they sell to you. Marlboro makes a maximum of $2.16... yay Marlboro. But Shanghai is going to get their cut, even if it's 50 cents on the dollar. So Marlboro is making more like $1.56... for now. What's really happened is Marlboro has underwritten Shanghai's next development cycle. Shanghai is going to come out with a new ecig they can sell for $1.59 because they can make them for $0.89. Oh and by the way, they're going to brand them as Marlboro because what the fuck is Marlboro going to do about it? Because you don't buy ecigs at nice controlled mass markets like Best Buy. You buy them from the corner bodega that mostly has peculiar skull cigarette lighters and off-brand beef jerky. All the controls that keep prices in line for tobacco? Simply don't exist for ecigs.
Dont the real benefice come from the recharge ? Even the chemist need the sweet sweet tobacco leaves. The one controling the leaves control the market. The electronic-cig ? You need one every other years. But from the get go, I dont get the argument: There is no taboo about e-cig, everyone want them, buy them, and talk about how cool and safe they are. There is already a competition about vaping! Nothing taboo.
That's my point, there may be a push against e-cig, it did not work at all. Every smoker I know did try vaping . The sad news is: none stopped normal cig. It's anecdotal, I know. But it make sense. You're addicted, you'll want the better addiction: nicotine+ sugar that come in normal cig with their caramel flavored tobacco.
Sure, people go for e-cigs anyways. But we actually have to deal with plenty of misinformed people who believe they need to enlighten us about the dangers of vaping. Worse, the propaganda has paved the way for restrictive legislation and severe taxation of liquids. Personally (and therefore equally anecdotal), I stopped smoking completely in favor of E-Cigs and I know quite a few people who have done the same.
10ml is good for a week or so. That's at 10% nicotine strength. 125ml of nicotine fluid is under $10 retail. So you go from a pack a day at $3 a pack (plus $3-4 taxes depending on the state - but Marlboro sees none of that) to $10 across four months. Sure, you can buy more expensive fluid, but we're still in the land of ridiculous reduction in expense. Nope, they can take the pure shit leaves. Even the $40 ones fry after six months. And people lose them. Dont the real benefice come from the recharge ?
Even the chemist need the sweet sweet tobacco leaves.
The electronic-cig ? You need one every other years.
But from the get go, I dont get the argument: There is no taboo abour e-cig, everyone want them, buy them, and talk about how cool and safe they are.
So ok, it's a Chinese market, and Marlboro will loose money with e-cig. So basically your argument is that West Tobacco company are against e-cig. In Europe we had a brief light ban on e-cig at its debut. But people bough them anyway, and now it's sold everywhere legally. A search for another term show how cool vaping is Not saying that Marlboro didnt care about e-cig. But they loose their Public Relation mojo compared to their former promotion of normal cig in face of lung-cancer proofs.