Trump plans ban on sale of flavoured e-cigarettes

[Scarab]

I totally understand. The only reason I said anything negative was because for some strange reason our founders never sought to lock down the constitutional convention PROCESS so that it would be protected from the ravages of organized money, and this despite the fact that our founders knew only too well that organized money carries with it much of the same trappings as organized crime, for indeed, much of organized money IS organized crime all too often.

And what is organized money when it acts like organized crime in politics?
It's "The Brooks Brothers Riot" which actually managed to scare Florida poll tabulators into shutting down a legal vote recount because they actually feared physical harm.

And the Brooks Brothers Riot was SMALL POTATOES, and yet it influenced outcome of a hotly contested POTUS election, courtesy of Roger Stone, the architect of that fiasco. One man, unelected and not even officially employed by any campaign, managed to gather enough money and enough power and engineer that piece of skullduggery, and he openly admits that he drew up the plans almost on the back of a cocktail napkin, and yet all he had to do was make a few phone calls and the fix was in 24 hours later, and the riot plans were on like Donkey Kong.

Now imagine operatives with the backing of every right wing extremist money power on the planet, including the Russians...including Putin.
There is nothing, literally NOTHING, in our legal framework, that can be used to stop these groups in their tracks.

All I am saying is, "here be monsters".

The Founders didn't lock down a whole lot in the Constitution on purpose. Some of that is biting us in the asses today. The process should really be left to the states anyway. The trick now is to coordinate at the state level to put safeguards in place to limit evil influences. It's a real pain in the ass, but if we can put people on the moon and invent the internet, I have to believe that we are capable of saving ourselves from ourselves.

 

[HumblePi]

You got there, eventually.

We're just viewing this from different POVs.

I view the nicotine addiction as the central problem, and you're waving it off.

To my eyes, you are aiding Big Tobacco in transitioning their product (which has ALWAYS been nicotine, first and foremost) into the next stage of their life cycle.

Anything that makes it easier or more socially acceptable to maintain the addiction is bad. Maybe it's not "as bad," but that ain't good.

You tell me what's dangerous about a nicotine addiction/habit. Go ahead, name the risks, I'll wait. And no, the danger is NOT nicotine in cigarettes, it's the 69 carcinogens and toxic substances produced when a cigarette is lit that's the danger.

Let me say this slowly and clearly....

Nicotine..... does not........cause cancer. Got that? Nicotine does NOT cause cancer, or emphysema, or COPD or anything else, period. That is scientifically, medically, technologically, clinically and historically proven in every and any study you choose to cite.

An addiction to cocaine is bad, an addiction to heroin is bad, an addiction to alcohol or even to sugar is bad. Nicotine will not kill a person, ever.

 

[wolfsgirl]

With all due respect (and I mean that sincerely, as I usually very much enjoy your posts on here) - I think you’re overacting.

This isn’t banning vaping or going to make people who quit smoking go back to smoking. It’s merely a ban on the flavored vapes which are an unsubtle attempt by a predatory industry to get kids hooked.

Naturally, I’d want to see the complete details of the plan before I signed on completely, but in theory, I really don’t have a big problem with this proposal.

Because no adult likes flavored things.

 

[wolfsgirl]

And you get to keep you flavored vapes, once the FDA approves of the flavor mix ... sort of like food-approved dye and drink-approved "flavors".

The flavors used are already FDA approved. You can buy them online from cake and candy flavoring companies.

 

[EnigmaO01]

Sensible. Vapes kill 5 people, ban them.

Guns kill millions, SELL MORE!

The death of one is a tragedy.

 

[WillyPete]

If the tobacco companies stopped selling tobacco, and only sold nicotine infused vape products, we'd be far better off, less disease, fewer deaths, lots less suffering.

There's actually nothing wrong with nicotine. It's addictive, but so is caffeine, and the health risks are similar, as in there are no real health risks from nicotine.

And what's interesting to me about the vape industry is Juul has most of the market share - 70% or more - but there are a lot of small businesses in the industry. Some local people down the road make a really good vape product, for example. Maybe 10 employees.

The addiction is the product. Supporting efforts to make it easier for people to get their fix is playing into Big Tobacco's hands.

I was a pack a day man myself for ~16 years (the gum helped me quit) and I support anyone using a vape or whatever method to help stop using nicotine.

I won't support anything that makes it easier to be an addict, though I also wouldn't support a ban.

I'd like to see them have the same advertising restrictions as tobacco products.

 

[Nap]

Millions of people quit cigarettes and move to vaping and yet the CDC/FDA sees no evidence that vaping helps people quit smoking.

3 deaths from people likely vaping some garbage off the street and suddenly there is a correlation between vaping and people dying per the CDC/FDA

 

[Nap]

A thread in which I agree with both Humble and Mr.Person, what is this world coming to

 

[Grand Mal]

When you hear talk of how someone loves the notion of "triggered liberals" or any variation thereof, please understand that you're talking to a drug addict.
It's not a drug you have to inject or smoke, or swallow, it is a drug called "Trump's Tincture of Libtard Tears" and although it is an imaginary drug, the effects are as powerful and deadly as pure unadulterated Super Fentanyl.

It is the same drug Jim Jones and David Koresh used, it is the same drug that David Miscavige uses, it is the same drug that every crooked televangelist uses. The only difference is the flavor.

Trump's Tincture of Libtard Tears. Sounds like it's made by heating a potful of deliberate ignorance and a handful of agit-prop in a solvent of snake oil. Stir, strain and cool and carefully screen the recipients because it only works on about 35% of the population. Actually it's like communion- the recipients screen themselves.

 

[JasperL]

You got there, eventually.

We're just viewing this from different POVs.

I view the nicotine addiction as the central problem, and you're waving it off.

To my eyes, you are aiding Big Tobacco in transitioning their product (which has ALWAYS been nicotine, first and foremost) into the next stage of their life cycle.

Anything that makes it easier or more socially acceptable to maintain the addiction is bad. Maybe it's not "as bad," but that ain't good.

IMO, to be fair to the argument, you should at least acknowledge that saying vaping is "maybe...not as bad" is a huge understatement. I've never seen any evidence that vaping isn't far, far, far less bad than tobacco use, world's apart in risks. I've not see any research that shows vaping increases my health risks substantially, or even moderately. I expect that my sugar consumption is more risky than the vaping I do.

If anyone has research to the contrary, I'd love to see it.

 

[WillyPete]

You tell me what's dangerous about a nicotine addiction/habit. Go ahead, name the risks, I'll wait. And no, the danger is NOT nicotine in cigarettes, it's the 69 carcinogens and toxic substances produced when a cigarette is lit that's the danger.

Let me say this slowly and clearly....

Nicotine..... does not........cause cancer. Got that? Nicotine does NOT cause cancer, or emphysema, or COPD or anything else, period. That is scientifically, medically, technologically, clinically and historically proven in every and any study you choose to cite.

An addiction to cocaine is bad, an addiction to heroin is bad, an addiction to alcohol or even to sugar is bad. Nicotine will not kill a person, ever.

Nicotine overdose is entirely possible, but I'm not really arguing your points. You're correct that vaping is "better" than smoking. I encourage any nicotine addicts not trying to quit to vape (and to reconsider on the quitting front.)

I was a smoker myself. I recall distinctly how the addiction changed my behavior. Breaking the habit is worth it all by itself, but obviously you have to want to.

I'll try to elaborate, and I hope you won't take it personally.

I don't recall you saying it, but I presume you're a vape user. Ask yourself, if you were in a situation where you ran out of vape juice and there was none available in your area 'til next week, what would you do? Sit and wait? I know exactly what I would have done when I was using nicotine.

 

[Nap]

After centuries of people smoking cigarettes it took the federal government until 1965 to order tobacco companies to put a warning on the side of a pack of cigarettes. It's estimated that there are 480,000 deaths every year as a result of smoking tobacco. A cigarette contains a whole bunch of chemicals including of course the addictive nicotine. Vaping produces a vapor, a water vapor. It doesn't smell, it dissipates quickly, it doesn't permeate clothing or furniture and can be done anywhere that you don't want to stink up like cigarettes.

There are approximately 60 chemicals in a cigarette and when lit, that 60 chemicals becomes 7,000 chemicals, out of those, 69 of them have been identified as carcinogenic and some even toxic.

Let's move on to the facts on vaping. First let me say that I've smoked cigarettes nearly my entire life, since the age of 15. So literally decades of tobacco abuse. I switched to vaping in 2011 and never went back. I was about to have surgery and wanted to stop smoking before I had to undergo surgery, to give my lungs some rehab time in prep for anesthesia. I have been seen regularly in the past 10 years by a cardiologist, oncologist and of course my own doctor. Ever one of them, even my oncologist found nothing at all objective about vaping. First of all vape liquids have nicotine in them which is not a known carcinogen, and it has a propellant to create the 'vapor' (no, it's not smoke). The same propellant either propylene glycol or vegetable glycerin base is the same propellant used at a concert to make the 'fog' on stage. It's also the same propellant used in the nebulizer (breathing machine) used by children for asthma and restrictive airway disease treatments.

Now you tell me. Is it better for teenagers to 'vape' or to pick up the habit of smoking analog cigarettes for life? I will never give up my vape, but I don't vape the sweet and fruity flavors. But I'll be the Charleston Heston of vaping, they'll have to take my vape 'out of my cold dead hands' because I'm determined that I will never smoke analog cigarettes again. A ban on vaping liquids is exactly what the big tobacco companies want. Another generation or two of dedicated cigarette smokers, then they can continue to add on their big tobacco taxes which they can't do with vaping liquids.

I am also a long term smoker that switched to vaping, out of curiosity have you had any kinds of tests or xrays that could evaluate any changes since you have quit? I know that personally I no longer cough, snore, and can breath/smell/taste everything 10x better since quitting but I haven't seen a doctor to actually see if there is any physical evidence that my lungs are in better shape now.

 

[WillyPete]

IMO, to be fair to the argument, you should at least acknowledge that saying vaping is "maybe...not as bad" is a huge understatement. I've never seen any evidence that vaping isn't far, far, far less bad than tobacco use, world's apart in risks. I've not see any research that shows vaping increases my health risks substantially, or even moderately. I expect that my sugar consumption is more risky than the vaping I do.

If anyone has research to the contrary, I'd love to see it.

Fine. It's an understatement. Big Tobacco thanks you for your service.

The addiction is 100% the same, it comes from the same source, and it enriches the same people.

I'm thankful I quit before vaping became popular. I'd probably be right there with you guys, an addict and proud of it.

 

[JasperL]

The addiction is the product. Supporting efforts to make it easier for people to get their fix is playing into Big Tobacco's hands.

I was a pack a day man myself for ~16 years (the gum helped me quit) and I support anyone using a vape or whatever method to help stop using nicotine.

I won't support anything that makes it easier to be an addict, though I also wouldn't support a ban.

I'd like to see them have the same advertising restrictions as tobacco products.

Ok, I understand your position, but what I don't know because I haven't seen the evidence is what is so bad about a 'clean' nicotine 'addiction?' I'm serious. I know the risks of tobacco and they are vast and well documented and devastating, but I honestly cannot name a significant health risk from nicotine delivered by vape or patch or gum or however, so long as it's not in a tobacco product.

And as far as the 'addiction' goes, mine is far less on vaping products than it was on tobacco. I've also seen animal research that indicates nicotine itself is only mildly addicting, versus the uniquely high addition rates for tobacco use. So I don't see the two as equivalent harms at all.

In a perfect world, we'd all not have any addictions, but that's not what we're discussing. I also support effective efforts to prevent sales to minors, marketing restrictions, for all kinds of reasons, and regulating products for basic safety like we do food and drinks of all kinds. But I disagree 100% with the notion that the Feds or state government should based on some principle, nicotine is bad, and not the evidence of harm make it harder for ADULTS to get and use vape products in the flavors they prefer.

 

[Nap]

Nicotine overdose is entirely possible, but I'm not really arguing your points. You're correct that vaping is "better" than smoking. I encourage any nicotine addicts not trying to quit to vape (and to reconsider on the quitting front.)

I was a smoker myself. I recall distinctly how the addiction changed my behavior. Breaking the habit is worth it all by itself, but obviously you have to want to.

I'll try to elaborate, and I hope you won't take it personally.

I don't recall you saying it, but I presume you're a vape user. Ask yourself, if you were in a situation where you ran out of vape juice and there was none available in your area 'til next week, what would you do? Sit and wait? I know exactly what I would have done when I was using nicotine.

For me, I would simply order it or make my own. If those weren't options though I would wait over going back to smoking cigarettes. A friend gave me a cigarette the other day and it had been a few months since I last smoke one and I had to throw it out half way through because the taste was so awful it was making me nauseous and I felt sick.

 

[Outlook]

Trump plans ban on sale of flavoured e-cigarettes - BBC News

Wow, 6 deaths across 33 states.
How many 19 year olds killed in a drunk driving accident over those same 33 states?
Vaping is more dangerous than driving drunk?

 

[HumblePi]

Nicotine overdose is entirely possible, but I'm not really arguing your points. You're correct that vaping is "better" than smoking. I encourage any nicotine addicts not trying to quit to vape (and to reconsider on the quitting front.)

I was a smoker myself. I recall distinctly how the addiction changed my behavior. Breaking the habit is worth it all by itself, but obviously you have to want to.

I'll try to elaborate, and I hope you won't take it personally.

I don't recall you saying it, but I presume you're a vape user. Ask yourself, if you were in a situation where you ran out of vape juice and there was none available in your area 'til next week, what would you do? Sit and wait? I know exactly what I would have done when I was using nicotine.

What if I suggested you give up beer, or sugar, or strawberries or Charmin toilet paper. You have no right to tell anyone what's good or what's bad for them -- none. Yes, I am a vape user and it's helped me to live, save your posturing and preaching, you aren't the boss of me.

 

[JasperL]

Fine. It's an understatement. Big Tobacco thanks you for your service.

The addiction is 100% the same, it comes from the same source, and it enriches the same people.

I'm thankful I quit before vaping became popular. I'd probably be right there with you guys, an addict and proud of it.

I'm not proud of anything, but if you're going to ignore good faith arguments in favor of self righteous insults, it's time for me to give it up for the night.

 

[HumblePi]

I am also a long term smoker that switched to vaping, out of curiosity have you had any kinds of tests or xrays that could evaluate any changes since you have quit? I know that personally I no longer cough, snore, and can breath/smell/taste everything 10x better since quitting but I haven't seen a doctor to actually see if there is any physical evidence that my lungs are in better shape now.

As a matter of fact yes. My doctor recommended that I get an CT scan every year since I stopped smoking. Medicare pays for it for people that were long term smokers and quit smoking cigarettes. My scans have been clear for the past six years since I started getting them annually. Check with your insurance they may also pay just as Medicare does. I love my vape, and nobody is taking away my right to use it either. One other thing, smokers are more susceptible to (among many other things), bladder cancer.

 

[WillyPete]

I'm not proud of anything, but if you're going to ignore good faith arguments in favor of self righteous insults, it's time for me to give it up for the night.

What if I suggested you give up beer, or sugar, or strawberries or Charmin toilet paper. You have no right to tell anyone what's good or what's bad for them -- none. Yes, I am a vape user and it's helped me to live, save your posturing and preaching, you aren't the boss of me.

Didn't man to offend, but clearly I managed.

I've presented my arguments. I can ask no more than for you to consider my points.

 

[WillyPete]

For me, I would simply order it or make my own. If those weren't options though I would wait over going back to smoking cigarettes. A friend gave me a cigarette the other day and it had been a few months since I last smoke one and I had to throw it out half way through because the taste was so awful it was making me nauseous and I felt sick.

I've known people who could take it or leave it. My own girlfriend would smoke 10 cigarettes back to back in an evening, and then be done for the day. She did that for years, and quitting was trivial for her. Perhaps you're similar.

My own experience was that in that situation, I wouldn't be able to relax or have much else on my mind until my nicotine supply was secured. If that meant driving two states over, then that's what it meant.

 

[Nap]

As a matter of fact yes. My doctor recommended that I get an CT scan every year since I stopped smoking. Medicare pays for it for people that were long term smokers and quit smoking cigarettes. My scans have been clear for the past six years since I started getting them annually. Check with your insurance they may also pay just as Medicare does. I love my vape, and nobody is taking away my right to use it either. One other thing, smokers are more susceptible to (among many other things), bladder cancer.

Do the CT scans actually show your lungs actually healing or does vaping merely cause less damage than smoking.?

 

[Nap]

I've known people who could take it or leave it. My own girlfriend would smoke 10 cigarettes back to back in an evening, and then be done for the day. She did that for years, and quitting was trivial for her. Perhaps you're similar.

My own experience was that in that situation, I wouldn't be able to relax or have much else on my mind until my nicotine supply was secured. If that meant driving two states over, then that's what it meant.

The nicotine isn't so much of an addiction but a mood regulator for me if that makes sense. I use the lowest nicotine level in my vape or sometimes 0 nic. If I am feeling anxious or get frustrated then I vape the nicotine juice otherwise I'm just vaping different flavors as I like the tastes and prevent me from pigging out on junk food as I find myself always wanting to eat something now that my taste is back to normal.

 

[PirateMk1]

Since you are attempting to amend the US constitution in a perfectly legal manner, you have my support for your basic efforts. However there are two questions that I would have to have answered to my satisfaction before that support would go any further. Those questions are:

1. "EXACTLY what is the wording of the constitutional amendment(s) that you propose to pass?"; and
2. "EXACTLY how do you propose to ensure that other parties (with better organization, more available talent, and more money than you have) do not hijack your constitutional convention and pass constitutional amendments that are not contained in your answer to the first question?"

To your question 2 the answer is simple there is a possibility a constitutional convention can be hijacked. However any result of said convention goes to the states for ratification. Ratification of an amendment requires a 3/4s of the states. So anything that passes 3/4s of the states has to have broad base wide support. How often does that happen?

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

The Founders didn't lock down a whole lot in the Constitution on purpose. Some of that is biting us in the asses today. The process should really be left to the states anyway. The trick now is to coordinate at the state level to put safeguards in place to limit evil influences. It's a real pain in the ass, but if we can put people on the moon and invent the internet, I have to believe that we are capable of saving ourselves from ourselves.

Respectfully...states being what they are, and also with the oftentimes capricious remarks of others in mind, I honestly believe this is something that should not be left entirely to the states alone. Look at what happened immediately (and I'm talking about within the HOUR in some cases) after the SCOTUS ruling in 2013 that struck down large parts of the old Voting Rights Act of 1965. The moment the news said that the VRA was gutted, the very states that much of the law was targeting began to CLOSE down polling places.
Specific polling locations, IN specific neighborhoods.
To date, Southern VRA states have closed 1,700 polling places, all or nearly all in Democratic areas, especially minority Democratic areas.

Of course you're correct stating that "the Founders didn't lock down a whole lot in the Constitution on purpose."
But at least it IS the states that ultimately decide the fate of a constitutional convention, whether it lives or dies, etc.
It's just that I honestly believe that it really is democracy itself that would be in the crosshairs should a convention come to pass in these times.
There is a recklessness in the air which is palpable. People no longer even envision any cohesive and generally accepted concept of what democracy even is, in the contemporary (read as: 17th century to present day - not 2500 years ago in Athens) sense of the word.