eCigarettes - My Comments in the Wall Street Journal

eCigarettes in the Wall Street Journal

It is laughable that a product that is labeled as deadly cannot be replaced by a product that may be merely dangerous. Especially when no one ever started smoking for their good health in the first place.

The truth is that smoking is really a form of psychological self-medication.

You could argue that’s true for the interested parties too: the FDA, the States, the drug and tobacco companies and even the Health Groups are far more interested in preserving their own point of view – and funding base - than actually helping smokers.

The really interesting thing is that when you deconstruct smoking – take out the branding and all the marketing hoopla – it comes down to an odd practice that people seem able to take or leave with ease.

It also brings us face to face with the idea that tobacco is explicitly a drug and yet we don’t seem to want to have that conversation.

Bottom line – when you understand why people smoke you’ll understand that they need more than a “just say no” approach.

The fact that we now have alternatives to the very old fashioned smelly cigarette is a plus. Back in 1907 public health groups actually praised cigarettes as a health benefit over spit tobacco! (But that was before cigarette taxes and TB was the big bugaboo.)

What we now know is that debranding practices always make it easier to quit or a least confront the psychic issues that underlie smoking - so people can much more easily move on with their lives.

Yet, as always, the so-called do-gooders don’t care much about whether you live or die, just that you do it their way.