Why the FDA and Smoking Establishment are Crucifying e-Cigarettes

By Alan Brody

If you had a problem that killed 400,000 people a year and affected the health of 40 million you’d think that anything that improves the situation is worth supporting. When it comes to smoking however, you would be dead wrong.

In 2004 a Chinese company created what is now called the e-Cigarette, a device that emulates a cigarette by delivering a flavored vapor with – or without nicotine. The vapor uses propylene glycol, a liquid that is generally considered safe for consumption by the FDA and appears in many food products.

There are several million users worldwide and while there are no safety studies, there are not reports of any harm either.

The advantage to smokers is they no longer have cancer-causing tars invading their lungs, they stop coughing, no longer smell and since the vapor is harmless, they can stay indoors and vape because there is no second-hand smoke problem.

It also saves smokers in New York enough money to make the payments on a mid-size car.

Amazingly, however, the FDA is against it. They are trying to block the importers of these product and are in Federal Court fighting for their right to ban these products.

It may be easy enough to understand the FDA’s need for territorial protection and ultimately a way to extract tax and regulatory revenue.

But how do you explain Public Health’s near unified opposition to e-Cigarettes?  American Lung, American Cancer as well as Tobacco-Free Kids are opposed to them.

Their arguments range from – “It’s not proven!” [Cigarettes are proven, of course, to kill] to it “attracts children.”

The best part is how small towns in New Jersey and Long Island have banned or limited the sale and use of these products. Suddenly, politicians who can’t fix their budgets have the time and energy to become expert enough on these products to prohibit them.

Is it possible that the anti-smoking establishment has obviously stopped working for the American people to become a symbiotic partner of the tobacco industry in sucking up the lavish tax handouts they generate.

Perversely, this opposition is only going help sell more e-Cigarettes in the long run. The reason is that most smokers hate e-Cigarettes because they leave out so much of what makes puffing pleasurable: the sensuous smoke, the softness of tobacco, the seduction of danger are all gone. Instead, you get this cool, clinical haze that studies have shown, may not even deliver much nicotine at all. Less than 1/40^th of smokers use these products. However, that will change because banning them will only make them more dangerous and by the perverse logic of smoking, more desirable.

Without getting too deep into the motivation for smoking let it be said that the industry discovered as early as 1922 that it had a lot more to do with the mind and spirit than the body. We start smoking in our adult initiation years when we have image and self-esteem issues. We also want to belong. So we do crazy things like get tattooed, body pierced, do extreme sport and party crazy, mange to get through school, get into trouble, fights, illegally drunk, vote, enroll in the military and so on. Smoking used to be our little helper. If you went asleep during the Mad Men years and awoke today like a 21st Century Rip van Winkle, you would find that all the Marlboro Country and Winston ads have gone – only to be replaced by prescription drug ads for exactly the things that bother us: sex, mental happiness, ADD and a few other things as well.

In other words – we need little helpers. It’s a guilty pleasure if you smoke it and a legitimate need if your doctor prescribes but the numbers tell us that millions are going to seek it out regardless. It exists somewhere between folk remedies and faith healing. So is it fair for a few bureaucrats and do-gooders to dictate human behavior – especially when they have their hands in the public purse?

Smoking is a deep and troubling issue. It is the first industry of this country - we probably wouldn’t be here without it since its very addiction probably made pioneers persevere in an unwelcoming colony. We are in denial of its actual role in our lives. The net result is that we have driven its evolution to China, have reinstituted creeping prohibition and are about to create a new black market and political corruption all over again.

It is tie for an honest and open discussion about smoking again - and now, e-Cigarettes.

Alan Brody is the author of Cigarette Seduction www.cigseduction.com and a former columnist with Advertising Age/Creativity and ADWEEK’s Marketing Computers.

Fireworks and Insight on the Dr. Stan Frager Show!

If you weren't able to take your attention off the Emmy's to listen to this fascinating conversation about America's first industry and how it really influences our lives, here is a summary.
It is like nothing you have ever heard about the smoking issue. That's a promise!

Fireworks and Insight on the Dr. Stan Frager Show!

What does smoking have to do with President Obama, Britney Spears and the Emmy-Award-winning "Mad Men?" Has smoking been reduced only to be overtaken by prescription drugs like Ridalin and Prozac - in effect, recasting smoking as a little understood form of self-medication. These were some of the issues discussed by "Cigarette Seduction" author, Alan Brody on the Dr. Stan Frager show on WGTK on Sunday night in the heart of tobacco country, Louisville, Kentucky.

"Mad Men" may sparkle with retro sexism and non-PC joie de vivre but it is also about a group of execs who believed they knew something about Americans that few others did. Thanks to a new kind of "motivational research" chronicled in Vance Packard's "Hidden Persuaders" that revolutionized Madison Ave. in the 50's and 60's they understood the psychological reasons why people really bought products. To most of their clients, it was a revelation.

With cigarettes, marketers understood it to be something we do at the initiation period of our lives and it holds a powerful, if little understood force over the lives of smokers. Each brand has a specific meaning that was researched and developed by psychoanalytically trained market researchers beginning in 1922, when American Tobacco hired America's first Freudian, A.A. Brill to work on the Lucky Strike brand. As it happened, their PR man, Edward Bernays, was also Freud's American nephew.

The not-fully convinced Dr. Frager (himself a psychologist) bridled at Mr. Brody's comment that Camel smokers usually have "sexual issues." Dr. Frager even pointed out that "Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Brody replied: "Freud was a cigar smoker who died of throat cancer. He was in denial."

Brody described how Marlboro was developed from the ashes, as it were, of what was once an exclusive woman's brand. In its new form, when it was reintroduced in the early 50's, its package had been developed to look like a medal, replete with the legend: "Veni. Vidi. Vici." (I came. I saw. I conquered.)

This implies Marlboro smokers have a militaristic or command-and-control issue. In the case of President Obama, it probably serves as part of his military empowerment, making it unlikely that he quit as long as he in charge of a war and commands generals. Britney Spears, who's dancing is highly energetic and meticulously rehearsed was seen smoking this brand just before her famous breakdown, suggesting that it was a form of rebellion against the regimentation in her performance schedule. She has not been seen with a cigarette lately and her career appears back on track.

Most importantly, knowing their brand helps people unravel their true reasons for smoking and leads to the best way to quit for good. Using the book's "Inner Quitting" method Brody recommends starting with the "unsmoking" technique - rolling back the years to that time in life when they started. This enables smokers to tackle the real challenge of quitting, which is not the addiction (that can be overcome in 3 days and best done when you have flu or a bad cold), but the mental part. This is the true abyss that smokers fear.

By facing the issue that lead them to smoking (we may start smoking with our friends but we become addicted and bond for our own personal reasons) "Inner Quitting" shows how to use the newfound knowledge to overcome smoking for good. This is no patch - although that can help - but it is essentially borrowing the technique those fortunate people you probably know who claim they were able to spontaneously quit. While they were just lucky, everyone else has to work at it and "Cigarette Seduction" explains how.

In closing, Mr. Brody talked briefly about the new Electronic Cigarettes and how they are likely to comprise as much as 50% of the market within 5 years.

To learn more about "Cigarette Seduction," listen to Mr. Brody's interview or view his videos, visit www.cigseduciton.com

To request a review copy please contact Ellen Schaeffer at ViziPress (212) 624-9110 or ellens@vizipress.com

When Your President Can't Quit - What Chance Do You Have?

According to this news report President Obama can't quit. He can only make sure the Press doesn't see him.....

So how does that help you, if you're a smoker? Just this:

1. Smoking is not trivial and it deserves some respect.....
2. e-Cigarettes are a fantastic solution.

What tobacco companies discovered in the 50's is that cigarettes are nature's miraculous pacifier for adults and it operates at a totally unconscious level.

If you are lucky enough to quit spontaneously - or near spontaneously - good luck to you! But most people struggle because this is so deep and so unconscious that they feel guilty or self-destructive enough not to care.

We can't solve this issue here. Nor can President Obama!

What we can tell you is to walk - no run - to your nearest e-Cigarette supplier, because that can change your life and set you on your way to quitting without actually quitting. At least not at first.....

If you buy a copy of Cigarette Seduction - even the eBook - you get a fully functioning 5 day-long eCigarette pack FREE. Or you can just buy it and forget the book.

What you can't forget is this habit that dogs you just like it dogs he Commander-in-Chief.

Big Win for e-Cigarette Importers

News Flash - the Federal Court turned down the FDA's efforts to ban e-Cigarettes. (See the New York Times article.)

The bigger question is why would Government agencies and anti-tobacco groups be against a product that relieves some of the greatest harms of smoking (second hand smoke, the smell, the hacking cough) and works as an anecdotally acclaimed means of quitting?

3 reasons:

1. Money
2. Power
3. Self-righteousness

Their attitudes are so repugnant that I feel like smoking again. I won't, but I am willing to fume.

Here's why.

1. Money. The government has found a fantastic source of revenue built on the backs of tobacco addicts. Like any addict - in this case, revenue addicts - they are deeply reluctant to give it up. When the time is ripe - we'll discuss a 12 step method for the tobacco taxers.....

The same applies to the major anti-tobacco groups. There are a small handful that get the lion's share of the paltry few million the government doles out from its tobacco revenues. They are just as dependent on this tax income and so they too have every incentive to attack (Tobacco Free Kids being high on his list). The game has become fixed to the point where they actually function as a handmaiden to the tobacco industry - warding off newcomers (competition) and making it seem like the tobacco companies are staying away from kids. They also support big pharma and its plethora of patches, gums, pills and other cessation paraphernalia.

2. Power. Agencies like the FDA derive their power from what they control. First you ban, then you control. Overlaps with money. (Also reminds us of the record companies and downloading - is it any coincidence that Time Warner's Richard Parsons told Napster "first you stop, then we talk." Now he runs Citibank. Guess what - all are in ruins. Note to FDA: the internet has changed all that - dictatorships just don't work like they used to.)

3. Self Righteousness. Everybody loves to point out somebody else's weakness and health groups are notorious in this regard. The fact that people have reasons for smoking - however troubling - is of zero interest to them. Just stop. Have will power blah, blah, blah. Smokers are motivated by deep reasons that rarely disappear just because they quit - they are typically sublimated to other practices. Often medication - both good or bad (e.g. how many smokers were really using tobacco as a crude form of Ridalin, or Prozac, or an upper or a downer).  The worst fears of these zealots emerge when smokers appear to be enjoying themselves. You can't really respond to them - unless there truly is a skeleton in their closets - except to let their own fanaticism do its own discrediting.

Guaranteed - all 3 of these types will have something to say about the children. This makes children smoke blah, blah. I say this makes children distrust politicians. As usual this is just a smokescreen, no one is promoting this for kids just for people who already smoke.....but the tactic always pulls at someone's heartstrings - including smokers'.

Bottom line - for better or worse there are approximately 40 million smokers in the U.S. as they get up from the back of the bus they will realize that fate has given them a reprieve in he form of e-Cigarettes. Once the word truly gets out and they learn to rust these products, and understand the actions of these high-placed malefactors - I predict there will be a huge backlash. Some heads will roll. The argument will change completely.

He fact that this innovation came to us from China will also deliver a lesson about what happens when Government gets too involved - its stifles ideas and protects the insiders who become effectively corrupt. Of course, they never see it that way - hence point 3. self-righteousness. But there it is - another little vignette about why we are on our way to becoming a lost force in the world.

Brand Profile of a Parliament Light Smoker

Here is a recent brand profile of Parliament Light smoker. Anyone who buys a copy of Cigarette Seduction either in print or digital form, gets a Free e-Cigarette and a personalized Brand Profile. This Brand Profile is the secret to your smoking obsession.

Male
Age First Smoked : 16
Current Age : 37
Father's Brand : Parliament Lights
Brand/s First Tried : Marlboro Lights
First Committed Brand : Parliament Lights
Taboo Brands (Brands You Will NOT Smoke) : Newport Lights
Current Brand : Parliament Lights

Profile
Parliament is one of those brands that doesn’t have a clear-cut image just because we don’t have a Parliament in this country. But it does suggest a few things: people are less likely to connect it to Congress than they are to something European and kind of important but of their own imagining and so we try to find clues about which aspect they are plugging into. In general, however, it stands for someone who wants another, classier life but for one reason or another cannot really go there. But they think they are living a cut above the people surrounding them anyway – at least in their own minds. (The brand often reflects mild forms of depression and mood swings.)

If you are close to any kind of official building or headquarters it might suggest government work or some type of higher level status yearning.

In any case, this profile shows an interesting arc because you began life by smoking a brand that suggested you wanted to be tougher than your Dad (Marlboro Light vs. Parliament Light) but you quickly found that not to be the case and switched to his brand. 18 years later and you’re still in the same boat. In addition, you are averse to Newports - typically the brand of the upwardly mobile striver and often from the “other side of town.”

Quitting to you is probably tied up with your relationship to your father and your sense of not getting ahead of him. You don’t have to get ahead of him but in order to quit, but you do have to resolve these issues or at least find another way to deal with them.

We recommend you use e-Cigarettes, snus, pouch tobacco, the patch or other smoking alternatives that deliver the support you need while you deal with this process.