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 1/40th 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.
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