Ok, I know. You’re thinking I just wrote that sensationalist headline up there to get you to read my insights. But hear me out. What public health is now doing against vaping is the exact definition of a jihad. Read on to see what I’m talking about.
Holy War Against Vaping
While writing this, I realize this piece might be offensive to followers of Islam. I in no way mean any offense, nor am I suggesting what Public Health is up to is some sort of terrorist act, nor that Jihad is necessarily an act of terrorism.
Let’s take a look at what Wikipedia has to say about the term:
Jihad (English pronunciation: /dʒɪˈhɑːd/; Arabic: جهاد ǧihād[dʒiˈhæːd]) is an Islamic term referring to a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād is a noun meaning “struggle” or “resisting”. A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid, the plural of which is mujahideen. The word jihad appears frequently in the Quran,[1][2] often in the idiomatic expression “striving in the way of God (al-jihad fi sabil Allah)“
Obviously, what I’m talking about isn’t specific to Muslims. Rather, I’m using a loose definition of the word to simply mean a religious war.
Specifically, I’m saying that the current war on vaping is an ideological struggle between a devout and zealous subculture of public health types and the industry they see as threatening their way of life.
When a group of people are fighting for an ideology, to protect a way of life, the fighting is fierce and often finds innocent victims caught up in the crossfire. The ends justify the means.
Isn’t that exactly what we’re seeing?
In case you’ve been living under a rock, or in a cave, it’s plainly obvious public health has taken off the gloves when it comes to vaping.
The state of California unleashed a slick anti-vaping campaign to the tune of $75 Million. The CDC is rolling e-cigarettes into its latest round of expensive anti-smoking ads. When it comes to information wars, money instead of bullets is the ammunition of choice.
And like fighting in the streets, the vaping wars are going to claim innocent victims as well. In this case, the innocents are current smokers. That’s because the message of the public health warriors heavily insinuates there’s no difference between vaping in smoking. If there’s no difference, why bother at all?
Perhaps, the public health believers assume that if people hadn’t taken up vaping they’d have just quit smoking all on their own. Of course the data is clearly there when it comes to the success rate of quitters before vaping came about. Any rational person can see the public health notion is blind faith not backed up by fact.
But why?
Of course, the above idea assumes these particular brand of zealots even care about what happens with current smokers at all. Often times the pillars of public health hedge their statements. They’ll say something along the lines of vaping might be safer than smoking, but what about The Children?
The Children is sort of like a holy icon to these people. That is based on what is best described as a religious belief that vaping will turn people, especially the young ‘uns to real cigarettes.
I say that this is a religious belief because people feel strongly about the notion despite it has never happened. There is no evidence to support a gateway theory. Unless, of course you consider it a gateway from cigarettes to vaping, that is very clearly backed up by evidence.
Believing something to be true in the absence of evidence is the very definition of faith. And that is why I think that this has become an all out holy war.
Of course, what good is a war without an enemy? It’s not just vaping, but vapers. For more on that, check out my previous article about Astroturfing.
