The following is a guest article by Stacey Thompson. Opinions expressed belong solely to the author.
I am a recent convert from traditional tobacco cigarettes. In a previous post I made a few months ago, I detailed my initial impressions on vaping, contrasting it to smoking regular cigarettes. Though I still need my nicotine fix, I felt healthier overall. No longer do I end up coughing or wheezing after a vigorous walk or a short run (usually when I chase after my hyperactive nephews and nieces, or the family dogs), and I felt good enough to get back to restart my gym subscription and exercise my lungs even more.
For all the great health and lifestyle benefits of being a vaper, I encounter both first-hand experiences and news online about other people wanting to regulate or even prohibit publicly partaking of flavored vapor laced with a modest amount of nicotine.
They cite various reasons, like the e-juice quality and composition not being monitored or properly documented. This reeks of utter hypocrisy; it’s as if cigarettes list the thousands of chemical compounds that can be found in every stick, or the carcinogenic substances that are created when you burn them. They also have this old and tired opinion that kids seeing people use e-cigarettes encourages them to smoke. No, I think it’s smoking actual cigarettes that does that.
To be frank, I am pissed about this prohibition-esque treatment of something that is entire leagues safer than what it is replacing. For both the one partaking and the second-hand recipients of the smoke/vapor, even assuming the amount of nicotine you get is equivalent, vaping is way less hazardous than smoking, but some people would rather you just go back to regular smoking.
Why do they do this? Why are they zeroing on vaping when what they should be doing is redoubling their efforts on making tobacco smoking more expensive and restrictive, because smoking has killed millions of people and continues to do so each and every day!
I gathered up the reasons and present them to you, and you’ll realize that none of them are good justifications to what they are doing against e-cigarettes and those that partake of it:
Smoking Tobacco Industry Dislikes Competition
Many economies rely on the fact that people are destroying their lungs with tobacco smoke. I don’t think it’s as lucrative for them to just extract the nicotine out of the leaves, either. Someone has to smoke the over five million tons of annual world tobacco production, right?
These big tobacco companies have a lot of pull with the political powers that be (everything runs on money nowadays), so don’t be surprised when there are entities who lobby against e-cigarettes, rendering some of their advantages (like being able to partake of it in a public place) over smoking tobacco nullified.
It really has nothing to do with the safety of e-cigarettes (even the FDA’s stance on this is questionable), it’s about the money. Speaking of which…
The Medical-Industrial Complex is also “Concerned”
Millions die of complications resulting from smoking tobacco, but it’s also right to assume that a good number of them sought medical treatment to relieve their pain and suffering. Who do people run to for that? Medical doctors, of course… and the drug companies that provide them the medicines.
I am not suggesting that all doctors are malevolent and are just waiting to cash in when you get sick, but you have to realize that not all doctors do what they do for purely charitable reasons. The same goes with the pharmaceutical companies that provide them with the medicines.
If they were really serious about making people healthier, shouldn’t they be pushing for smoking tobacco to be banned altogether, and not attack the smoking substitutes?
Some People are just Stubbornly Old-Fashioned
A lot of folks are still stuck in the pre-information age way of thinking. No matter how you explain that it is a better alternative, they won’t listen. I think there will always be loyalists to the “old ways,” so there’s nothing you can really do about this, except just keep doing what you think is best.
Of course, there are a few truly insufferable heels that think that since they have a case of emphysema, chronic halitosis, and a host of other ailments because they opted to enjoy nicotine (and they just didn’t happen to like the e-cigarette experience), so should you. Ignore them, period. They want other people to be miserably unhealthy with them; don’t give them that luxury.
There, venting all my sentiments kind of made me feel a little better. I’m only four months into this and already I’m finding a new source of stress, albeit less unsettling compared to the anxiety I suffered when I tried to quit smoking cold turkey. I’m going to open a new pack of OneJoy now. Take care everyone, keep vaping, and stay healthy!
About the Author
Stacey Thompson is a professional writer, marketer, entrepreneur, and a lover of weird little animals. She is based in San Diego, California, and is currently working with the folks at NJoy. She is also putting together a blog with a handful of close friends, Word Baristas.
