I’ve been meaning to get out to and about for ages now, but I am naturally shy so big crowds are a bit of an issue. Thanks to bad timing I missed out on VapeJam last month, but I was going to make sure I went to at least one show on e-cigarettes this year.
When I heard about the E-Cigarette Expo (ECE) I thought to myself, why not? So I did.
Let me introduce the players for this rumble. In the angry red corner we have, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco, Altria and Japan Tobacco International. The four major players on a global scale in the tobacco industry.
In the cowardly yellow corner we have, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), California Department of Public Health, Faculty of Public Health, Cancer Council Australia, American Lung Foundation, American Heart Foundation, Tobacco Free Kids, British Medical Association and so on. Far too many to list out here.
First off, a tiny bit of background to my thinking here. We should all be aware of the complete insanity portrayed by the BMA in the media recently, where the enlightened representatives spoke with calm authority on e-cigarettes and how harmful they were. Now of course, I’m pretty clued up on the topic as well I should be, but what about those that are considering the switch to vaping?
Before I sat and watched the England Lionesses scare their fans and viewers witless last night with their blessed 2-1 victory over Norway, I found myself perusing some relatively old, but still incredibly pertinent videos from the E-Cigarette Summit 2014. One video in particular caught my attention more than the others, and in light of today’s blog post from Clive Bates; along with some other discussions that took place on social media, I got to thinking.
We all know how badly the state wants to control our lives, from deciding what we can and cannot eat to where we can and where we can’t light up a ciggie or vape.
Of course, they always make some ridiculous claim about it being for “public health” or to “protect the kiddies” as if saying that makes their state sponsored intervention into our private lives makes it alright. I got news for you, stay the hell out of my private life. It is mine to do with as I please and not the property of the State for you to control.
Habit, dependence, addiction, compulsion, craving, fixation, ritual. Each one of these words has a similar underlying meaning and are often used to describe the continuing act of smoking or vaping, and by extension an “addiction”. But what does it mean exactly?
As my brain slowly clears from the almost overwhelming amount of research publications, conferences and media stories nagging questions come to the fore. This one in particular has bothered me ever since my smoking days. What exactly is a habit and are habits the basis of addiction?
There is a heck of a lot of things rattling around in my head regarding the ongoing saga in the media about vapour products/e-cigarettes, whatever you wish to call them. Having recently reached a pretty handy milestone in being off combustible tobacco for a year, I’ve had a look back over the general thread of my vaping life and my participation in activism and advocacy, and I’m trying to understand a few things. Maybe this post will give my brain the help it needs. The question is, where to begin?
It’s odd isn’t it? A global online community of vapers numbering in the thousands, nay millions. One huge, dysfunctional family.
So why is it that when the community is needed, only a few hundred step up?
https://twitter.com/vapemestoopid/status/609740393224257536
At last count, 1,373 signatures on the campaign started by the Welsh Liberal Democrats. This is not a campaign to raise funds for research, it is a campaign to let those with more power than sense know how very wrong they are. Yet only 1,373 seem to care enough to sign it.
You may remember that earlier this week a whole host of bantha poo-doo hit the fan, covered quite succinctly by the wonderful VapeMeStoopid on her blog. This all kicked off with the announcement that the Welsh Assembly were intending to impose a ban on the use of electronic cigarettes in public places (bars, clubs, and so forth) and to bundle them into the same restrictions for use as combustible cigarettes.
I posted this as a guest on the Vapers In Power blog yesterday:
Yep, a CE4. As I mentioned in my story, a close friend of mine loaned me some hardware, mixed some basic juices and gave me some much-needed advice. I started out with 18mg/ml nicotine juice in that CE4, a blue one in case anyone was wondering, and set about reducing my daily cigarette intake. Looking back on those early days, and having experienced the old 510-T for a short while a few years previously, I certainly harboured doubts as to whether or not vaping would actually help me. After all, I wanted to seriously cut back on the number of cigarettes I was smoking, but not quit. I mean, in the week prior to actually getting the CE4 I had smoked almost 400 cigarettes. Half of that number disappeared over the weekend. I knew something had to change, but you know what?
As with everything I post on this blog, the subject is one I take relatively seriously and often I put a lot of thought into saying what I want to say. In this instance, it’s more a case of trying to put some coherence into my addled thinking.
It is yet another topic that has been at the back of my mind, and it includes some generic observations that I’ve made over the last twelve months.