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?

Why oh why are there no end of ’experts’ claiming all sorts of utter bunkem when it comes to vaping? I’m reminded of the looney scientologist that on occasion goes on a rampage against us vapers. I’m not sure why these morons do this kind of thing, although I did notice that in the looney scientologists case he had just released a book. No I haven’t read it and I have no intentions to.

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?

Not going to beat about the bush with this one, not going to play nice. After all the evidence presented to date along with all the upcoming evidence certain organisations still don’t get it.

We, as vapers know unequivocally that there are certain organisations along with certain individuals that seek to dehumanize smokers, and by extension vapers. Who is it I’m picking on today then?

The American Medical Association. Now if that sounds at all familiar, it should. It is effectively an American version of the BMA, and we know just how useless they are. What is worrying in this instance, is the seeming lack of math understanding. Bear with, and let’s take a look at the PR rubbish first.

Breaking News! E-Cigs Will Help Them Quit Smoking! A survey says…

Same old same old. Whenever someone references a “survey” it does make me wonder who wrote the survey, and how they interpret the results. This one is unfortunately no different.

E-cigarette users are much more hopeful that the devices will help them quit smoking than the general public is, including people who just smoke traditional tobacco cigarettes, according to a new French survey.

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.

With the fun and games over in Warsaw at the moment with the Global Forum on Nicotine,things have been relatively quiet on the anti or scaremongering front, but a couple of articles did catch my eye, one of which I’m a little hesitant to talk about simply because the underlying subject has such a wide range of opinions from the vaping community.

The first of these articles or stories would be this one: