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mmmmmm....... what do you think?

I know there has been opposition on here when the Blu offer was put up - should we be accepting at all of Big Tobacco's products at all? My heart says a big fat no on it. I really don't understand HNB as much as I feel I should though. Strangely enough had an email from someone at PMI asking if there was any chance of advertising on here. I have asked him to send details over about emissions data for HNB and how it compares to the vaping that we love. I can see that it is going to be less harmful than smoking but can't see that it will be as less harmful (clumsy wording but you know what I mean!) as vaping. If that is the case then why on earth would we promote HNB as an alternative to vaping. And then you read Mr Dorn's article again and I am back in indecisive Dave territory. Advertising HND certianly feels repugnant. I will do what I can to learn more about it so I can argue the toss one way or the other with some level of clarity.

The thing is, the only thing that vaping has in common with tobacco products is the nicotine that most of us use, and it seems like a good idea for vaping to be distanced as far away as possible from anything else tobacco related. So whilst the vaping community should be promoting Tobacco Harm Reduction and thus fighting against COPD, lung cancer and so forth as Dave says, we have to ask ourselves if it is our community that should be promoting any products that actually have tobacco in them.

Just because we vape as a form of Tobacco Harm Reduction, that does not neccessarily mean we should be promoting other forms of THR, especially forms that actually use tobacco. Ideally, that is the job of someone else - someone who wants to promote anti-smoking in general, and would include HNB, SNUS, Vaping, and Nicotine sprays and patches etc in their list of things that are better than actually smoking. Those other methods of harm reduction are not within the remit of the vaping community, im my opinion.

It is probably a bad analogy, but look at Veganism. Vegans promote a lifestyle that is all about not harming or exploiting animals in any way. They are at the extreme end of "animal harm reduction". They don't eat meat or fish, but nor do they eat eggs or cheese, or drink milk. Obvously you do not have to kill the animals to get eggs cheese or milk, but should a Vegan magazine promote eating cheese and eggs in various ways as a means to help stopping you from eating meat?
 
I'm not so sure ..... I'm a vaper who vapes almost exclusively tobacco flavours, and I like NET tobaccos. How far apart are tobacco and vaping really, for many of us? To me, the benefit of vaping is not smoking, so I'm happy to hear about any product that is likely to be a lot safer than smoking as an alternative. If HNB proves to be not as safe as vaping, then let's hear about it, if it proves to be safer .... then let's hear about it......?

The sideshow of dicks on YouTube getting hot under the collar and Big Tobacco obfuscating is same old, same old.

ADDED: and I liked the Dave Dorn video - just got a chance to watch it properly..
 
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The thing is, the only thing that vaping has in common with tobacco products is the nicotine that most of us use, and it seems like a good idea for vaping to be distanced as far away as possible from anything else tobacco related. So whilst the vaping community should be promoting Tobacco Harm Reduction and thus fighting against COPD, lung cancer and so forth as Dave says, we have to ask ourselves if it is our community that should be promoting any products that actually have tobacco in them.

Just because we vape as a form of Tobacco Harm Reduction, that does not neccessarily mean we should be promoting other forms of THR, especially forms that actually use tobacco. Ideally, that is the job of someone else - someone who wants to promote anti-smoking in general, and would include HNB, SNUS, Vaping, and Nicotine sprays and patches etc in their list of things that are better than actually smoking. Those other methods of harm reduction are not within the remit of the vaping community, im my opinion.

It is probably a bad analogy, but look at Veganism. Vegans promote a lifestyle that is all about not harming or exploiting animals in any way. They are at the extreme end of "animal harm reduction". They don't eat meat or fish, but nor do they eat eggs or cheese, or drink milk. Obvously you do not have to kill the animals to get eggs cheese or milk, but should a Vegan magazine promote eating cheese and eggs in various ways as a means to help stopping you from eating meat?

I see what you mean but I don't get the analogy. Imagine if vaping had not been a thing but HNB had come on to the scene earlier and in a more hobbyist manner. Imagine different devices and being able to make up different flavour tobaccos and then heat them up. Would we all be Not Burners rather than vapers? Would we be as staunchly against vaping as a thing were it to look like it was invading our space?

For me it is more about getting off smoking than it is about vaping - I like nic and I am prepared to try different delivery methods. If SNUS was available here I would definitely try it! While I am all for every smoker out there becoming a vaper I know that in it's current format it will not have the wide ranging impact that it could. The vaping that we do is fiddly and messy at times. If you are not prepared to get your hands dirty or if your mind doesn't work in a particular way in terms of working out why your Nautilus is tasting like shit all of a sudden then vaping can be a frustrating and costly exercise in attempting to quit. When you consider what we were like as smokers - one brand, light it, smoke it, job done.

My hope is still that vaping will get easier. The pod devices are the closest thing to something that could be accepted by the main stream but the cost of the pods is eye watering - we really need something that is really easy to use and considerably cheaper than smoking. Only then will we see a bigger uptake. The good thing is that I firmly believe the independent sector can make this happen. But the reality is - as we saw with Von Erl, that companies that are successful are likely to get bought up by big tobacco. Like Dave said, they are big companies with deep pockets and they have the infrastructure to push the products out to a wider audience. Which is not great due to the mistrust of them. And I don't agree with Dave about Big T not being inherently evil - the shit they are still pulling in the developing world is disgusting and is not simply the actions of a legal company supplying a demand. It's a fucked up world!!
 
I'm trying to get clued up on hnb myself currently. As damn it I mis my Cuban tobacco. But I think it's a looser from most angles.
Far more folk moved to vaping due to financial restraints. I know many of you did it purely for health and some just love a gadget but we are a tiny percentage of the vaping world. Hnb is still going to cost and most of the "everyday" vapers I know use simple pen setups with a month's worth of juice for a tenner. The most used praise is "saves me a fortune"
I hate big tobacco moving into vaping as it significantly the end of independence and the beginning of price rises.
The initial advert was worthy of debate bit certainly not all this nonsense.
 
I see what you mean but I don't get the analogy.
The analogy, whether it is a bad analogy or not, is pretty straightforward.

"Hey, Vegans! You are against eating meat, aren't you? So why don't you promote eating cheese as an alternative?"

"Because we don't eat cheese either, and we don't like the ethics of the way the milk is produced, the negative effect it has on the cow and her calves."

"But eating cheese is still better than eating meat isn't it? Aren't you supposed to be for animal harm reduction?"


Imagine if vaping had not been a thing but HNB had come on to the scene earlier and in a more hobbyist manner. Imagine different devices and being able to make up different flavour tobaccos and then heat them up. Would we all be Not Burners rather than vapers? Would we be as staunchly against vaping as a thing were it to look like it was invading our space?
No, we would probably have moved onto using vaping as an even better alternative to smoking than HNB, as it doesn't have to involve evil tobacco as much, and is probably even safer. I simply can't imagine HNB to be as safe as vaping, although I am awaiting studies to see if that is true or not.


For me it is more about getting off smoking than it is about vaping - I like nic and I am prepared to try different delivery methods. If SNUS was available here I would definitely try it!
Why on Earth would you try SNUS? They are known to cause mouth cancer! Nasty nasty tobacco! Is vaping not keeping you off the smokes? [emoji4]


While I am all for every smoker out there becoming a vaper I know that in it's current format it will not have the wide ranging impact that it could. The vaping that we do is fiddly and messy at times. If you are not prepared to get your hands dirty or if your mind doesn't work in a particular way in terms of working out why your Nautilus is tasting like shit all of a sudden then vaping can be a frustrating and costly exercise in attempting to quit. When you consider what we were like as smokers - one brand, light it, smoke it, job done.
For the die-hard smokers and people who obviously don't want a complicated replacement, pod systems do indeed seem the way to go. Or modern better performing cigalikes, even.

My hope is still that vaping will get easier. The pod devices are the closest thing to something that could be accepted by the main stream but the cost of the pods is eye watering - we really need something that is really easy to use and considerably cheaper than smoking. Only then will we see a bigger uptake. The good thing is that I firmly believe the independent sector can make this happen. But the reality is - as we saw with Von Erl, that companies that are successful are likely to get bought up by big tobacco. Like Dave said, they are big companies with deep pockets and they have the infrastructure to push the products out to a wider audience. Which is not great due to the mistrust of them. And I don't agree with Dave about Big T not being inherently evil - the shit they are still pulling in the developing world is disgusting and is not simply the actions of a legal company supplying a demand. It's a fucked up world!!

Indeed, and with the shit that big tobacco is, and has been, up to, we as vapers should not be supporting them. HNB uses tobacco, is not vaping, and therefore should not be promoted in trade magazines for vape shop owners in an attempt to get them to stock HNB in vape shops. HNB is something for tobacconists to stock as an alternative to cigarettes - that's where the smokers go and where they might be persuaded to change.
 
The analogy, whether it is a bad analogy or not, is pretty straightforward.

"Hey, Vegans! You are against eating meat, aren't you? So why don't you promote eating cheese as an alternative?"

"Because we don't eat cheese either, and we don't like the ethics of the way the milk is produced, the negative effect it has on the cow and her calves."

"But eating cheese is still better than eating meat isn't it? Aren't you supposed to be for animal harm reduction?"

But I didn't get into vaping because I was against big tobacco. I got into it because I wanted to stop smoking for health reasons. If people don't get on with vaping then why not try HNB? So where does the nic that we vape come from? Isn't it the same tobacco farms that produce cigarettes?

No, we would probably have moved onto using vaping as an even better alternative to smoking than HNB, as it doesn't have to involve evil tobacco as much, and is probably even safer. I simply can't imagine HNB to be as safe as vaping, although I am awaiting studies to see if that is true or not.

If we were as against evil tobacco why did we carry on smoking? I was aware of their tactics before I started vaping but I loved my smokes so carried on. It's going to take a lot to budge me from vaping but if I was a hardened HNBer then I might say the same about vaping - that's my point. I want to see more data too before I make my mind up, my heart is saying it must be bad, worse than vaping for definite, but my head says we need to see more details!

Why on Earth would you try SNUS? They are known to cause mouth cancer! Nasty nasty tobacco! Is vaping not keeping you off the smokes? [emoji4]

@Mawsley penned this earlier - https://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/news/vaping-news/2018-04-02_a-lot-of-fuss-over-snussing.html

The last sentence:
"A report in the Lancet last year found no evidence of harm caused by decades of widespread snus use “for any health outcome.”"

The piece that caused the stir has a comment from a reader too:
http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/blog/2018/3/31/a-sorry-silence-on-snus.html

"His quackery ignores all valid since and should be ignored. Snus, contrary to his assertions is not related to several cancers. The last potential link to pancreatic cancer has been discounted. But old Stan doesn't read actual scientific reports just the ideologically tainted tobacco control propaganda. Sinus is being unfairly attacked, but you could say the same about vaping and second hand smoke. It's time to expose tobacco control's lies."

I am not sure that snus is a harmful as you are suggesting. And as for evil tobacco - like I said, the nic in your juice is from tobacco.

For the die-hard smokers and people who obviously don't want a complicated replacement, pod systems do indeed seem the way to go. Or modern better performing cigalikes, even.

Indeed, and with the shit that big tobacco is, and has been, up to, we as vapers should not be supporting them. HNB uses tobacco, is not vaping, and therefore should not be promoted in trade magazines for vape shop owners in an attempt to get them to stock HNB in vape shops. HNB is something for tobacconists to stock as an alternative to cigarettes - that's where the smokers go and where they might be persuaded to change.

Sorry, not trying to be purposefully argumentative just think this is an interesting subject and I want to know more about snus and HNB before I dismiss them. I know that BT involvement is an issue and it makes me uneasy but, as I said before, for me it's about harm reduction and getting people off smoking.
 
Tsk, all the thinking... much easier to grab a pitchfork and rouse a rabble. Speaking of which - I'd have more sympathy for the video jockeys' point of view if I hadn't just seen a live show the two joined to talk about subscriber counts and total views, giggle over dick jokes and slag off other reviewers - was expecting something about this specific issue - but no. A Super Awesome show it was not - apologies go out to the misguided host, and I'm probably due one in return tbh.
 
I've enjoyed looking into this, it's a debate worth having. What worries me slightly is that many of the arguments from the vaping industry side are almost beginning to come up with what sound like the kind of self-interested points that you might expect from Big Tobacco. IMHO Big Tobacco aren't actually 'evil' as such, they are just motivated by profit and the survival of their industry As are most industries if we're honest - they're not actually setting out to make people ill. I can perfectly well understand why the vape industry would be protective of its achievements, and I realise that I'm just a consumer and not facing the issues that they are ........ but 'it will be the downfall of the vaping industry' isn't necessarily my own, personal, first concern. The vape industry, no matter how well-intentioned at the start, is an industry nonetheless, with vested interests of its own ...... it's easy to forget that.
 
I've enjoyed looking into this, it's a debate worth having. What worries me slightly is that many of the arguments from the vaping industry side are almost beginning to come up with what sound like the kind of self-interested points that you might expect from Big Tobacco. IMHO Big Tobacco aren't actually 'evil' as such, they are just motivated by profit and the survival of their industry As are most industries if we're honest - they're not actually setting out to make people ill. I can perfectly well understand why the vape industry would be protective of its achievements, and I realise that I'm just a consumer and not facing the issues that they are ........ but 'it will be the downfall of the vaping industry' isn't necessarily my own, personal, first concern. The vape industry, no matter how well-intentioned at the start, is an industry nonetheless, with vested interests of its own ...... it's easy to forget that.

That's a very balanced view, personally..... I think they are scum.
 
That's a very balanced view, personally..... I think they are scum.
It's not that I don't think they're scum, I do ..... it's just I think it might be a very fine line before good people start behaving like scum .........
 
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