My MP got back to me

[steffijade]

Smoking causes diseases. Many of them. We would not vape if we did not smoke. One is an alternative to the other. Vaping prevents the same diseases that smoking causes, and is therefore a medicine for smoking.

Much the same as methadone is a medicine for the heroine addict, but in a much more extreme way. Heroine, bought off the street, leads to an addictive behavior that is negative to both health and social well being. Methadone presents an acceptable approach to a weaning addicts off their addiction. at the same time as feeding some of the addictive behaviours.

Smoking is not a disease in the same way that heroine addiction is not a disease. Should society not ATTEMPT to help heroine addicts? I know I am using extremes to make my argument here, but to say smoking is not a disease, but causes diseases, and is addictive, is a fallacy of argument, as far as government intervention is concerned.

OK then.. if we're using extremes, here are a few more.

If vaping prevents smoking and should therefore be considered a medicine, surely the same label could be attached to other forms of smoking prevention. People use hypnotism in quit attempts.. are you suggesting that hypnotism should be classed as a medicine? How about that book by Alan Carr? Sucking on Polos? Chewing on pen tops? Do you see the absurdity?

If we apply a logical extension to this thinking, we could say that exercise prevents obesity and as such, should be regulated as a medicine. Are you suggesting that the public needs to have regulations telling them how often and how far they can legally jog and what outfit to wear whilst doing so?

Sorry, but your justification for validating a 'medicine' label for vaping is flawed.

 

[Chegs]

OK then.. if we're using extremes, here are a few more.

If vaping prevents smoking and should therefore be considered a medicine, surely the same label could be attached to other forms of smoking prevention. People use hypnotism in quit attempts.. are you suggesting that hypnotism should be classed as a medicine? How about that book by Alan Carr? Sucking on Polos? Chewing on pen tops? Do you see the absurdity?

If we apply a logical extension to this thinking, we could say that exercise prevents obesity and as such, should be regulated as a medicine. Are you suggesting that the public needs to have regulations telling them how often and how far they can legally jog and what outfit to wear whilst doing so?

Sorry, but your justification for validating a 'medicine' label for vaping is flawed.

+1 to all this,I agree also that to try and educate a politician is like trying to douse a fire with petrol,the more they find out that it isn't a tobacco/burnt leaf the more determined they are to protect their income from taxation.

 

[anthonyb]

With all this toing and froing from it is it's not. Does anyone actually know whether e-cig's prevent, cure or minimize anything. Has anyone actually vaped for long enough to find out if it does any of the above.
Would it not be safe to say, that for a lot of us here, that have smoked for a long, that the damage has already been done. And we are now trying to minimize it.
I've already had the argument elsewhere about the safety of the e-cig and the testing requirements needed to get accurate results.
It seems that to get truly accurate results on their safety, you would need a group of volunteers for a study, that had never smoked or been subjected to second hand smoke, to take up vaping for the rest of their lives. It would pointless using any other means, or persons that had already been contaminated by cigarette smoke. If you wanted accurate results.
So when you say medicine, in the context of prevention, who's to say that your study group won't get cancer by other means (or ran over by a bus). All you ever here of is the people that died of cancer who where smokers. They never tell you of all the ones that die of cancer that where not smokers.
In my case, quitting cigarettes was a side affect of vaping, like a hangover is from alcohol. As I had no intention of quitting when I started vaping.
Don't do politics, their all as bad as each other. And if they all put as much energy into running the country, as they do slagging each other off, they might get somewhere.

 

[Derth Vaper]

Jeeeze tough thread. I for one am growing tired of this back and forth, arguing semantics and applauding politicians.

I work, pay taxes and don't harm anyone in my day to day existence (in fact I help out where I can).

After a shit day working to pay the Government, making my bosses richer and paying back the bankers (that were kind enough to lend me money to buy my overpriced house), I look forward to drinking too much wine and having vape.

This is my choice and surely my civil liberty (I don't want to be drawn on what that means).

If the Government want me to pay taxes on nicotine products I will, gladly. They don't care about me, you or anything other than preserving their seat and career progression (with a few exceptions).

The Chris Choi's comment "from my cold hands" is rapidly becoming my stance on this.

Please leave me the hell alone to make my own choices!!!

 

[Chegs]

Please leave me the hell alone to make my own choices!

I tweet this often during the twitter-bombs,and a picture of my Vamo is another tweet with

Does this look like an e-cigarette?

I also saw my MP was on twitter talking,so sent him a tweet asking when/if I was going to get an appointment to see him as I'd not received any reply to my emails asking for one,ignorant coont just ignored me.I'm now looking forward to next weeks local paper as hopefully it'll have my letter printed explaining what a total knobend Jedi is and why I think this way!

 

[SuperChris]

Ok, been out of action today...off to winter wonderland. But am back on it now and ready to disagree and fight my corner some more...

First, I am not arguing that it IS a medicine. I am arguing that it is perfectly reasonable for people to say that it is. The definition fits.

If vaping prevents smoking and should therefore be considered a medicine, surely the same label could be attached to other forms of smoking prevention. People use hypnotism in quit attempts.. are you suggesting that hypnotism should be classed as a medicine? How about that book by Alan Carr? Sucking on Polos? Chewing on pen tops? Do you see the absurdity?

This just doesn't make sense. None of the above, with the possible exception of polos, involves ingesting a drug. That is what we are doing. Of course the others you listed should not be considered medicine, but vaping easily could. I used extreme examples of comparable situations. Both were drugs taken to relieve symptoms of an addiction...on the one hand heroine, on the other, nicotine.

I know you don't like the argument. But it IS valid.

If we apply a logical extension to this thinking, we could say that exercise prevents obesity and as such, should be regulated as a medicine. Are you suggesting that the public needs to have regulations telling them how often and how far they can legally jog and what outfit to wear whilst doing so?

Again, we are not ingesting a drug whilst exercising. The argument is weak.

Sorry, but your justification for validating a 'medicine' label for vaping is flawed.

You might be correct. But nothing you have said has proven me otherwise. I made my comparisons carefully to back up an opinion that many non-vapers hold. I personally don't think of it as a medicine...but I can definitely see why others do, and why governments would like to get to grips with this new drug taking method before letting people run rampant with it. It makes perfect sense. Any new drug or drug delivery method should be tested and the results of those tests used to determine policy. Yes this is a perfect world scenario, with no big money, vested interests or bigoted short shortsightedness involved. No we do not live in that world. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to.




In answer to a few earlier points from the page before...

Chris do you write for a living? You seem to like it.
I write little but think more. Perhaps you could find some balance.

This is unnecessary. I can be accused of lots of things...but not thinking is not one of them. I feel I have argued my points as politely and as honestly as I see them. To resort to abuse, which this is, weakens your argument. Why bother even entering a discussion with comments like this? You might believe it, you might be right! But say it in your head, in private, away from a genuine discussion. It can only upset people and why would you want to do that? I like a good argument. If I am wrong...prove me wrong. Don't abuse me. Unnecessary.

It may have escaped you notice, but vapers HAVE been trying to engage and educate politicians, but apparently, the ones who have the 'clout' have no interest in engaging with us. They do not and will never see us as being on an equal footing and thus, worthy of approaching to discuss workable solutions. (Did they consult us before drafting their proposed regulations?)

It has definitely NOT escaped my notice...and if I gave that impression I didn't mean to! I even made the point in an earlier post that the way to win this is to do that very thing even more "if possible". For the final part of the draft...the EU parliament just voted to not medicinalise ecigs. A parliament made up of politicians. They were lobbied at, and we won it. It must be at least possible that it could happen again?

As far as they are concerned, they know what's best for us and it is US that need to be educated, by whatever means.

You need to recognise this and then perhaps you may begin to understand where you're going wrong.

I don't think this justifies anything, or in any way shows me where I am going wrong. Whatever their beliefs are on the matter, and whatever their purpose behind them, I can completely understand what you said as being true, and it wouldn't change my opinion one little bit. Why should it? I don't understand what you mean.

 

[SuperChris]

It isn't semantics. I think it is quite important that if we are going to say "vaping is not a medicine", that we have a considered and detailed argument to back up our case. The only way to generate the argument is to follow through this kind of discussion. We NEED to be able to back up our position to defend against the current attacks. If this ends up in court, and it quite easily could, then coherent logical argument that is fully defensible is the only means to win...and reach the final goal we all want!

i.e.

"Please leave me the hell alone to make my own choices"

Am I being a tosser, YES! Unashamedly so. I don't want people to think badly of me, or in any way think that I am "applauding politicians". If you read my posts carefully, I am not. I am trying, unsuccessfully, to state, that they have a reasonable argument and unless we can defend ourselves with logical replies that can counter their position, we are doomed to being outlawed.

 

[steffijade]

Ok, been out of action today...off to winter wonderland. But am back on it now and ready to disagree and fight my corner some more...

First, I am not arguing that it IS a medicine. I am arguing that it is perfectly reasonable for people to say that it is. The definition fits.



This just doesn't make sense. None of the above, with the possible exception of polos, involves ingesting a drug. That is what we are doing. Of course the others you listed should not be considered medicine, but vaping easily could. I used extreme examples of comparable situations. Both were drugs taken to relieve symptoms of an addiction...on the one hand heroine, on the other, nicotine.

I know you don't like the argument. But it IS valid.



Again, we are not ingesting a drug whilst exercising. The argument is weak.



You might be correct. But nothing you have said has proven me otherwise. I made my comparisons carefully to back up an opinion that many non-vapers hold. I personally don't think of it as a medicine...but I can definitely see why others do, and why governments would like to get to grips with this new drug taking method before letting people run rampant with it. It makes perfect sense. Any new drug or drug delivery method should be tested and the results of those tests used to determine policy. Yes this is a perfect world scenario, with no big money, vested interests or bigoted short shortsightedness involved. No we do not live in that world. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to.




In answer to a few earlier points from the page before...



This is unnecessary. I can be accused of lots of things...but not thinking is not one of them. I feel I have argued my points as politely and as honestly as I see them. To resort to abuse, which this is, weakens your argument. Why bother even entering a discussion with comments like this? You might believe it, you might be right! But say it in your head, in private, away from a genuine discussion. It can only upset people and why would you want to do that? I like a good argument. If I am wrong...prove me wrong. Don't abuse me. Unnecessary.



It has definitely NOT escaped my notice...and if I gave that impression I didn't mean to! I even made the point in an earlier post that the way to win this is to do that very thing even more "if possible". For the final part of the draft...the EU parliament just voted to not medicinalise ecigs. A parliament made up of politicians. They were lobbied at, and we won it. It must be at least possible that it could happen again?



I don't think this justifies anything, or in any way shows me where I am going wrong. Whatever their beliefs are on the matter, and whatever their purpose behind them, I can completely understand what you said as being true, and it wouldn't change my opinion one little bit. Why should it? I don't understand what you mean.

Your argument relies on pedantry and semantics.. don't be surprised if what you give is what you get. If you are insisting that it is 'perfectly reasonable' for people to label vaping as a medicine, then in effect you are conceding that you ARE saying it is a medicine. You may well be doing this on an unconscious level, unaware of the fact that subconsciously, you don't want to take responsibility for your own decisions and so want to have those decisions taken out of your hands and placed in the hands of people who believe they know what's best for you.

All the examples I listed could be classed as preventative and the reference to exercise isn't weak at all.. it's outlandish I'll grant, but that was just to point out the flawed parameters with which you were seeking to define 'medicine'.

My extreme examples seem to bother you, but I don't see why. They fit into your definition of a medicine (something that is not necessarily a cure and something that has a preventative action). But I note that you continue to add parameters to try and justify your pedantry. Now you insist that a medicine must contain a drug. Any other parameters you'd like to add at this point, rather than waiting for a response and thinking up yet another proviso to try and validate your argument?

I presume that you'd like to disbar any/all forms of alternative methods from your definition to fit in with rapidly expanding definition parameters?

If the ingestion of a chemical substance is suddenly important to your definition, how about replacing sugar with aspartame based products to reduce calorific intake? Last time I checked, I could still buy sweeteners without a prescription. Should we clear the supermarket shelves of Sweetex until they are regulated and restricted to packs of no more than 10, just on the off chance?

What you refer to as addiction, many others would refer to as dependency. Do you use the term addiction to place emphasis and try to add weight to your argument? The term 'nicotine addict' is widely used by the anti smoking lobby as a derisive term when trying to demonise/belittle smokers. Are you attempting to do something similar? It would have been as easy to use the term 'dependent' as it would to use 'addict' and I'm interested to know why you chose the more stereotypically negative term. Was this a conscious choice or did it just flow naturally from your stream of thought?

The reason I ask this is because I'm of the belief that the public in general has become brainwashed by anti smoking propaganda to such an extent that the more negative terminology springs to mind more easily than other terminology that would typically be viewed as having less negative connotations.

I think it's important to establish this because it might be an indicator of whether your pedantry/semantic approach is just a natural extension of you being brainwashed by years of largely negative/derogatory propaganda. There is no shame in this by the way, large sections of the population have been weak minded enough to buy into the acceptability of viewing smokers as subhuman and therefore valid targets for demonisation and easy stereotypical terminology such as 'addict'.

In reply to this :

"I don't think this justifies anything, or in any way shows me where I am going wrong. Whatever their beliefs are on the matter, and whatever their purpose behind them, I can completely understand what you said as being true, and it wouldn't change my opinion one little bit. Why should it? I don't understand what you mean."

Let me explain. You seem to be working from a false premise... namely that the 'powers that be' in this country can be reasoned with and persuaded to adopt reasonable, well thought out, sensible policies.

As you may be aware, the MHRA has already announced that they intend to introduce medical regulation, regardless of what happens in europe. If you are also aware that the MHRA is largely funded by big pharma corporations that rely on keeping people in a cycle of (smoking, buying their woefully inadequate NRT products, long term 'relapse' and a return to smoking again) to make profits, you will see the potential for conflict of interest and corruption.

Put in the simplest term, if 'they' are motivated enough to protect their income streams it won't matter how much we lobby or educate them. They'll simply steamroller over any opposition and go ahead with it anyway. Ultimately, that could end up in a long, drawn out legal battle but in the interim, whilst a defacto ban was still in place, how many current/potential vapers would be forced to return to/continue tobacco smoking due to inferior, ineffective products? Hence my often repeated advice to vapers to make themselves as independent as possible by learning to make their own devices, learning how to make coils, learning how to mix juice and stocking up. All of these things would empower vapers and help them to weather an effective ban.

Do you understand now?

You may be having fun, supposedly playing devil's advocate but how would you fare when the tables are turned I wonder?

You say it's reasonable to classify vaping as a medicine.. how would you justify the measures contained in the latest leak? (single use catridges, nicotine level restrictions, measured dosages etc).

I'd say that's the angle you need to be viewing this from because for the first time ever, 'they' have lost the moral high ground and need to justify their proposed regulations in a manner which would ultimately have stand up to legal scrutiny.

 

[Chegs]

It isn't semantics. I think it is quite important that if we are going to say "vaping is not a medicine", that we have a considered and detailed argument to back up our case. The only way to generate the argument is to follow through this kind of discussion. We NEED to be able to back up our position to defend against the current attacks. If this ends up in court, and it quite easily could, then coherent logical argument that is fully defensible is the only means to win...and reach the final goal we all want!

i.e.



Am I being a tosser, YES! Unashamedly so. I don't want people to think badly of me, or in any way think that I am "applauding politicians". If you read my posts carefully, I am not. I am trying, unsuccessfully, to state, that they have a reasonable argument and unless we can defend ourselves with logical replies that can counter their position, we are doomed to being outlawed.

Reading through your replies to our points of view is like trying to argue with the politicians.Everything we've said re:medicalisation of e-liquids/Personal Vapourizers you have countered with a response pretty much along the lines of "that doesn't hold up to scrutiny as there are no studies of vaping long-term that show e-liquids don't hurt us" It's like talking to Chris Choi & we're Dave Dorn on Vapour Trails TV as Chris asked several times during the show to be shown proof in the form of a scientific study or whatever & this wasn't given to him.(perhaps it was given to him after the show,but it would have stopped him steering the conversation back to proof during the interview) A little research through the pages of POTV will get YOU the links to various studies/reports from Drs/Professors to prove our case,that is what that "SEARCH" box is for top right of the forum pages.

 

[tartanthing]

Is SuperChris actually Chris Choi trolling us?