When a new societal wrinkle is introduced, it rarely does so at more than one social level. When it does, it more often than not is considered a “revolution”.

Such is the case with electronic cigarettes, which are creating a social sieve and trickling down everywhere.

Because nicotine users can be found in every layer of the onion we call society.

The latest penetration is via New York’s cultural elite, with a one-day syposium at the noted Rhizome  art and technology center called “This is the ENDD: The Electronic Cigarette in Context”. ENDD of course stands for electronic nicotine delivery device.

The story propagated because of an over-hyped headline about “e-cig evangelists”, but the gathering brought together artists, academics, philosophers and other pro-vapor folks for lectures, presentations, and seminars about e-cigarettes in our tobacco-centric culture and society.

Trust me, it was all quite heavy, heady and pedantic, though an inevitable part of vape culture’s growing presence in every everyday life. A good thing, natch.

One aspect of the Rhizome event which might get some public traction though is a music compilation by musician David Ross  called Cloud Chasing Vol. 1, which Ross calls “the first collection of music for vapers by vapers”.

Ross is better known as DJ and musician ADR, as well as part of the techno-industrial duo “Gatekeeper”, and a well known figure around New York.

Although the recent over-syndication of this story is focused on the big-ass “e-cig evangelists” concept, the real story is really about ADR and the further e-cigarette infiltration of even the artsy-fartsy factions of society.

A class-action lawsuit in Santa Ana, California is seeking damages against what the plaintiff is calling “deceptive” practices and false claims that e-cigs can “help smokers quit”.

Now we know what the FDA says about this. And we know NJoy Electronic Cigarettes, the targetted e-cig maker, is clearly not stupid.

But who is the dumberer of these two? The Litigant for making the claim, or legal rep Brian Chase for taking it on?

While the small print on the NJoy package states this is not a cessation device, his client claims it’s just to duck the FDA, then says the NJoy site itself “suggests” so.

He’s apparently done no research. The site actually states their “marketing practices [were] reviewed by Federal District and Appellate Courts and found to have not made or implied health claims.”

The litigants also refer to an old FDA report about the presence of diethylene glycol in the e-juice; however, it was another brand, and of the many other studies done since, the only one that found the stuff. Ever.

And even more ridiculously,  they claim e-cigarettes contain the same “cancer-causing agents as traditional cigarettes”.

It makes you wonder if this isn’t a put-up job by anti-vapers, in light of the FDA’s current commiserating prepatory to launching regulations… we’ll see what traction this gets in the media.

But when Mr. Chase does his prepatory case work, he just may drop the case. And if he doesn’t perform due diligence?

Well, the judge will laugh. Or cry…

It would be a shame if e-cigarettes are regulated off the market or redefined as “medecines”, especially after hearing about this new gizmo.

Seriously, if Batman vaped, this would be the one he hung off his utility belt.

It’s called the Supersmoker Bluetooth and can connect to your phone while you vape and let you make and place calls. Phone your contacts… with your personal vaporizer, okay?

On top of this you can set up a playlist on your smart phone and listen straight from the speaker on the Supersmoker (yeah, there’s a speaker, though no word on how it sounds).

It’s innovation and experiments like this and another smart-ecig with an app which should shame those who would destroy this new creative frontier along with hundreds of thousands of lives to killer burning tobacco.

As the song goes, we need a hero…

Parties long suspected of generating anti-electronic-cigarette lies and propaganda currently infesting mass media have finally, openly entered the fray.

Apparently against their will.

In a series of documents emailed to European Union members regarding Tobacco Product Directive revisions, currently under discussion, pharmacorp giant GlaxoKlineSmith “recommended” e-cigarettes be treated as medicines, much as their own nicotine gums and patches.

It seems they’re concerned vaping will be a gateway to smoking, unlike GKS’s own nicotine “cessation” devices and products, with their spectacular 90% failure rate which prompts patients to go back to inhaling tobacco smoke.

They’re also concerned about two-tiered nicotine regulation, e-cig advertising advantages, and other recommendations from their “analysis” which are hardly credible from a company which two years ago paid a $3,000,000,000 dollar fine for bribing doctors to feed suicide-ideation-inducing drugs to children and selling anti-depressants as “weight-loss” pills.

They don’t seem to grasp vape-sticks aren’t nicotine-cessation products, but tobacco-smoke cessation devices. Not nicotine addiction cures, but a replacement nicotine acquisition medium.

The leaked e-mails interestingly also contain requests for face-to-face meetings with EU Commission members to discuss GKS’s analysis and recommendations, which causes one to wonder which “discussions” they didn’t want in paper trails.

Just search the internet for “Tyrone Hayes” and “Theo Colborn” to understand what major pharma/agribusiness are capable…

While Health Canada deepens its dumbness on e-cigarettes, Canadian entrepreneurs are basically ignoring the health agency’s over 250 cease-and-desist letters.

Although this has been considered particularly aggressive on the government’s part, they as yet haven’t arrested, raided or fined any of the few brick&mortar shops they’ve notified.

This is probably due to the fact electronic cigarette components and e-liquids don’t quite fit in the legal definitions laid out in the Canadian Food and Drugs Act for “Device” and “Drug”. Legal challenges would probably set negative precedents, and side for merchants’ insistence e-cigs fall under the Consumer Chemicals and Containers regulations.

And so Canadian business people, ex-smokers converted to digital, have opened actual shops, if not lounges, here and there in that huge country; in British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Quebec. In fact, Montreal now has two vape shops; the latest, Vaporus, in the heart of the city’s Downtown, has barely just opened and probably hasn’t received its own politely-worded request to stop.

But it won’t be long, and until the government does its research and sets any sorts of regulation, it’ll continue collecting that huge chunk of tax revenue regular tobacco provides.

And Vaporus will make a lot of money.

If you don’t know Helen Flanagan, it’s forgivable. You probably live in the USA.

Flanagan played Rosie Webster on British soap opera Coronation Street, which was never picked up by American networks. Yet the soap, nick-named “Corrie” by fans, is the longest running (over fifty years!) and successful TV show in the world.

Since starting at the tender age of 9, Flanagan’s appearance helped guide the storyline and her character, growing from fresh-faced child to troubled teen and blooming into a young woman with credible ambitions to be a model and actress.

Which, in fact, she went on to do after leaving “Corrie”, as a striking, buxom blue-eyed television actress, recently branching out into films.

Now, she’s also a spokesmodel for UK e-cig company KIK, promoting at launch parties and the like as well as apparently having kicked her “fags” for KIK’s appropriately named ”Desire” vapesticks.

Vamp on, vaper!

(Or vape on, vamp…?)

Valentine’s Day must be a popular day for gifting electronic cigarettes.

Everyone’s got something in some way, shape or form.

However the most spectacular special so far is Premium Vapes‘ Valentines Day bundle, and it’s not likely to be beaten.

The “bundle” is actually a his & her (or his & his, or her & her) pair of starter kits which can be completely customized as to colors and vapor flavors, fully accessorized down to the batteries and two carrying cases (for the purposes of matching colors heh).

But what is important if you want to give that significant other the gift of dropping smoking with you, or even that loveable couple who have to mask their smokey tobacconess with perfume when they come over, is the price.

Premium Vaps is offering the duo-kit worth over $220, for less than $90. That’s an insane 60% (almost) savings on the full value of the ensemble…

It’s almost worth proposing to someone… nah.

In a surprising piece recently both on television and the web, Tulsa Fox affiliate Fox23 came out neither for or against electronic cigarettes.

The most surprising aspect of it was that it wasn’t an anti-vapor hit piece.

Rather, it was about the bacteria residing in vapers’ vape-sticks. The station’s reporter basically took swabs of three different e-cig user’s devices and brought them to a university lab, where two of these were found to be poorly maintained, essentially because the subjects said they would just leave theirs lying anywhere and not clean them daily or every cartridges change.

The third participant said she kept hers on a lanyard, which granted her the most points and cleanest puffer’s mouthpiece.

Ultimately it was about maintenance of the personal vaporizer and hygiene.

It took the electronic cigarette for granted, neither judging against it or rallying for it.

Just as things should be.

The logic behind the nonsensical movement to ban electronic cigarettes almost everywhere is persistently frustrating.

All the ingredients in e-cig juice or “e-liquid” are already studied and approved by the FDA and other notable bodies. They have been used in various combinations and different ways in many sorts of foods, mouthwash, soaps and etc etc.

Why is this combination particularly suspect? Maybe the fact it’s heated and vaporized?

Well there are more than a few studies on “second-hand” vapor and the like which confirm the stuff is as safe as the atmospheric fog at concerts and club-venues.

Certainly, e-cigarettes made domestically and their accessories as well as the liquids used to create the vapor vapers vape maintain a standard of quality and safety.

As all things presumably are.

And when they’re not? They’re recalled, not banished.

How many millions of cars were recalled for safety deficiencies last year alone? (Over 750,000,000)

Toys and deadly cribs for children, baby formula, potent medicines and simple acetominophine. Food. Laptops. The list is endless. We don’t ban these for the sins of a few company “cock ups” as Brits say.

Why so personal vaporizers?

Apollo Electronic Cigarettes has unleashed a wondrously silly, delicious and devious-sounding flavor for their new just-in-time-for-Superbowl e-liquid, called “Not-Cho Cheese Fauxritos”.

Really. Sound it out. Seems it’s exactly what it sounds like – cheese natcho flavored “faux” Doritos.

The company is coming out with the vapor tastiness just in time for the Super Bowl and pizza, beer & chicken-wings weekend – and invite their Facebook followers to order the e-juice with the coupon-code FOOTBALL to get 30% off the price.

This is a great time to bundle up the offer with one of Apollo E-Cigarettes “holiday” starter kits, priced as low as twenty dollars, to initiate your conversion from analog (tobacco) to digital (vapor) for this celebratory weekend…