What is it with all these crazy stories lately?

Electronic cigarette blows up grandma.

Electronic cigarettes poison children.

Electronic cigarette causes forest fire.

Electronic cigarette induces pneumonia.

Electronic cigarette kills puppy (oh, FOR GOD’S SAKE).

But then when you sling mud, or spaghetti, or darts, at any and every surface you can see, something is bound to stick. So it seems the strategy here is to spot any event even peripherally connected to e-cigs, and spin it into a scare-fest of potential danger to anyone walking the street. It’s a template.

Those that fail? Par for the course, hey at least I tried, just the cost of doing bullshit.

I mean, business. Ahem.

… bottles of E-Cig liquid, that is.

In the wake of the recent surge of overblown panic stories over e-cigarette juice poisonings, it’s interesting to note that Apollo Ecig has announced a million-bottle giveaway.

This might seem perverse, but really it may simply be genius, counter-active marketing.

Consider what we know of Apollo’s high production standards and the fact that they’re created in the US in a quality and manner which will provide them with a jump in advance of any new FDA regulations due (someday…) down the pike.

So what better way to open up markets where they weren’t before, spreading the good word and “exposing” the public to the safety of electronic cigarettes.

All you have to do is enter the work “MILLION” at check out and…

Check it out!

Ex-child star turned just plain celebrity, Corey Feldman has written a rather poised, intelligent letter to the LA City Council in light of their having banned vaping everywhere – except Vapor Lounges and Shops.

Feldman (Stand By Me, The Lost Boys) explained he took up electronic cigarettes over four years ago, to try quitting tobacco (again) as a January 1st resolution.

And it worked; Feldman hasn’t “had a hit of a regular cigarette yet.”

One thing he fails to mention, but which the article in the LA Weekly does unironically, is that council members, who voted  to include bars and clubs in the ban despite of a proposed exception, did so because they didn’t youth exposed to smoke and vapor.

As if kids, youth, and people up to 18 years of age can get anywhere near a bar or terrace.

This is the logic of the anti-ecig  “movement” (if you want to call it that)j – they don’t even have anything close to a sense of humor, let alone an awareness of their self-conflicting so-called arguments…

Clueless.

It’s hard to grasp what UK-based JAC Vapour (because the Brits don’t spell it Vapor) is up to with this new vapour technology they have called Clear Steam.

The company claims their vapor-less vapor, which ”dissipates before it is exhaled” will help prevent the negative connotations associated with electronic cigarettes due the vapor’s resemblance to tobacco smoke…

Now while this may or may not be as superficial as the argument e-cigs should be banned because they look like the real thing, the question here is… if it dissipates before you blow it out, does it do so in your body? In your lungs?!?

The technology, so-called, is not explained anywhere yet, and the only hits returned in search engines are the site itself, and an article in the British Morning Advertiser.

Whether this vaporless vapor is risky for health (how the heck does it do that?), those noble intentions may backfire on the e-cigarette in a bad way from the anti-vapor crowd…

The usual alarmists just might comeup with the argument (to use the term lightly) if you can’t even see it, it must be more dangerous, more insidious… it could be everywhere around us and we won’t even know…

Catch the drift?

At any rate, time will tell, but in the meantime, think about the sad death of the smoke-ring (er, vapor-ring) this would entail should it prove popular among vapers…

Since we have a Google alert out for stories on electronic cigarettes, it’s fair to say we have a finger on the pulse of the e-cig “world” out there, and lately it’s pretty ugly.

Lordy, but what a barrage of inane stories about calls to Poison Centers throughout the country we’ve been getting. Words like “epidemic” and “skyrocket” are used, alarming us all how evil the vape stick is…

As George Carlin used to say, “Aw, fuck, here we go again…”

Look, these are not cases of ecig-liquid poisoning… these are cases of bad parenting.

Huffington Post’s recent piece is an excellent and objective article about e-cigs, and about e-liquid in particular. Although it doesn’t bring up anything about parents, it does provide a sobering perspective on the reports of hundreds of calls to poison centers.

The authors, Dr. Amy Fairchild and Dr. Ronald Bayer (hah), point out the hundreds of cases are no big deal compared to the hundreds of thousands of reported poisoning by household things, like make-up and laundry soap. There’re no calls to ban that stuff, is there; on top of which parents are cautioned and told to use common sense, put the stuff out of reach. We don’t blame the detergent.

Even the New York Times has fallen alarmist and overreacted to reports about exposure to nicotine-containing liquid to be (normally) used via a vaporizer.

They blame e-liquid. All these articles seem to originate from the same press release or something.

HuffPost piece is a very small drop of reasoned spittle in the whirlwind of anti-electronic cigarette propaganda… but every drop helps.

It’s a silly, small study which contradicts itself and misrepresents its findings, and it. Is. Everywhere.

And surprisingly it isn’t by anti-vapor guru Stanton Glantz.

But it’s just as bad as Glantz’s recent output.

Firstly, it’s a survey. Respondents were clearly not chosen based on their intention to quit using electronic cigarettes, simply on the basis they were smokers. Of whom about one tenth also used e-cigs.

They weren’t asked if they were “just trying” e-cigarettes, planning on butting out with them, how heavily they smoked or how long.

They weren’t asked if vapesticks were easily available in their area, or could only be ordered online. 

Then a year later, after following up with respondents who had reported trying vapor on top of smoke, they found “only” eight had quit.

Thus they concluded e-cigs didn’t help smokers quit. Based on 88 smokers who tried e-cigs, 80 were still smokers in that time.

Now a dumb study is nothing new or surprising, especially when it appears it was haphazardly structured based on a pre-conceived conclusion.

But this little thing, which is just reported in a research letter in the JAMA magazine, is making headlines everywhere, an over-reported, super-hyped, infuriating parroting of the same false “findings” in every magazine, online journal, newspaper at every level, from small local newsheets to national “news” outlets.

Are people really so afraid of vapor they’ll grasp any straw they come across?

As EcigBeat readers are no doubt aware by now, Imperial Tobacco is suing up to a dozen e-cigarette companies for patent infringement.

What is probably less well known is that the man behind this move is none other than Hon Lik, inventor of the original modern electric cigarette.

It would seem getting the shaft over his invention of the electronic cigarettes for a decade has made Mr. Lik a bit of a villain in this story…

But who can blame him? Dreaming up his device after his father perished to lung cancer, Mr. Lik probably thought he would make much money while saving thousands if not millions of lives. And seeing the cottage e-cigarette industry pop up all over the world must have been disillusioning.

If he was bitter, Mr. Lik was also canny, not only selling his acquired bundle of copyrights to Imperial Tobacco but including himself in the 75 million deal.

Now, he’s in a position to go after the patents of a handful, ten or so, of American companies he never managed to get to pay up or give up while he was with Ruyan (now known as Dragonite).

Certainly some of the litigation’s targets already have patents, and will put up a fight to keep them, as well as manage to poke holes in the litigations considering some of Lik’s patents are very vague. But the story will continue.

Popcorn and vape-stick in hand, we await…

The push to ban e-cigs – even the non-nicotine type – is weirder than hell.

After all, tobacco isn’t banned (well, we know why).

Again, the urge to regulate electronic cigarettes is so odd.

After all, coffee isn’t regulated, sugar isn’t regulated.

And while cars are regulated, even their potential for death and destruction won’t have us banning them. Even when, in one specific instance, GM’s claim a defect “only” caused 13 deaths, the Center For Auto Safety said it was more like over 300… So why ban, tax or regulate electronic cigarettes?

Let’s start by having the pot call the kettle a toaster.

Ya see, part of the problem is calling these electronic nicotine delivery devices (ENDDs) “electronic cigarettes” or even worse “e-cigarettes”; we all do it, and for a soon-to-be or wannabe ex-smoker it makes sense. From the producer’s side, it quickly cuts to what the thing is not, which is a combustive analog nicotine delivery device (CANDD?).

But still…. “Cigarette”? Did vapor-stick makers even think before sticking the 20th century’s most reviled thing’s most reviled name? Apparently not.

So let’s call e-cigs clopsters instead now. Or therasticks. Whatever – let’s take a vaper’s vote on it.

When you think of it, clopsters are a lot like methadone. According to the best research, methadone “maintenance therapy has been the most systematically studied and most successful.” And it must have made the pharmaceutical companies very rich…

How much you want to bet the pharmcos are beating themselves on the head for not having thought of clopsters first?

Today, everybody woke up Irish.

Many also woke up hungover, wishing they didn’t have to step out of the pub for a smoke every half-hour after the parade last night, epecially in the North-Eastern parts where temperatures were frigid, even for March 17th.

Friends should refer smokers to electronic cigarette sites & stores, since everyone likes holidays for promotions and specials.

While surprisingly few did this year, here’s what we dug up:

Apollo E-Cigs is offering a free CE4 clearomizer with any purchase of one of their green luminous batteries (coupon code: GREEN).

Premium Vapes is gifting off 25% all orders of their colored batteries with coupon code colors25.

But those are for people who vape already. What can you offer that erstwhile smoker with a hangover today?

Well,  the aptly-named GreenSmoke offers 20% off everything, store-wide, until wednesday the 19th. Help the neophyte emerge from clouds of tobacco smoke for St. Patrick’s Day and spread the luck of the Irish. Plus, they might give you the free beer cozy they get with every order over $100!

Speaking of which, with all the flavors available out there for e-liquids, you’d think they’d come up with a vape that tastes like beer….

Stanton Glantz is a respected leader in the fight against tobacco. For decades, he’s been instrumental in reducing the consumption and marketing of the dark smoke.

Now, Dr Glantz seems to have lost his cause. Cigarettes aren’t allowed in restaurants and bars, on terraces, in work places or public parks.

He’s won his cause. Smokers are ostracized, discriminated against, snobbily dismissed.

He has nothing left to do… except fight nicotine now he’s come upon electronic cigarettes.

The problem is he’s not presenting facts or “fighting” e-cigs with any science. Glantz is using his knowledge of statistics and experience with studies to make “conclusions” to which the actual findings don’t point.

He then gallops to the press doing what he does best, now: misleading the hoardes.

His chief strong point during the tobacco wars was his ability to provide press relief and expert punditry, rendering data understandable to all. Remember, the “Doctor” is of the applied mechanics and engineering, not the medical, sort.

However, this is a smart person. He can’t not know his conclusions contradict facts.

Such as? Recently stating vaping is a gateway to cigarettes, whilst also claiming dramatic increases in teens using e-cigarettes. Even one of his own co-authors denounced Stantz’s blatant misrepresentation of data.

But, the media and politicians repeat His Word without reading a thing. Other than the intro, maybe, and/or the conclusions.

Glantz doesn’t care. He’s picked up his sword and shield to wield at the head of a growing wave of believers. He’s back in the (lime)light.

So? Laws based on falsehoods. Regulations ignoring science. Bans and restrictions from repetitions of one messianic anti-vapor fanatic and fundamentalist of prohibitionism.

Doubt what you read and hear. It’s liable to be coming from the one same mouth…