Newly published document is a must-read for vapers
Clive Bates releases a comprehensive document detailing the full breadth of vaping issues
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by Dave Cross
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The full 20-page document can be read and downloaded here. It will be of use to anyone wishing to act as an advocate for vaping when in discussion with the media, on social media or those seeking to form policy statements. It is a supportive, evidence based position with tobacco harm reduction at its core.
Clive begins with an overview of electronic cigarettes, the types of juice people use and the key differences between the device generations. Historical description is kept to a minimum before highlighting the fact that 2.1million people were classified as vapers in March 2014. He repeats a number of shocking statistics from the World Health Organisation regarding smoking-related illness and death – something all legislators ought to be keeping at the forefront of any policy decision.
Using the CDC’s own data, Clive highlights that the supposed gateway effect is negligible in teenagers and throws the (all but banned) use of devices in Australia into the mix as being a significant driver in the country’s declining smoking rates.
He sets out four tenets for public health:
E-cigarettes provide a satisfactory alternative to smoking (nicotine, sensory and ritual aspects) and will displace cigarette use in the consumer market for recreational nicotine.
E-cigarettes dramatically reduce risks to health, likely by 95-100%, among those who switch with negligible impacts on bystanders, at lower cost, and with lower social stigma. The vast majority of harm in smoking comes from tar and hot gases – products of combustion, rather than nicotine. These are almost entirely absent in e-cigarette vapour.
E-cigarettes are a market-based public health phenomenon that ‘meets people where they are’. The public health benefit does not rely on public spending, coercion, prohibition, punitive taxes, fear, stigma or treating smokers as though they are ill.
The risks of harmful unintended consequences, like gateways to smoking, are low, remain hypothetical and are so far unsupported by any evidence.
The document is strewn with evidence, citing 71 pieces in total to support statements countering the lies and half-truths proposed by those opposed to vaping.
Within his work he covers and counters concerns about nicotine, particulates, formaldehyde and other carcinogens, heavy metals and lung irritation. Clive also addresses the perceived risks to populations such as the renormalisation of smoking, the gateway effect and flavours inducing children into nicotine use.
He refers to Robert West’s six ways how those seeking to misrepresent vaping in the media and scientific journals are misusing Science:
- Failure to quantify
- Failure to account for confounding and reverse causality
- Selective reporting
- Misrepresentation of outcome measures
- Double standards in what is accepted as evidence
- Discrediting the source
Bates details a number of reasons why academics and public health professionals may be inclined to indulge in such activities but it is where he states “public health academia, science, and advocacy is beset by ideological biases, prior positions to defend, funders’ interests to respect, charities’ declared policy positions, pharmaceutical funding, and highly prone to insularity and group-think” that this author feels the nail has been firmly hit on the head.
All told, this outstanding piece of work deserves to reside on the computer desktop of every vaper. For every piece of news coverage or scientific article that cries out for redress and balance, this is a toolkit for everyone to refer to and quote from.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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