Brimful Of Ashba & Vaping Vinnie
Celebrity vapers have annoyed politicians and public health campaigners. They’re not going to stop any time soon.
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by Dave Cross
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Ashba (for those who don’t know) is famous for his tattoos, hanging around with his “superfriends” in LA and people wondering how he manages to punch above his weight with the ladies. He also plays a little bit of guitar with a small beat combo called Guns N’ Roses.
For all of the time he has spent partying in the City of Angels, Ashba hasn’t twigged that people there take offense at everything. They don’t like vapour that comes from Ashba’s ecig and they certainly don’t like being told “what you gonna do about it?” Fortunately Stanton Glantz doesn’t tend to hang around Planet Hollywood so this may have passed him by – at least he doesn’t appear the type.
He is the kind of chap to vent about ecig advertising. When discussing Jenny McCarthy’s adverts, Glantz objected to the way she “flirts” with the camera. “The youth use is exploding in parallel to the marketing,” he uttered by way of justification for the pack of lies purporting to be the Still Blowing Smoke health education campaign.
If anyone would strike terror into the heart of the academic it would be Vinnie Jones, ex-football player/part-time Hollywood hard man. Jones has become the face of Kik E-Cigarettes. Or should that be The Face?
KiK E-cigarettes are selling stock liquid and a range of Evod-style starter kits but Jones says: “I reckon they’re hard to beat” and “it’s quali-e!” The advert is due for broadcast during primetime slots and follows complaints about the apparent overt sexual nature of a late-night VIP ecig ad.
Fortunately for Glantz and any other prudish public health types, Jones doesn’t vape the product and could hardly be described as sexualising it. But he does appear to be brutalising it – and questions will be raised as to exactly who the advert is aimed at?
Likewise, vapers will be concerned about the claims made by KiK. The company have already had one advert banned on grounds it encouraged non-smokers to vape and now boast of half a million users and the juice “delivering the best taste through using only 100% organic ingredients in all our flavourings.” During an interview on RY4 Radio, Doctor Farsalinos (an acknowledged expert on vaping) advised vapers to avoid organic products for health reasons.
KiK also make the spurious claim on their website that “there are no harmful chemicals in our products so you can be confident you are not adding harmful toxins to your body. All KiK products are legal to use everywhere in the UK.” No responsible vaper or vendor would claim vaping is harm-free or that there are zero harmful chemicals, Farsalinos’ research shows KiK’s claim to be wide of the mark.
Maybe vapers ought to ask KiK “what you gonna do about it?”
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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