Bee Harming Vaping Environment
California’s Sacramento Bee goes on the attack.
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by Dave Cross
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“Raise California’s tobacco tax, regulate e-cigs,” cries the anonymous writer for the Bee. The justification for such a stand, they declare, comes from the results of a field poll. “67 percent of Californians think it’s high time we” raised taxes and hit ecigs for six.
Many might question what the questions were in this poll but will unfortunately have to remain in the dark, they haven’t disclosed them. It’s not surprising given their blotted copybook. After all, this is the same esteemed publication that once wrote: “Those candy-flavoured lung polluters are full of the sort of carcinogenic junk that would repel consumers if the products didn’t have names like ‘super fly lemon pie’ and optionally customized bootleg ‘Hello Kitty’ equipment.”
Yes, reasoned and balanced argument is what the Sacramento Bee is all about. They support the deluded senator Mark Leno while lumping the world of vaping at Big T’s doorstep. The reason all attempts at regulation in California have failed to date is not because of the flawed proposals but “because tobacco giant Philip Morris spent $1.3 million on California campaigns in 2013.”
They even plugged a ridiculous and engineered demonstration through the use of carefully angled photographs and the words of a Nazi sympathiser. As we previously covered: “The crowd gathered outside a ‘shopping centre where a smoke shop concentrating on electronic cigarettes might open its doors, close to five different schools. Each weekday after classes, the centre is crammed with kids from sixth-graders to seniors, hanging out at Starbucks, Subway, the pizza place, a tutoring centre or the parking lot’,” wrote Bruce Maiman. The man who linked vaping with cancer, birth defects and announced: “Studies show that e-cig use is a gateway to traditional smoking.”
But for all of their guff they have been unable to persuade the bulk of legislators from carrying out Leno’s plans. It’s enough to make you wonder whether their 67% figure is really representative of all Californians?
“More than 470 brands of electronic cigarettes now crowd the market in more than 7,700 flavours from Captain Crunch to Atomic Fireball to cotton candy. With names like that, it’s not hard to guess the target demographic,” replays their ignorance one more time. That’s correct, their target demographic is clearly people who have a renewed sense of taste and love of the sweeter things in life. Oh, hang on, that wasn’t your point, was it.
Their point is nothing other than inducing some kind of shock and fear – and so they repeat the entire “470 brands” thing a second time as if to prove they can copy-paste with the best of them. It’s a mistake that highlights the crass and amateur journalism being carried out on the paper. In fact it’s the only Bee that would benefit the world by becoming extinct.
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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