Still Blowing Lies
Anti-vape activists continue to show no shame with the lies they tell.
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by Dave Cross
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Michael Siegel, in a piece penned for the Washington Examiner, pleaded: “Don’t let alternative facts deter Congress.” He places the truth about the choice into stark context: “One is a product that produces more than 10,000 chemicals, including more than 60 known human carcinogens, and kills more than 400,000 Americans each year. The other is an alternative, much safer product that produces minimal exposure to carcinogens and has been shown to reduce carcinogenic and respiratory health risks.”
None of that can be debated, there aren’t differing opinions on the constituent products of the two items if one pays heed to the science. So, anti-vape invents other things to be concerned about. When the Cole-Bishop amendment was announced they spoke of how vaping would be allowed an unfettered run at children, to hook them into tobacco use. No data, no evidence, all lies.
California sponsors the lies. Governor Jerry Brown gifted the California Department of Public Health a $75-million war chest in 2015. The money was designated to be used to combat tobacco-related deaths – but, in practice, has been used to fund the font of lies coming from zealots waging a war against Big Tobacco. In particular, Brown’s money funded “the worst smear campaign against vaper products ever seen”.
Monica Showalter, writing for American Thinker, spotted one of the latest billboard adverts in her local mall. It demonstrates that far from licking their wounds and skulking away after being so roundly debunked at the start of their campaign, Still Blowing Smoke intends to continue blasting out slurs, baseless allegations and abject lies about vaping. Big Tobacco’s best friend? Anti-tobacco harm reduction activists are Big T’s best friend as they are championing laws that crush the independent vape market – leaving Big T to mop everything up.
Finally, it may be that the law can be used to prevent fibs and distortions making it to the public consciousness. Judicial Watch is a “non-partisan educational foundation, promoting transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. The motto of Judicial Watch is ‘Because no one is above the law’. To this end, Judicial Watch uses the open records or freedom of information laws and other tools to investigate and uncover misconduct by government officials and litigation to hold to account politicians and public officials who engage in corrupt activities.”
The organisation has filed a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of the Surgeon General. It follows the failure of those bodies to reply to a freedom of information request, asking for all internal emails discussing the relative carcinogenicity of vaping compared to the inhalation of traditional tobacco smoke.
Judicial Watch contend that the government bodies have conspired to restrict the sale of vape products despite there being “conclusive studies showing their substantial success in ending tobacco addiction”.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said: “The emails sought by Judicial Watch could shed light on how the Obama FDA arrived at the decision to strictly regulate e-cigarettes, despite its own admission that it had done inadequate research – and, in fact, that the devices helped smokers quit tobacco. The American people deserve to know if a corrupt government power grab put the public health at risk.”
Anti-vape activists are now on watch, continue to fabricate alternative facts and it is likely someone will now drag you to court. Could the days of lying about vaping almost be over?
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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