AMA Promotes Vape Fear

AMA Tasmania begins with a lie from the off: “[We are] very concerned about Senator Tammy Tyrrell's recent opinion piece in The Hobart Mercury, in which she argues against the new Tasmanian restrictions on vaping. She claims that the changes will make it harder for people to quit smoking. In contrast, the medical evidence from across the world is that vaping does not reduce smoking. In fact, it is a gateway for smoking in our impressionable youth.”

Independent research from the UK shows that in places where access to tobacco harm reduction products such as vapes has been reduced smoking rates increase, medical evidence absolutely shows vaping reduces smoking, and there is absolutely no evidence supporting a teen gateway from vaping to smoking.

“The idea that vaping is a safe or ‘safer’ alternative to smoking is a highly dangerous narrative pushed by tobacco companies,” AMA Tasmania claims.

This is an odd position to take given that the UK Government, Action on Smoking and Health UK, Cancer Research UK, the UK’s Royal College of Physicians, the UK’s Royal College of GPs, and a host of other leading public health bodies all state that vaping is substantially safer than smoking – statements backed up by the Cochrane Review which looks at and appraises all emerging evidence from across the world.

“The problem isn't that people will revert to smoking because of tighter regulations on vapes, but rather that vaping itself has become a gateway to smoking,” it claims – but research from University College London that looked at the impact of bans in California found precisely the opposite; it is the ban that drives people to smoking, not the prevalence of vapes.

“The argument that restricting access to vapes will drive people to the black market, making it more difficult for those trying to quit smoking, is a well-known narrative pushed by the tobacco and vaping industries,” AMA Tasmania continues. Planet of the Vapes has given considerable coverage to the impact of Australia’s ludicrous approach to harm reduction and detailed the extent of the growth in the black market – to the extent that murders and firebombings are now a weekly occurrence as vapers have been pushed to obtained products from criminals and Australia has lost control.

“The problem with vapes is that they have been on the market for only 10-15 years, and their long-term health effects are still largely unknown. What is known so far, though, is frightening: studies have linked vaping to acute lung injury, popcorn lung, tooth decay, and nicotine addiction,” wibbles AMA Tasmania.

Lung injuries were caused by illegal cannabis products, there hasn’t been a single recorded case of popcorn lung in smokers let alone vapers, tooth decay is pure invention, and studies have shown that nicotine is as addictive as caffeine when removed from cigarette smoke and its associated toxins.

In fact, the only “dangerous myths” being propagated appear to be coming from Australian Medical Association Tasmania.

Photo Credit:

• Flag photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave 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.