
APSAD paper

Harm reduction is a public health approach to reducing the consequences of risky behaviours like drug use. Nicotine does not cause disease, it’s the other 7000+ chemicals made when chemically leaden cigarettes are burned. Vaping reduces the harm by 95%.
Epidemic: A widespread disease that affects many people. Smoking kills 17,000 people EVERY DAY! These deaths are 100% preventable. A safer source of nicotine means millions of lives saved, not to mention the quality of life for these people improves.
Over decades, scientists were paid millions of dollars ? to add different chemicals to tobacco & make them more addictive. Many of the chemicals in cigarettes enhance the effects and delivery of nicotine. Some chemicals are addictive in themselves.
Before vaping, about half of smokers tried to quit every year but only 2.5% of smokers quit long term in a year. Despite the cost, health consequences and social shaming, most smokers are destined to the eventual smoking-related diseases.
People start smoking in their teens because youth experiment with adult taboos due to peer pressure and “sensation seeking”. ? Also, because the brain ? is still developing; it is building new connections making them more vulnerable to addiction.
100% of smoking-related diseases are preventable! “The harm from tobacco is overwhelmingly due to its combustion … E-cigarette vapour, in contrast, does not include any combustible by-products,” – Action on Smoking and Health
It takes years of smoking before the diseases take a hold of the smoker. These adults often have families & can no longer provide for them as their health deteriorates. Smoking-related diseases effect the whole family as it destroys the smoker’s health.
Over one million Canadians suffer with smoking-related diseases. Cigarette smoke contains 1500 known disease causing toxins & 69 carcinogens. If smokers switch to tobacco harm reduction, they reduce the toxins & their risk for smoking-related diseases.
Smoking kills 2 out of 3 smokers when used as intended. Smoking-related diseases slowly deprive the smoker of quality of life such as being able to play with their grandchild or have the retirement they planned for. They have a right to all the options.
“If you are a smoker, vaping is a less harmful option than smoking.” Health Canada. Normal vaping (nicotine) is 5% the risk of smoking and the government limits what can be put into the eliquids to keep it that way.
Citizens have a right to life which means they have a right to all the information to make informed decisions about preserving health. They also should have access to and be able to effectively utilize harm reduction to protect health such as condoms.
Over 7000 harmful chemicals are produced when the chemically laden cigarette is burned including: carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, hydrocarbons, nitrous oxide, free radicals, radioactive compounds, arsenic, phenols & 69 carcinogens These aren’t found in vapour.
“People smoke for nicotine but they die from tar.” -M. Russell WHO prioritized the 9 most toxic chemicals found in tobacco smoke for reduction. Vaping significantly reduces or eliminates these toxic chemicals! As to formaldehyde, it is naturally occurring in exhaled breath.
Most of us are familiar with and support harm reduction such as seat belts or bike helmets. Smoking is the most preventable cause of disease and death in North America! It’s hard to quit smoking, so maybe harm reduction is the answer. ?
The standard scientific tool for measuring the harm from drug use is the MCDA (multi-criteria decision analysis). Experts compared 12 different sources of nicotine using the MCDA. The most harmful source were cigarettes so they were given the value of 100%. The other 11 sources show the relative risk of harm compared to smoking.
Unlike decades ago when smoking was recommended by physicians, we have advanced technology & are able to analyze gases, liquids and solids. Vapour was found to have minute amounts of heavy metals just like the nicotine inhalers recommended by physicians.
Scientific evidence is universal, so why does Britain promote vaping and Canada and the USA have a war on harm reduction? The British health agencies got to the science before the narrative got to them. They even have vape shops in their hospitals!
Workers in a ?popcorn butter flavouring factory, (diacetyl was a main ingredient) had higher cases of “popcorn lung”. A study found diacetyl in some eliquids, The amount was 750x less than found cigarettes. Headlines read: “Vaping Causes Popcorn Lung!”
Remember all of the headlines saying that vaping causes popcorn lung? ? It was a lie. Do you feel deceived? Makes you wonder what they are lying about now…
Controlled clinical trials are the gold standard of science. A group of smokers who didn’t want to quit were given simple vapes. The one’s today are even more effective. 21% of the smokers quit smoking; compare that to 6% success with patches.
The ritual: bringing the smoke to the mouth; tasting the drag; sensations in the throat & lungs on a big inhale; a visible exhale & a nicotine hit to the brain. A pack-a-day smoker does this 87,600 times a year. Vaping uniquely satisfies that ritual.
Nicotine replacement therapy is safe, because nicotine is has very few side effects. Smokers are experts at self dosing nicotine through inhalation. Eliquid is nicotine in a rather benign base & allows the smoker to continue the same routine to switch.
Vaping satisfies the nicotine addiction & smoking behaviour PLUS vaping offers thousands of flavours to help the smoker replace the taste of smoke with something better. That is why it is more effective than sticking a patch to your arm or chewing gum.
It’s possible for smokers to quit nicotine altogether with vaping! After dual use for a while most vapers toss the smokes. Unlike cigarettes, those that switch to vaping completely naturally lower their nicotine strengths, some all the way down to zero.
The anti-harm reduction advocates say that vaping is ineffective for quitting smoking because many dual use for a while. Dual users significantly reduce the toxins they inhale because of the 60-80% drop in how many cigarettes they smoke. Harm REDUCTION!
1% of people that never smoked vape. 15% of smokers and 13% of ex-smokers vape. The data illustrates that SMOKERS are vaping to either quit smoking or stay quit. ? The focus ? needs to switch to harm reduction and away from the 1%.
This survey included youth as well as adults. You can clearly see that the MAIN reason for vaping is smokers seeking to quit. Flavours are not the main reason but vaping wouldn’t work if it didn’t offer smokers a more pleasurable and novel experience than smoking.
Like any substance, too much can cause adverse effects. For instance 4000mg of Tylenol can cause kidney and liver damage. But drugs that can be used safely by the public, called over-the-counter (OTC) medication, are available without a prescription such as nicotine.
Nicotine is a mild stimulant and addictive, much like caffeine. It’s only when nicotine is abused such as teens seeking a ‘heady’ that it becomes a problem. Nicotine in eliquid helps smokers transition to a source of nicotine that doesn’t kill them.
It’s the smoke that kills people, not the nicotine. Vaping has no smoke. Dr. John Britton of the U.K. Center for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies explains that nicotine addiction isn’t a big deal because “…nicotine itself isn’t particularly hazardous.”
Science doesn’t change because of political borders! The effects of cigarette smoke are the same for humans everywhere in the world. It makes them sick then die slow painful deaths. Nicotine eliquid is a harm reduction for smokers anywhere in the world.
The Royal College of Physicians reviewed the science on vaping. In April 2016, they released the report, Nicotine without Smoke: “…the likely harm to health and society of e-cigarettes at about 5% of the burden caused by tobacco smoking.”
We don’t know the long-term effects of vaping but we do know the long-term effects of smoking. Vaping has been mainstream for about 5-10 years without serious adverse effects. Millions of smokers have switched to vaping and reported improved health.
Smoking has over 7000 chemicals; 1500 of them we know cause diseases and 69 cause cancer. Vapour has very few constituents and all of the disease/cancer causing chemicals are virtually eliminated. This is why vaping is a fraction the risk of smoking.
Smoking causes adverse health consequences. The good news is that when you stop smoking, the toxic chemicals are no longer entering the body. This means health will improve with quitting smoking. Vaping significantly lowers these toxins.
Smoking is a risk factor for many chronic diseases because of the harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke. Switching to vaping virtually eliminates these harmful chemicals & chronic diseases improve for many. Which means they needed less pharmaceuticals.
When asthmatic smokers switched to vaping: Spirometry data, airway hype-responsiveness, exacerbations and subjective signs & symptoms ALL showed improvements. Of the 8 that were still smoking, their dual mean went from of 22 cigarettes a day to 2.
The majority of vapers reported a decrease in lung infection rates after they switched to vaping. According to the study, increased rates were due to lifestyle changes such as having children and the resulting exposure to more infectious illnesses.
Anyone who suggests that vaping is not safer than smoking does NOT know what they are talking about! Whoever it is, your physician, a nurse or a representative from a health-related nonprofit, question EVERYTHING they say after that… And send them to VAEPworld.com
The risk of vaping versus smoking is 5% but how many people actually know that? ? Looking at this graph, it suggests that those that are better informed about vaping are choosing harm reduction. 34% of smokers & 62% of vapers are correct!
Explore the events of the outbreak, the investigation to identify the cause, the actions that were taken and how it was resolved.
Health-related nonprofits and authorities utilized media to spread fear about vaping. Their narrative omitted that EVALI was not caused from nicotine eliquid.
Health Canada approved the sale of THC cartridges during the outbreak and EVALI could spread a fearful light on this new product. In the USA, payments to state governments through the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement are proportional to the cigarette sales.
The UK reviewed the science on vaping around 2014: before the narratives were formulated and distributed to sovereign nations. They stand alone in being fully informed on and benefiting their citizens with tobacco harm reduction.
Stanton Glantz is probably the most famous anti-tobacco harm reduction advocate in the world. He wrote a study claiming vaping caused heart attacks but the heart attacks happened when the people were still smoking and before they started vaping. Despite the study being retracted, Canada’s tobacco control featured him in their annual conference.
With endless resources and funding, the government is fully capable of reviewing the evidence on vaping. Yet, they are still deceiving the public by blaming nicotine eliquid for EVALI. Eliquid has been legal & regulated in Canada since May 2018.
This study in the headlines claimed that vaping produces carbon monoxide (CO). No CO was produced at manufacture specified levels (55-70 W). They tested 2 eliquids & only tested the 2nd eliquid above specified levels. They measured CO from the wreckage.
As a national health authority, the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has a responsibility to report on the facts. During the lung injury outbreak, despite the growing evidence that THC cartridges were the cause, the CDC alluded that nicotine eliquid was to blame. They are guilty of confirmation bias.
Smoking makes people very sick. Sick people are very profitable for the pharmaceutical industry. The pharmaceutical industry is the largest lobbying power in the USA; the oil and gas industry has half the lobbying power of the pharmaceutical industry. This may explain why the US House of Representatives attempted to ban tobacco harm reduction which didn’t cause the lung injuries and promote cannabis use which did cause the lung injuries.
Since teens have been experimenting with vaping, youth smoking rate has plummeted! This being ignored by government, health authorities and “health-related” nonprofits like the Canadian Cancer Society! Why are they lying about the ‘gateway’ effect? ?
We believe that health authorities, such as the Canadian Medical Assoc. Journal, tell the truth. We trust them, accept what they say & let it influence our opinions. What happens when we learn they are lying? We wonder what else they are lying about.
CBC claims that 42% of vapers are “converts”; that they “SWITCHED from smoking”. The original document reads 42% were “SWITCHING” meaning they were dual users. The 58% CBC named “new users’, implying new nicotine users, like youth; actually they are ex-smokers.
The Canadian Cancer Society requested the gov’t make vaping less enjoyable for smokers by banning flavours. ? They cite a 45% increase in youth smoking from the Hammond study as their rational. Statistics Canada reported a DECREASE in youth smoking.
The Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) has an annual revenue of about $187,000,000. Cancer from smoking kills 21,366 Canadians annually and many more suffer with the disease. CCS having a problem with vaping is like an AIDS clinic having a problem with condoms.
Big name, big money, big business. Did you know that half of the stocks, bonds and mutual funds are owned by the 1%? Than means they own the tobacco companies AND the companies that profit from smoking-related diseases.
The pervasive misinformation has successfully convinced the public that eliquid is a source of EVALI. In 4 months, the lies convinced 13% of people that vaping is MORE harmful than smoking, The public now demand tobacco harm reduction bans.
The FDA has a long track record of anti-harm reduction. As of May 12, 2020, the vast majority of flavours in eliquid will disappear from the American market. Those who want to stay off of cigarettes will have to go to the black market for harm reduction.
Over 14 million Americans suffer with smoking-related diseases. Treating these diseases are very profitable for doctors, pharma, medical supply companies, etc. The AMA agrees with the FDA Pre-Market Tobacco Application (which applies to harm reduction
In 1998, the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) guaranteed states would receive annual payments from the tobacco industry. These payments are based on a portion of cigarette sales for the year. If smokers switch to vaping, then the states receive less. Utilizing the outbreak, Gov. Baker discouraged the smokers in Massachusetts from switching to a 95% safer alternative source of nicotine, vaping.
Did you know that people that run ‘health-related’ nonprofits have histories of working for big corporations that profit off of sick people? These same people cycle into gov’t agencies, academic institutions & back to high paying corporate positions. ?
Our society takes care of the sick, provides disability to those that are disabled & supplies fire departments; our taxes cover the costs. Smoking creates more sickness, disability and fires. Vaping reduces the harm and therefore these tax expenditures.
In late February 2020, the CDC closes the case on EVALI because they had identified the source, took action and the injuries disappeared. However, in Canada during the same time, Health Canada continued to resist telling the truth to Canadians.
For 3 months, health authorities such as the Canadian Medical Assoc. Journal unjustly included eliquid as a contributor to EVALI. The deception is followed with a demand to create new harm by making flavours in eliquid illegal & drive it underground.
England started warning the public about the health risks of smoking in 1957; the USA waited until 1964. How many US citizens continued to smoke and got sick because they were not informed? It’s happening again!
Harm reduction started in the 80’s AIDS crisis. The gay population started using condoms to lower their risk. It’s ironic that a city with a high gay population bans harm reduction for the most preventable cause of disease & death of its constituents! ?
It’s frustrating to read incorrect information about harm reduction from representatives from “health”-related nonprofits. Where are they getting their information from? The public trusts them and their misinformation scares smokers from harm reduction.
Despite the mounting evidence that the CDC was collecting that the vaping related lung injuries were cause from illegal THC cartridges, the director of the CDC continued to spread fear about tobacco harm reduction (nicotine vaping).
Everyday we read health-related nonprofits lack of support for tobacco harm reduction. Why is this? Well, if you consider they exist because people have illnesses like heart disease then wouldn’t the reduction in risk from vaping threaten their revenue?
To make vaping attractive to current smokers, eliquid comes in many flavour because adults like flavours.? That’s why there are 1000’s of flavours of alcohol. Teens are being used to ban eliquid flavours & make harm reduction unattractive to smokers.
During the outbreak, health-related regulatory bodies, such as the American Medical Association, joined the CDC in avoiding the truth as to the causality of the outbreak. They continued to deceive the public about tobacco harm reduction with the fear-based narratives they have been promoting for years. As a result, health professionals continue to be misinformed about tobacco harm reduction.
Dr. Chris Mackie, the medical officer for the Middlesex-London Health Unit in Ontario declared the first of 19 cases in Canada. His diagnosis was lipoid pneumonia. Countless headlines, articles, TV news programs and experts repeated the narrative and blamed harm reduction.
In BC smoking kills 5,295 people per year. That’s 66,923 years of life lost…fathers, grandmothers… The BC taxpayer pays $1 BILLION/yr for smoking. Todd Stone wants to make harm reduction unattractive to smokers. Reduce the harm, reduce the cost! Is he aware of what smoking costs the BC taxpayer every year?
Dr. Tereza Martinu, respirologist, was a guest on media. She admitted that vitamin E acetate was found in all the EVALI biopsies & is used in THC concentrates. She suggests that inhaling nicotine through vaping may be the cause. Then she encourages people to use nicotine inhalers.
As of April 16, 2020, the Government of Canada’s webpage on EVALI mentions nicotine 5 times but only mentions the cause of EVALI (vitamin E acetate in illegal THC cartridges) just once. This is the source of information that all provincial health authorities and all Canadian health professionals would consider to be the most current, unbiased and accurate.
The thing about a trusted source of information is that once that source is found to be deceiving about something, they lose credibility. The American Lung Assoc. was founded in 1904 & their mission has changed as it now includes anti-harm reduction.
These agencies want to stop promotions for tobacco harm reduction. 5.7 million Canadians smoke and over a million suffer with smoking-related diseases. Smoking makes people sick & sick people are profitable for the companies that fund these agencies.
Not-for-profits are tax exempt because they are supposed to practice benevolent behaviours like facilitating informed decision making about harm reduction, illness prevention and health promotion. They are reliant on donations from pharmaceutical companies and grants from government for funding. Unfortunately, this can alter the accuracy of their public advice and recommendations.
The United Kingdom (UK) promotes vaping for smokers. They are different than most of the world because they reviewed the science on vaping before the global false narrative got to them. The lies were so pervasive that even their citizens became misinformed.
Health Canada (HC) was questioned by CBC as to the cause of EVALI because the Gov’t of Canada approved the sale of THC cartridges during the EVALI outbreak. HC clearly communicates that they understand EVALI is cause from illegal THC carts and not from nicotine eliquid.
For weeks, Dr. Mackie continued to blame nicotine vaping for the lung injury during interviews with media. Anti-smoking agencies across Canada and the US demanded banning flavours in eliquid making tobacco harm reduction less attractive to smokers.