India Bans E-cigarettes as Global Vaping Backlash Grows (theguardian.com) 105
India has announced a ban on electronic cigarettes, as a backlash gathers pace worldwide about a technology promoted as less harmful than smoking tobacco. From a report: The announcement by India on Wednesday came a day after New York became the second US state to ban flavored e-cigarettes following a string of vaping-linked deaths. "The decision was made keeping in mind the impact that e-cigarettes have on the youth of today," India's finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, told reporters in the capital, New Delhi. E-cigarettes heat up a liquid -- tasting of anything from bourbon to bubble gum or just tobacco, and which usually contains nicotine -- into vapor, which is inhaled. The vapor does not contain the estimated 7,000 chemicals present in tobacco smoke but does contain a number of substances that could potentially be harmful. They have been pushed by producers, and also by some governments, including in Europe, as a safer alternative to cigarette smoking -- and as a way to kick the habit.
A VAPIST!? (Score:2)
He sounds a notovious cvinimal.
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He sounds a notovious cvinimal.
That's been on TV for a number of years already.
Law & Order: SVU - Special Vaping Unit.
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Only the best decisions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Only the best decisions... (Score:5, Insightful)
Moral panic indeed.
It's so funny how many people are literally *angry* about vaping, like it's some horrible crime.
I can understand the people who complain about walking through someone's giant vapor clouds, but honestly, how often do you actually see that?
But most of the time it's the kind of hollow ranting, where they just don't like the *idea* of it, are deeply concerned about some elusive long term risks that are only suggested by "unknown chemicals".
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I can understand the people who complain about walking through someone's giant vapor clouds, but honestly, how often do you actually see that?
I recently walked through someone's vapor cloud. It was nice, it smelled like candy. I almost went and bought a bag of Starburst.
Re:Only the best decisions... (Score:5, Insightful)
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I thought of a great marketing for selling e-cigarettes, like comparing it to other stuff on the market, "E-Cigarettes, selling addiction without the fun, buy one now and make someone else rich". At least with the other illegal addictive substances people are having some fun, addiction without the fun is just really mean ;D.
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All of your examples are activities people conduct in private. Vaping, on the other hand, is secondhand smoke come back to haunt us after we had thought that tobacco and all its problems had been pushed out of our society forever.
Then consider that vape is being marketed to children using the special power of social media to ram bad ideas into the common culture, and you can see why people are "literally angry."
Re: Only the best decisions... (Score:2)
Vaping, on the other hand, is secondhand smoke come back to haunt us after we had thought that tobacco and all its problems had been pushed out of our society forever.
That's retarded; it's nothing of the sort. You may as well suggest that smelling someone's perfume is also the same as second hand smoke.
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If that were the case, vape would have no effect on the user. Anything spread aerially will affect the user and nearby people.
Re: Only the best decisions... (Score:3)
No, it is not second-hand smoke. It's not even smoke. There is no combustion. No combustion, no smoke.
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That is because it is an attempt by companies to get young kids addicted to nicotine. That is why it is so "sweet smelling". The fact that you are too stupid to understand it isn't our problem.
Re: Only the best decisions... (Score:2)
Adults don't like flavors? Wtf makes you think that?
Craft brews and malternatives next? (Score:3)
If you are going to complain about "candy flavors" being appealing to kids, I hope you are also onboard banning colorful packaging and flavors for craft brews and the myriad malternative beverages selling a rainbow of flavors.
I don't even vape, but find this sudden hysteria over vaping to be totally ridiculous. Yes, regulate and certify the making of the juices, but there is nothing inherently wrong with the technology. There are vaping devices that allow you to control the temperature, and the various juic
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If people were not being considerate with their cigarette smoke, why would they be considerate with their vape clouds?
Kyle Kulinski quit smoking with vaping (Score:4, Interesting)
I can understand the need for regulation (as the saying goes, "Legal, Taxed and Regulated") but this just sounds like Big Tobacco [youtube.com] got to the politicians. They've been going after vaping, rolling your own and small pipe tobacco sellers for a little over a decade now.
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Re:Kyle Kulinski quit smoking with vaping (Score:4, Interesting)
There is no Big Tobacco anymore, and I'm pretty sure even the dullest tobacco company knows their days are numbered, vaping or not.
Oh, never underestimate the level of corruption in India.
Who is the biggest cigarette manufacturer in India? Maybe an Indian company the producer, that in addition farms tobacco?
Who are the biggest vape players in India? Are they big international heavyweights, who import all their vaping liquid.
It might make sense in India to ban vaping, to protect some local bribe-paying local businesses.
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Like many poor and dysfunctional countries, India gets a big proportion of revenue from taxes on tobacco.
Vaping is a direct threat to that.
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You (or somebody) has said this many times, but it seems doubtful, as the government could fix it far easier by slapping a matching tax on vaping products than by trying to ban them.
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You (or somebody) has said this many times, but it seems doubtful, as the government could fix it far easier by slapping a matching tax on vaping products than by trying to ban them.
Vaping fluid contains common chemicals, and a one ounce bottle can last for months. It is way easier to sell tax-free on the black market than a bulk product like tobacco.
Re: Kyle Kulinski quit smoking with vaping (Score:2)
It's also ridiculously easy to make your own (and WAY cheaper than buying it pre-made). The hardest thing to source (in countries where it's controlled) is the concentrated nicotine, but even that isn't usually much of an issue.
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Clearly the poster does not have ANY idea about smoking outside of the west.
Of course there is, it's just not advertised. Smoking is still very big in non Western countries. A multi trillion dollar industry.
More than 70% of males in India smoke.
More than 50% of males in China smoke.
I stopped looking there, but I believe it's even worse in other eastern and African countries.
That's a LOT of money.
Re: Kyle Kulinski quit smoking with vaping (Score:2)
Cigarettes are more deadly than vaping yet fools banned vaping and not cigarettes. Talk about asinine.btw I am against both cigarettes and vaping but I believe vaping can help ween people off tobacco and more importantly itâ(TM)s statistically much safer.
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I suppose the sad part there is I know who they are
Big tobacco still exists, or did you think all those cigarettes people smoke just appeared out of nowhere. Someone grows it, someone rolls its and someone sells it for billions of dollars. Unless of course you think billions of dollars is not enough to buy a politician?
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You are a moron. Altria has a market cap of $349 billion dollars. And they are one of many Big Tobacco companies. Christ.
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Actually if I recall the story, Robin Hood stole from the TAX COLLECTOR and gave the money back to the people ...
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ROFL
Actually if I recall the story, Robin Hood stole from the TAX COLLECTOR and gave the money back to the people ...
Reading comprehension fail, time to go back to the third grade....
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Your info is wildly out of date. Big tobacco companies dominate the vaping world and have for some time now.
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I can understand the need for regulation (as the saying goes, "Legal, Taxed and Regulated") but this just sounds like Big Tobacco [youtube.com] got to the politicians.
JUUL is partly owned by Altria which owns Philip Morris and produces Marlboro cigarettes. Altria [wikipedia.org].
JUUL is "Big Tobacco."
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Why would I care that someone who obviously knew the inherent dangers of smoking and chose to do so anyway then found a way to quit by blowing annoying vaporous fumes in public places. Anyone who decided to start smoking in the last 30 or so years is just a self destructive individual. I have no obligation to want to indulge whatever new vice they take on so they can be healthier after their years of disregard for others reaction to the secondhand smoke they've been spewing. Boo Hoo. I just can't quit on m
Let's just ban smoking! (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL! I mean seriously, everyone is calling these things dangerous and then completely ignoring cigarettes which have killed millions!
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Or even chewing on a pen? Or biting a drinking straw. Some people need to always have something in their mouth.
Some people don't seem to worry that it is dangerous. (Although they should)
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What about them?
Re:Let's just ban smoking! (Score:4, Funny)
Criminals---why are they in possession of contraband straw?
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We have ample scientific evidence of the various risks involved with those things. Vaping is relatively new and the vaping companies have been reluctant to share details of what exactly they put into their products, claiming trade secret status.
Governments are facing huge potential healthcare costs and erring on the side of caution until there is at least more evidence available. This industry could have helped itself here.
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Who has completely ignored cigarettes? There have been anti-cigarette efforts in place for decades. But I agree, we should ban smoking. Stupid people need to be protected from themselves so we don't have to pay for their stupid decisions.
Re: Let's just ban smoking! (Score:2)
"Stupid people need to be protected from themselves so we don't have to pay for their stupid decisions."
That's why I favor banning private car ownership.
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That's why I favor banning the internet. That would protect more people from more stupid than anything else.
Re: Let's just ban smoking! (Score:2)
I say, fuck it all, let's just ban everything!
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Selling this stuff to children was already against the law but the unwatched little darlings always seem to find a way!
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Statistically, it's also rare for cigarette smoking to kill people in 5-15 years, which is how long e-cigarettes have been popular. Most people haven't been "vaping" that long.
And the level of vaping is probably a factor; I've seen people dial their units up to the point where they exhale a thick cloud of "smoke", much denser than a tobacco cigarette outputs. Some times it looks like their cars are on fire as they go down the road. Maybe it's a status thing.
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Most people haven't been "vaping" that long.
Not entirely true though - People have been smoking hookah pipes for centuries (aka "hubbly-bubbly" or "shisha")
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/GG3H... [alamy.com]
Pretty similar.
Re:So... (Score:4, Informative)
People have been smoking hookah pipes for centuries (aka "hubbly-bubbly" or "shisha"...Pretty similar.
Actually it's not. Hookah is tobacco, flavored with a coal ember to keep it light. Multiple chemical reactions creating substances we don't really understand the net effect of.
Take away the flavoring, you have nicotine, glycerin and propylene glycol in vapor. Most of the flavorings are food additives. There's no ban on the fluids, just the flavoring which is simple for anyone to add.
Re:So... (Score:4, Interesting)
And the level of vaping is probably a factor; I've seen people dial their units up to the point where they exhale a thick cloud of "smoke"
But with vaping, you can turn on the device, take just a single puff, and then put it away.
With a cigarette, once a smoker lights up, they are going to finish the cigarette, which can mean a dozen puffs.
So vaping makes it easier to inhale "just enough" nicotine to relieve the craving, making it easier to quit.
much denser than a tobacco cigarette outputs.
The vapor is an aerosol mist of water, propylene glycol, and glycerin. It looks denser than cigarette smoke, but is much less harmful.
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Cigarretes killed zero people in the first 5 years (Score:2, Interesting)
No one dies form ciggarrtes the first 5 years they were on the market. It takes decades to kill someone with cigarettes. And yet with vape we have people who just started dropping dead. MIght want to rethink your statistics.
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So was thalidomide (Score:2)
ANd now thalidomide is used safely and recent evidence indicates it may be wonder drug of unprecedented activity. Yet we did not anticipate what happened with pregancy because we knew it was generally safe and didn't know the mechansim of action. Same with vitamin E and other addatives and thermal reaction products. THe combinations of irritants and microbial food can under the wrong circimstances cause problems. But Vitamin E oil is considered a safe food addative which is why people assumed it would b
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Re:So was thalidomide (Score:5, Informative)
Re: So was thalidomide (Score:2)
"the entire war on drugs was a scam to oppress the population"
But how else are we gonna keep the gulag full??
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I guess you haven't read about this further. The 7 that died were cannabis vaping oils. And what they believe is the culprit is they were cut with vitamin E.
Every time you see an article about vaping, realize they are melding both together under the same narrative to push this agenda.
Re: Cigarretes killed zero people in the first 5 y (Score:3)
Except the 2 main ingredients in vape juice have been used in asthma inhalers for 60+years now, there goes your theory...
I am all for some regulation, we need to be sure what we buy is safe, ( why I mix my own juice) , when the truth comes out about this batch of people with lung probs, I will put my money they were all using dodgy THC based refills, and most are underage, and therefore reluctant to admit it.
No one will die from vaping unless they do something really stupid.
No one will go home from going ou
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Re: Cigarretes killed zero people in the first 5 y (Score:2)
People have been vaping for decades. Vaping is not a problem. It never has been. Putting unknown chemicals into your body, on the other hand, has always been a known issue. That's what's happening here. If teens all started putting bleach into cups and drinking it, we would not try to ban cups.
Re: Cigarretes killed zero people in the first 5 (Score:2)
That's not accurate. People always knew smoking was bad for you. What they didn't know was that it caused cancer. You can find old timey wive's tales about smoking being bad for you.
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I know anecdotes are not data, but I am really starting to doubt vaping is a good thing based on a renter we have in our house. A year ago she would go out to the designated smoking area in the back yard about twice a day and smoke. Then she started vaping, keeping it to the non-oil based ones which really have no detectable output for us so we said she could use it inside. She is now sucking on that thing *continuously* inside, going through more than one cartridge a day. These are nicotine vapes (the warn
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I just wanted to thank you for being reasonable. I don't vape, but vaping barely smells at all and I don't mind being around it nor do I feel at risk from any second hand exposure vapes or cigs. Cigarettes I can't stand the smell of and it stinks up the place bad if they smoke inside. Sounds like you don't even vape, don't approve, and yet treat your tenant right. If every landlord was like that they wouldn't have a b
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What right do you have to dictate your version of "healthy behavior" on anyone? It's none of your business.
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Who said he was dictating anything? We all pay for stupid people.
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Cigarettes are water under the bridge. There's been enough time for a 3/4 trillion dollar industry selling them to develop. That's bigger than the GDP of all but the top 18 biggest economies. Any ban will be opposed by a mountain of lawyers and most of the billion addicted smokers, the legal roadblocks likely won't be r
Tobacco taxes = big money for Indian government (Score:3, Interesting)
"The entire legal cigarette value chain is presently reeling under penalising taxation on account of continuous increases in excise duties and compensation cess on cigarettes, which have cumulatively gone up by 202 per cent between 2011/12 and 2017/18 leading to shrinkage of cigarette volumes by more than 25 per cent since 2012/13, FAIFA has said."
Cigarette taxes [business-standard.com]
Are they concerned about public health or tax revenues?
India is Corrupt as Ever (Score:4, Interesting)
> India is the world’s second-largest consumer of traditional tobacco products, which are not covered by the new ban, killing nearly 900,000 people every year.
Godfrey Phillips up 8% and Golden tobacco up 4.5% minutes after the announcement.
They were warned ... (Score:5, Funny)
They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re vapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
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There are some very fine people on both sides.
Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
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meanwhile 8 million died from smoking in the past year and millions more maimed. yeah, vaping is the scary thing.
children who can't get sweet flavored vape will vape unsweetened vape (or go back to nabbing cigarettes)
unbelievable the amount of media-driven hype monkeys who look like functioning adults
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I see a direct parallel with another 'cool and new' technology; e-scooters. Less dangerous than cars and never any more dangerous than bicycles? Not good enough; some people still get hurt largely because of someone doing something illegal, so it's BAN BAN B
Makes zero sense to me. (Score:1)
Just advertise them accurately now, right? I don't see a reason to ban them for being not as healthy as someone claimed when selling it.
We must be scared of new things (Score:2)
We failed in the past (Score:2)
We should have banned leaded petrol 30 years ago so to prevent the mental retardation of the current generation of powerful adults... and I use the term "adults" loosely given what is going on in the world.
Leaded gasoline ban (Score:1)
Uh, as far as I know leaded gasoline was banned about 30 years ago... [scienceprogress.org]
Though a quick search says that the UK didn't ban it until 2000?
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Even unleaded gas contains lead.
Bans don't work, consumers must be aware. (Score:2)
Re: Bans don't work, consumers must be aware. (Score:2)
"The product needs some standards"
Yup. The huge majority of vape users would welcome quality reasonable regulations on the vape machines and chemicals. I prefer the term "quality control" regulation over "health & safety", just because the latter is so broad it's likely to be abused by prohibitionists.
Alternatives (Score:3)
The alternative to vaping isn't not vaping, it's cigarettes. This is getting stupid.
Choose your drug (Score:2)
Nicotine gum is available (Score:1)
Uh... Nicotine gum is readily available on the market. So aren't patches.
The problem being that when you're used to inhaling your nicotine the onset is quite different with gum or edibles than what you're used to. That can cause issues with replacing smoking with it.
I know of people who only use the gum/patches when they're going on a flight or such and need a crutch when not going to be in an area they can smoke in for an extended period.
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all i know is, when i went to quit smoking, i went with the lozenges.
The first time i had one it tasted absolutely horrible. But by the end of the first week, they were the most delicious god damn candy i'd ever tasted.
Yeah but... (Score:2)
...assault style rifles are still perfectly legal??? Where are your values India?
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India [wikipedia.org], not Indiana [wikipedia.org].
Brilliant logic (Score:2)
All those vapers can just switch back to cigarettes. As they die the acute overpopulation problem in India can be solved as well. Two birds with one blunt, so to speak.
There are 45 million farmers growing tobacco (Score:2)
That's a huge vote bank which has to be pandered.
Big tobacco loves it when the govt raises taxes on cigarettes - they raise the base price at the same time and blame the govt.
Hypocrisy at its finest to ban vaping and leaving tobacco alone.
India??? (Score:2)
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If vaping had been... (Score:2)
If vaping had been marketed as a way to quit smoking first, and not as a "new cool thing to do" then I think it would have been less likely that this had happened.
New ways of ingesting nicotine and other addictive drugs in recreational ways have been invented and marketed many times throughout the last seventyfive-ish years, and they have always been banned by authorities.
Only aids for quitting smoking have been allowed, and after having gone through a testing process like pharmaceuticals. Vaping had not go
As a non-smoker (Score:2)
Vaping is not less annoying than smoking. Why do they have to emit huge clouds of vapor? Drowning in a cloud of raspberry-scented smoke - is that really necessary?
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