The Anti-E-Cigarette Conspiracy
From: National Review
Why do bodies concerned with public health want to block smokers’ best chance of quitting?
By Gilbert Ross
Anyone with a modicum of knowledge regarding public health will agree that the most important, devastating, and preventable threat to human health we face is cigarettes. Smokers trying to quit have an extremely difficult time: Less than 10 percent succeed without help, and the various FDA-approved products are of little help, if any. Over the past few years, a new technology has been taken up by millions seeking an escape from deadly smoke: electronic cigarettes (e-cigs, also known as ENDS, electronic nicotine-delivery systems).
Many experts in tobacco control believe e-cigs present the best hope of improving the unacceptably low rate of successful quitting among addicted smokers. Yet, in a perverse inversion of public-health policy, these devices face relentless opposition — and not from Big Tobacco, whose interests seemingly are most threatened by the switch from cigarettes to e-cigarettes. Rather, it is the official public-health agencies, such as the CDC and the FDA, and the big health nonprofits, such as the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association, that are fighting this public-health miracle. Even worse, they are using tactics akin to the deceptions and manipulations we recall from the cigarette makers of the 20th century. One of their more egregious tactics is simply redefining the words “tobacco” and “smoke” to include e-cigs, which are linked to neither. The question is: Why? One thing is certain: Their antipathy is not based on science or the good of public health.
Our nation is home to over 40 million smokers, among whom about 480,000 die from their habit each year. Over half of the 40 million will die prematurely because of cigarette smoke. While the percentage of American adults who smoke has been in gradual decline since the groundbreaking 1964 surgeon general’s report, the total number has hardly changed.
