The Harm Reduction Controversy

First of all, I need to tell you that I'm not a doctor or scientist. I haven't done any clinical trials on the electronic cigarette and wouldn't be qualified to draw a conclusion from them if I had. I am a pretty good researcher and I believe that I have a healthy dose of common sense. But even the best of us can be biased at times. The point is I'm not in a position to give a money back guarantee that electronic cigarettes are safe. I do feel confident telling you that regular cigarettes are not safe. That is why electronic cigarettes are meant to be a harm reduction alternative. They are meant for people who otherwise would have smoked despite knowing the risks. If you're a smoker who believes you can take it or leave it, I suggest you try quitting all together first. If you're a non-smoker who thinks this looks like a nifty new gadget you'd like to try - don't go there. If you're under 18.... Well, you probably need to just go do your homework instead of reading this blog at all.

Let me give you an analogy about the harm reduction theory. Several months ago, I was in a car accident. When I bounced against the tightened seat belt, it bruised my rib. Now, a bruised rib hurts like hell and in that particular scenario, it's likely that without the seat belt I wouldn't have been injured. If someone had studied just my accident, they may have concluded that seat belts are dangerous and recommended I stop using them. But we all know that seat belts have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. In comparison to that, the risk of a bruised rib is an acceptable one. The only way to be 100% safe from a car accident is to never ride in a car. But if you must ride in a car, use common sense and take the route less likely to kill you.

That being said, I’m appalled at the propaganda I’ve found about the “dangers” of electronic cigarettes. I guess I was more naive than I thought, but I assumed that the FDA and other health organizations actually had a priority to keep us safe and healthy.

Before I get into specific claims, let me tell you why this is a dangerous scenario. Imagine David and Goliath. Now add two more Goliaths.

On one side of poor little David, we have Big Tobacco. Here’s a business so huge that despite employing more lobbyists than there are politicians in Washington and killing off over 5,000,000 of their customers a year, they still claimed $6.6 Billion profit in 2009. Everyone knows that they’re a villain – more like a super-villain – but thus far they’ve just pulled strings from behind the curtain, so people don’t realize how scared they are of little David.

On the other side is a Goliath that people are only just starting to realize can’t be trusted: the Pharmaceutical Industry. Two decades ago, they started turning out Nicotine Replacement Therapies. You could get your nicotine through a patch, gum, or inhaler instead of those deadly cigarettes. And since smokers were already used to paying ridiculous amounts for their nicotine, they were able to charge an absurd price for an item that costs only a few cents to produce. They’re still a huge income generator despite having a long-term success rate of about 7%. Recently they’ve launched the drug Chantix, a pill that isn’t covered by most insurance companies, costs more than a pack-a-day smoking habit, and is known to cause suicidal thoughts. Fun!

But the real threat is right in front of David, challenging him openly: the government. Why would the government fear electronic cigarettes? Why would they want to denounce a product that may save millions of lives? Taxes. The federal government taxes each pack of cigarettes $1.01. That’s revenue of about $17 Billion a year. But wait! They’re not the only entity taxing cigarettes. Each state determines their own piece of the pie. On the scale of high to just plain stupid, New York is at the top with an extraordinary $4.35 tax per pack. And that’s not including the $1.01 federal tax or the tax added by some cities, such as New York City adding another $1.60. The lowest priced places to smoke are in the southern states. Since they gain revenue directly from the tobacco industry, they like to keep their citizens happily puffing away with less than $1.00 additional out-of-pocket expense. Without the billions of dollars generated by tobacco and cigarette taxes, how could the American and state governments keep from taxing mega-businesses instead of the working poor?

So poor little David is trembling as he primes his sling shot and frantically tries to decide who to shoot at first. He decided to start with the FDA, taking them to court and then Supreme Court when they blocked import of electronic cigarette hardware and cartridges. So far, he and his sling shot are doing a great job. Both courts have shot down the FDA with unanimous votes. As of this writing, we are waiting to see if the FDA will appeal or try another tactic. They don’t usually give up, so don’t get high hopes about that one.

Well, this post ended up longer than I thought without ever actually getting into the specific claims, so I’ll save that one for another post. For right now, I’m going to take little David out to lunch and encourage him to keep up the good fight.