{"id":321,"date":"2022-01-14T13:09:18","date_gmt":"2022-01-14T18:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccwva.wpengine.com\/?p=321"},"modified":"2022-07-05T12:49:56","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T16:49:56","slug":"smoking-is-up-for-the-first-time-in-a-generation-the-public-health-lobby-is-to-blame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldvapersalliance.com\/en_gb\/smoking-is-up-for-the-first-time-in-a-generation-the-public-health-lobby-is-to-blame\/","title":{"rendered":"Smoking is up for the first time in a generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Ya\u00ebl Ossowski<\/a><\/p>\n

It often takes a long time for health policy influencers, advocates, and proponents to admit fault.<\/p>\n

When it is about topics such as diet fads, saturated fats, food pyramids, and sugar consumption, long-held consensus beliefs and government actions\u00a0later proved erroneous<\/a>\u00a0have had a lasting negative impact.<\/p>\n

But nothing has been more egregious and harmful in our current age than the public health lobby\u2019s persistent\u00a0denialism<\/a>\u00a0of the harm reduction value of nicotine vaping products and other alternatives to cigarettes.<\/p>\n

That denialism has come in many forms:\u00a0public information campaigns<\/a>\u00a0demonizing vaping devices,\u00a0misinformation<\/a>\u00a0on lung illnesses caused by tainted cannabis cartridges,\u00a0bans, restrictions, and taxes<\/a>\u00a0on flavored nicotine products (especially those without tobacco), Kafkaesque market authorization applications\u00a0handled by the drug regulators<\/a>, and a never-ending crusade to deny adult consumers from having access to life-saving products because of\u00a0illicit and risky behavior<\/a>\u00a0by teens.<\/p>\n

These public health bodies, anti-smoking groups, and\u00a0allied journalists<\/a>, whatever their intent, have sought to convince the public that not only is smoking bad and dangerous \u2014 an easy admission \u2014 but also that alternative nicotine devices like vaping products, nicotine pouches, and heated tobacco are\u00a0just as\u00a0or\u00a0even riskier<\/a>\u00a0than a pack of smokes.<\/p>\n

Those conclusions are easily debunked by the\u00a0millions of passionate vapers<\/a>\u00a0who have long since put down cigarettes and taken up customized tanks, vaporizers, and flavored liquids that give them a familiar nicotine sensation without the tar and combustible byproducts of tobacco.<\/p>\n

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David Butow for Rolling Stone<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The public health mission to muddy the popular perception of nicotine alternatives such as vaping \u2014 even though it is scientifically proven to be\u00a095% less harmful<\/a>\u00a0than cigarettes \u2014 is causing actual damage to American public health. And now we have the proof.<\/p>\n

That proof is found both in the increased sales of cigarettes nationwide and also in a highly concentrated study on teen smoking in a jurisdiction where flavored nicotine vaping was outlawed.<\/p>\n

According to the\u00a0sales figures<\/a>\u00a0collected by the Federal Trade Commission for its 2020 Cigarette Report, Americans bought more cigarettes in 2020 than they have in more than a generation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe total number of cigarettes reported sold by the major manufacturers, 203.7 billion units in 2020, increased by 0.8 billion units (0.4 percent) from 2019, the first increase in cigarettes sold in twenty years,\u201d cites the report.<\/p>\n

Americans could be buying more cigarettes for a\u00a0multitude of reasons<\/a>: lockdowns, stress from both the pandemic and the government responses to the pandemic, job losses, closed schools, and more. Or perhaps because they\u2019ve been told repeatedly by trusted public health sources and news outlets that vaping, an alternative that millions of adult consumers are now using to quit smoking, is just as dangerous.<\/p>\n

Whatever your conclusion, the\u00a0trend<\/a>\u00a0that lowered the percentage of US smokers down to\u00a014 percent in 2019<\/a>\u00a0(when the last complete nationwide survey was completed) is halting. And that should concern us all.<\/p>\n

We see anecdotal echoes of this in a\u00a0recent style piece<\/a>\u00a0in the New York Times, highlighting the \u201ccomeback\u201d of cigarettes among the bourgeois hipster crowd in Brooklyn, New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cI switched back to cigarettes because I thought it would be healthier than Juuling,\u201d claimed one woman. It seems the public health lobbies have done their job.<\/p>\n

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