Smokers already pay more on health insurance in a number of states.

Carolina has just joined those states, forcing smokers to pay 30% of health care costs rather than 20%.

Dodgy Maths

Ash argues that smokers costs the health system more than non-smokers.

What they are leaving out is the huge taxes smokers pay.

While we don't have exact figures for the US, we do know that smoking taxes in the UK pay for the cost of smoking diseases several times over.

What's more, smokers cost the country less overall, with smokers dying younger on average and therefore costing the UK less in pensions and less in treatment of old age diseases.

The truth is that non-smokers' moral judgements on smokers have lead to a situation where smokers already pay more than their fair share of the tax burden.

Discrimination

What is scary is that anti-smoker discrimination in resurging in a country which has worked so hard to get rid of other forms of discrimination.

Let's remember that this is the same anti-smoking lobby which has argued that we should leave smokers to die rather than treat them.

Ash, of course, goes even further than this.

They believe that even ex-smokers should be denied treatment that could save their lives. See "Action on Smoking and Health Suggest that Former Smokers not be Eligible for Heart Transplants."

In a recent letter attacking E Cigarette Direct, ASH claimed that Electronic Cigarette Companies could not be relied upon to be neutral because of their financial interest.

They also claimed that any research commissioned by Electronic Cigarette Companies was compromised.

That research includes an analysis by Murray Laugeson, former principal medical officer of the New Zealand Department of Health and winner of the World Health Organization Tobacco or Health medal and citation “for achievements deemed worthy of international recognition in promoting the concept of tobacco-free societies.”

Yet the very organisation that claims electronic cigarette research is compromised is accepting money from a major pharmaceutical company.

Funding

It's not easy to find out where ASH's money come from.

We know they make some money by charging for advice on how to separate children from their parents.

But their financial reports are vague on the sources of their funds.

Busted

Pfizer, though, is not.

Jim Corken, of E Cigarette National, pointed me towards this document on the Pfizer website.

ASH is the first named partner in a $47 million dollar funding programme by Pfizer.

Pharmaceutical companies have a major interest in the electronic cigarette:

1. They sell billions of dollars of nicotine replacement aids per year. (Unfortunately, these don't work.) The market for these aids has been largely created by the Big Pharm funding of the anti-smoking movement, which has seem hundreds of millions of dollars channelled to public health organisations, much of it via the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

2. The big pharmecutical companies are evidently worried by the nicotine cessation industry, as shown by a report entitled:

E-Cigarettes Will Revolutionize The Face Of Tobacco Smoking And Could Pose A Threat To the Smoking Cessation Market

3. By removing the current electronic cigarette companies, big pharm can benefit by introducing their own version of the electronic cigarette in their future. Their huge donation to public health organisations means that these bodies are unlikely to protest.

Hypocrisy

It is standard for commercial companies to fund research into their products.

The FDA itself is funded by pharmecutical companies and, more recently, by the tobacco companies whose products kill more than 400,000 a year.

Testing organisations are supposed to maintain independence despite the source of funds.

ASH has attacked E Cigarette research because they can not reply directly to the points raised by our recent letter to the Peninsula:

1. That the electronic cigarette contains less nicotine than real cigarettes.

2. That the ingredients of the electronic cigarette are far less harmful than those contained in real cigarettes.

That they have made this accusation at the same time as receiving money from organisations with a direct negative interest in Electronic Cigarettes is simply breathtaking in its level of hypocrisy.

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.

Not content with the farce of the FDA's announcement on electronic cigarettes (see Dr Whelan's revealing article on the announcement in the Washington Times), recent media twisting of facts and downright lies about the electronic cigarette (according to The Peninsula electronic cigarettes contain 40 times the amount of nicotine that regular cigarettes do, and are far more harmful than cigarettes), Ash has resorted to bullying tactics.

This time they are threatening PayPal.

Their press release on the subject warns that Paypal that could force prosecution for "aiding and abetting" the selling of the product.

What About Real Cigarettes?

Just to put things into context, electronic cigarettes have yet to cause a single health incident in several years of use.

Every analysis of electronic cigarettes, including the one made by the FDA, shows that the electronic cigarette contains less harmful ingredients than regular cigarettes.*

Yet we know for sure that real cigarettes will kill over 400,000 Americans every year. So why isn't Ash threatening payment providers who sell lethal tobacco cigarettes?

Perhaps the difference is that the cigarettes we know for sure will kill hundreds of thousands are now approved by the FDA, whereas the electronic cigarettes which experts have repeatedly argued are far safer than cigarettes are not!

I know which I'd rather sell!

The fact of the matter is that, far from having smokers best interests at heart, Ash are extremist bullies.

Prior to their campaign against the electronic cigarette Ash were trying to deny smokers custody to their children.

'In at least two cases, parents lost custody when a "child abuse," "child neglect," or similar complaint was filed by an outsider,' the organisation gloats in the press release.

Elsewhere Ash provides advice on how to separate children from smoking parents - see Ash's custody and smoking information page.

Smokers Murder Thousands of Children

In another press release John Banzhaf claimed:

"Smokers pollute the air the public and their children are forced to breathe with toxic carcinogenic fumes, inflate taxes and the costs of health insurance, start the blazes which are the major cause of residential fire deaths, kill thousands of their own children every year, and are a major contributor to litter on beaches, streets, and elsewhere. Isn't it time we stopped tolerating if not encouraging this outrageous behavior and harm to the public..."

Encouraging Cigarette Use

Now we have a device which every analysis and many experts suggest is far safer than cigarettes.

The device delivers none of the 1000's of chemicals and hardly any of the 40 odd carcinogens that exist in electronic cigarette.*

Studies have proved that it can reduce nicotine cravings and word of mouth suggests that it can help smokers to quit, at least in the short term.

Yet Ash want none of it.

Cigarettes are Better than E-Cigarettes. Oh, and By the Way Only Nicotine Causes Heart Attacks

By attacking the electronic cigarette they are essentially arguing that cigarettes are better than electronic cigarettes.

They are even putting forward arguments that smoking is not as bad as we thought it was in their attack on the electronic cigarette, arguing:

"Current smokers at elevated risk for cardiovascular problems may switch to e-cigarettes, thinking that they are far safer. But actually any decrease in health risk relates to cancer (since e-cigarettes reportedly contain far fewer carcinogens), and not to cardiovascular problems (as to which nicotine is the main culprit)."

Specialist in preventative medicine Professor Michael Siegel disagrees:

"This is demonstrably false. While nicotine is one chemical in tobacco smoke that is thought to contribute to the atherogenic properties of cigarette smoking, it is not the only one. Carbon monoxide, for example, is thought to contribute to cardiovascular disease. In addition, the particulate components of tobacco smoke almost certainly lead to an increase in cardiovascular disease risk. Moreover, smoking causes changes in cholesterol which increase heart disease risk but are almost certainly not attributable to the presence of nicotine."

Why are ASH lying?

Given that Ash has been so extreme in bullying smokers in the past, why are they now encouraging cigarette use at the expense of electronic cigarettes?

Could it be that if a device which experts such as Dr Joel Nitzkin estimate have between 1% and 1/10th of 1 % the percent of the danger of real cigarettes replace the cigarettes, their will be no need for organisations such as ASH?

*Although trace elements of carcinogens have been found in one cartridge (more were found when tests were carried out at unusually high temperatures), experts on the subject - routinely ignored by ASH - have pointed out that the real problem with analogs (real cigarettes) is the combustion - which does not occur in the electronic cigarette.

Like this post? Keep up to date with us by signing up for our email updates.

Ready to switch? Visit the Electronic Cigarette Store.