Wisconsin smokers are quitting. The solution? Tax non-smokers.

In 1999, Wisconsin received $5.9 billion dollars in the national tobacco lawsuit and within 4 years it was all gone. That's because the state, facing the worst fiscal crisis in its history, had sold 25 years of tobacco payments for $1.3 billion to balance a single year's budget.

Since 2003, the percentage of adult smokers in Wisconsin has reduced from 22% to 20.6%. From 2005 to 2010, the net cigarette taxes collected more than doubled from $289 million to $595 million, while the total number of cigarette packs sold dropped from 414 million to 298 million. According to a 2011 report by the University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Control Program, no other source of state revenue has increased at that rate. "Revenue from tobacco (exclusive of revenue from tobacco bonds) is the fourth largest source of state revenue after sales, income and corporate taxes."

Today is World Vaping Day

E-cigarettes are saving adult smokers' lives. TODAY, 9/19/13, is World Vaping Day. Spread the TRUTH about e-cigarettes in your own way and show your support for fellow vapors around the world! http://www.world-vaping-day.com/

CASAA: New study confirms that chemicals in electronic cigarettes pose minimal health risk

PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 8, 2013/PRNewwire-USNewswire -- E-cigarette users can breathe a little easier today.  A study just released by Professor Igor Burstyn, Drexel University School of Public Health, confirms that chemicals in electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) pose no health concern for users or bystanders.  This is the first definitive study of e-cigarette chemistry and finds that there are no health concerns based on generally accepted exposure limits.  

E-cigarettes are devices that heat a nicotine solution to create an aerosol (called “vapor”) that the user inhales, similar to smoking a cigarette.  They are used as a low-risk substitute for smoking by millions of former smokers, and their increasing popularity seems to account for the current downward trend in smoking in the U.S. and some other countries.  While experts agree that the risks posed by e-cigarettes are significantly less than those posed by smoking, there had been some debate about how much lower the risk was.  

Are nicotine e-cigarettes a tobacco product?

I frequently see vapers arguing that e-cigarettes are not a "tobacco product," because they do not actually contain tobacco. They argue that nicotine e-cigarettes are not the same as tobacco or smoking cessation products and should have a classification all of their own.

However, nicotine isn't regulated in the U.S. by what form it takes, but instead by "intended use."

If the nicotine is contained in a product with an "intended use" as a smoking cessation or other treatment, it is then regulated as a "drug" and must go through clinical trials, studies, etc., and the product must meet strict manufacturing protocols before release to the public. If the nicotine is contained in a product with an intended use of "recreational" (ie. intended for human consumption but not as a treatment of any kind) it is regulated as a tobacco product. (A third classification is a pesticide, but that form of nicotine is not allowed for human consumption.)

Please. Just smoke already and quit lying.

Guns & Roses guitarist, DJ Ashba, reported to his fans on webstagram that the e-cigarette he bought at a Polish mall, which he reports he used for 9 months, contained "antifreeze which kills people;" and that his doctors told him to start smoking again, because "the nicotine intake that was going into [his] body" from the smoke-free e-cigarettes "was equivalent to smoking 33 packs of cigarettes a day."

Is distrusting the MHRA's regulation of e-cigarettes "conspiracy theories?"

Recently on a forum for e-cigarette enthusiasts, a commenter said he "saw no harm" in the move to regulate electronic cigarettes as medicine in the U.K., if what the MHRA was saying about just wanting to have e-cigarette companies "apply for licensing and to make sure the nic juices deliver consistent amounts of nicotine as advertised" was true. Apparently expecting doubt from other commenters that the MHRA was being forthright, the commenter said, "Conspiracy theorists have at it."

How is it a conspiracy theory, I asked? These people have 30 years of lying to the public about tobacco, nicotine and low risk alternatives as evidence they have no interest in telling the truth.

France: people still smoking, so ban using smoke-free e-cigarettes

"France will ban electronic cigarette smoking in public places by imposing the same curbs enforced since 2007 to combat tobacco smoking, Health Minister Marisol Touraine said on Friday." (Reuters)

Really? The 2007 smoking ban has been able to "combat tobacco smoking?" As usual, I did some research. (Unfortunately, it seemed impossible to find the French adult smoking rates from 2000 - 2012 online, so I went with the number of cigarettes sold as an indicator.)

From 2002 to 2007, the number of cigarettes sold in France declined 37.9%. Since the smoking ban was imposed in 2007, the number of cigarettes sold has declined only 7.5%, as of 2012. For the five years before the ban, the average drop in cigarette sales was 6.3% per year. After the ban, the annual decline has been 1.3% on average. (Source: French Observatory of Drugs and Drug Addiction, 2013 Edition)