A Five Year Journey

As of today, I haven't smoked a cigarette in five years.

But I didn't set out to quit smoking. I became what is known as an "accidental quitter" when I switched to using an electronic cigarette. Before I tried one, I was resigned to being a smoker until I died.

As I reported in my very first article about e-cigarettes in 2009, "Negative Reactions Mystify Electronic Cigarette Owners," my husband and I bought our first electronic cigarettes from a booth at the state fair -- on a lark. The sales pitch that sold us was that the devices were less expensive than conventional cigarettes, didn't contain the tar and smoke that increase the risk of "smoking-related" diseases and could be used where smoking would soon be prohibited in my state. We spent over $200 on two kits. Note that although we'd tried quitting many times before (and I had quit during every pregnancy and while nursing), we did not buy the e-cigarettes to use as an alternative to quitting smoking with gums or patches. We weren't looking for a way to quit smoking. We bought them as a safer, less expensive and  more convenient substitute for conventional cigarettes. It's important to understand that e-cigarettes are not for people who are trying to quit smoking -- they are for those who cannot or will not quit, so they need a safer alternative. Like condoms are for safer sex, e-cigarettes are for safer "smoking."

CASAA is truly grassroots, not a 'front group'

I recently came across a blog post about e-cigarettes that had this in the comments:

What strikes me about CASAA is that the board is stacked with power players: lawyers, smokeless tobacco lobbyists and web marketing experts. Not a random assortment of Americans, but exactly what a company would seek out as a PR front.

Once I stopped laughing at "stacked with power players" and picked myself up off the floor, I wanted to set the record straight.

CASAA, The Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association, was formed in 2009 on an online e-cigarette enthusiast forum. Here is a thread discussing the creation of the organization, before it even had a name: ECO - Organization Charter: Administration and here you can see a lot of the democratic process that went into the name and organization. Clearly, CASAA was not formed by e-cigarette or tobacco companies as a "PR front."

It's not "just an addiction"

Although my 21 year old son has a mother who advocates smokeless alternatives for smokers, he and his older brother (who was quite anti-smoking when he was younger) both started smoking. My younger son tried e-cigarettes, but didn't really get into them until some of his smoking friends made the switch. My elder son soon followed suit.

The other day, my younger son posted a photo of his new e-cigarette "wrap" on his Facebook page. His uncle then posted this:

"I just quit outright. Not sought out a surrogate....E-cigs are like giving up sex, but feeling that doing a blow up doll every night is not at all the same. Why waste money? Just live smoke free, and end the social addiction aspects, which keep you in "smokers mode" Just quit the actual habit, and walk away a richer man...Nicotine is neither hallucinogenic, nor pleasing. it merely takes away the craving for more nicotine. That is all it does."

My two days in Wisconsin's capitol

Tuesday and Wednesday this week, I drove to Madison (a total of 708 miles for two round trips) to testify before two legislative committees regarding exempting e-cigarettes from indoor smoking bans. These bills (SB 440 and AB 762) seek to clarify that e-cigarette use is not included in the smoking bans and to preempt smaller municipalities from including e-cigarettes in their bans. Believe it or not, after 4 1/2 years with CASAA, this is the first time I've actually had the opportunity to testify regarding e-cigarettes. Happily, this was a bill that I could support.

On Coffee and (e)Cigarettes

I believe that there are benefits to smoke-free nicotine use for a lot of people and nicotine itself isn't any more "addictive" than caffeine. That shocks a lot of people to hear, because it goes against everything we've been taught over the past few decades. However, a lot of more recent research backs me up in this. (See http://nicotinepolicy.net/karl-fagerstrom/520-dependence-on-tobacco-and-nicotine) Of course, if you would tell people to not start using caffeinated products, then the same advice would obviously apply to smoke-free nicotine products. But if you have no objection to people using caffeinated products, that pretty much makes any arguments against smoke-free nicotine products moot.

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/