We’ve all seen the headlines by now:
“Scientists warn that e-cigarettes might pose new health risks…”
“10 Ways E-cigarettes Will Steal Your Spouse And Kick Your Puppy…”
“E-cigarettes Linked To Carcinogens, Jackalope Attacks…”
“Anti-Smoking Groups Claim Link Between Electronic Cigarettes And Cancer Of The Everything…”
But while we’ve all seen the headlines, we’re not the ones those headlines are aimed at. Those headlines are aimed at folks who haven’t found Spinfuel yet, who aren’t yet freed from the chains of addiction to traditional smoking. Those headlines are focused like laser beams on keeping ‘those people’ imprisoned in the endless cycle of Smoke/Try NRTs/Fail/Smoke.
E-cigarettes break that circle, and that both terrifies and angers those who fatten their bank accounts at smokers’ expense. Who are those people?
Governments: Every government that makes a single thin dime by tobacco taxation. When smokers become Vapers, that’s money that’s no longer going into government pockets.
Pharmaceuticals companies: Every company that sells inhalers, gums, patches and pills which studies have demonstrated are no more effective than quitting cold turkey. Every time a pack of gum, a patch, an inhaler or a prescription leaves a pharmacy, the peddlers of these patent medicines get richer, and don’t for a second think that they give a damn that all the smoker gets is poorer.
Public health officials. Because many of them, such as the American Lung Association, are funded at least in part by government grants, they have a personal interest in seeing to it that their friends in finance are kept happy.
And then there are the people, both individually and in groups, who simply can’t stand to leave others alone when said others are enjoying something these puritanical assholes just don’t like.
So, to recap: Those of you who are regular Spinfuel readers, as I’ve mentioned, are already well acquainted with the headlines. But there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of would-be switchers out there who aren’t — and every one of them is also a potential victim of these headlines written, apparently, for the express purpose of preventing them from making this life-saving change. Those aforementioned groups would callously and with cold calculation trade innocent lives for money and power.
We have no intention of letting them do it any longer.
That’s why, beginning this week, Spinfuel eMagazine (in cooperation with the Spinfuel News Blog) is going to dissect every single one of these misleading and sensationalist news stories we find. We’ll respond to the worst, most egregious of these pieces directly, in such a way that those who search for the originals will also find our responses and be exposed to the truth, not just the disinformation. We’ll show those who wish to quit that the establishment’s “my way or the highway” mania is not the only way out.
And we’re going to do it in such a way that potential switchers will see us doing it.
The mainstream media has chosen, for the most part, to collude with people who value money and power more highly than they value human life. In our opinion, that makes all of these groups just as despicable as those who spent over a century peddling poison for profit. It makes them hypocrites, as well; we see no moral difference between advertising Winstons on a prime time cartoon and writing an article devoid of fact but packed with fear for the purpose of keeping the youngster who saw that old commercial puffing away on those very same Winstons.
There is a war on; it’s a war of words being fought on the battleground of the public consciousness, but it’s a war, all the same. The traditional media has been firing salvo after salvo. We’ve been holding this hill, but it’s time for us to ride out and take the field.
Starting this week, Spinfuel will lead the charge.
(We hope others will follow suit. Enough is enough. – ed)
John Castle
About John Castle John is the author of the popular “Smokeless: An Introductory Guide to the Pleasures of Vaping”. Pick up your copy today! – John has joined the staff of Spinfuel eMagazine as Staff Writer and Managing Editor.
