Scolds Wring Hands Over E-Cigarette Adds ‘For The Children’
As regulation crazed and power mad politicians and opportunistic anti-tobacco and public health parasites pile on to the growing e-cigarette industry it’s becoming apparent that they don’t have any really good positions against them. Instead they’ve trotted out the shopworn talking points they used to gin up the anti-tobacco movement and the overblown hysteria over ‘second hand smoke’. Serving to underscore the analytic bankruptcy behind their position they’re now fretting over the fact that advertising for e-cigarettes isn’t banned from television the same way that tobacco cigarette ads have been verboten since 1971. Because, you know, the children…..
The e-cigs on TV arguments sound very familiar. One scold says that the ‘e-cigarette and Big tobacco’ (notice how she conflates the two) are ‘lying when they say they’re not advertising to children’. Scold #1 favors Federal regulation banning sales to children and television advertising. Another scold makes an obvious point indicating that since a portion of the television audience is under the age of 17 as e-cigarette advertising increases they are “increasing exposure to youth.” Scold #2 continues to decry “unregulated advertisement messages about the benefits of e-cigarettes” and is concerned that “there are no counter messages by the public health community.” Of course it wasn’t *that* long ago that the biggest concern of the ‘public health community’ was to get people to stop smoking by any means necessary. Obviously if your organization derives funding and influence from the vilification of smoking getting people to *stop* smoking will ultimately run you out of business. Hypocricy is necessary when money and power are at stake.
A third scold continues this line of argumentation shrieking that “there has been an absolute explosion of youth exposure to e-cigarette advertising on television.” He also tries to conflate apples and oranges when he links e-cigarettes with ‘Big Tobacco’ but admits “it’s deja vu all over again.” It may be ‘deja vu all over again’ in the anti-tobacco turned anti-vaping kook playbook but they’re talking about two different products.
The regulation happy anti-vaping kooks want e-cigarettes added to the list of tobacco products–including cigars and pipe tobacco (which also shouldn’t be banned but that’s another argument for another time)–that are prohibited from advertising on television. While most e-cigarette manufacturers let all of this bleating fall on deaf ears blu eCigs released a statement reiterating that they “proactively set limitations on when and where” they advertise in “an effort to minimize any potential exposure to minors.”