Youth Youth Youth
Generation X advocates are still obsessed with today’s Generation Z (and saving them from ecigs).
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by Dave Cross
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The Antz leapt upon the findings of a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), a study throbbing with the pulse of California. Their lead conclusion, already derided by actual scientists who don’t receive Big Pharma incentives, states: “Among high school students in Los Angeles, those who had ever used e-cigarettes at baseline compared with nonusers were more likely to report initiation of combustible tobacco use over the next year.”
The ‘findings’ were packaged into press releases and fired off to news agencies and media organisations poste haste. They warned that ecig youths trying for kicks would soon descend into the grips of tobacco companies. The Baltimore Sun, for example, took the news and described the findings as “alarming”.
Worse, they portray vaping as some kind of ugly rash on society; they denounce all evidence as to the effectiveness and safety of vaping as “mythology”. They write: “e-cigarettes may actually increase the risk of addiction and may provide a gateway to smoking and its attendant adverse health conditions from cancer to respiratory diseases.”
“Still, it's fair,” they claim without justifying why, “to wonder if allowing adults to use e-cigarettes in bars, restaurants or other public places doesn't send a message to teens, unintentionally or not, that the controversial devices are not only safe but socially acceptable.” The automatic inference is vaping is not socially acceptable – opinions not facts based on evidence or caring for the health ramifications of ignoring the potential offered by ecigs.
Simon Chapman took time out from playing in his cover band. The king rocker saw this as the ideal opportunity to get some sweet revenge on Professor Linda Bauld and Professor Peter Hajek. He clutches to a fundamentalist belief that people should neither smoke nor vape and feels he has the right to impose his will on others.
Linda, Professor of Health Policy and Dean of Research at the University of Stirling, clearly and logically deconstructed JAMA’s findings last week. ‘No, no, no’ was Chapman’s reaction although he couldn’t rebut her points and chose to do so by attacking Hajek and attributing a similar stance to Bauld.
“There may be large numbers of kids who in the absence of access to e-cigarettes would have never smoked,” he writes. True, but by the same token the Universe may contain flying spaghetti monsters and the Tooth Fairy may be real. The use of the term “may” by Chapman and the Baltimore Sun is used in lieu of fact and is tantamount to nothing more than fear mongering. Devoid of research or fact, his opinions remain just that – opinions. Opinions that, many will say, are the product of a bias and without validity. His third way of total abstinence is not from the heart because his zero-tolerance policy exhibits a lack of one.
*There are no prizes for finding each Generation X track title contained in this article.
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous vape companies to develop content for their websites.
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