Quake in Cali

A professor at a Californian university speaks about ecigs, possibly sending tremors through the ‘Ban It’ establishment.

by Dave Cross
Apr 8, 2015

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Doctor Christopher Nichols was born in Canada and is now a professor of Organic Chemistry at the California State University. Revere Radio reported on him making some telling comments about the manner ecigs are being attacked and science corrupted.

“Second-hand vape has zero things to worry about. If students in my classroom were puffing on e-cigs, I would let them be. I don’t honestly know what the rules are here on my campus, they probably restrict it, but there’s no scientific reason to do that,” said Nichols.

Although not directly connected with any research into vaping or the effects of the vape, Nichols is eminently qualified to examine the evidence being presented by both sides and his conclusions are telling.

As reported by Revere: “The scientific basis on which vaping has so far been restricted, frankly, simply doesn’t exist. Restricting the use of vaping devices results only in more people continuing to smoke tobacco rather than turning to vaping to help stop a deadly habit that kills almost half a million people in America alone each year. The propaganda offered as science by those banning e-cigs turns out to be pseudo-science at best or, more accurately, not scientific at all.”

In his interview for the radio station he added: “I would much rather be sitting on an airplane next to a guy vaping, then a cigarette addict who can’t smoke for six hours and is freaking out. Treating e-cigarettes like normal cigarettes is making an apple look like an orange.”

He spoke about how the disingenuous nature of the arguments being railed against vaping only serves to keep smokers smoking. He lamented the fact that the aim of their measures seems to be to prevent access to a quitting tool. He noted that cigarette smoke produced by burning tobaccos is completely different to vapour produced by an electronic cigarette

“I think that many of the students are kind of following the lead that people may not want to see them vaping in class because they think, incorrectly, that what they’re doing is akin to cigarette smoke and that bystanders need to be worried. So, at least the students are sort of taking the initiative and erring on the side of caution, even though, quite frankly, there’s nothing at all to worry about.”

The Station notes that there has been a wealth of peer-reviewed evidence produce over the last twelve months in support of the efficacy of vaping (this feature in The Guardian illustrating the point) as a means to cease smoking and reduce nicotine intake. Nichols too mentions how the level of addiction to nicotine contained in vape is equivalent to the addictive properties of caffeine.

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV

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Dave 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.