Nick O'Teen – The Gremlin in the Evil Weed

Recent exchanges in Social Media have highlighted the general perception of many non-smokers of the role of nicotine as being the key to tobacco addiction. Don’t get me wrong here; there is virtually total understanding by open-minded people that it is the tar and other carcinogenic chemicals from smoking tobacco that does the damage to human health. That message has been successfully rammed home over many years by Tobacco Control, The Media, etc.

However, nicotine and smoking have become inextricably linked by the 50 year fight of Tobacco Control to lower smoking prevalence. Not surprisingly, as a direct consequence of this activity, nicotine has been ‘fingered’ as the culprit responsible as the addictive component that makes stopping smoking so difficult. In the mind of the non-smoking public, nicotine is the reason that people start and continue smoking and the reason that cannot easily stop. In addition, for many individuals, nicotine itself is seen as a threat to health despite all the strong evidence to the contrary.

In order for the safer alternatives to smoking, that we know and love, to become acceptable to non-smokers, a mountain will be need to be climbed to change perceptions and attitudes of the majority in society, including many existing tobacco smokers.

So how do we decouple nicotine use from smoking tobacco in the minds of most people in society?

That, as they say, is the $64,000 question!

If we were in Tobacco Control (and wielded that sort of power and cash), we would immediately leap to the tried and trusted methods that have served us so well in the past:

 

·         Science

·         Pseudo-science

·         Education

·         PR

·         Control measures

·         More control measures

·         Even more control measures

 

You get the idea.

But is there another way? Is there a THIRD way? (Where have I heard that before?)

 

I wish I knew the answer to that question, but I have some ideas:

 

• What if every Vaper managed to persuade at least 10 non-smokers by whatever method available to them, of the fundamental difference between consuming nicotine as a recreation and smoking tobacco?

• What if Vapers collectively, via a single global organisation (or a united network of sole national organisations), took the same message of persuasion to Governments, Policy-making Bodies, The Media, Health Professionals, etc?

The British Labour Party was born in the 20^th Century from the needs of workers (via their Unions) to not only organise to negotiate collectively with their employers, but to represent their interests in the national political sphere.
 

We Vapers only really have one overriding interest. To ensure that non-smokers understand that nicotine, if properly used, is not harmful and is absolutely nothing to do with smoking tobacco,