[NetBehaviour] Accelerationist health policy

[rinus van alebeek]

used to work for marketing research bureau, endless questionairies over the
phone about smoking.
philip morris had paid for this research, but this shouldn't be mentioned.

questions about new versions of marlboro. the name marlboro had to be
repeated over and over again.
( which I skipped in this pain in the ass interviews, knowing that I was
used to make publicity)

at one time questions about the e-cigarette arrived.
( which I skipped as well, still knowing that I was used to promote this
product)

it's a new product by the tobacco industry.
nothing noble about it.

the easiest way to quit smoking, is to quit smoking.

it makes kisses taste better too

Op vr 29 apr. 2016 om 22:42 schreef Edward Picot <edward at edwardpicot.com>

> The Royal College of Physicians have just announced their approval of
> e-cigarettes. Since the reason smokers smoke is in order to get
> nicotine, but the thing that makes smoking bad for your health is tar,
> e-cigarettes evidently reduce the harm caused by smoking by 95%, which
> means that actually you can probably vape all you like and it's still
> going to be fairly innocuous compared with other activities like
> drinking too much or eating lots of cream cakes or cheeseburgers.
>
> Furthermore, for smokers, e-cigarettes seem to represent a far more
> effective way of giving up tobacco cigarettes than the more traditional
> willpower + nicotine patches or gum. This is partly because, like
> cigarettes, they combine the delivery of nicotine with certain other
> forms of satisfaction - something to fiddle about with, something that
> gives you a certain 'look', the satisfaction of blowing out smoke (which
> I used to love when I was a smoker) and oral satisfaction (the 'mother's
> nipple' effect).
>
> What's more, the Royal College has also concluded that there is no
> evidence of e-cigarettes leading people towards tobacco cigarettes (the
> so-called 'gateway effect').
>
> So, is this an example of new technology offering a breakthrough which
> years of health advice, taxation and public health policy have been
> unable to deliver? Probably yes, but it's a nuanced yes.
>
> For one thing, even though nicotine by itself is nowhere near as bad for
> you as nicotine + tar, it's still bad for you, and obviously the effect
> of e-cigarettes over a period of many years hasn't yet been
> investigated, because they haven't been around all that long.
>
> For another thing, as far as I know there haven't been any proper
> environmental costings of e-cigarettes (although you can find some
> fairly poor-quality ramblings on the subject via Google), but it seems
> likely that they will be considerably more energy-expensive to
> manufacture than traditional cigarettes, and considerably more
> landfill-expensive to dispose of. The nicotine in e-cigarettes is
> presumably still mostly extracted from plants, especially tobacco, which
> must be much more energy-costly than just drying it and rolling it up.
> Fag-butts do tend to end up getting flushed into the water-supply in
> huge numbers, which is much less likely to happen with e-cigarettes, but
> other than that the environmental impact of a transition from tobacco
> cigarettes to e-cigarettes seems likely to be negative.
>
> But that's typical of new technology, isn't it? It gives with one hand,
> and takes away with the other.
>
> - Edward
>
>
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