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Monday 29 April 2013

Sunday 28 April 2013

Monkey nuts for Pea brains at the EU.

No nuts warning on bag of nuts

A supermarket chain has withdrawn bags of nuts from sale – because they contain nuts.

Booths decided to pull its Whole Hearted Roasted Monkey Nuts from the aisles because its label does not declare it contains peanuts.

 “The packaging does not state that the product contains peanuts, which is a specific allergen that’s listed in legislation. People who are allergic to peanuts may not be allergic to other types of nuts. Without the correct information on the packaging, people with an allergy to peanuts who might not know or make the connection between peanuts and monkey nuts, for example children, might eat the product and experience an adverse reaction.”

Monkey nuts and Peanuts are the same thing.

Aubergine, Egg Plant and Brinjals are all the same thing.

Corn, maize and mealies are all the same thing.

Depending on where you live.

E cigs, e-cigs, e cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, PV's, PA's and"devices" are all the same thing to a vaper, depending how far into vaping you are. We have juice. We have e liquid.

Same thing, different words.

We have Nicotine Replacement Therapies like patches, gum and inhalers. We have Tobacco Harm Reduction like patches, gum and inhalers.  The legislation specifies peanuts.  "The packaging states that the product contains nicotine, which is a specific chemical that’s listed in legislation.". Used in patches, gum and inhalers it's ok.

But used in electronic cigarettes nicotine has to have severe legislation imposed upon it by the EU despite the fact that for Nicotine Replacement Therapies and Tobacco Harm Reduction electronic cigarettes outperform patches, gum and inhalers by leaps and bounds. And electronic cigarettes should be classified as "tobacco products" but not patches, gum and inhalers!

"The packaging does not state that the product contains peanuts, which is a specific allergen that’s listed in legislation."

Monkey nuts and Peanuts are the same thing. Perhaps the legislation needs to catch up?

Nicotine, after all, has only one name. Legislation can't make one thing not a "tabacco product" and the same thing a  "tobacco product", otherwise it's nuts!

 




 

Friday 26 April 2013

Enthusiasm for vaping - Vapoteurs, is it for us or against us? I see it as STRENGTH.

I just watched this video


I thought it was great and agreed with everything that everyone said! But then, I'm a vaper.

On the Internet, there are thousands of videos explaining why vaping is great, or teaching, talking and explaining vaping. How can that be bad?

Well, they are anecdotal. Science only accepts that which has been "proven" in universities by "proper" science. When is science going to catch up with the times? If there are two million videos on how vaping has changed our lives for the better, it could be easy to find the ones on how vaping destroyed a life. I don't see those. Are there any?

Today I also just read this excellent piece
 At the bottom, there are a list of weaknesses in the study. One of them is that "1. As participants were recruited by social media, vaping forums and blogs, many participants are likely to be enthusiastic vapers which may lead to bias in subjective questions."

 So, our enthusiasm goes against us? 

Social media and science don't mix?  You mustn't ask the people who actually DO a thing about the thing they do, in case of bias. What would be the point of asking people who don't vape about vaping? Would that make better scientific sense? 

I see our enthusiasm as the biggest measurable fact that vaping is amazing and has changed our lives. To me that's scientific confirmation - of something immeasurable - like love - or hunger - or joy - conditions of experience where science has no power yet cannot deny its existence
Be enthusiastic vapoteurs - it's our big, BIG, BIG strength.

Thursday 25 April 2013

A state of suspension - s'wonderful!

For a week, I have had no internet connection. I have had no idea what is happening on the vaping scene. During this state of suspension, other things have happened to us. My husband decided to mend his chair which had two broken springs. He had been suffering with flu and not very well. The day he dismantled it, he became very ill and was put to bed for a week on strong antibiotics  by a ferocious doctor and told to do “nothing”. My husband finds bed a frightfully uncomfortable place, so it wasn't long before he was downstairs trying to watch TV on a small pink chair which gave him more discomfort than bed. The advantage to being downstairs was that he could watch all his favourite stuff on the Sky channel which we only have upstairs on a computer. BUT the internet was down.

So I had to do the sacrificial thing, and give him my chair. Our chairs are very special to us. We have had them for years. They are recliners – a “his” and a “hers”. By now, they are a perfect fit. So I ended up with the small pink chair. It has a bulge at the base of the back, presumably for support, not allowing for the slump position which is my normal choice. Furthermore, it has narrow wooden arms which give you carpel tunnel syndrome after an hour or so. And I have not been well either – I could feel a scratchy throat starting on the night of my Ravengrim interview on Vapers Place Anti-Nanny with Ravengrim Episode 28. After that broadcast, everything fell apart. I still haven't listened to it, and since, there has been another.

It has taken me a full 24 hours to deal with over 400 emails, YouTube comments and notifications I have had about vaping related things.

But right now I am listening to THE most uplifting broadcast right now - and I can see such a difference in a week, and I missed it.  S'wonderful!
  
 

Monday 15 April 2013

You are invited to the second broadcast attempt tonight with Ravengrim on Vaper's Place tonight at 11.00pm UK time

Last week's broadcast went pear shape - nothing to do with us - so tonight, we are doing it again.

Thank you recognisable people I saw on live chat. Thank you for supporting us by your presence!

This is the live link for tonight's broadcast at 9:00pm EST and 11:00pm UK time.

And this is to use at any time the soundcloud link for past episodes

Wednesday 10 April 2013

My letter to Chris Davies - please write too....

 
Dear Chris,

I have smoked for 50 years. The more repressive smokers' situations became the more determined I was never to stop smoking. You could call me one of those un-co-operative stubborn smokers. In August 2011 I bought an electronic cigarette to use because I was going somewhere I could not smoke. By October 2011, I had switched completely to vaping only. I found I preferred vaping to smoking. It was quite a miraculous event in my life. I think electronic cigarettes are amazing inventions. They have changed many lives in an equally miraculous way.

They work as they are NOW. (they are regulated quite well in the UK already as a consumer product, so saying they are unregulated is not true.) If the EU meddle in what, currently, I would call the greatest way to turn people away from smoking cigarettes, they will be short-sighted and foolish indeed.

I have only vaped for 20 or so months, but there are some vapers going into their 9th year of vaping. I have not heard of any negative health conditions stemming from vaping, though we need another decade to be sure. It is better, in that time, to offer smokers a way to lessen physical harm, by using something that is definitely less harmful short term and probably less harmful long term.

I very much doubt any young person who started vaping would ever switch to smoking a real cigarette as the experience would be, in comparison, quite awful. I would think smoking is the gateway to vaping and not the other way around. I think, as the laws are now, and with plain packaging immanent, young people will try smoking as a cool and dangerous poke in the eye to authority and collect and swap the mind violating images as a swagger.

In this circumstance, having electronic cigarettes as they are currently sold, as a consumer product, would save lives.

Electronic cigarettes are not sold as a quit smoking program. They are for reducing harm so that smokers may still enjoy the ambiance, the comradie and the joy of smoking, without inhaling poisons. They are a substitute for smoking. The flavouring is offered to enrich the taste and not to allure the young to try vaping.

I have found that the saying "Nicotine is what addicts people to smoking" to be questionable, and I believe that is even being investigated scientifically. Nicotine is as addictive as coffee - and as harmful. There is something in the burning tobacco leaf that makes the addiction - not the nicotine. Electronic cigarettes do not contain tobacco in any way and should not even fall under The Tobacco Control Directive.

As for the selling of electronic cigarettes - they are a consumer product, not a medical device. They have been an amazing invention for those smokers crushed between persecution and repressive legislation. And they should be treated as a product like any other. They should be avaliable to be sold anywhere.

If you need any information, there have been many scientific studies done now on vaping and electronic cigarettes by vapers  themselves who are policing their own practices, please don't hesitate to converse with me - or others who are far more knowledgeable.

There is a lot of mis-information and scaremongering coming from those who might be fearful of vaping being the new smoking, or those having vested interests in producing the mostly useless NRT Therapies or even cigarettes!

Electronic cigarettes, so far, have been a grass roots thing, controlled by no giant corporations, either drug, tobacco, or Governmental. It would be a sad, sad thing, that they get interfered with for whatever motive, fear, greed or control, to make them useless, instead of the best Harm Reduction tool available - for smokers.

Yours Sincerely,

Liz

Vapingpoint
YouTube channel - .Vaping for the Over Sixties
My blogs Vapingpoint Blog

Tuesday 9 April 2013

Numbers - Doll - vaping becomes imperative as tobacco becomes more deadly....

Numbers equal science. We know that if it is scientific it has numbers and statistics attached.

If you read old medical papers, studies have less numbers in them. Measuring everything in numbers and targets is a new phenomenon stimulated by the rise of "proper" science. Science used to be something a man did at his house, in his shed, in a backroom at work. He did it because he was interested in solving a puzzle. He did it through devotion.

Now science is done in Universities, funded by corporations, often as the student attempts to get his degree that entails writing a paper. His paper is a scientific study backed by the numbers convention of proving his postulation. Now, many postulations are proven because he is paid to prove them. I think science has become totally corrupt, especially the science linked to health.

In 1951Richard Doll started his doctor's study. He submitted reports in 1954, 1956 the 1970's This study lasted till 1991. It is full of numbers. It's true, numbers show us things. I think, of all the smoking and lung cancer studies, this one is stunning because of the time period and his dedication to it. He was devoted.

He noticed a strange thing. Smoking became MORE harmful to smokers in the last section of his studies. He says...."When current cigarette smokers were compared with lifelong non-smokers, the excess mortality associated with smoking was already substantial during 1951-71, but it was considerably more extreme during 1971-91. During 1951-71, the death rates in cigarette smokers were about double those in non-smokers throughout middle age; during 1971-91, the corresponding difference was nearly treble. If, as is likely, most of the difference in mortality between smokers and non-smokers is actually caused by smoking then a threefold excess would imply that about two thirds of the deaths in middle age among the smokers were caused by tobacco. Even at older ages the excess mortality associated with tobacco was substantially greater in 1971-91 than it was during 1951-71. This difference between the apparent effects of tobacco in the two periods arose because age specific mortality decreased substantially only among non-smokers."

But, he realises this is not logical and wonders why the improvement in healthcare did not affect also the smokers. There is some discussion about this strange fact - but I guess, that the warnings on Tobacco Packs became subliminal messages of death and made tobacco more dangerous.

Modern statistics record that smoking is more dangerous than the numbers Doll's Doctor's Study produced.

We are constantly being given visual images - medical porn - on what smoking does to us - and as we think - so it is.

I am not a smoker, but a vaper yet I believe that Plain Packaging and the medical violence of the visual images on it, deeply affects our minds. It is a criminal act on smokers by those who know not what they do. I think it is most important, but I seem to be a voice crying in the wilderness. My opinion is that the grotesque images on packs of cigarettes are so violent to the mind, that we severely affect our health by just looking at them. They take effect before even the cigarette has been lit!

If, in the future, there is some dedicated scientist who is devoted to exposing a great wrong, he could measure the effect of tobacco and lung cancer before and after the use of images on cigarette packs over the years.

I predict that those to whom the greatest harm will be done, is to the young people and the children who will grow up with nothing else but such abusive pictures in their minds, and to them tobacco will be deadly!

The only way to enjoy nicotine and  all the comradie, social pleasure and joy of "smoking" that I once had, is for me to be a vaper. I am a smoker who vapes only because I prefer vaping to smoking. But I have not forgotten my roots. I was treated unjustly. I was made to feel of the lowest class - a leper. I was mentally violated every time I opened a pouch of tobacco that told me it would kill me. I was relegated to outdoors, and then even that was taken away by law. Do you know of ANY group of humans so treated in a civilised country in Modern History? We were an expense to the State. We were milked in taxes and the profit was great. I will not forget. I am a human being. I am NOT a number. I am not a statistic, I have paid for every medical treatment I get. I have never harmed anyone by my smoking. The whiff of  Second Hand Smoke from me in the park will cause no harm. The harmful effects are measured by scientist's numbers over many many trillions of whiffs. and you won't be in them that long - not even in my car. You have been given the right to abuse me, to call me names, to not employ me, to suggest I am mentally ill, to invade my privacy, to judge me.

As a vaper I will remember my roots. I see the eyes of smoking enemies swiveling towards vapers. But, this time, it might be different. Vapers are ex-smokers. Remembering our roots might galvanise us into protecting our future because tobacco's modern deadly form, is not an option. Well, it's not for me.

 


Sunday 7 April 2013

Listen in on Ravengrim's Anti Nanny broadcast tomorrow night - I'm on - live!

Tomorrow night at eleven pm, UK time, I'm on Ravengrim's show Anti Nanny on Vaper's Place in the USA - live!

Here's the link for Vapers Place.

Here is the soundcloud link for past episodes.

This will be by third time on Vaper's Place. But the last time with Jan was a real hoot. I wrote a blog on it.

I'm looking forwarded to it. It couldn't be more chaotic than last time.....

My published blog about being live on air follows.

"Last night I was on "live", on radio - with ravengrim

Live.

Fortunately there was no video.

ETA 11:00pm for a skype call.

So, up to bed, into PJ's, and snuggle in under the blankies with netbook, hubby and dog - very cosy - ready for action.  Outside, the (usual) pouring rain thrumming against the window glass. All preparations are made - a glass of water, PV's at hand - in different flavours - coffee, absinth and personal mix.

Right on cue, as skype is calling, our large ginger tom makes a dramatic entry through the door, and up onto the bed, dripping water everywhere and carrying an LWO (a large wriggling object) - pandemonium ensues and skype is calling - earlier than I expect. So I detach the toffee I am chewing and lay it, unfinished next to me on the bedside table.

Remembering the strange sounds I made in the last live broadcast with Kevin, loud clomping that turned out to be me putting my PV's down deafeningly on the wooden table next to the computer's microphone, I am set up to be quiet this time.

Husband is dealing with the cat as countdown begins - ssshhh, ssshh - no clomping please. I manage to get my headphones on at 3-2-1 - GO! The intro music is so loud in my head I nearly pass out with fright. I fling my arms out onto the bedside table to steady myself and adjust the volume to bearable. Somehow the chewed toffee gets stuck on the inside of my arm above my elbow and has to be removed. But this is a velcro toffee. It attaches itself to various places. So now I try to wipe toffee off with no assistance except spit and fingers. Toffee spreads. Sticky, sticky, yeuch!

I remember the facewipes in the drawer. I remember the clomping in the previous show - no clomping. I try to do everything frightfully quietly. Open the drawer get out the  facewipes, remove one from the crackly plastic cover, talk, wipe, arms, legs, face and fingers where toffee sticky has now spread. Talking, talking, wiping wiping.

Thank God for Ravengrim's calm voice, carrying on, keeping the hysteria at bay. The hysteria is not panic or stress, but the impulse to laugh myself breathless and - speechless., which is what happens to me when I find something really really funny. But we are talking about serious things and I am trying to keep my mind on the topic and - more - not make a fool of myself.

Things settle, for a time, Kensington Kenny calls - I can't remember when exactly. Was it before I choke on a sip of water taken to steady me up - or was it before or after I drop my computer on the floor? Can't remember now - I'll have to listen to the broadcast. Finally, I just unravel - Ravengrim keeps her head - thank you for that. I just want you to know  RG that last night was one of the funniest episodes of my life and I hope to retel it many times. Of course I will be speechless and breathless and rolling on the floor laughing!"

Bring it on VapourTrails TV!

 I really enjoy VapourTrails TV There is hours of vaping entertainment there. Dave will show you around on the homepage.....

Here is a useful new project in which to get involved. Lights Camera Action.

And Andy Sutton experimented with a twitter bomb the next night...all good stuff I reckon.

Thank you Dave Dorn, Andy, Dave and Sav for this episode



Friday 5 April 2013

Dogging Tales:-Dogging might be easier in California than smoking

I thoroughly enjoyed Dogging Tales! I surprised myself. I thought it was clever, comical and very sad. The photography was brilliant. I loved the scenes linking the animal theme - the sheep eyes glowing in the dark, the deer, the foxes, the woodland wildlife. The bleak script. And the loneliness of it all.

According to Wonderful Wiki Dogging is quasi legal - ambiguously. What people do to themselves sexually, even if dangerous seems a non-discussed, non-legislated thing. All kinds of sexual practices are perfectly legal amongst consenting adults - some even cause injury on occasions Our sexuality is our business.

Our bodies belong to us.

California has new legislation up for the vote on 15th April I believe that intends to ban electronic cigarettes everywhere - they will fall under "tobacco" products. Even smoking should not be banned everywhere as it is attempting to do. Our bodies belong to us and not to the state. I hope someone in California is going to protest!

When we do not consent to sex and it happens nevertheless, we call it rape and it is illegal. Why can Governments get away with taking away our right to autonomy over our own bodies? In our free society, taking pleasure in sex is our human right. Taking pleasure from smoking has become a lonely guilty pleasure and in many places, even in the open air, we may not do it. If electronic cigarettes are labelled a tobacco product, as California is attempting to do, their use will be severely curtailed - everywhere! Dogging might be easier in California than smoking.

But the enemies of smoking and vaping bang on - and we allow them to violate us.




Thursday 4 April 2013

A call to all Vapoteurs! Vapers against The Bans

Here is a worthy way to assist our cause if you's like to do your bit....

Vapers Against The Bans – A Call to Action.

on  at 12:21 AM
Posted In: Electronic Cigarettes
While social networking earlier this week, it became very clear to me that members on the PoTV Forum and other forums like UKV, were getting a little anxious about the EU Tobacco Product Directive. There were various complaints, suggestions, and a lot of amazing ideas.
I took it upon myself to set up 3 social networking sites, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, so that there can be a semi-centralized place where vapers can share information and ideas just about the EU TPD and Bans world wide.
In 72 hours the FB has received over 400 likes, G+ is on its way up to over 100, and Twitter is tagging along.
I do not intend on being the “only voice” behind these social networks and they are a great way for vapers to utilize social media to get information out to the people who may not use forums.
In fact many people who use electronic cigarettes as an alternative to smoking, have no idea that ecigs may very well be banned.
We need the support of all of the forums, vendors, reviewers, bloggers, and radio personalities to get this thing viral so Vapers can reach Vapers. We can all come together and stop this.
What can you do?
*Share information on the social medias
*Tell your friends and family to come get involved, you dont have to be a vaper to support someone you love!
*Vendors can send out leaflets in all of their sales or link the social media’s on their websites
*Bloggers can repost this blog!
*Reviewers who use Video/Radio can make a short PSA and post them up on youtube or Sound Cloud
*Write to you MEPs/MPs, EU representatives and demand they answer you back personally
*SHARE THOSE LETTERS ONLINE!
*Sign the petitions posted on the social media
*Get other countries involved. You don’t have to be a vaper in the EU, Vapers around the world will be heavily affected by a EU ban as well as a US ban.

So come on, LIKE SHARE AND TWEET!
Facebook 
Google + 
Google + Community 
Twitter 

Vape Against The Bans has already been mentioned on Taste Your Juice and The VP Live Show, with Kev and the VapinGreek. The Vapourmists will be setting up a short video PSA to put on youtube.
Don’t be part of the problem, be a part of the solution and make a difference! Ask yourself how you can help and if you don’t ask me! All questions can be emailed to vapersagainsttheban@gmail.com

Wednesday 3 April 2013

The Guardian taurus excretum (bullshit)

As every blogger knows, sometimes it turns out badly! This article Watch out e-cigarette smokers (sic) - you're inhaling the unknown by Tom Riddlington is a bad post. Even the title shows gross ignorance! Who smokes an e-cig? Not anyone I know.

The subtitle tells the reader that they are being targeted on the young. Mmmm? They are?

Not far along, this master of knowledge tells us we can buy e-cigs at newsagents but we should beware that "E-cigarettes may look legitimate, but they haven't been through the same stringent safety checks as medicated nicotine replacement therapies" and I say they ARE legitimate! They are a legitimate substitute for smoking. They are not medicated nicotine replacement therapies are they? Well I use my devices as a substitute for smoking. I don't know about you.

I got a bit wound up when this Doctor muses about recommending them to his patients - "Hardened smokers trying to quit are using them like prescription drugs, but they don't have any of the same safeguards. E-cigarettes are masquerading as medications – so let's subject them to the same scrutiny." Well, my vaping does not masquerade as a prescription drug - it masquerades as a cigarette. I do not take any prescription drugs at all because a lot of them are highly dangerous.

He goes on - "A quick search of medical journal archives reveals about 200 references to electronic cigarettes over the past five years." yet he gives not one link in his article to any place from whence he got his facts, most of them outdated or questionable.

By the time we get here - "Although I strongly encourage smokers to quit, I'm not comfortable advocating an unregulated, unlicensed consumer product that is marketing itself as a medicine." I am just about popping! Don't you feel your hackles rising? Ever seen an e-cig marketed as a "medicine"?

Every blog should have a good last paragraph. Here it is - "e-cigarettes should be considered a snake-oil gimmick that could get a new generation hooked on nicotine before their first smoke"

Aaaah yes.