“This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
―
William Shakespeare,
Hamlet
“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with
food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god.
Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide
them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the
conclusion that they are gods.”
―
Christopher Hitchens,
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
E-Cigarettes Should be a Last Resort, Heart Doctors Say
byMaggie Fox
E-cigarettes should be outlawed for minors and
only be used as a last resort to quit smoking, the American Heart
Association says in a new policy statement. And the Food and Drug
Administration should hurry up and regulate them, the group says.
New research shows that teens are not using
e-cigarettes to quit. The latest Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention survey released Monday shows more than 263,000 middle-and
high-schoolers who had never smoked before tried e-cigarettes in 2013.
That's triple the number from 2011 and reinforces the argument that
vaping can be a gateway to nicotine addiction.
"Over the last 50 years,
20 million Americans died because of tobacco. We are fiercely committed
to preventing the tobacco industry from addicting another generation of
smokers," Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, says in a statement.
The Food and Drug Administration says it plans to regulate e-cigarettes,
along with cigars and other tobacco products. Many "vapers" who use
e-cigarettes say regulation will damage a product that's a far safer
substitute for cigarettes.
The Heart Association disagrees. "In the
years since the FDA first announced it would assert its authority over
e-cigarettes, the market for these products has grown dramatically,"
Brown said. "We fear that any additional delay of these new regulations will have real, continuing public health consequences."
Dr. Nancy Snubs Out E-Cigarette Myths
1:55
The Food and Drug Administration says it plans to regulate e-cigarettes,
along with cigars and other tobacco products. Health advocates say it's
about time, but many "vapers" who use e-cigarettes say regulation will
damage a product that's a far safer substitute for cigarettes
Even health experts agree that electronic cigarettes might be
useful in helping people who want to quit smoking. So where's the harm
in them? Mostly, it's the unknown, the FDA says. "We
can't even tell you what the compounds are in the vapor," FDA's Mitch
Zeller told reporters.
FDA regulation would require the companies to tell the agency, but not
necessarily the public, what's in their products. FDA is sensitive to
protecting competitive secrets. The FDA is also asking for research on potential
harms from inhaling the heated mixture. It might not be as harmful as
burning tobacco leaves, but it might not be completely benign, either,
says Dr. John Spangler, who runs a smoking cessation clinic at Wake
Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina. "It is true that electronic cigarettes are safer
than regular cigarettes. On the other hand there are some effects in
the lung of the vapors which mimic the same kind of changes that go
along with asthma,"Spangler told NBC News.
"That happens within 5 minutes of using an
electronic cigarette. We don't know how long that will last or whether
it will lead to permanent lung damage."
Spangler's been studying this and doesn't have
final data yet. But in general, e-cigarettes appear slightly less
effective than nicotine gum or patches or drugs such as Chantix, he
says.
And experts argue that if e-cigarette makers
wanted their products used as quit-smoking aids, they'd have submitted
them to the FDA as such. Instead, manufacturers fought FDA's attempts to
regulate them in that way, and won in federal appeals court.
"Electronic cigarettes may represent the next
evolution of nicotine replacement, supplanting the gum, patch and the
existing inhaler. However, most consumers would be shocked to realize
the products they buy have less oversight than a bag of dog food, and
are often manufactured and imported from countries that have histories
of tainted pharmaceutical and food products," Cobb added.
Glynn and others remember that the tobacco
industry first told Americans that cigarettes were healthful, and then
battled the U.S. government in court for decades when the Surgeon
General declared that smoking caused cancer. It took decades to prove
that tobacco companies colluded to make cigarettes ever more addictive
and to cover up research showing tobacco caused not only cancer, but
heart disease, stroke, emphysema and other diseases. They also point to industry attempts to market
"light" cigarettes as less dangerous — research shows they are not — and
companies have pushed menthol cigarettes despite evidence that menthol worsens the health effects.
This unique resource shows you everything you need to know to get started crafting top-quality spirits on a small scale.
In
the post Victoria shares her struggles to not only make liquor legally
at home but how, once realizing there was not a reasonable way for an
individual to legally distill liquor at home, she engaged in the process
of changing the law.
Back in November 2012, I applied
for a Craft Distillery license in my home state of Washington. I wasn't
interested in opening a commercial distillery; as an experienced home
brewer, I simply wanted to learn a new skill and to do it legally.
I
thought it was going to be easy. I thought that the Washington State
Liquor Control Board was going to pat me on the back for going to the
trouble to get a license, even though I only wanted to distill liquor as
a hobby. Since I was NOT going to opening a commercial distillery, I
also imagined that somehow the licensing process was going to be easier.
Boy, was I wrong!
In most of the world today, including the United States and
Canada, it is illegal to distill liquor without a license. (In the US,
distillers must have a Federal permit as well as a state license.) What I
didn't know was that I was the first person in Washington to apply for a
distillery license as a private individual, and that I was
inadvertently exposing a major flaw in the system: there is simply no
provision in the law for someone like me. That is, the licensing system
is completely biased toward commercial distilleries. The bottom line is
that I am required to have a license to distill liquor, but they won't
give me one unless I open a commercial distillery.
I could have
left it at that. I could have decided at that point to give it up, and
either not distill liquor at all, or else quietly pursue the hobby
illegally. Instead, I am actively engaged in the process of changing the
laws, both state and Federal, to allow limited home production of
distilled liquor while making it a lot easier for hobbyists to do so
legally. The current laws, most of which date back to around the repeal
of Prohibition in 1933, no longer make sense given that we are allowed
to make beer and wine at home legally. The Liquor Control Board had no
idea of this until I applied for the license!
This isn't just
about making booze. It's about shining the light of reason on unfair,
outdated laws and having them make sense for everyone. I don't believe
unrestricted production of alcohol is the answer, but continuing to make
it impossible for enthusiastic hobbyists to pursue their passion
legally is definitely not the answer.
I wrote Craft Distilling: Making Liquor Legally at Home
in part to clarify all the legal issues involved, as well as to make my
case for why the laws should be changed. Most of the book is about how
to make top-quality distilled liquor, though, and a lot more. Even if
you aren't interested in pursuing distilling as a hobby, by
understanding something about the process that goes into making liquor,
you'll appreciate your next shot of Scotch or bourbon a little bit more.
I promise.
