A few days ago, we wrote about the San Francisco Health Department’s ridiculous #curbit campaign to misinform people about vaping, and the hilarious social media backlash that resulted. Now we have news that, not content to be upstaged by the stupidity of the Californians, Alaska has launched their own anti-vaping campaign. The health department has an online fact sheet where it claims that e-cigarettes are just as dangerous as real cigarettes. The major difference is that this one includes TV advertisements.
As Dr. Michael Siegel over at Tobacco Analysis wisely points out, this is effectively the first pro-tobacco TV commercial since the 70’s.
“There is no doubt that this commercial is extremely misleading and that it contains false information. It is designed to scare people so much about the health effects of vaping that they essentially view these products as no different from tobacco cigarettes in terms of health risk. The ultimate effect of this campaign is that many smokers in Alaska who might otherwise have quit smoking or cut down substantially by switching to electronic cigarettes will be dissuaded from doing so. Moreover, many ex-smokers who successfully quit via the use of electronic cigarettes may well return to smoking, since it appears from the commercial that e-cigarettes are not better for your health than tobacco cigarettes.”
If you haven’t read it yet, it’s worth it to read his entire analysis. I could write a long article arguing against the claims in these advertisements and online fact sheets, but Dr. Siegel is way smarter than I am and does an excellent job of refuting the claims of the Alaska Health Department, including a hilarious look at would would happen if there were anti-nicotine patch advertisements.
Bottom line, the people behind all of these anti-vaping initiatives are the same type of dumbasses who used to claim the reefer madness was a thing and who still think that marijuana is a gateway drug to heroin. Unfortunately it seems like they are immune to the facts and have the power of the government behind them to assist in spreading their anti-vaping propaganda. The only way to beat them is to ridicule them at every opportunity and point out the facts to anyone who will listen.
