Brought to you by the same idiots who included vaping in the city’s smoking ban last year is a new campaign: #curbit. This ridiculous new campaign aims to convince people that vaping is just as harmful as smoking, and makes a quite a few dubious claims to help support it’s anti-vaping BS. The main themes that occur throughout the series of goofy looking amateurish posters are:
- E-Cigarettes are being marketed towards children
- E-Cigarettes are harmful, just like cigarettes
- E-Cigarettes are part of a sinister campaign by Big Tobacco
Anyone who is even slightly informed about vaping will know that these claims are complete and utter bullshit, but lets examine them in detail.
E-cigarettes are being marketed towards children
Of course, like a broken record, this campaign has parrotted the “kiddy flavors” myth. Newsflash: Grownups like things that taste good too! The fact that e-juice flavors actually taste good has led to innumerable people switching from smoking to vaping. By directly attacking the flavors of e-juice, San Francisco is actually hurting the health of their citizens.
Secondly, where is the evidence that e-cigarette companies are actually going after children? Last I checked, every single vape shop won’t let minors in their doors, and every single online vape shop requires that customers be over the age of 18 to purchase vaping products. I have yet to see any advertisements from vape companies that are reminiscent of the old Joe Camel ads.
E-cigarettes are harmful like analog cigarettes
Cue the scare tactics. E-cigs contain carcinogens, heavy metals, toxins blah blah blah. Guess what? Everything is harmful if consumed in high enough doses! Water will kill you if you drink too much! Granted, vaping is still new enough that we don’t know all of the potential dangers, but all of the evidence so far points to vaping being a much better alternative to smoking.
E-cigarettes are part of a sinister plot by Big Tobacco to hook a new generation
Exact quote from the #curbit website:
“E-cigarettes are just the latest gimmick from #BigTobacco to hook a new generation on their products. The majority of e-cigarette brands are owned by tobacco companies.”
With the previous claims it would be easy to simply accuse the San Francisco Health Department of having good intentions and simply being uninformed. But with this last claim they venture into making bold faced lies. Out of the hundreds and hundreds of e-cigarette brands in the world, exactly six are owned by Big Tobacco companies. Nothing more needs to be said about this lie. The facts speak for themselves.
The hilarious thing is that for some idiotic reason this campaign revolves around a hashtag. They probably thought it was a good idea because they read it in a marketing for dummies book or something. For some hilarious trolling look up #curbit on Twitter. Needless to say, this hashtag campaign has been an epic fail.
