10-Year Milestones
Tears of Joy and Tears of Sorry
How Can I Celebrate?
It was around this date ten years ago when I realized I didn’t know when I had last smoked a cigarette. After failing to quit numerous times, I stopped trying. In late 2014, I was given my first vape to use when I was somewhere I couldn’t smoke. Without thinking about it, I started vaping more and smoking less until I accidentally quit smoking a few months later. I was so excited to hit the ten-year mark that I pre-scheduled my celebratory tweet weeks ago. I wish I could tell you I’m sitting here shedding happy tears, but that would be a lie.
I am but one person. It is hard to want to celebrate for myself, knowing that almost 22,000 families will lose a loved one to smoking somewhere in the world today. Here in the United States, where I live, around 490,000 people die annually from smoking, which means about 1,342 families begin their grieving process today. My special day has ceased to feel special.
“Which anniversary do we want families to celebrate? The loved one who died ten years ago from smoking, or the loved one who is still with them because they quit smoking ten years ago?”
I woke at 4:21 a.m., and my pre-scheduled celebratory 10-year smoke-free tweet went live at 4:30 a.m. Within minutes, the replies started congratulating me on my success. I smiled. After a good night’s rest and reaching a milestone I never believed I’d see, let alone live long enough to know, I was sure it would be a good day.
Minutes later, I saw Julie’s tweet from yesterday, and all the party balloons in my brain popped. My joy hit the floor, and I could feel the impact of that crash landing. Tears of pride and joy instantly began to sting my eyes, turning into tears of sorrow. The reality slapped me: The tidal wave of misinformation and moral panic continues to hurt people.
Julie is a nurse who lives in Australia. Her vocation is perfect because she cares about people and wants the best for them. She understands the importance of tobacco harm reduction (THR), watches for actual harm cases, and works tirelessly to educate others about THR - including those in healthcare. She gets frustrated because the media will flood us with headlines of unsubstantiated claims of vaping harms and deaths while paying no attention to the thousands of people who die every day from smoking.
The tweet from Julie that grabbed me in the feels this morning says:
“It finally happened. Last night, in the ED, I had a person come in with a vaping related injury. The gentleman in his 40s came in after being punched and kicked by an intoxicated individual for using his vape in the smoking area of a bar. No life-threatening injuries, but has a broken nose, 2 cracked ribs, and some contusions.
This is another example of the consequences of vile propaganda and the number of lies about vaping. I hope all those NGOs, health depts & individuals who tell these lies hang their heads in shame, but I doubt they will.”
This is what happens when people start believing all the fearmongering that falsely claims that vaping is more harmful than smoking. Long gone is the heyday of vaping, when many of us who used to smoke open vaped shops and went on a mission to save lives. We converted millions of people who couldn’t or wouldn’t stop smoking to products that significantly reduced the harms they were experiencing from smoking.
I was one of those shop owners. For many years, I spent this day, my quit smoking celebration day, at the vape shop, giving others the gift of being smoke-free, of living a better and healthier life. But not anymore. My shop closed a few years ago, and I can no longer spend my special day with “my people,” most of whom don’t follow me on social media and won’t even know I made it 10 years without smoking. Likewise, I don’t know how many of them made it this far, either, because they can’t stop by for their “quit day” gift from me - a gift card to either the bakery or coffee shop down the road. Both were women-owned local businesses, just like mine.
Misinformation and unfair regulations killed one of the most important things I have ever participated in. I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing the vape shop. I know I’m as heartbroken and angry today as when I closed my shop.
While I made it to ten years since quitting smoking, ten years in business is difficult for the mom-and-pop vape shops in the US to achieve. I used to track their closings, but there are so many that I have over 100 to add to my list. Yesterday, I learned of another to add to my list. This one is in Florida and is owned by the Orlandos. This hard-working couple has helped thousands of people stop smoking and never stop fighting for adults to have the right to quit smoking using the products that work for them.
It is hard for small businesses to survive in a world full of sharks who can out-market them, undercut their prices, and lobby for bills that protect their interests while squashing the competition. Add burdensome regulations that are impossible for a small business to comply with and a cornucopia of incorrect information that convinces people not to use the products sold by those businesses, and the odds are not in favor of those small businesses surviving.
It is agonizing to witness the slow demise of a movement of small, independent businesses that were saving lives because they cannot endure our regulatory process and are not strong enough to counter the misinformation.
As impromptu smoking cessation facilities helping people stop smoking—all at zero cost to taxpayers—US vape shops have had to violate the gag order imposed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to tell consumers the truth about their products. They have had to stoop to ignoring the regulations and selling things the FDA has not authorized. This is their only way to continue saving lives. They can't continue their mission if they can’t keep the doors open. They can no longer help improve public health once they’ve gone out of business.
Since the FDA deemed vapor products to be “tobacco” (even though there’s no tobacco in them), they have not allowed one American product made by a small business to remain available. Many of these products and the vape-only shops who sell them are companies owned by people who used to smoke, know how hard it is to quit smoking, and have found something that has helped millions of people stop smoking.
Consumers, business owners, scientists, politicians, healthcare providers, and journalists have tried to counter the onslaught of misperceptions, misinformation, and disinformation about the products that can reduce the harms experienced by people who smoke. Organizations and governments have joined individual efforts. However, their efforts are mostly ignored. Almost everything society is doing continues to make it easier to smoke than to stop smoking.
If your mission in life is solely to prevent people from vaping or using other reduced-risk products, I’d like to ask you to find the closest mirror, look yourself in the eyes, and ask yourself, “Am I OK with the fact that my mission means I’m pushing to keep people smoking?” Even if you don’t mean to, you are doing that. And some of you, knowingly or not, are using misinformation to achieve your goal.
There will never be a nicotine-free society. How many more people need to die before we accept that and embrace reducing risks for those who use nicotine?
Why is it so hard to focus on what could be common ground for all of us - ending death by smoking? Which anniversary do we want families to celebrate? The loved one who died ten years ago from smoking, or the loved one who is still with them because they quit smoking ten years ago?
Who is ready to answer Elaine’s question about an addiction to nicotine, which, when decoupled from smoking, has a small potential for harm?
Most likely, it will be more life-threatening to get into your car and drive to a rally to lobby against vaping than it will be for her to vape.
Until next time…
PS: Two years ago, in honor of Women's History Month, I started a thread and tweeted some of the women in the THR space who are making a difference by improving the health of people who smoke and contributing to saving lives. There are many more who I didn’t get added to the thread who deserve credit, too. Thank you, ladies, for everything you do; you are my heroes. (There is a break in the thread at #73; you must click on that tweet to get to 74/75).
While these ladies are making history, I’d like to recognize that women who make a difference are often not recognized in many fields. That is one of the many reasons I follow Lost Women of Science on several social media platforms. I love the stories they share.
Awesome blog, Skip. Same here, I skeptically bought a vape kit in May 2014, thinking it was a gimmick that would help some but not all. Much to my delight, within 3 weeks, I was completely smoke-free, cigarette-free. My husband was shocked, he thought I was a smoker for life. As everything I had tried, never worked for me. I thought I was a lost cause in that regard. In 2018, when Canada legalized vaping with fair regulations, I thought we had hit a milestone. Since then I've watched province by province impose flavour restrictions & other restrictions, such as shops with papered up windows, so the public could not see inside. At one time, the vape shop was a place you could go and ask questions, meet with fellow ex-smokers who switched to vapes, and celebrate our successes. Now, that's not allowed, you are no longer even allowed to vape within the shop. Shop owners are fearful, due to the papered-up windows, that they will be robbed or assaulted, with no one able to see some crime is happening. Vape shops will be heavily fined now, if they convey the difference between smoking and vaping. Regulation by regulation, they have taken a product that could save thousands of Canadian families from having to deal with the grief of losing a loved one, or friend to many diseases caused by smoking. Over 49K families each year in Canada love a loved one to smoking. The last assault was to impose a double tax scheme, by the federal government, which doubled the tax on vapes, for provinces that added on this double tax. Now, sadly, smoking is more cost effective than vaping. NGOs are constantly pressuring provinces and the Canadian government to impose a national flavour ban. NGOs don't care about adults who benefit from switching. Their actions, and misinformation have led to people reverting back to smoking due to restrictions, and convincing people who smoke, that vaping is as bad as smoking. In the last 10 years, I've gone from being hopeful, to constantly living in fear that the way I quit smoking, will be regulated out of existence. I am constantly trying to stock up for a lifetime. It's a battle that never seems to end. I too, am very dismayed by nurse Julie's post (nurse in Australia) about a man who was severely beaten up for vaping within a smoking area. All brought on by Australia's fear-mongering and disinformation government. I still dream of the day, this nightmare will end. When will harm reduction for people who smoke become something that is celebrated and encouraged on a global scale?