Cabinet endorses import ban on electric cigarettes

[wangsuda]

Thai food also contains health threatening ingredients ! Ban it !

But that goes against "Thainess" (which no Thai ever has been able to explain).

[gemini81]

Retarded....less harmful than cigarettes, but the monopoly will protect that. Criminal of them to ban items that reduce smoking.

Well, hope the boys at Pantip still sell con't to sell them. They should. E cigarettes still have less than the 3000 chemicals that cigarettes do.

Edited October 15, 2014 by gemini81

[Pib]

If you want to learn more about the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly (part of the Ministry of Finance) just go to their website at this Link.

[orosee]

To be fair, the EU is also trying to ban or control vaporizers at the moment. It seems to be an unlikely alliance of Big Tobacco and anti-cancer activists plus the usual left leaning "control everything and everyone for their own good" groups (the same people who often want to legalize soft drugs which are combusted and inhaled).

Unfortunately, "electronic cigarette" may have helped introduce the product to cigarette smokers at the beginning, but now it backfires since the word "cigarette" alone is sufficient to tie a lot of knots into a lot of panties. Western mainstream media also seems to be biased against the product, often quoting the same "experts" against vaping over and over again without showing any positive arguments.

And of course the tired "protect the children" argument is used again to rob adults of their own freedom.

The industry itself seems weak to respond and also doesn't help itself by putting enormous 12'' monsters on the market that produce more vapour than can be suffered even by a regular smoker with a sense of style. Of course, these are mostly used by the type of person that wears a baseball cap reversed and has their pants slung low around their knees.

Be assured that once the money has been sorted out and the "right" people have secured their monopolies, the markets will be flooded by overpriced vaporizers and standardized liquids.

[Fred Flinstone]

Great old days !

Edited October 15, 2014 by Fred Flinstone

[attrayant]

Less irritating. That's nice. "Hey try our brand! Yeah it's irritating, but less than those other brands!"

Anywho, here's some intel from a recent study:



From the study:

Both the e-liquid and the Poly-fil fibers that are used to absorb the e-liquid for heating and conversion to an aerosol come into contact with heating elements that contain heavy metals (tin, nickel, copper, lead, chromium). Williams et al found heavy metals in samples of e-cigarette liquids and aerosol. Tin, which appeared to originate from solder joints, was found as both particles and tin whiskers in the fluid and Poly-fil, and e-cigarette fluid containing tin was cytotoxic to human pulmonary fibroblasts. E-cigarette aerosol also contained other metals, including nickel, 2 to 100 times higher than found in Marlboro cigarette smoke. The nickel and chromium nanoparticles (<100 nm) possibly originated from the heating element. It is likely that engineering features, including the nature of the battery, the heating temperature of the liquid, and the type of heating element and reservoir, will influence the nature, number, and size of particles produced. These metal nanoparticles can deposit into alveolar sacs in the lungs, potentially causing local respiratory toxicity and entering the bloodstream.

In summary, the particle size distribution and number of particles delivered by e-cigarettes are similar to those of conventional cigarettes, with most particles in the ultrafine range (modes, ≈100–200 nm).

The heavy metals, while tiny, always seem to scare people. Notice how small those numbers are - for cadmium it's .003 nanograms, or 3 picograms! That's about the same as the weight of human DNA from a single cell.

If the design could use a non-metalic heating element, ceramic perhaps, they might be able to get rid of that problem. In any event, Dear Leader's concern about the damaging health effects of e-cigs seems misplaced when compared to regular cancer sticks.

This was particularly interesting:

E-liquids are flavored, including tobacco, menthol, coffee, fruit, candy, and alcohol flavors, as well as unusual flavors such as cola and Belgian waffle. Flavored (conventional) tobacco products are used disproportionately by youth and initiators, and cigarettes with characterizing flavors (except menthol) have been banned in the United States.

Candy?!

Edited October 15, 2014 by attrayant

[rwdrwdrwd]

Worth mentioning that the reference to 'heavy metals' likely comes from the superb analysis made by a leading Thai health professional who included the ingredients of the battery in his scathing report... I know I like to eat the battery after taking a few puffs on mine, I dip it in a cup of tea.

Edited October 15, 2014 by rwdrwdrwd

[smotherb]

Sorry, but can't make the connection between electric cigarettes and selling of alcohol to under 18s.

But what I don't like also why only tighten up control of groceries and convenience stores in front of schools and other educational institutes.

Why only in front of schools and not the whole country?

Is this Thai thinking we are not supposed to query about?

Have you looked behind their ears?

[mikiea]

Worth mentioning that the reference to 'heavy metals' likely comes from the superb analysis made by a leading Thai health professional who included the ingredients of the battery in his scathing report... I know I like to eat the battery after taking a few puffs on mine, I dip it in a cup of tea.

[mikiea]

almost every male in china smokes, they smoke a lot. lung cancer is the leading cause of male death in the 35+ bracket. they (china) bans e ciggs. the tobacco companies are all state owned. to much to be made on smoking. what price a chinese life? a thai life? e ciggs will be banned here also, money talks,soon there will be a truck load of studys showing e ciggs cause cancer & 3 legged babies :-)

[pistachios]

Same crap is happening pretty much everywhere in the world, to a lesser degree. Big tobacco companies were too late to jump on the e-cigarette business. Despite their almost infinite amounts of money available for R&D, they launched very bad products that are miles behind devices produced by myriads of very small companies. Now that they realise the e-cigs business is getting serious traction with a now sizeable business size and millions of users who will never smoke again, the only thing they can do is to lobby governments and regulation committees to either prevent the small companies to simply sell products, or less subtilely just ban them entirely like in Thailand or some other dictatorship.

In the US for example, the FDA wants to regulate the sell of devices in a way only huge companies with huge teams of lawyers will be able to do so. The application requirements would require 5000 man hours to produce the correct legal shenanigans, per product combination. Clever way to kick out all the small competitors.

There seem to be also a campaign of media disinformation that is so efficient that is is not uncommon for a vaper to get told by a smoker that his e-cigarette will kill him. This helps local authorities to take stupid decision like banning vaping in open air public spaces like beaches or parks, or ban the sell of fruit or dessert flavoured liquids "to protect the children" like in NY.

The general strategy seems obvious. Once the public will only have access to crappy e-cigarettes made by the big tobacco companies, products that are known to be frustrating, inconvenient and giving a general bad vaping experience, the adoption rate will plummet and they will keep on selling cancer sticks as usual.

[belg]

can i take a patent on RICE CIGARETTES ?