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Schweiz1 billion lives. 1/7th of all the people on the planet. That is how many people are smoking tobacco right now. That is how many people will die from tobacco this century. And many big, powerful players in the tobacco and health industry seem content on keeping it that way.
Do yourself a favor: Take a 3 minute breather and watch this Youtube video for the upcoming move called "A Billion Lives". You will be glad you did.
"A Billion Lives" tackles one of the most important issues in the world: 6,000,000 people die each year from tobacco. 165,000 of those are kids. If that doesn't clear the air, just consider that those numbers equal 1 death every 6 seconds.
By giving smokers a tobacco-free way to get the nicotine their bodies crave, e-cigarettes like DanSmoke are a fantastic innovation for public health - a literal life-saver. But it still faces stiff opposition everywhere. "A Billion Lives" looks to explore the opposition to e-cigarettes and to extinguish the many myths about e-cigarettes fueling this resistance.
Big opposition
It's a tale as old as time, but the reason for this resistance, in many cases, is simply money. Big tobacco is fighting back against e-cigarettes to preserve their billion-dollar industry. Big pharmaceutical companies are also battling e-cigarettes because their own anti-smoking products stand to loose a lot of profits.
Another reason is an unfortunate zero-tolerance mentality found in many government and anti-smoking advocacy groups. They will sadly resist anything even remotely related to tobacco. And since e-cigarettes contain nicotine, they face stiff resistance from these groups. Despite every piece of evidence in the world clearly showing that e-cigarettes are incredibly healthier than tobacco, and that 100,000's of lives could be saved each year if every smoker switched to e-cigarettes, the anti-smoking groups still resist. And people suffer because of it.
Stomping out the myths
You may have heard the common fear-mongering in the media:
- "They lure in kids."
- "The flavors make people attracted to smoking."
- "It's a gate-way to smoking tobacco."
- "We just don't know."
It is time to set the record straight!
They do not lure in kids.
"Protect the kids" is a constant argument against anything people don't understand, but we already have solid facts: E-cigarettes simply don't lure kids to start smoking. Only 1-2% of kids use e-cigarettes more than once per week, and these kids were already smoking tobacco cigarettes. If anything, e-cigarettes are helping kids who smoke to quit tobacco. Non-smoking children are not interested in e-cigarettes at all (Source).
And because DanSmoke does not allow anyone below 18 years of age to buy our products, you can be certain that our only goal is to give responsible adults a great alternative to tobacco.
The many flavors do not attract new people to smoking.
It may surprise you, but flavors are mainly preferred by adult smokers using e-cigarettes to quit tobacco. In fact, the majority of adult smokers trying to quit consider flavor variety "very important" for them to continue using e-cigarettes to drop the deadly tobacco (Source).
The DanSmokers enjoy our great selection of flavors. Many prefer our tobacco flavors, while many others enjoy our fruity options. It is clear that a variety of high-quality options, like the DanSmoke flavors, is essential for smokers and ex-smokers to enjoy their e-cigarette. And enjoying your e-cigarette helps you stay away from tobacco.
There is no gateway effect. In fact, e-cigarettes help people quit.
The argument that e-cigarettes are a gateway to tobacco is a made-up lie, pure and simple. Only 0.2% of e-cigarette users are non-smokers. That number is so infinitesimally low that is makes the gateway scare tactic seem almost laughable (Source). And in places like Great Britain, when the number of e-cigarette users goes up, the number of tobacco users goes down (Source).
The DanSmoke community has fantastic succes for those who want to quit tobacco. Over 92% of people wanting to quit tobacco with DanSmoke are successful.
Simply put: People don't start smoking because of e-cigarettes. If they want to, they quit smoking because of e-cigarettes.
We actually do know
"We just don't know" is what e-cigarette opponents default to when their other arguments are refuted by the truth. But the only reason they "don't know" is because they don't want to know:
"...what we do know is that [e-cigarettes] are much safer than cigarettes, which kill over six million people a year worldwide." (Source)
"...e-cigarettes would be welcomed as a means to prevent much of the death and suffering caused by cigarettes." (Source)
"...the best way to get people to quit smoking. [...] Banning this almost like closing the emergency exit because the fire exit is slippery. It serves no purpose." (Source)
"...unlike tobacco, electronic cigarette use does not affect the oxygenation of the heart" (Source)
"E-cigarettes around 95% less harmful than tobacco" (Source)
The list of studies and scientists confirming the massive benefits of e-cigarettes over tobacco goes on and on.
When "A Billion Lives" comes out later this year, it will hopefully reduce the fear-based, money-funded resistance to the clear health benefits of e-cigarettes like DanSmoke. To us at DanSmoke and to many others, forcing people back to tobacco cigarettes by trying to ban e-cigarettes is just wrong.
We can't wait to watch it, and we hope you are looking forward to seeing it as well.