Monthly Archives: February 2020

Farmer Eavis invited us because he said he wants a better world and, from what he could gather, our constant striving to bring you products that improve your life made us the number one inspirational choice.

We strode onto the ‘Almost As Good As The Main’ stage and were blown away by the crowds. Seriously, if you think the chanting for Corbyn was a bit unreal, you’ve heard nothing till you’ve heard a few fields slurring “Oh, St-eal-eal-eal-eal-thvape!”

We know what hippies like, we know how to make stuff better. The Stealthvape helicopter dropped blessings of plasters for little boo boos, cups of rainbows for the slightly weepy, and free chainsaws for the bored children. What do you mean children can’t have chainsaws – don’t oppress the masses! We aren’t stupid, they’re kiddie chainsaws designed for little hands, built from lighter materials and tinier.

The crowds were there for Stealthvape, and Khruangbin, and Carter Sampson, and the Funktion One Experimental Soundfield. Not that you’d have known it from the Biased Broadcasting Corporation’s coverage. The coverage we never saw because, like we said, we were busy actually being there – like the pictures prove.

We were busy sharing outdoors toilets with popular Radio 1 DJs like Dave Lee Travis and Jonathan King. We were busy with Radiohead, catching a case of salmonella from a tempura tofu stall. We were busy at the First Aid hut, after displacing three vertebrae while camping.

We saw such wonders. We witnessed The David Davis MP Talking To Yourself stage, and The Katie Hopkins Field of Toilet Sewage.

It’s totally true – we would never lie. Unlike the American Lung Association that has repeated its claims that vaping is as dangerous as smoking. If we didn’t know better, we would swear that we were busy all of the Glastonbury weekend and the American Lung Association went and took lots of psychedelic drugs. They are either massive liars or simply occupy a separate reality from the rest of us.

The Cochrane Review states that vaping is far safer than smoking. The Royal College of Physicians says that ecigs should be promoted widely as a substitute for smoking. Public Health England states that vaping is at least 95% safer than smoking.

You need to get your act together, American Lung Association. You need to stop lying, confusing current smokers and perpetuating a situation whereby they put off switching to something far, far safer.

Our lies are, at worst, a bit dull – your lies are killing people.

Just as an aside, can you imagine how depressing it was for a science teacher in 2011 to be told by a class that there’s no point to doing homework as the world was ending in 2012: “it’s in a film, sir”? Sigh.

Everyone everywhere thought TPD2 was as terrible as TPD1 – except for a voting block dominated by one person, who told them when to raise their little bits of card. In all probability, she simply guessed when to do it as no one had a clue what was going on. Then they all went off to fill in their expense claim forms and go eat croissants.

There are various rules to films. Firstly, almost always, the science has to be wrong. As children, film directors were most probably sitting at the back of science classrooms pushing chewing gum into gas taps. This is why they make a point of annoying science teachers now in their day jobs. Secondly: Trilogies suck. Directors will make one decent film and lump it in with two bits of rubbish just to upset science teachers when they go to the cinema. Star Wars, The Godfather and The Matrix are all cases in point.

Anyway, looking outside today’s window: what is clear is that nothing is clear after the election. Losers are running about claiming they won, winners are sulking because they think they lost, and small woodland creatures are breathing a sigh of relief that a person on a horse might not be coming to bludgeon them to death with the root of a 2,000-yr old tree. Or something. They simply don’t know. Nor do we. The only thing running through Theresa May’s head now is a mental image of her running through some corn.

Therefore, it is quite clear something needs to happen, and we aren’t sure what: it could be a new general election, it could be everybody trying to get along and agree on things, it could be that imaginative people writing blogs come up with new policies. Yep, that’s it; we’ll go with the last one.

Does Brexit mean Brexit any longer? The categorical answer is ‘maybe’, especially if ‘maybe’ is said like a teenage girl would say it (with a rising inflexion turning every statement into a question). So, we propose, the TPD means TPD III, it’s going to be like (appropriately) The Empire Strikes Back; where TPD I was the one with teddy bears and TPD II can be the one with Jar Jar Binks.

We are only proposing small tweaks. For example, by changing the word “maximum” to “minimum” we suddenly get all of the decent tanks back in stores. The paper has been written; Stealthvape’s proposal for TPD III is on its way.

Recently, we have come up with a political party to end all election woes, how violence is the answer to all our problems, how to make vaping sexy, invented the incredible vape booth, created the best vape accessory in the world, and then created an even better best vape accessory in the world.

The thing is we all work without our constraints, and it can be hard to break out of a way of thinking. To our minds vaping is all about breathing in vape. We were so stupid – why didn’t we turn it on its head like what’s happened in France?

“This design studio is bringing French sophistication to alternatives to tobacco,” says the voiceover. What? French sophistication? Did they not see the Stealthvape Ultigadj? Odds on this is going to have something to do with cheese that isn’t Cheddar or one of their fancy wines.

“The stylish brass pipe ”

Ah, you might have to stop there for a moment, Ms Journalist. Stylish brass pipes? Surely not even this claimed French sophistication could make a brass pipe stylish?

“The stylish brass pipe is designed to look like a twig.”

Err, right. Now just stop. We are the masters and mistresses of British invention, there’s not a thought we could not think if we really put our collective minds to it – but the words “stylish” and “sophistication” are probably a couple of the last ones that would pop up in relation to the word “twig”. In fact, the very last use for a twig by these hands was for flicking some dog excrement from the path into a hedge. So, if there was a life or death scenario where one had to quickly come up with a word associated to ‘twig’, it’s likely to be a four-letter one, ending in “*hit”.

“It holds a drop of essential oil ”

Well that sounds a bit dodgy.

“It holds a drop of essential oil and users blow through its mouthpiece.”

Sorry, they blow? The death of vaping is going to be brought about by a twig you blow into? We’re totally lost now.

Stephanie, Le Twig’s designer, explained in a video interview to Reuters that the device helps people “reach the end of their breath.” Honestly, we weren’t aware that stopping breathing out was ever a problem – just goes to show what we know. In fact, we are starting to doubt that our Vapeshed was ever a good idea in the first place, what with this new way of looking at the world coming to light.

“I talked to some doctor friends,” she said. She didn’t say if these were friends from childhood or the kind of ones you make on holiday. One week together at Hotel PrettyFlores and you’ve swapped email addresses, hoping they’ll never write.

“What is it honey?”

“It’s that bloody Stephanie woman, darling, the one we had to suffer on the city-break.”

“What does she want?”

“Something about smoking replacements, God she’s insufferable.”

“Well, just tell her we were really so worried about tobacco that we have put another product (vaping) on the market, in a huge way, to replace it.”

“I did, now she’s asking about vaping. Doesn’t this idiot know anything?”

“Tell her we haven’t tested vaping things? For a laugh, tell her we don’t know what the effects are.”

Yes, that’s how the conversation probably went. Anyway, we are going to be busy this week, we’re inventing something to blow through that’s inspired by the hollow piece of liquorice in old Sherbet Fountains.

It is as surprising that this story has gone without much coverage given the content of the findings – but more so when one considers who it was doing the testing. Air quality sampling was carried out in vape shops, a place where a fug can build up due to the number of people visiting and staying for a while to chat.

Where were these vape shops? California, and the testing was carried out by the Californian State Health Department. This is the very same department who make ludicrous claims about second and third-hand vape being dangerous – and telling people “we don’t know what’s in it”.

On the first occasion, “many of the employees vaped throughout the sampling and 13 customers vaped while in the shop. There was no active ventilation system, and visible clouds of vapour were visible at times.”

The results:

Nicotine: Not detected
Glycidol: Not detected
Formaldehyde: 7.2 ppb (a normal indoor/outdoor air level)
Diacetyl: Not detected using standard method
2,3-Pentanedione: Not detected using standard method
Acetyl butyryl: Not detected using standard method
Acetoin: Not detected using standard method
Acetone: Not detected
Ethyl benzene: Not detected
m,p-Xylene: Not detected
o-Xylene: Not detected
Toluene: Not detected
Acetaldehyde: Not detected
Acetonitrile: Not detected
alpha-pinene: Not detected
Benzene: Not detected
Chloroform: Not detected
d-Limonene: Not detected
Methylene chloride: Not detected
Methyl methacrylate: Not detected
n-Hexane: Not detected
Styrene: Not detected

Shortly afterwards, the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety tested a vape store for tested for formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and three other chemicals of concern. Again, levels were comparable with the average home or not detected at all.

What these two events confirm is that there’s absolutely no increased danger being posed to the general public by vapers. Moreover, it emphasises why employers, who genuinely want to help their smoking staff to quit, ought to give serious consideration to allowing vaping on business premises. Also, it ought to act as a wake-up call to the Californian State Health Department – they certainly need one when it comes to vaping.

As Michael Siegel (a man who’s campaign for workplace smoke bans) says: “Based on the current scientific evidence, I fail to see the justification for banning vaping in most public places. I just don’t see any reasonable evidence at this time that it poses any significant health hazard to bystanders.”

One of the major advantages of vaping, after that of being a far safer form of using nicotine to avoid the toxic products of tobacco combustion, was that it could be much cheaper than a cigarette addiction. The cost savings do assume that you don’t get sucked in to collecting every type of mod and atomiser ever made, but get even greater if you are one of those people who make your own juice.

It looks as though, regardless of whether you are a home brew aficionado or boutique liquid fan, it’s all going to get a bit pricier. So, what is set to happen? As of May 20^th:

• A 10ml size limit for eliquids
• A 2ml capacity limit for disposable e-cigarettes, cartridges and tanks
• All eliquid products to be child and tamper-proof
• All packs must include a health warning covering 30% of the surfaces of the unit packet and any outside packaging
• There has to be instructions for use, information on addictiveness and toxicity on the packaging and accompanying information leaflet
• There is a ban certain promotional and misleading descriptors on packaging
• Juice makers must ensure that all substances contained in the product and the nicotine content are declared on the label
• A registration scheme for businesses engaged in cross-border distance sales of e-cigarette products is being introduced
• There is a prohibition on the advertising or promotion, directly or indirectly, of electronic cigarettes and re-fill containers on a number of media platforms, including on television, radio, newspapers and magazines
• Cigalikes with a nicotine concentration above 20mg/ml will need to be licensed as medicines and be subject to the same rules as over-the-counter drugs
• Smokers are set to be hit to as there is going to be a ban on packs of 10, and menthol flavoured cigarettes are set to be phased out over three years.

Mark Hughes, Nottinghamshire Trading Standards: “These changes to the law should help create a level playing field and help consumers get a consistent product. So while shops may be aware of the changes to the law, those who make or sell e-cigarettes or e-liquids online via social media, auction sites or from their own website need to be aware that these changes apply to them too. Hopefully it will remove a lot of potentially unsafe products from the legal market.”

Richard Hyslop, Independent British Vape Trade Association: “Some companies have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds getting products ready and doing the necessary testing needed in advance of these rules being enforced. Currently you can go and buy a 30ml bottle of e-liquid and after the 20th May you’ll have to buy three 10ml bottles. Companies are doing their best not to pass these costs onto customers, it’s inevitable that some companies will have to put up prices a little.”

Alex Fry, Leicestershire Trading Standards: “We are finding that shops are aware of the changes to the law but small online retailers are not. With millions of buyers ready and waiting, there’s no better place for you to sell than eBay. We have found online sellers selling e-liquids in 100ml bottles with a nicotine strength over 20mg/ml. After 20 May this will be illegal unless the e-liquid is registered as a medicine.”

Are you ready for the vaper’s Mayday? Are you planning to change what you buy and how you vape in the future?

Image credits

Woman

Man

Firstly, if you want to begin to knock vaping then start off by pointing out that smokers are still smoking even if they’re using an electronic cigarette. Yes, this isn’t true (in the sense that it’s totally factually incorrect), but you are guaranteed to have annoyed the vaper sufficiently that they will now be actively and animatedly engaging with you. It might be a touch more shouty than normal conversation levels, but this is really good if you’re hard of hearing.

Now, providing pushing hasn’t begun, tell the vaper all about flavours. All they need to know is that flavours are wrong. They are wrong because it simply makes people enjoy vaping. We all know that important things aren’t pleasurable: making an insurance claim, moving home, voting and open-heart surgery are all known to be exceptionally tedious or disconcerting. Nothing is more important to your bowels than a good portion of roughage a day. Is roughage tasty and full of flavour? No. Yet everybody loves ice cream and candyfloss. So, there, proof that making eliquid full of flavour is bad and therefore someone should make a law that compels all juice makers to only produce from a prescribed list. The list should only include the following flavours: cabbage, lettuce, rice, sawdust and earwax.

By this point, most vapers will be sagely nodding in agreement with you. You’ve made good points, you argued them well, and you’ve won them over to the side of common sense. But there will always be one

You will need to elevate your voice so that they can hear, bellow: “I like to think about children!” The point being that the red-faced ignoramus opposite you never thinks about children because he or she is always too busy sucking on a metal rod. The fools. You, on the other hand, know that thinking about children all day makes you a compassionate and caring person.

Tell the vaper that children might pick up their vape stick and become addicted to it. Maybe they think it’s cool? Maybe they think it makes them look grown-up like the trendy people they’ve seen on the Internet? Maybe they see themselves as becoming a trendsetter like David Dorn or hip and happening like those folks in ECITA? How cool are they going to appear when the vaping stick explodes or they go through the vape gateway to drugs?

You will now be asking yourself: “How do I know all these vaper people will listen to me?” The answer is simple and true, because vapers are always open to new evidence and are actively interested in helping to develop the products and the direction of the market. Vapers, vape companies and vape manufacturers have been listening to each other and experts for years – so they are bound to give you a warm welcome wherever you see a number of them gathering.

Good luck with convincing vapers they are doing everything wrong, the world needs more people like you.

What’s this? Violence isn’t acceptable? Fine, just cast your mind back to United Airlines Flight 3411 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. We weren’t there and yet almost all of us have seen the footage because people watched it, went “Wow” and clicked on share. Some may have been sharing to say that smashing a doctor’s face into a metal-framed aeroplane chair is unacceptable practise from an international flight company. Some may have, but the majority were sharing it for (what is apparently known as) ‘bants’.

No claims are being made here to understand the thinking behind enjoying watching somebody get hurt, but amusement is had. Just cast a gaze over the pages of memes created in response to the airline incident. Not so long ago happy slapping was all the rage, shortly after the advent of a video facility on mobile phones. Is it possible that the public’s enjoyment of viewing physical pain and aggression comes from the happy slapper generation growing up and starting YouTube channels?

The only thing that can be drawn from this is how could the public’s lust for a return to gladiatorial behaviour benefit vaping?

Maybe you are a shop owner and you would like to increase your brand awareness in your locality, in which case get some CCTV in. Make sure it’s going to be able to record viewable footage. Now all you need to do is either stage a good punch up in your bricks and mortar or wait until you get broken into. The problem with the latter is that it’s unpredictable and there’s always the chance they will escape without major injuries unless you leave some decent bear traps lying around on the floor.

The local paper will love to publish the stills of Dwayne being helped out of the door by his best mate Gary, carrying his severed limb in his arms instead of your mods. Dwayne and Gary will love to see themselves in print, their mates down the local pub will laugh and the police station’s roof will explode with guffaws at the pair’s stupidity. Sit back and wait for the crowds to pour into the shop to see where it all took place. Standard business practise 0-1 Violence.

Or maybe you are a public health officer, tasked with reducing the rates of smoking in your county. “Oh what to do,” you ask yourself, “without decent funding from the government how on earth can I make this happen?”

Have you not been paying attention? Violence is now the solution. Load up a car with a bunch of other public health officials and cruise around town looking for smokers. One of you needs to record the ensuing events to act as a warning to other smokers. Pounce and use surprise to balance out your probable inability to offer up a decent scrap. “Want to smoke in our town, mister? Not anymore, bukko.” Thanks to violence you could have the first zero-rate smoking town in the country.

The worrying thing is that someone, somewhere was probably already giving this serious consideration.

This week, the American Council for Science and Health (ACSH) tell the tale of a microbead paper. The researchers claimed their investigation produced data proving that young fish prefer to eat plastic microbeads rather than the usual yummy items that fish would otherwise eat. It was published in the respected Science journal in June 2016.

Science is brilliant – except for when those working in it create works of fiction to suit private agendas or as acts of self-promotion. This microbead study was almost universally greeted with responses ranging from suspicion to accusations of fraud. Eventually Science issued an “expression of concern” about the work.

Even so, after ten months, the original paper still stood. It’s taken a full review by Sweden’s Central Ethical Review Board to push matters forward. Fabricated data is now claimed by the researchers to have been stolen, methods were carried out that the lab didn’t have equipment for and timeframes are all awry.

The article has now been retracted from public viewing, ACSH has published a detailed account of the sorry tale – but is that enough? The memory of fish preferring tiny bits of plastic will persist and, in many ways, that sums up a lot of the corrupt science surrounding vaping.

It should be pointed out here that nobody is accusing the researchers from the University of Louisville’s Tobacco Regulation and Addiction Centre of producing an intentionally dodgy piece of work ground in lies – that would be the very last thing on anybody’s mind. No, they probably tried their very hardest to ensure that their work on the presence of formaldehyde in vape was of the very highest standard.

Just to prove how serious they are about ensuring the highest standards in their research, the team looked at one other previous paper to see how vapers vape. Then they looked at an overview of published material on how vapers vape and ignored the bits they didn’t like or understand. Consequently, they worked out that vapers like cigalikes and 4yr-old variable voltage mods paired with Evods. Plus, the vapers using the Evods like to take four-second hits at 4.2, 4.7 and 5 volts.

Amazingly, and you’d better sit down for this bit as it’ll come as a big surprise, Team Louisville discovered that ecigs produce aldehydes of all different hues. If you hadn’t heard about this before then you will as soon as their press release hits the news-desks of Britain’s favourite tabloid fish and chip wrapping.

Any superficial examination of the subject would produce the clear information that aldehydes are only produced in atomisers experiencing slight to full-blown dry hits, and yet this seems to have eluded Louisville‘s finest?

It may not be dishonest, but the work is certainly shameful. Here’s to a retraction in approximately ten months

Yes, you are all fooling yourselves that you like your fancy flavours. Adults don’t like sweet things, adults never eat puddings. And even if you are enjoying those liquids, it means one thing – you are doing vaping wrong. You should be not enjoying tobacco flavours, you should be hating vaping.

That’s what people campaigning against vaping believe. Or, at least, pretend to believe when they’re out in public. Nobody knows if they actually fall for their own bunkum.

They are pushing to kill of flavours over in Canada and it has drawn a great response from vapers. “Flavours are marketed to me” images are spreading on social media with the tag #BillS5. Maybe you fancy adding yours in?