American Cancer Society Continues Efforts to Ban Electronic Cigarettes, While Giving the OK to Conventional Ones

The idiocy of the American Cancer Society's position on tobacco products continues to be apparent as the organization pursues the elimination of electronic cigarettes from the market at the same time it applauds the special protection for the existing, more hazardous ones.

In an article in the Staten Island Advance, a regional vice president of the Staten Island American Cancer Society was quoted as calling on the removal of electronic cigarettes from the market because: "These devices haven't been examined by any government agency. We don't know how the ingredients are affecting the body."

The Rest of the Story

Well we know how the more than 10,000 chemicals in conventional cigarettes are affecting the body and have thoroughly examined that product and the results are not good. Are you telling me that the American Cancer Society would rather that smokers continue smoking those conventional cigarettes than that they switch over to electronic cigarettes, which we know are safer?

It doesn't take examination by a government agency to determine that electronic cigarettes, which deliver nicotine and some propylene glycol, are going to be safer than regular cigarettes, which deliver nicotine plus 10,000 chemicals, including more than 60 carcinogens.

But while the American Cancer Society wants to immediately remove the safer alternative to cigarettes from the market, it wants to keep the regular ones on the market and provide them with special protection by eliminating the ability of the FDA to take any action that could seriously reduce their use, such as raising the age of sale of tobacco, regulating the places where cigarettes are sold, or getting rid of the nicotine.

Is the American Cancer Society trying to get rid of cancer, or promote it? By its absurd policy positions, you'd be hard pressed to come up with the right answer.