New Ohio Poll Shows that Anti-Vaping Groups Have Completely Undermined the Public's Appreciation of the Hazards of Smoking

New survey data out of Ohio demonstrate that the anti-vaping groups, through their campaign of deception about e-cigarettes, have completely undermined the public's appreciation of the hazards of smoking.

The poll of approximately 800 adult Ohio residents conducted by the Ohio Health Issues Poll (OHIP), which is funded by Interact for Health, revealed that only 34% reported correctly that tobacco cigarettes are more hazardous than electronic cigarettes. The majority of adults - 66% - either did not know that cigarettes are more hazardous than e-cigarettes, thought that cigarettes are no more hazardous, or actually thought that cigarettes are safer than e-cigarettes.

The false beliefs were particularly striking among women, among whom 77% did not believe that smoking was any more dangerous than vaping, and among African Americans, among whom 81% did not believe that smoking was more hazardous than vaping.

The Rest of the Story

It is unfortunate that in 2016, the public's appreciation of the hazards of cigarette smoking has been undermined so severely that only about one-third of the adult population is correctly able to identify cigarettes as being more dangerous to one's health than tobacco-free e-cigarettes. This change in public beliefs threatens to renormalize smoking after decades of progress in doing just the opposite. There is no question that the confusion in the public's mind is directly attributable to the lies and deception that have been disseminated widely by anti-vaping groups, including major government agencies such as the FDA, the CDC, and the California, Washington, Vermont, and Alaska departments of health.

It is clear that either the public has lost its appreciation for the unique health hazards associated with tobacco use or the public has been hoodwinked by anti-vaping advocates into believing that e-cigarettes contain tobacco, which is not true. Either way, the anti-vaping groups have done severe damage to the public's health by helping to renormalize smoking and reverse decades of progress in convincing the public of the uniquely severe hazards associated with tobacco use and smoking.

These data should serve as a wake-up call to the major anti-vaping organizations, including government health agencies such as the FDA, CDC, and state health departments, exposing their complicity in renormalizing smoking by undermining the public's appreciation of its unique hazards.

The rest of the story is that it is not electronic cigarettes which are renormalizing smoking. It is the misinformation about e-cigarettes being spewed forth by the FDA, CDC, and numerous state and local health departments.