A soft rant, 100 percent organic and unedited in Normal entries

Sometimes I brag that I know a little bit about a lot of things. It’s not meant to be a boast; it’s true. It’s also a handicap, and, as it implies, I don’t know a lot about anything. That’s not exactly true, but as a generalization that’d be the one that summarizes things best. It’s a good skill for things like trivial pursuit and figuring out how to make a quick fix to something to get it moving well enough to get it/him/her to someone who knows how to fix it/him/her.

Again this is one of those entries being written because I need to reestablish the habit of writing.

One of the recent Anti-e-cig’s studies claims that e-cigs give their users ten times more formaldehyde than regular cigarettes. My immediate reaction as someone who knows a little bit about a lot of things is; Just plain old dried tobacco shouldn’t have any formaldehyde at all. I’m pretty sure that’s true, just as sure as I am that at least in this country we don’t get cigerrettes with just plain old tobacco in em. My second thought is; are they really trying to suggest people would be better off smoking cigerettes? I know that’s not the intent, but that is what it’s saying to someone who smokes and wants vindication.

My third thought is; I really only know a little bit about a lot of things, so I waded through a bunch of horseshit to get to a more objective sounding version of the study. Without having to find it again so I can quote the science right, so, you know, a summery off the top of my head, the conditions necessary for an e-cig to have ten times the formaldehyde as a cigarette involve a setting of five volts and at least fifteen watts. That sounds right. The article was interrupted by someone pro-e-cigs so I filtered out some of the nonsense like; nobody does that. I don’t do that and the article writer might not do that, but they certainly do sell personal vaporizers that run that hot. Also, though the pro-e-cig guy missed this, the formaldehyde doo-hickeys (some scientific term for shit that combines to make formaldehyde) need propylene Glycol. There are ejuices mixed fifty-fifty and ones that are completely Vegetable Glycol.

So, with my own knowledge of a little bit about a lot of things, I figure if one went all VG that one should be fine. Um, I also know that it was a fad for a while to dip cig’s in formaldehyde to get high, the delinquents, at least the ones in Oregon, called them Sherms. I have no idea why they called them sherms, who thought it’s be a good idea to smoke that shit, or whether the high was worth it; I’m just saying you know someone read that fucking study and is at this very moment trying to vape some embalming fluid.

I’m not sure I understand the controversy about e-cigs. I’ve been hearing anti-smoking speechs my whole life. Why pick on vaping? I don’t think the gum or the patch made the sort of significant impact that vaping has, and most of the drugs had either no impact at all (well-butrin repackaged as … shit, I forgot, it’s not on the market any longer) and Chantix, which has an uncomfortably high rate of side effects and they are really bad ones and I think someone bought a quick ride through the FDA for that particular little pill of death. I like the one commercial where the earnest, over-weight-neck-beard-five-day-growth guy talks about how unattractive and unhealthy smoking was (the before pictures and after ones were the same except for the smoke dangling from the corpulent lips) when they start listing the physical side effects they show his wife chopping healthy vegetables for a salad and when they talk about suicide ideation they show man and wife walking through a sunny park.

I’m just saying, there are on-going arguments about e-cigs, some sound — like availability to kids, there is no law yet but every vendor I know will not sell to a minor — some just plain old made up. The pro-vaping community protests a little too loud in the other direction and start to sound like tea baggers with a big brother chip on their shoulder just daring you to knock it off. I feel better vaping than I did smoking. It’s less expensive. I have no idea if it’s safer, I’ve yet to see a study broad enough to show risk and benefit and without any axe to grind.

There are a couple of objective upsides; it’s a multi-billion dollar industry that the US gets a good chunk of. A lot of people have used vaping to quit smoking cigerrettes. Second hand vape seems, as best as the few studies on it go, marginally as harmless as being in a room with germ carrying meat puppets breathing (um, just people, people breathing). You’d think that sans an actual axe to grind the no-smoking lobbies would be happy about that shit. Both the FDA and insurance companies have been suspiciously quiet. I even went through all the stuff for a new health insurance policy, the question was Do You Smoke Cigerettes? I said no, there was no follow up, no cigars, no pipes, no chaw, no vaping, no gum, patchs or suicide pills.

Ok, fingers exercised. I bet I can find some mischief to get up to or in to or on top of yelling Yee Ha, ride em pardner.