A non-addictive cigarette? And you'll enforce that how?

I'm more and more convinced that Annie Lowrey is Atlantic's designated Peter Principle writer. The latest proof for that conjecture? Her urging Biden to adopt a policy crafted, but never implemented, by Trump: Nicotine-free cigs. First, as with decaf coffee, the degree they'd actually be nicotine-free would be questionable. Second, I would see a HUGE black market for regular cigs. Prohibition on steroids, and the size of cigs makes them easy to smuggle. You've presumably heard of a "cigarette boat," Ms. Lowery? It's why Marlboros were "currency" behind the Iron Curtain. Third, can you say vaping? Unless Lowery wants the gummint to force that to have only nicotine-free juices. If so, can you say "first" and "second" above? 

Related? First, what's a "non-addictive" level of nicotine? Big Tobacco's gonna fight your definition. 

More related? It's not just that nicotine itself is hyper-addictive, contra Lowrey. It's that Big Tobacco treats cigs with a variety of chemicals. Gonna have Biden make that stop?

Rather than shooting for a "nicotine-free" cigarette, or even more, an "addiction free" level of nicotine and arguing about what that is, I say put a max nicotine cap on it, and also abolish all the other chemicals.

The biggest deal is that this is a neoliberal "supply-side" solution.

It does not one whit to address why people smoke. And, it's for more reasons than just companies getting them hooked.

As for the biggest thing Biden could do to help public health? It would be to get us national health care.

States miss regulatory golden opportunity on pot legalization

I've seen plenty of articles like this, originally in the WSJ, that note that the THC level of modern commercial marijuana is far greater than many moons ago when I was in high school and college.

That alone should give blank-check pro-pot advocates pause when they claim it's not addictive, period. Or when they claim that "pot paranoia" doesn't exist.

For the record, I believe it is addictive, physically and psychologically, and that such a problem of "pot paranoia" is real. However, the likes of Malcolm Gladwell, former Big Tobacco shill, overstate that. Aaron Carroll specifically calls him out for making unjustified extrapolations.

Contra the Reefer Madness crowd, I don't believe marijuana causes cancer, no matter how ingested. Contra the blank-checkers, though, I do believe that smoked marijuana can cause COPD.

So, marijuana is certainly less dangerous than opiates. May or may not be as dangerous as alcohol. Is NOT danger-free.

And, hence, states could probably better regulate it than they are now, in places where legalized, especially full recreational legalization.

Namely, I think states should have a cap on max THC levels, and should also bar any adulteration that would increase addictiveness. Were I a state legislator in a state considering legalization, my vote would be contingent on either a max THC or max THC/gram cap, as well as a taking a listing from adulturants Big Tobacco added to cigs and barring them from being added to any smokable form of marijuana.

Would commercial pot companies do that? You bet your ass they would, just like Philip Morris added ammonia and other stuff to Marlboros.

Second, states need to work — to the degree possible under current federal marijuana laws — on devising a standard measurement for, and field testing of, marijuana intoxication levels. I'm thinking of the marijuana equivalent of a breathalyzer for DWI. Per Carroll above, current tools measure just THC in the body and not impairment.

Given that Altria, the former Philip Morris, just bought e-cigarette maker Juul, and just before that, up in the new Oh Wooowwww Canada, bought into the pot industry, the possibility that pot could be tampered with not only to further boost its THC, but through the addition of other chemicals, to further boost the addiction potential of THC already in it, should be something that is considered in advance. Carroll, without mentioning Big Tobacco by name, also wars about that. Read his piece.

That said, states would find all of this much easier to do if marijuana were downscheduled by the Drug Enforcement Administration from its current Schedule 1 to no higher than Schedule 3.

#NeverForget ... all those preventable deaths besides 9/11, hyperpatriots

I actually did a newspaper op-ed column about this two years after Sept. 11, 2001. But, I know the basics of it still, and with flags being waved in plenty, let's roll. (sic)

First, I can call out American exceptionalism without saying anybody on 9/11 deserved it.

Second, I can call out our government for whitewashing the degree of Saudi involvement, like Jill Stein, without being a 9/11 truther.

OK, I've cleared the decks.

Let's roll.

The United States has millions of cases of preventable deaths every year. Some are of diminishing returns, as far as regulatory efforts, or self-control, or both.

Three are not, and two of them directly involve government regulation that's blocked by right-wingers.

Let's roll.

Tobacco, with 450,000 or more killings a year, kills more people every three days, than died in 9/11. Big Tobacco knew it was producing a killer even before the 1964 Surgeon General report. Rather than cooperate in any way, it spread its denialism to Big Oil, on climate change and other issues. We continue to pay the price.

Alcohol problems, from cirrhosis and cancer to DWIs and work accidents, kills as many people every 10 days as died in 9/11. This one is equal opportunity. Alcoholism, like illicit drugs, kills across all races, all socioeconomic statuses, and presumably all political stances.

But, let's go back to that first link.

Violent deaths in America kill as many people every three weeks as died in 9/11. And, in the U.S., unlike most developed nations, most the violent homicides and a high percentage of the suicides are from guns.

The guns that right-wing hyperpatriots don't want regulated.

So, guns kill as many people in America every six weeks as 9/11.

And, 9/11 happened just once.

EVERY three days, tobacco kills another 3,000.

EVERY 10 days, alcohol kills another 3,000.

EVERY six weeks, guns kill another 3,000.

Never forget?

Let's start by remembering that.

As for 9/11, the long history of U.S. coups in the Middle East and elsewhere has also killed more than 3,000 people. Again, this doesn't mean that "America deserved it."

But, just like hypocritically unhealthy living, it does mean America should look in the mirror.

#MalcolmGladwell can gladly rot in a secular hell

If there were a hell, Malcolm Gladwell could gladly rot in it.

I knew, with his appearance on Glen Beck's show, that he had jumped the shark. Other reviews of his new book pretty much indicated that his pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-critical thinking had become even more pseudo recently.

But, this interview with him in an online Christian magazine is a straw too far.

And non-Gnu Atheists who still have a benighted view of him should probably rethink.

Indirectly, by indicating that forgiving comes from "weapons of the spirit," he's peddling some version of the "no morality without god" idea. True that he doesn't say forgiving comes ONLY from that, but, given that the book is in part about his reconversion, and ideas he's gained from that, I am taking that ONLY as a reasonable inference. That's reinforced by a comment like this:

What I understand now is that I was one of those people who did not appreciate the weapons of the spirit.

Because, before what we today call religion was formed, nobody could forgive anybody, right?

But, that's not all.

The interview points out how utterly vapid he has now become in general. Here's a sampling.

Why are so many successful entrepreneurs dyslexic? Why did so many American presidents and British prime ministers lose a parent in childhood?

Gladwell, in the interview, and in general, presents no statistics to back up his blank-check assertions. What's "so many"? Ten percent? Twenty? Thirty? Tell us, Malcolm, then give us some more details.

Back to that second rhetorical question, though.

Why did so many American presidents and British prime ministers lose a parent in childhood?

Uhh, because before 1900, the average life expectancy was below 50 and a lot of women died in childbirth?

Beyond that, being an orphan is no guarantor of spiritual enlightenment in general, nor of general life success.

Hell, Gladwell, let's just go to Rumanian orphanages then, and look for our next popes, our next UN Secretary General, etc., etc. If Rumania doesn't work, Rwanda, Cambodia and other places will be glad to put your insipidness to the test.

What's next? "Brightsided: The Orphan's Manual to a New Life"? 

Or, given his previous shilling for Big Tobacco: "Smoke if You've Got 'Em and Give Your Parentless Children a Whole New Life."

And, speaking of non-Gnu Atheists, to work

That leads me to riff to the battle/schism between Gnu Atheists and  Skeptics™. I know a few of the latter who think that, if Gladwell's not great, he's at least not bad.

Seriously?

I encourage a lot of rethinking. Anybody, whether on general intellectual matters or general moral ones, among broad-minded thinkers, who can give Gladwell even a "not bad" has a variety of critical thinking I don't want. 

Next thing you know, he'll be turning up as a 2016 GOP campaign consultant. 

And no, I'm not joking. Given that his Big Tobacco background reflects larger connections, and work history, in the conservative think tank shark tank, this seriously would not surprise me.

(Note: The cult of Gladwell is another reason I'd gladly help Deadspin with its desire to kill off Bill Simmons.)

Beyond this, per the website? I'm about sick of the "intentionally living" phrase. To some degree, at least from some people, it's become a spirituality superiority bit of word candy.

Assuming he picks it up on Twitter, this ought to give Yasha Levine some fun. 

Bulimic alcoholics coming soon from drugs as salvific technologism

That phrase "salvific technologism" is one I invented a long time ago as a blog tag.

A longer explanation? It's the belief, usually associated with avowed futurists, that technology will always be the cavalry riding over the hill with the "salvation" of improvement for the future life, lifestyle and flourishing of homo sapiens.

It's a belief I reject.

And, here's the latest nuttery in this area, courtesy of this new story in Britain's The Independent newspaper.

Let's start here:

Scientists are developing a drug which mimics all the positive effects of being drunk without any of the health risks, addiction – or hangovers.

And then ask how realistic that is. In my opinion, as the rest of the story demonstrates, not a lot. And, it leads to the rhetorical question of my headline.

We go next to this:

The “serious revolution in health” is being pioneered by the former Government drugs advisor Professor David Nutt, and has been described as doing for alcohol what the e-cigarette has done for tobacco use.

Uhh, wrong right there! As far as his claims about this new drug, the analogy is wrong, because the verdict is still out, to a fair extent, on the e-cig. (Apologies to any e-cig users reading this.) A Google search of "e-cigarette" + "dangers" gets more than 7 million hits. Those include the fact that e-cigs have their own toxic vapors and have not been proven to help people quit cigarettes, as noted in this story.

I think the story of the e-cigarette's alleged benefits is even more bullshitting than Big Tobacco's pre-1964 stance on the alleged benefits of cigarettes themselves. I'll stop there before I get even more wound up.

Meanwhile, back to our story at hand, now that we know our good professor is wrong about e-cigs and we know to be skeptical.

Here's where my "bulimic alcoholics" angle comes in:

It targets neurotransmitters in the brain directly, giving the taker feelings of pleasure and disinhibition that are in some cases “indistinguishable” from the effects of drinking. Yet because it acts directly, it can also be immediately blocked by taking an antidote – with “drinkers” potentially able to then drive or return to work straight away.

So, get "drunk" for an hour, take the "antidote" (interesting that its called that), then get "drunk" again. Lather, rinse, repeat!

Beyond that, this is a simplistic, 20th-century view of neurotransmitters. The "one neurotransmitter creates one constellation of results" idea is almost as simplistic as "one gene codes for one protein" in molecular biology.

Finally, the good ex-drugs adviser has not a clue, it seems, about the mental and psychological components of addiction. His whole conception of why alcoholics drink to addiction totally ignores that, so the idea that this will stop alcohol addiction is pure nonsense. Per the "bulimic alcoholic" comment, so, someone gets drunk for four hours, takes a pill, and starts getting drunk again. Like one of Nero's vomitoriums for food bulimics. With "friends" like this, alcoholics sure don't need more enemies, I wouldn't think. In short, I don't think this will prevent people who are subconsciously determined to do so from going down the road of addiction. I'm no fan of AA in general, but currently, there isn't an "easier, softer road" to get out of addiction, and especially for people who are predisposed by prior life history and psychology toward becoming addicted to alcohol, or other drugs, this won't stop that, either.

Next, along the line of him misrating the health value of e-cigs, what if he's misrating the health value of this? If somebody finds out, "Hey, if I grind and snort these babies, I can hallucinate" or something, then even minimal health value is out the window.

But, wait. Maybe if it can't help alcoholics get sober, can it at least do harm reduction for them? Or prevent a non-alcoholic drunk from an auto accident or something?

I'll agree with accepting whatever "harm reduction" it can do. That said, at at least the current level of pharmaceuticals capability AND the current level of what we actually know about the brain, vs what Pop Neuroscience tells us, no pill is going to instantly "un-drunk" anybody. Nor will it produce the exact effects of alcohol otherwise. And, I'll venture it can't come close to that without causing some psychological dependency effects. Beyond that, even current anti-craving drugs like naltrexone are nowhere near a sure shot for stopping cravings.

If you've been drinking too much, and don't want to have a wreck, call a cab. That's your best advice for today, and for 20 years from now.

And, for that reason, he's also spinning a conspiracy theory, I think. After all, Big Tobacco's given a cautious eye at investing in e-cigarette makers, even while their market remains tiny. And, that's the flip side. The market for a pill like this, for all the reasons I mentioned above and more (hard to put this pill in a college beer bong, especially an anal one) will remain tiny.

#Islamofascism, #BigTobacco, #Hitchens as a-hole

A Big Tobacco poseur trying to blow smoke in our eyes?

With some parallels to Ed Abbey ....

After putting the last touches on my "the dark side of Hitchens" blog post, I got to thinking about 9/11, his being one of the first people to use the word "Islamofascism" and similar, and a newspaper column I wrote on the first anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

I tied those thoughts together with Christopher Hitchens' known smoking history, his claims to be standing up against totalitarianism throughout his life, and his attitudes toward control of smoking in public places, and knew I had another blog post to write, even if it further angered people who want to think of nothing other than Secular St. Christopher.

So, here goes, starting with a synopsis of that 2002 newspaper column.

In that column, while not minimizing 9/11, I reminded readers of how many other things in America, usually recurring situations whose lessening was a matter of public policy in general or public health policy in particular, killed the same amount of people as al Qaeda did on 9/11, albeit perhaps over a week's time, or a month's rather than a day's time.

For example, I said diabetes kills X people per month, and is at least controllable, especially with Type 2, through diet. I said traffic accidents killed about 50,000 per year, and that safer driving, driving with seat belts, and driving while sober could eliminate many of those deaths.

Finally, I said that cigarettes killed about as many people every two days as al-Qaeda did that one day. And then killed about as many more the next two days. And again, the next two, ad infinitum.

Well, there's no "Big Sugar," re diabetes, not really. And even a "Big Alcohol" possible role in DWI fatalities is small.

Big Tobacco? Quite different. Now, that column didn't go beyond this, because that wasn't its focus.

But, I am now doing so, and going to riff on Big Tobacco and some of the issues Hitchens claimed to fight for, or against.

My focus now is, not just on Big Tobacco per se, but how, via being a poseur for Big Tobacco, Hitchens was a liar about what he claimed to stand for.

No, not just morally or psychogically inconsistent. Not even contradicting himself in a Whitmanesque, multitudes-containing way.

But lying to himself (and to us), and, I believe, quite consciously, all while being an asshole, to get in the last part of the title. More below the fold.

A couple of 'reads' to get ready for opening day

First, from the New York Times' Disunion series, here's a good column on baseball, in its multiple varieties, striving to separate itself from cricket and gain popularity at the start of the Civil War.

It's interesting, given the number of Southern players at the time modern professional baseball took off, after the start of the World Series, how little popularity baseball had south of the Mason-Dixon Line in 1861.

Second, here's former MLB player and manager Bobby Valentine, wondering in a NYT op-ed if it ain't about time to get chewing and snuff tobacco out of MLB dugouts. In the wake of Tony Gwynn and his recent grueling recovery from oral cancer, it's timely indeed.

I agree, by the way. Let's have players set a better example. And a cleaner one.

The FDA officially sells out to Big Food

How can a GMO salmon which not only has growth hormone from a different species of salmon but also a gene from a different genus of fish entirely not be "materially" different from other salmon?

The AquAdvantage salmon has been given a gene from the ocean pout, an eel-like fish, and a growth hormone from a Chinook salmon.

When it's the FDA, in thrall to corporate giants from Big Pharma, through Big Tobacco, to Big Ag and Big Food, making the call, on what's "materially" different or not.

Doesn't Big Biz believe in the "marketplace"? Well, include the "marketplace of ideas." Label stuff as GMO, at least if it includes genes from another species, and certainly if from another genus, or higher up the taxonomical ladder.

And, then, try to market it.

Camel targeted teen girls

Big Tobacco gets exposed again, first as a voracious drug predator, then as a liar for claiming it never did this.

Big Finance = Big Tobacco?

As the finance industry resists even the modicum of new regulation proposed by the Obama Administrastion, Bob Herbert draws some interesting parallels. “Malefactors of great wealth,” indeed.

House OKs FDA tobacco regulation

The bill to give the Food and Drug Administration regulatory power over tobacco passed with more than 70 percent House support. Although North Carolina Republican Richard Burr promises a Senate filibuster, I find it doubtful he can scrape up 40 other Senators. In other words, if he wants to filibuster, he will have to do an actual filibuster

Supremes give Philip Morris a short, swift kick

Without comment, in a one-sentence ruling, the Supreme Court has let stand, finally, a nine-year old lawsuit verdict against tobacco giant Altria, formerly known as Philip Morris. Essentially, though actually making a statement, albeit terse in extremis, SCOTUS declined to hear the case.

With interest, between actual damages, punitive damages to smoking widow Mayola Williams, and an override/cap on that, which will go to the state of Oregon’s crime victims fund, Philip Morris needs to dig in its wallet for about $150 mil, with the clock having been ticking on nine years of interest, though it says it will still appeal the amount due to the state.

Sidebar: The Oregon idea should be adopted by ALL states. It would be much more productive to society than either capping punitive damages OR letting them stand, but all punitive damages actually going to the plaintiff. Damages above 3x or 5x of actual, send them to the state crime victim fund, in part….

And, in part, to state legal aid.

Cigarettes – another reason to be glad Bush is gone

A bill giving the Food and Drug Administration not just the authority but even the direct charge to regulate cigarettes could make its way into law this year. That alone would be a notable healthcare measure.

How much will Big Tobacco fight this one?

Marlboro Lights will face heavy suits

In what's good news for everybody but Big Tobacco, the Supreme Court has ruled Big Tobacco can be sued for deceptive advertising over their "light" or "low-tar" cigarettes and claims thereof.

Philip Morris buys off VCU

Virginian Commonwealth University has a deal with Philip Morris so secretive most faculty don’t know it even exists.The research contract bars participating professors or the university as a whole from talking about any research findings, let alone publishing them.

What Philip Morris won’t tell – keep smoking to go bald or gray

The evidence is becoming stronger by the day of a statistical connection; even Asians, who rarely go bald, are more likely to lose their hair if they smoke.

Funny how you don’t see bald men and gray-haired women in Marlboro and other commercials, isn’t it?

Does the government want blacks to smoke more?

It sure looks that way. Menthol, found most prominently in “urban-friendly” brands such as Kool and Newport, is getting kid-glove treatment?

A Congressional bill to give the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate cigarettes bans most flavored cigarettes, including clove and cinnamon ones.

Menthol?

Not a peep. (Nearly 75 percent of black smokers use menthol brands, compared with only about one in four white smokers.)

As the Times notes:

The reason menthol is seen as politically off limits, despite those concerns, is that mentholated brands are so crucial to the American cigarette industry. They make up more than one-fourth of the $70 billion American cigarette market and are becoming increasingly important to the industry leader, Philip Morris USA, without whose lobbying support the legislation might have no chance of passage.

Whenever Congress is in bed with Philip Morris, you know bad things are bound to happen.

Here’s the fallout that will happen. Many blacks will rightly think whites care less about them. Some will even raise the old conspiracy theory flag.

Supporters of the bill, even African-Americans, argue there’s no other way to pass it:

“I would have been in favor of banning menthol,” said Senator Judd Gregg, Republican of New Hampshire, who supports the bill. “But as a practical matter that simply wasn’t doable.”

Even the head of the National African American Tobacco Prevention Network, a nonprofit group that has been adamantly against menthol, acknowledges that the ingredient needed to be off the bargaining table — for now — because he does not want to imperil the bill’s chances.

“The bottom line is we want the legislation,” said William S. Robinson, the group’s executive director. “But we want to reserve the right to address this issue at some critical point because of the percentage of people of African descent who use mentholated products.”

Fine. Pull the bill. Don’t postpone “someday” into an undefined future.

And, there’s other fallout. First, Philip Morris is lying about menthol. Congress, do you really want to go down the road of partnering with a brazen liar on this issue?

And, there’s other issues. Beyond the fact that menthol does make it easier to smoke, there’s concerns about menthol in cigs as a health issue:

Concerns about menthol have circulated since at least 1998, when the C.D.C. reported that menthol “may increase the absorption of harmful smoking constituents.”

Also, the taste of menthol may increase psychological dependence.

News briefs –secrecy, tobacco druggery, Obama surge

Who’s paying for those milblogs? Your tax dollars?

That’s because the U.S. military is being advised to secretly recruit bloggers.

FDA may finally regulate tobacco as drug

All three presidential candidates support the Senate version of a bill to give the Food and Drug Administration power to regulate tobacco as a drug.

Of course, this is really half power. While the FDA could regulate advertising by tobacco companies and outside additives, i.e., ammonia, formaldehyde, etc., to tobacco, it would not get the power to regulate nicotine itself as a drug.

Obama closes gap in Pennsylvania

Barack Obama is now within 5 percentage points of Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, just two weeks after the discussion was how big of a win Clinton would have to get a political bounce by beating expectations.

Hmm, looks like she might have to “just win, baby,” to quote Al Davis.

And, what’s backfiring the most? Her cozying up with Dick Scaife? The clownish, Fox-suck-ups of Ed Rendell? Her own past history on NAFTA? Lies about Bosnia? A mix?

Maybe I can eat Oreos and Kraft’s crappy cheese again

The Altria Group, maker of Marlboro and other Philip Morris not-so-fine tobacco products, is reportedly spinning off Kraft Foods, and Nabisco along with it.

After my dad died from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease almost two years ago, brought on first by Camel shorties, then Winstons (both Robert J. Reynolds products), then Merit, Marlboro Lights and other “light” products from Philip Morris, I took a personal vow to abstain from all products by Altria, or

With this news, if this goes through, I can be free of the vow. Reynolds makes nothing but tobacco products, so there’s nothing from them that I’ve been giving up.