What The News! : Cities Deny Vape Shop Application Because Of What?

 

    Apologies for being missing last week, I had a lot going on and couldn't find much more in vape news other than the so-called "lung disease" sweeping America. Real quick fact check on that front, these stories are worded to point the finger at vapes. The truth is even scarier. People are getting sick from black market THC cartridges that probably don't even have THC in them. I may cover that more next week, but today I have a story a little closer to home for me.

   Alpharetta, Georgia has been attempting to ban vape shops, or at least any more shops, from opening in their city. A few months ago the city council had a potential ban in the minutes for one of their meetings.

   I assume, due to the number of people in the vaping community that agreed to show up in support of their right to vape, the city council had tabled that discussion until further notice. After this morning's article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, it seems as though they have found another way to push back on vape shops.

   The headline reads, "Alpharetta denies vape shop as vaping debate continues." It's a seemingly innocent and neutral title that encourages curiosity, I'll give them that. But, the contents of the article aren't as neutral.

   Monday morning, the city council made the decision to ban Xhale City's application to open a shop off of Old Milton Parkway. The reason given had to do with zoning laws, but it was really just a loop hole because AJC did not give specifics on the laws of zoning in their article. Instead, they used the opportunity to continue to belittle vaping as a whole.

   A little background for Xhale City before we get into the rest of the article...

   This business has 23 locations from Oakwood to Carrolton and everywhere in between. Fun side fact: Did you hear about the vape shop employee that screamed at a guy for visibly portraying his political views and refused to sell him anything? If so, it was an employee of Xhale City. They didn't seem to appreciate that a customer was so rudely discriminated against by one of their own employees. He was ultimately fired and the company posted an apology to their Facebook which included a video with the customer wearing his political shirt. Good job, guys!

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Back to the main story...

   Given the number of locations, it's clear to see this business isn't suffering too hard from the denial. What if it had been a smaller store, though? Plenty of avid vapers and hobbyists strive to open their own shop as more than a business, but also to have a place to hang out with their friends and enjoy their past time. 

   AJC claims the city has been looking for a way to ban vape shops, without potential legal backlash, after the CDC released a statement regarding the "first death related to vaping". As I mentioned earlier, it was months ago that Alpharetta was discussing banning vape shops from their city. To use this outbreak that has only recently begun to happen is mis-use of the media.

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   Furthermore, vape devices found in schools are another reason given for these measures being taken. Surrounding areas have made the decision to not allow a business that has over 25% of their inventory being vape related products. 

   Did you know that most of the teen vaping cases have involved Juul? That would be the reason they are always in the news and recently apologized for marketing to young people. Most vape shops today have stopped carrying Juul for those same moral reasons on top of the company being owned by big tobacco. So, who is primarily selling this brand? Convenience stores and gas stations! I would say they definitely do not have more than even 10% of their inventory being anything related to vaping. These cities have no problem with these businesses, but that's the place most of these teens can acquire a Juul device. IT MAKES NO SENSE! 

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   They do, much later in the article, give a little more information into the meeting where the application was denied. City staff told the council they were against the shop opening because they saw glassware, that could be used with drugs like marijuana, in their inventory. 

   Disregarding my own feelings on the benefits of this natural plant, gas stations also sell the same pipes and glass pieces that this shop have. Again, the logic these city officials have is completely flawed. 

   With teen vaping and the recent hospitalizations, it's clear that politicians will continue to fight against vaping. And though they won't admit it, we all know it's in favor of traditional tobacco. Even though cigarettes have caused numerous cases of lung cancer and the companies historically lied about the dangers, it's become a big money maker for these big tobacco companies who in turn donate to the same greedy politicians and who knows who else. Stop denying that there haven't been studies. The UK already has vape shops in hospitals and a study published years ago linking vaping to be a major help in tobacco cessation. 

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    Next week we will talk about these tragic cases that do not need to be taken lightly. We can only hope that the CDC is actually focusing on finding the true cause, because vaping in general is not it. Stay up to date with the blog on our Facebook page and don't forget to like and share with your friends! The Cloud Mermaid @ FB! 

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What The News! : Redirection and Disappearing Studies?

  Why is it that every time I attempt to find a crazy story to debunk for the purpose of this here blog, most (if not all) of the links to what I think will be sources end up linking back to previous articles? The click-funnel keeping you on that particular media outlet's page makes finding the truth a bit difficult, but we all know that's what they want.

  News stations have been covering a lung epidemic happening in a few of the northern states like Minnesota and Wisconsin.

• NBC is claiming that patients have come in with severe breathing difficulties and further treatment just makes the symptoms worst like fluid build up in the lungs. 

• A CBS article  says that symptoms in Minnesota include fever, coughing, vomiting, and diarrhea. I don't know how these (other than coughing) could be linking to vaping, and funnily enough neither do the doctors. 

   These headlines are suggesting that vaping was linked to lung-damage occurring after hitting an e-cigarette, but every article after being thoroughly read admits that none of these doctors are saying there is any concrete link between their patients health and there hobby of choice.

                               
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   There is another potential culprit, however. Some patients have admitted to using THC cartridges prior to their hospital stay. One case claims the cartridge was purchased on the street or by a middle man rather than a dispensary in a state where it is legal.

   For those who are unaware, THC is a chemical component of marijuana. It's the bit that gives the high stoner's are so well-known for. To this day, there have been no reports of any health-related issues resulting in THC use. I mean accidents can happen when you are intoxicated, but that would be why it is so frowned upon to drink and drive. The other component commonly found in marijuana is CBD. This would be the medicinal chemical responsible for numbing pain, clearing anxiety, preventing seizures, and the list keeps growing the more studies that are done.

   So, as with any other "drug" you may find on the streets, there is always the potential that it has been tampered with. As these articles point out, if some other chemical was added to these cartridges for any reason, that could be the reason people are being hospitalized.

  Surprisingly, CBS included a quote from the American Vaping Association stating that there is no way vaping nicotine could cause this kind of damage when around ten million adults vape daily without incident.

  If it isn't the nicotine, could it be that drug dealers in these states are adding some other toxin to their THC cartridges? With the same logic the AVA has given, if Colorado has gone this whole time without health issues from marijuana (but rather health improvement) it cannot sensibly be the THC causing these cases.

                
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   At least the doctors don't seem as quick to judge vaping as the media, because it would be horrific if they didn't continue to study and find the real danger.

  Besides the focus on vaping being a supposed link and a lack of focus on the fact that it's not just teens suffering from these lung afflictions, there is also talk of studies claiming to find toxins in e-liquid. You would think that if an article was going to reference a study they would at least provide a link to the actual study and not back to a previous article written under the same media outlet.  Worst though, is the links that take you to the study and it turns out to be a study on something completely different.

  A different CBS article (on the same topic) claims that Pediatrics, an online medical journal for the American Academy of Pediatrics, published a study that found Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) or carcinogens in vapes. The article talking about this study was written in March of 2018. If a study anywhere had found that vape liquid contained potentially toxic chemicals, vaping would have never been introduced in UK hospitals as a way to ween patients off of tobacco.

  In fact, the link CBS included in an article published today (as well as the 2018 article) led me to a study on whether or not vaping caused more teens to start smoking actual cigarettes. No where could I find anything about detecting acrylamide (among others) in the urine and saliva of around 84 teens averaging 16 years old as CBS claimed.

  Spoiler Alert: I only found these outlandish statements in the 2018 article because today's article led me to it with claims of toxins in vapes being a cause to the lung damage people have been experiencing the past few months.

   Since the study couldn't been found, I looked up what acrylamide meant because using big words the average person wouldn't understand helps fuel the hate fire.

  Acrylamide is a naturally occurring substance that appears in everyday cooking when starches are exposed to higher temperatures. The concerns for it being a potentially cancer-causing agent are minimal. The only studies done were on animals and even the FDA says the average intake is too small to worry about.

  So not only did CBS draw conclusions from apparently thin air since they didn't link to the study they mentioned, but they didn't even use scary sounding words that actually had scary backgrounds. It's like these journalists think no one will ever fact check them. Seeing as the average adult believes most claims on the internet without getting evidence, media outlets are just going to keep stirring the pot and making their money.

                    
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  Good news for me though, because this segment is based around taking media claims and finding the truth. Come back next week for another group of truths hidden in clever lies by your favorite news sites. Don't forget to pass the knowledge on. The more people opening their mind and questing for facts, the less the media can continue to redirect their audience focus to benefit their fear mongering.

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What The News! : Beware of Misinformed Reporters

So apparently, the FDA has been investigating reports of seizures and their relation to vaping. In simpler terms, they asked people to report if they or anyone they know has health issues after vaping.
According to CNBC this morning, the FDA is handling 127 cases of supposed seizures while vaping.

Today's What The News! is going to take a slight detour from finding hard facts to investigating a particularly shady article. I've given you the overall topic of the article in question, but I would like to dive a little further because the truth is that instead of actually using science to test the validity of health risks where vaping is concerned, the USA would like to just demonize and banish without a second thought. No matter how many people have found that they were finally able to escape an addiction that patches and gum don't help, no matter the study the UK did that took years with control groups for neutrality, no matter that the people talking crap on e-cigs and vapor technology don't actually care about the well-being of anyone.... This is why typical journalism just isn't for me.


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While scrolling the Google search engine for the latest and craziest vape news, I discovered an article entitled:

FDA investigating 127 reports of seizures after vaping

Of course, this made no sense so I dived right in. This is where it gets juicy.

Did you know that nicotine is poisonous? I'm sure in high.... extremely high doses it can be. Many people say they experience a "buzz" and too much can have you bed ridden or dehydrated enough to induce a hospital visit, but no more than experienced with tobacco smokers.

 The article cited the National Capital Poison Center saying e-liquids have high concentrations of nicotine and that can cause death.


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 After clicking the link for the source, I found myself on an article of the NCPC site that discusses the absolute horrifying dangers of nicotine and why you should keep it away from children. Apparently, seizures can start within 30 minutes of ingesting vape liquid. I really wonder who studied that finding.

 The site also claims a 42 year old man was found dead at home with alcoholic beverages and an empty bottle of nicotine liquid or "smoke juice" as they so lovingly called it. It must have been the nicotine right? Not any other health problems? Not alcohol poisoning? 

TANGENT!! 

So the vape shop I work in has some fun stories and there was a guy that got really drunk one day and accidentally downed a 60ml bottle of liquid. The worst that happened to the poor guy was having wasted a whole bottle and desperately needing more. Doc recommended drinking plenty of fluids and taking it easy. 

So after reading that article, I had to double check the sources. One of which being an article the CDC published, but not recently. No, this source they credited was posted in 2013. It's 2019 in case anyone forgot and the FDA still readily admits that there is more and more that has yet to be discovered about nicotine and it's relation to vaping as opposed to cigarettes. 

Back to the original article in question:

 It was written by one of CNBC's Health and Science journalists by the name of Angelica LaVito. Her article mentioned early on that the FDA had begun their investigation back in April where there were 35 cases of potential nicotine caused seizures after vaping. These words were linked. So I clicked thinking I would go to the FDA site or some outside information on this at least......

The link to me to another CNBC article written back in April talking about the 35 cases (that spanned 10 years) and what the FDA was doing. Then I saw who wrote it. You guessed it! Angelica LaVito. There isn't anything wrong with citing yourself or following an FDA investigation with multiple articles. Keep your readers informed, but at least don't plagiarize yourself. 

Remember when I mentioned the NCPC and supposed nicotine poisoning being a major problem?

It may be difficult to see, but the two paragraphs are identical! In fact, both articles seem to be saying the same thing with catchy headlines. So it's fine to just copy and paste a whole paragraph into a later article or this reporter just couldn't think of another way to scare her readers away from vaping and back towards smoking. 

 The article posted this morning offered a disclosure at the end (they know good and well that most of their readers won't reach the bottom) listing Scott Gottlieb as a contributor. While I'm surprised they admitted it, this points to a clear conflict of interest and explains why the article seems so opinionated. They don't emphasize the lack of evidence pointing to vaping as the cause but they emphasize the number of people claiming to have been or know someone negatively effected by nicotine in e-cigarettes. These claims are currently undergoing investigation for validity and evidence, but CNBC and LaVito don't seem to be concerned with reporting the truth. Instead they want to cloud their readers with misleading headlines and outrageous claims that cannot be backed by science or even logic. 

Maybe one day we can get back to honest reporting and helpful journalism. Until then, you always have What The News! every Wednesday to keep you filled in with the facts and articles to beware of. The Cloud Mermaid does not currently accept contributions and will never accept contributions from anyone except it's readers. It's called neutrality and yes it's a moral obligation. Check back next week for another crazy claim and don't forget to check out the Facebook page where you can stay up to date on the latest posts. The Cloud Mermaid Facebook Page

Links for the articles mentioned:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/07/fda-investigating-127-reports-of-seizures-after-vaping.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/03/fda-investigating-nearly-three-dozen-reports-of-seizures-after-vaping.html