Today I received a Kudo on a post I made on E-Cigarettes. The gist is that I'm grateful they have nontobacco flavors & my desire to not trade addictions. RE:Move from addiction to cigarettes to gum or vape addiction.
I don't know how many of you went into marketing and advertising or maybe just. familiarized yourself with Bernays.
Here is a summary of how it applies. He was an evil genius and nephew to Freud... Yeah, that guy. Anyway, big tobacco hired him to do advertising and corner an untapped market, Women.
He designed a campaign calling cigarettes "Freedom Torches" and somehow convinced the rebellious suffragettes to match smoking their "freedom torches".
It worked.
But that speaks to several layers... One is, Americans love their freedom. This didn't just associate cigarettes with freedom for women, but freedom as an American value and cigarettes as one of its icons.
I see all of these ads moving to make flavored vapes illegal because kids are using them. These ads make me cringe. As a person actively using one on occasion to quit the nontobacco flavors help to move me out of the familiarity of flavor and only soothes the hand-to-mouth and blowing-out smoke feature. While I might not use it daily, it has been a godsend at times.
E-cigarettes are already illegal for children and teens. It's unfair and un-American to ban their production. Not just for the companies but for Americans who choose to self-medicate with nicotine.
I asked myself the hard questions like, will you feel this way when you're 5 years down the line and you catch your young son with a vape.
The answer is, yes. It is not different than alcohol and pot. Young kids are going to acquire it and use it. It's up to parents to enforce the consequences. I made a major deal of small infractions of substances.ex: Caught with a beer/ grounded for a month. I found severe consequences with small things deferred attempts at bigger things. ( hard drugs).
Now we all live in our own little bubbles but I don't believe I'm wrong about this. I invite other perspectives.
I have to go and I don't know how to make my spot.
I would like to continue this in a next blog and touch on freedom, harm reduction, self medication, addiction, and the burden on taxpayers, etc....
PS.There are many things I would like to share here. Time constraints and a tiny keyboard limit my interaction. See you soon.
