Fun with a purpose – twelve thought experiments in the form of a quiz designed to interrogate your views on e-cigarettes and harm reduction.
- Same questions as last two years – there are no right answers, only judgements and insights.
- If you didn’t try it before, try it now.
- If you have tried it before, please try it again. You are entitled, no encouraged, to change your mind in the light of experience.
- The biases in who answers a survey like this mean the aggregated results are of little value – so don’t take anything away from totals. The value is in thinking about the answers and reflecting on your own views.
Note on question 3. Very badly worded question – apologies. What this is asking is how much additional vaping you would be willing to accept to achieve a 10 percentage point reduction in smoking prevalence. So Q2 asks if you would settle for a doubling of nicotine use from 20% to 40% (10% smoking 30% vaping) in return for a halving in smoking, from 20% to 10%. Question 3 is the same concept but tries to work out where you would draw the line, if at all. So it is asking at what point you’d start thinking that wasn’t a good trade off. Eg. if you’d be indifferent between 20% smoking and 10% smoking + 60% vaping, then answer 60%. This question is asked as way of getting at how much you weigh nicotine use versus smoking.
Completed!
Done
Hi Clive, the world has a long way to go with regards to nuanced information, not just electronic cigarettes. Unfortunately a lot of people believe whatever the government tells them is the truth; they lack the innate curiosity and, dare I say it, intelligence required to challenge and process incoming information, before drawing conclusions. Not everyone thinks like a scientist and thats fine.
It does become a serious issue however, when my assumption is combined with the right to vote. I think the majority of the population just swallows what the government shoves them down the throat. After all, papa/mama knows best, right? Gullable voters really are dangers to themselves and others around them.
But the events of last week really take the cake. When a politician, a leader figure, is (mis)informed and doesnt even care to hear the interests and arguments of others that are involved, then we’ve reached the lowest point in democracy. The very word democracy implies that the people (demos) rule (kratein)! When the people are not heard by those who were elected to represent them, the line to autocracy is crossed. That means the representative has now become a dictator. When a dictator is not knowledgeable (no one can know everything), they usually become quickly surrounded by a clique that plays the dictator as a puppet to follow their own hidden agenda. I think thats exactly whats going on now in Brussels. I leave it to the readers to decide who the puppets are and who the masters.
Check the difference between ‘lose’ and ‘loose’ on one of your questions.
Good questionaire if it educates a few people, though I fear the ones who need to be educated in Public Health are just too twisted up by ideology.
Got it… as ever, thanks – good to have watchful eye of a pro!
Would that be THE Neal Asher? If so, I love your books, thankyou very much
This Quitz is for Tabako industrie made. I say everything schoud remain as it was befor politik mixed with. I wisch the Tobacco industrie dyes fast. I will never by e-cigs or liquid who are caming from Tobacco Industres. They made us sick and now they whant to winn allso on e-cig. Never.
Hello – it’s nothing to do with the tobacco industry. It’s intended to provoke some thoughts about what is really the the best for public health – and not all the choices are easy. If you don’t like the tobacco companies, you can answer that on the form… but some people think they may have a more useful role because of their scale.
Excellent. Loved the last options for questions 5 & 11. :)
I was trying to be nice and even handed, but there are limits!
Done on behalf of ECF
Question 1. Have already bought a starter kit for friends. 100% success rate so far.
Completed from France ;)
On 11 I first read:
I love the chick and retro feel – this will appeal to smokers and entice more to switch
;)
Interesting questionnaire, very thought provoking. I’ve been vaping for a little over 4 years and had to think quite hard about some of the questions. A good way to challenge thought processes, even for those of us who are very much pro ecigs!
Great idea
Hi all,
I’m sorry my english is so bad.
I SUPPORT FREE VAPING AND THE AIDUCE (french’s association for vapers)
I love electronic cigarettes because they are a disruptive technology for the prohibitionists. But, there was much research being done into safe cigarettes 40 years ago. I know the work of Gio Gori was shut down, and probably many others, which could have saved many lives. Gio Gori ended up writing a book about his work called “Virtually Safe Cigarettes”. I still don’t see why cigarettes companies never added a solution of PG/VG, nicotine, and flavorings (basically ejuice) to ultra light cigarettes to make a low-tar, high-nicotine cigarette. We’re not fighting tobacco controllers per se, we’re fighting with this weird prohibitionist streak that pervades western culture.
Completed, very good to place the debate on a larger scale, with a larger view, thanks.
No matter how many times I read q3, i couldnt understand it. Thought provoking none the less. Wil it be useful?
The quiz is intended to be useful to those taking it – there’s no value in the aggregated results, because I have not done anything to characterise who is responding or in any way to create a representative sample.
The idea of q3 is to draw out how concerned people are about vaping relative to smoking, even very high levels of vaping (say equivalent to caffeine use). So q2 asks if you would prefer one combination of smoking and vaping (20%, 0%) over another (10%, 30%) – vast majority of answers so far prefer the latter, even though it means double the number of people using nicotine. But q3 takes that forward by asking if there is a level of vaping at which you would see these as equivalent e.g. you might see 10% smoking and 60% vaping as equal to 20% smoking. In that case you would answer 60%. By far the most popular answer is that there is no equivalent level of vaping.
Sorry Clive, still don’t understand even when you’ve tried to explain it!
Hi – it’s a very badly worded question – my apologies. I’ve added an explanation at the bottom of the post. I hope that clarifies.
That electronic cigarette is just another way the tobacco industry is insuring a future clientele to stay in business. That statement I still believe to be true otherwise they would never have bothered to buy into a a market targeted to be regulated. They of course are already regulated and the regulators have derived an enormous cash flow over the years while at the same time gaining support from it’s victims. Correct me where I am wrong in a language that I understand along with all the other victims of smoking cigarettes. The Barb Tarbox story ( found on youtube and yes that’s her real name) is the very first piece of research I came across . I watched the video and saw the very disturbing images knowing full well what her message was for me . June 2013: I already have advanced Emphyzema and a spot growing on one of my lungs . Breathing is really hard and sometimes painful. Barb’s images haunted me. I kept up my research. I tried quitting , I tried cutting down, the images of Barb let me know what I’m up against. August 2013: The puffers, the steroids, fresh air and my kids especially keeping me hopeful, but I keep on smoking because I can’t quit, I requested the Smoking Cessation local office help me. I got shock therapy instead from their protocol. What do I do now? Sometime in September I picked up a packaged electronic cigarette in Holy Smokes and read what was on the packaging. No Nicotine. ???? The patch has nicotine, the gum has nicotine, the lozengers have nicotine, who would buy these?? I went home and started my research on electronic cigarettes. Looking back, that was the first time I opened my mind to think maybe there was a possibility these things have something to offer me. After plenty of research and user testment. I ordered my first one September 17/13 I received it on September 29/2013. I fired it up September 30/13. I have not had one puff of a cigarette since I finally opened my mind to this ingenious device. In closing I want everyone to know that Barb Tarbox did not have this alternative to turn to. Her story informed me I could literally die while holding a cigarette in my hand. I’m trying to hold tribute to her brave outpouring of pain she endured. I’m certain she would have loved to know that cigarettes were banned altogether. We know that is not gonna happen anytime soon and we know why. There is no fools amongst us victims. We all know what has to be done to stop being victimized again by those pretending to be there to help us. It’s our right to choose another alternative, and if we truly know it is a better alternative then we all know we must stand up and VAPE OUT LOUD…not be controlled in silence.
Ray, thank you for that. It is for all the current smokers that we former smokers and current e-cig users fight. I hope only that your story, along with tens of thousands of others get into the light of public discourse before the Witches of ASH get their way.
Golf Khan, you’d be surprised perhaps to learn about the stance that ASH takes. Insulting people working for a better understanding of ecigs is disappointing
I see here ASH gleefully reporting its stance on ecig advertising.
http://www.ash.org.uk/media-room/news/ash-daily-news/:ash-daily-news-for-24-december-2014#article_9428
Thanks Clive. Very thought-provoking. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Re: Question 3.
This is how I explain things to my students:
http://web.uvic.ca/~lalonde/vape/index.html
You can play with the rates of smoking & vaping and see what sort of population-level effects might arise based on different levels of risk.
Excellent tool. It warrants very wide distribution and use.
Interesting…
I’ve done something similar with monetised values using this spreadsheet.
Smoking to vaping cost benefit analysis spreadsheet. To play with this go to: File > Download as > Microsoft Excel (or preferred format).
Interesting survey and interesting results. Of course they are biased and not scientifically balanced. The ANTZ will call it useless. But somebody less narrow minded can easily view the data from another perspective and even see a Beneficial Bias
Great survey! Antz will embrace it Norbert :)