One Step Forward, One Step Back: Electronic Cigarettes and Sisyphus

Posted on: October 27, 2012 By: mediaguy, Posted In: Anti-Ecig, Health Related

There’s a sisyphean tale of a snail climbing up a well every day, only to slide back every night as she slept and have to start over every morning.

Electronic cigarettes are building to a similar situation right now.

While regional bans are being overturned, big companies invest in the market, and organizations such as California Alcohol and Drug Educators (CAADE) have decided to officially endorse e-cigs as tobacco harm reduction (THR)devices, undertows and counter-currents, driven by big Pharma and Tobacco interestes, are evolving.

For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended countries ban e-cigarettes outright – not once, but twice, for completely different reasons.

The first reason: fear of legitimizing their use as a means to smoking cessation, despite increasing, promising studies on the subjesct.

The other reason: the (self-contradicting) fear vaping “normalizes” smoking in societies…

Ironically, when Zeus got miffed at King Sisyphus in Greek Mythology, it was Thanatos, the God of Death, who ultimately led to the eternal boulder-up-a-hill punishment.