Clockwork Orange-like images show a sweating, terrified young man in a dark laboratory with a black metal contraption on his head that locks his mouth open. We see his clenched white teeth and red gums. A black gloved hand tries over and over to insert a nicotine pouch between his lip and gum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A young woman is strapped down in a black reclining chair, her mouth covered by an oxygen mask with a vape attached to it. It forces her to inhale vapor continuously. X-rays of the brain and lungs hang on the wall. Meanwhile rats investigate vapes, and nicotine pouches are strewn all around them. It\u2019s macabre.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you use nicotine pouches or vapes, your body is part of Big Nicotine\u2019s experiment \u2026\u201d the text reads. \u201cYou\u2019re not just their customer, you\u2019re their lab rat.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all part of yet another fear-based campaign designed to demonize the use of safer nicotine products:\u00a0 \u201cUNDO: End Tobacco Damage Now<\/a>,\u201d is currently being promoted by the California Department of Public Health.<\/p>\n It is hard to imagine any other public health campaign around drug use referring to people as rats.<\/p>\n It brazenly insults people who use safer nicotine products. \u201cAre you one of Big Nicotine\u2019s lab rats?\u201d the campaign asks. It is hard to imagine any other public health campaign around drug use\u2014alcohol, say, or even something as stigmatized as fentanyl\u2014referring to people as rats. The hatred and discrimination that\u2019s long existed against people who use combustible tobacco has been transferred to those who want to quit cigarettes through harm reduction.<\/p>\n Crusades against nicotine are usually framed in terms of villains and victims, and both keep changing. The original villain, \u201cBig Tobacco\u201d became \u201cBig Vape,\u201d and now, \u201cBig Nicotine.\u201d The victims used to be people who smoked cigarettes. Now it is those making the healthy decision to switch to a safer nicotine delivery device.<\/p>\n As is always the case in these zealous anti-tobacco harm reduction campaigns, the lies are staggering. Even the campaign\u2019s name\u2014\u201cEnd Tobacco Damage\u201d\u2014is a lie, when the focus is on products that contain no tobacco and that reduce damage to public health.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are part of \u201cBig Nicotine\u2019s experiment,\u201d UNDO states. \u201cEach use makes you part of an experiment with your health at stake.\u201d Nicotine is an \u201caddictive poison.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicotine is not a poison; it is a mild stimulant drug that billions of people have consumed safely<\/a> over thousands of years. It is used ceremonially, medicinally and recreationally. Moreover, no one who ingests it is being experimented on, because the effects of nicotine have been exhaustively studied.\u00a0<\/p>\n Note that people who use nicotine patches and gums are exempt from the label \u201clab rats,\u201d are not part of an experiment, and aren\u2019t seeing their products targeted for prohibition. Of course, \u201cBig Pharma\u201d sells these over-the-counter \u201cpoisons,\u201d better known as nicotine replacement therapies.<\/p>\n The campaign section titled \u201cWhat this poison can do to you\u201d is so full of demonstrably false assertions that you might spontaneously combust! <\/p>\n Lighting tobacco on fire to get nicotine is the problem. With the invention of vapes, nicotine pouches<\/a>, snus<\/a> and heated tobacco<\/a> products, there are many ways to use the drug that eliminate combustion and work as alternatives that people who smoke actually want to use. This is something to be celebrated, not vilified.<\/p>\n The campaign section titled \u201cWhat this poison can do to you\u201d<\/a> is so full of demonstrably false assertions that you might spontaneously combust! Nicotine blocks the brain\u2019s ability to pay attention, it claims. But it\u2019s the opposite; nicotine increases<\/a> attention and focus. Up next; \u201cNicotine can deepen depression and amplify anxiety.\u201d It\u2019s the opposite; nicotine has been shown to decrease<\/a> symptoms of depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n Then UNDO offers this whopper: Nicotine poisons the body; it makes you \u201cnic-sick.\u201d It does not. If it did, no one would use it!<\/p>\n There is a strong whiff of desperation in these ads and videos attacking the use of safer nicotine products. That\u2019s because over a decade of science irrefutably shows they are safer to use<\/a> by orders of magnitude compared to cigarettes, and are more effective<\/a> for quitting smoking than patches or gums. But with smoking on the decline, public health groups seek to justify their existence by presenting harm reduction tools as the enemy. Moral panic and funding are easier to generate for the innocent \u201cvictims\u201d of youth vaping than for the people who genuinely face severe health risks: the predominantly marginalized populations that still smoke.<\/p>\n Happily, millions of people around the world have ignored offensive disinformation campaigns like this one and made the switch<\/a>. That makes the forces opposed to tobacco harm reduction angry. Moreover, they hate that people who vape nicotine actually enjoy it. Over time, their drug-panic propaganda<\/a> has become less effective, so they\u2019ve doubled down on the shock tactics and deception.<\/p>\n Then there is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has authorized vapes<\/a>, flavored nicotine pouches and snus<\/a> as \u201cappropriate for the protection of public health.\u201d This fact is conveniently omitted in attack campaigns like UNDO because it undermines all their bald-faced lies.<\/p>\n With the widespread use of snus, which the Swedish government promotes, Sweden has become the world\u2019s first \u201csmoke-free\u201d<\/a> country. This remarkable human achievement is also ignored.<\/p>\n Because the goal of \u201cBig Tobacco Control\u201d agencies like the California Department of Public Health is the opposite. They want to deny access to safer nicotine products that can save the lives of people who smoke. Who are the real rats?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n