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Emerging Deception

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There is much in advertising today that consumers must be wary about. Advertising can be seriously deceptive. And certain advertising outfits will not care on the truth of the message if the pay-off is great. Smoking cessation products today can be as dangerous as advertised. These ads can have believable messages... but with a dangerous twist.

“THERE is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in his short fiction, The Boscombe Valley Mystery. 

Apparently, only one of four emerging tobacco products now available in the American market had reached the Philippines. That product is popular as the “e-cigarette.” 

An E-cigarette is actually an electronic nicotine delivery system (Ends), a category of products that deliver a vapor of nicotine and flavoring on inhalation. Flavors include a variety of tobacco, fruit and food (e.g. chocolate) flavors. Companies market it as a smoking cessation device and an alternative to cessation. Of those who have tried it, 19.7 percent became regular users. Because it is the newest of the four, little research on their negative effects and efficacy exists. 

The other three emerging tobacco products include snus, waterpipe and dissolvable tobacco products (DTS). 

The snus is a smokeless tobacco product that does not require the user to spit. 

Companies marketed it as a reduced harm product in airports, and in no-smoking areas as a tobacco product to use without having to smoke. Its nicotine content makes dependence continue, and tempts former smokers try it once more. Robert McMillen and colleagues from the American Academy of Pediatrics noted in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health (May 2012) that snus attracts more daily smokers (12.9 percent) than nondaily smokers (4.1percent). 

Waterpipe originated in India in the 1700s, an instrument for inhaling charcoal tobacco smoke, cooled down by water. Marketed as safe alternative to cigarette smoking, people believe it safer than cigarette smoke. However, waterpipe produces concentrations of carbon monoxide, nicotine, tar and heavy metals at levels similar to, or higher than, cigarettes. It hooks nondaily smokers (26.0 percent) more than daily smokers (12.9 percent). 

DTS is also smokeless and spitless; a flavored form of finely milled tobacco that dissolves in the mouth. Like snus and Ends, companies market it as a dual product. 

It has special appeal to adolescents due to its attractive packaging, flavoring and dissolvable delivery system. Right now, its users stand at less than one percent among Americans. 

The deception in these products come from three fronts— [READ MORE]

This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 24 July 2013.
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