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The young but vibrant vaping industry is striking like a brave David against three Big Goliaths, standing small but proud against Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, and the Big Democrats infesting our government at all levels. In 2018 one of those industrial giants is finally staggering on the cut-throat battlefield of Wall Street.
Big Tobacco stock prices are showing record losses this year, as informed consumers embrace vaping and e-cigarettes as the healthier option to traditional smoking around the world. Investors literally got burned by Big Tobacco this year as reported in this informative article at Inspire Investing.This is an encouraging trend and if it continues unabated the artisans, entrepreneurs, and educated consumers in the fledgling vaping industry will, at last, be able to put the final nail in the coffin of the "coffin nail" makers themselves.
Vaping consumers aren't easily deceived by Big Tobacco's vicious anti-vaping propaganda. From media-savvy Millennial's to streetwise Baby Boomers long familiar with the deceit-filled (and lethal!) advertising campaigns perpetrated for decades by the Big Tobacco Madison Avenue "mad men", vaping has united generations of consumers and Big Tobacco is reeling.
In this informative Velvet Cloud post, we'll take a look at the financial side of the struggle to put an end to combustible tobacco products once and for all, and the weird alliances of the anti-vaping conspirators. We'll also talk about why vaping is a lifeline for exploited cigarette smokers, and take a look at another swing and a miss by the "Facts Don't Apply" FDA now poised to repeat another historical regulatory failure which could actually keep Big Tobacco on life support.
We don't expect the minions of Big Tobacco to roll over and surrender without a tenacious and unscrupulous last charge against our small but growing vaping community. Make no mistake, the Big Tobacco Empire will strike back and they'll use some unlikely alliances to do it.
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend!" seems to be the maxim that has united such unseemly allies as Big Tobacco, Big Pharma, and the current crop of nannycrats infesting the Democratic Party. The Big Dicks of the Democrats are Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin and California Democrat Dick Blumenthal who are leading a platoon of fellow nannycrats in a massive move to link vaping with combustible tobacco.
The highest ranking Democrat, Chuck Schumer, has been on the rampage against the rise of e-cigs for years. Like many politicians who see the vaping industry as an easy target for making political points among the uninformed, Schumer is counting on the erroneous link to combustible tobacco in order to rack up "feel-good" legislation and political points from a misinformed voting public.
The massive media and regulatory assaults by politicians against the vaping industry have baffled informed vaping consumers for years. Why? Who benefits? Certainly not the over-taxed, at-risk, American tobacco smokers who find themselves demonized and even condemned to the status of second-class citizens after generations of exploitation by the Big Tobacco industry.
Sadly the Democratic Party, once the traditional party of the noble working class, is riding the backs of adult tax-paying ex-smokers by maliciously linking vaping and e-cigarettes to Big Tobacco, a move which Big Tobacco fully supports. With the burgeoning vaping population expected to grow to 55 million by 2021, Big Tobacco is looking at a dwindling market share of new wiser consumers at a time when their current combustible tobacco customers are literally a dying breed.
Big Pharma stands to lose billions in "smoking cessation" products which were the only choice available for tobacco smokers who weren't able to endure the cold turkey method of quitting. After investing $100 billion to develop these minimally effective products Big Pharma is certainly motivated to kill the vaping industry in order to protect its market share. And when you think about it, without Big Tobacco, Big Pharma loses its largest supplier of customers for the "smoking cessation" market.
Without Big Tobacco and Big Pharma, Democratic incumbents will lose massive amounts of the tax revenue they count on to run their cities and states and entrench themselves as incumbents in positions at all levels of government.
For many ex-smokers vaping is like a godsend. Flavored e-liquids offer a variety of aromatic vaping choices that were never available to them as tobacco smokers. The aromatic clouds produced by vaping are harmless to bystanders so the risk of second-hand smoke is alleviated. At Velvet Cloud, we saw the need for artisanally crafted, pure vegetable glycerin (VG) e-liquids to provide unique signature blends that would keep our customers coming back for more and allow them to put combustible tobacco behind them once and for all. Nicotine levels are optional at 12 mg, 6 mg, or zero, and many vaper's found they could back off of nicotine completely at their own pace with zero tar and other combustible toxic additives to worry about.
But we didn't stop there. When Velvet Cloud was founded in 2011 we realized that adult vaper's were extremely health-conscious consumers. We decided to provide the healthiest of the healthy options available for vaping. Optimized health is the factor that drew our community to consider vaping as a more beneficial option to tobacco smoking in the first place, but in the birth pangs of the new unregulated vaping movement, it was inevitable that risky bargain basement products would infiltrate the expanding market.
"Bathtub e-juices" with unknown ingredients and unsanitary bottling procedures from dubious sources abounded and we saw the need for a healthy e-juice source which vaper's could trust. That's why we provided this post detailing exactly how our highest quality VG e-liquids are produced to rigorous sanitary standards with our partners at Molecule Labs.
The artisans at Velvet Cloud provide the healthiest vaping e-juices on the market, using organic ingredients whenever possible, with the rule which applies to all of our vegan-friendly formulas that "nothing weird" finds its way into our unique e-liquid blends. As vaping became more popular it soon became evident to us that PG (propylene glycol), an ingredient used in anti-freeze, certainly qualified as "something weird". PG e-liquids carry the risk of allergic reactions in as many as 1 out of 10 users, which is why all Velvet Cloud e-liquids are 100% pure Vegetable Glycerin (VG). VG e-liquids also have the advantage of producing the voluminous aromatic velvety clouds which are our namesake without the nasty throat irritation that accompanies many PG juices. The last thing former smokers want to do is trade a smoker's cough for a PG-induced cough when they switch to vaping.
When the "Popcorn Lung" myth was planted by shadowy actors on dubious click-bait websites in an effort to torpedo the infant vaping enterprises popping up around the world we reassured our loyal customers that all Velvet Cloud e-liquids are completely diacetyl-free. And we debunked the malicious myth while we were at it in order to ensure our vaping community's peace of mind.
E-cigs and vaping mods finally provided the pleasurable alternative to smoking which ex-smokers found to be much more effective than the skin-staining nicotine patches or gobs of jaw-busting nicotine gum offered for big bucks by Big Pharma. We've known since 1988 that it's the tar in cigarettes which kills, not the nicotine. That was the declaration of the US Surgeon General at that time. E-cigs don't have tar, primarily because they are not burning tobacco products, despite the anti-vaping myths planted strategically on the internet which state otherwise.
Despite the malignant propaganda of Big Tobacco and their anti-vaping allies the good word about vaping is spreading quickly. The young lady in this video "What's Wrong With E-cigs?" does an excellent job of summing up the incomprehensible resistance to the common sense solution to smoking that vaping provides, and she's had close to 5 million views. That's encouraging news for the vaping community, and you might want to share it with those who are still brainwashed by the media blitz we've been enduring over the past few years.
Now it seems the efforts of the vaping industry, and the vaping community at large, are beginning to penetrate the massive anti-vaping propaganda campaign to hit Big Tobacco where it hurts most, in the plummeting prices of Big Tobacco stocks!
Last spring Big Tobacco had its worst quarter in decades and Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money was all over it exclaiming gleefully that, "It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of companies!". Citigroup market analyst Adam Spielman triggered the avalanche of falling tobacco stock prices with a blistering downgrade of tobacco giant Altria, the world's largest producer of combustible tobacco products and the owner of Phillip Morris.
Even the flagship brand Marlboro was tossed off its high horse with sales falling by a whopping 7%. Adding fuel to the Big Tobacco stock inferno, Phillip Morris followed up with a weak earnings report. The once dependable tobacco industry now finds itself on shaky ground due to the disruption of vaping and e-cigarettes. Big Tobacco has, in the past, maintained its high-profit margins by raising prices to compensate for the loss of 3 to 4% of customers each year as traditional smoking declines slowly but steadily.
With the exploding popularity of vaping disrupting the market, Big Tobacco Goliaths like Altria won't be able to use that method when quarterly losses exceed the anticipated annual loss in just three short months, in a trend that analysts are expecting to continue throughout 2018 and beyond. Regional numbers around the world were even worse for Phillip Morris:
European Union down 6.7%
Eastern Europe down 10.4%
The Middle East and Africa down 8.5%
Australia and East Asia down 18.3%
Latin America and Canada down 1.5%
The "pin action" of the downgrade brought down the entire tobacco sector as US cigarette volumes were down by 6% overall, according to Nielson. At the time of compiling this post, the downward trend triggered last spring seems to be continuing as Altria and Phillip Morris prices fell another 2.5% and 1.05% respectively.
But don't count the Big Tobacco Goliath as down for the count yet! The dwindling market for cancer sticks may be getting a boost from Big Tobacco's favorite regulatory agency and once again FDA could stand for Facts Don't Apply!
Old-timers familiar with Big Tobacco's "light cigarette" deception in the 1960's and 70's can see history repeating itself with the FDA's recent proposal to lower nicotine levels in combustible tobacco cigarettes to "non-addictive levels." Once again we feel compelled to point out that it's not the nicotine in cigarettes that kills, but the tar generated by burning tobacco. VLNCs, Very Low Nicotine Cigarettes fail to take this critically important fact into consideration.
Cigarette manufacturers have been tinkering with cancer-stick designs since the 1950's and the National Cancer Institute debunks the Big Tobacco myth that "light cigarettes" are safer cigarettes. Despite new filters and ventilated cigarette designs developed to "release toxins", tar consumption is inevitable. If nicotine levels are lowered to the .4 mg the FDA is proposing smokers are likely to follow in the footsteps of the "light cigarette" consumers of the last century who were deceived into thinking that they'd found a "safe cigarette". Low levels of nicotine simply cause a smoker to inhale more deeply, puff more frequently, smoke more often, and conveniently for Big Tobacco, buy more cigarettes!
As the National Cancer Institute advises, there is no such thing as a safe combustible cigarette and nicotine levels are irrelevant if the levels of tar remain the same. And, as the researchers at Velvet Cloud discovered, nicotine isn't the only addictive chemical likely to be found in Big Tobacco's cancer sticks. While we pride ourselves on including "nothing weird " in our pure VG e-liquid vaping blends, the minions of Big Tobacco have been thriving by including "everything weird " in their attempts to hook and keep cigarette customers until death do they part!
In 1994 tobacco companies were forced to produce a list of all additives used in their products. In turned out that American cigarettes contained an astounding 599 additives. Big Tobacco companies claimed that these were used to enhance flavor or act as humectants (moisturizers), or that the toxic additives were used as a "processing aid". That's a polite way of saying that they increased the effects of free-base nicotine in the smoker's system. Acetaldehyde formed from additive sugars burned while smoking is particularly effective as a synergetic partner with nicotine, increasing the addictive characteristics of the cigarette.
The report at Truth Initiative, "How Big Tobacco Made Cigarettes More Addictive" is a real eye-opener. Most disturbing is the 2014 surgeon general's report which found that though smoking had decreased over the past 50 years, the risk of dying from cigarette smoking actually increased. In effect, cigarette designs had become more lethal.
Big Tobacco resorted to GMO techniques to genetically engineer tobacco with twice the nicotine content according to this NY Times report. They followed that up with designs which increased nicotine intake to the smoker by 14.5%. To make matters worse, cigarettes were loaded with chemicals which masked the symptoms of the damage they were doing to an unwary smoker.
Bronchodilating compounds moved the stream of toxic smoke more easily to the lungs. Ammonia (!) was dumped into the mix to get nicotine to the brain faster. The harshness of burning tobacco smoke was mitigated by menthols, sugars, and flavorings which made it easier to inhale.
But of course the FDA's sole focus on nicotine ignores all of these facts and Big Tobacco could bounce right back by hawking lethal VLNC's to an unwary public. And just when they're on the ropes. Isn't that convenient?
Well, now that you're up to speed on the latest lethal shenanigans of the anti-vaping Goliaths it's time to put your feet up for a worry-free vaping session with the healthiest flavored e-liquids on the vaping market. At Velvet Cloud, we believe in the world of vaping choices and we've got an extensive lineup of pure Max VG blends, in an astounding variety of complex flavors. They're all available with your choice of nicotine levels best suited to your individual needs at 12 mg, 6 mg, or completely nicotine free. We've got warehouses in NY and Texas to get your favorite e-juice flavors to you with quick next-day shipping.
And of course, you can envelope yourself in a Velvet Cloud with the peace of mind that comes with knowing that your favorite blends are completely free of GMOs, diacetyl, gluten, sweeteners, artificial coloring's, harsh preservatives or any of the other weird additives found in the lethal products foisted on the public by Big Tobacco. When you're ready to join the ranks of our satisfied customers our online selection of vegan-friendly e-liquids is just a click away at the Velvet Cloud online store.
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