Duncan Hunter blows hard on vaping rules

Duncan Hunter vaping it up at his congressional office/File

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-50th Congressional District) this month has ducked constituents refusing to hold a town hall. He has been nowhere to be found to answer for his promise to vote for the Republican tax bill raising taxes on the people he pretends to represent.

However, the self-admitted spender of campaign funds for personal expenses now under federal criminal investigation for spending campaign funds for personal expenses, somehow found the time, and money, to pop up at the Vape Showcase Dallas on Saturday Nov. 4 and blow something that looked like smoke.

Duncan Hunter is a vaping fool, appearing Nov. 4 at a Dallas vaping confab/Grapevine

https://m.facebook.com/marta.tankersley/posts/1688082681225411

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For context, Hunter considers his vaping legislation “on the right side of freedom”.

Freedom Factor | U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter Talks New Vaping Legislation

Was this weekend tripa one-off or has Hunter been making the rounds of vaping conventions while ducking his voters?
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One of the vendors in Dallas promoted a premium vaping product called “Suicide Bunny”. CA-50 voters, take note.
Hunter sucks it up for the vaping industry
 
Reading Hunter’s congressional page — thanks taxpayers — at https://hunter.house.gov is a bit like reading the news feed from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea– you know, North Korea, a nation Hunter has advocating nuking — so talk about projection.
But we digress.

Rep. Duncan Hunter vaping during a House committee meeting last year where he advocated allowing people to vape on airplanes.

On April 27, the vaping-crazy congressman, or someone writing under his name, published a story titled:“Hunter introduces groundbreaking legislation to better regulate vaping and set industry standards”

“Today, U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter introduced the Cigarette Smoking Reduction and Electronic Vapor Alternatives Act, legislation creating a new regulatory framework for vaping products that no longer subjects them to controls imposed under the Tobacco Control Act.  The legislation underscores the uniqueness of vaping technology and products, and advances vaping as a widely recognized life-saving alternative to traditional tobacco use.“This bill is the way forward for smokers who want to quit smoking and vapers who enjoy vaping,” said Representative Hunter.  “No less important, this bill will set the vaping industry on a solid path for decades to come and require consideration of the harm reduction benefits associated with vaping.

“The idea that vaping should be viewed and regulated no different than tobacco ignores the fact that countless Americans are turning to this one alternative to reduce their urge to smoke cigarettes or quit once and for all.  It’s also a fact that small businesses that sell vaping products will experience severe hardship under the existing regulatory structure and desperately need the relief and clarity that this legislation provides.  

To show he just wasn’t blowing smoke, according to The Hill  on June 27, Hunter, who infamously puffed from a nicotine vaporizer during a committee meeting last year, pulled out two different devices to illustrate what he argued were flaws in an amendment that Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) offered to an aviation bill.

“Let me show you the problem I have with Ms. Norton’s amendment,” Hunter said.Duncan whipped out a small electronic cigarette that contained nicotine and took a puff from it. Then he pulled out a larger red vaporizer that contained no nicotine.

“This is not covered … under Ms. Norton’s amendment,” said Hunter, who puffed on the second device in the exact same manner to prove his point. “That doesn’t make sense to me. Either say that an e-cigarette is illegal, whether it has nicotine or not in it.”

According to The Grapevine Duncan Hunter Investigations, a study of some online material posted by Hunter as “uberjaeger” on various chat rooms included on the e-cigarette forum dot com, “The world’s largest e-cigarette website,”

Hunter aka uberjaeger posted:

“I’m a Congressman from California and I vape in DC all the time around all the other congressmen. There are a few others besides me. A few have pipes, one has the smoke anywhere e-cig. I pass out the puresmoker business cards I get w/ thier (sic) products. I’ve even gotten a few staffers and security guys to buy them.”

Is that an appropriate use of his congressional office, promoting a for-profit vaping company. did he get commissions. Is that selling his office? FBI criminal investigators, if you’re listening.
 Enough fun, Hunter is in the pocket of the vaping industry, among his other many transgressions, but in the even a blind squirrel can find an acorn department, is vaping actually GOOD for you? Let’s ask Webmd.

Are They Safe? WebMD says

Using an e-cig is called “vaping, most contain the chemical nicotine, which is addictive. When you stop using it, you can go into withdrawal and feel depressed and crabby. Nicotine isn’t good for people with heart problems. And some initial research shows it may hurt your arteries.

It can also:

  • Harm the developing brains of kids and could affect memory and attention.
  • Damage unborn babies. Pregnant women shouldn’t use anything with nicotine.

But the concerns go beyond nicotine alone.

Some brands contain chemicals including formaldehyde — often used in building materials — and another ingredient used in antifreeze that can cause cancer.

Flavors in e-cigs also raise red flags. Some use a buttery-tasting chemical called diacetyl, which is often added to foods like popcorn. When it’s inhaled, it can be dangerous.

“Diacetyl is a well-known harmful chemical, which, among other things, causes a lung disease called ‘popcorn lung,'” says Erika Sward, assistant vice president for national advocacy at the American Lung Association.

Or consider, the PBS Nova Next investigation of vaping’s results.

More Than Just “Harmless” Vapor

The more scientists learn about e-cigarettes and their impact on human health, the more complicated the picture becomes. For one, no one knows exactly how toxic these products are because the use varies from person to person. And, contrary to what marketing materials may say, e-cigarettes produce a lot more than just “harmless” water vapor.

E-cigarette juice contains a mix of propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine, and flavoring agents approved by the FDA as “Generally Recognized As Safe” (GRAS) for consumption. When this mix is heated, a group of compounds known as carbonyls are produced. This includes compounds such formaldehyde and acrolein. While cigarettes generally produce a thousand times more carbonyls because of the combustion process, e-cigarettes produce a varying amount depending on the ratio of glycol to glycerin in the vaping fluid and how much of it is heated, says Daniel Conklin, an environmental cardiologist at the University of Louisville.

Conklin has investigated how e-cigarettes might affect cardiovascular disease using a type of mouse bred with a disorder that mimics heart disease seen in humans. Acrolein is of particular concern because it is considered to be the main contributor to the increased risk of cardiovascular disease among cigarette smokers, he says.

For 12 weeks, the animals were exposed to traditional cigarette smoke and an e-cigarette aerosol at two concentrations of nicotine, ten and 36 milligrams per milliliter, which spans the range of nicotine usually found electronic cigarette juices. The mice were also exposed to acrolein by itself at 0.5 and 1 parts per million (levels typically found in cigarette smoke). Lastly, a group of mice were exposed to just nicotine in water.

One puff of an e-cigarette is likely less toxic than a traditional cigarette, but we don’t know how many puffs the typical e-cigarette user is taking.

Unsurprisingly, standard cigarette smoke had greatest effect, increasing atherosclerosis risk about three times over the baseline. Oral nicotine doubled atherosclerosis risk, while acrolein “seemed to have a dose dependent increase” with risk doubling at higher levels. E-cigarettes seemed to also have a dose dependent result. At the higher concentration, 36 milligrams per milliliter of nicotine, the e-cigarette aerosol doubled the risk of atherosclerosis. Even nicotine alone appeared to induce atherosclerosis acceleration in mice, Conklin noted.

Although he stresses the limitations of one experiment performed on mice, they are cause for concern. He also stresses that how these products are used changes rapidly. For example, some e-cigarettes can be tweaked to deliver more vapor. “There is some concern that we don’t really know how much aldehyde like acrolein is being generated by these modifiable electronic cigarettes.”

How e-cigarettes are used also adds to the confusion. While there is decades worth of data on how a traditional cigarette is smoked, there is little consistency in how e-cigarettes deliver nicotine and flavor compounds. One study found that these products might deliver different levels of nicotine during each use and there were significant differences between “labeled and true levels” of nicotine in juices. One puff of an e-cigarette is likely less toxic than a traditional cigarette, but it’s not known how many puffs the typical e-cigarette user is taking.

“We don’t really know what that frequency does to the health outcome,” Conklin says.

Call Hunter what you want; an idiot, hypocrite, liar, criminal, but as all the world can see, most of all, call him a vaping fool. He needs to resign. That will leave him a lot more room for his true passion, vaping stuff.

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