A Dash of Liquid Smoke, Please

As a Dutch company is due to release a drink for smokers, reactions from authorities and anti-smoking league make you wonder what is going on. I haven’t tried the drink in a can to look like a package of cigarettes yet. Probably it leaves you with a bad after taste in your mouth. Authorities and anti-smoke campaigners managed that without me drinking anything they might offer.

The drink, according to the producer, will alleviate the smoking crave smokers have these days on flights, trains, and in restaurants, where they are not allowed to light up. These claims are completely unsubstantiated and there is no research proving it. Apparently, the drink doesn’t contain any nicotine at all, but a mixture of African herbs having the same effects on human metabolism. The leaves of these herbs are chewed by African Bushmen since the 14th century to achieve a high. Sounds like any other drug to me, though. Research on this new drug is not available. We have dubious dealings in the go, once more.

Dutch authorities are expected to give the go ahead before Christmas. Obviously, as there is no research existing on the drugs contained in the drink, they are harmless unless proven otherwise in long time research. Makes you wonder why people without brains always end up working for the government. The clincher, though, is the fact that this drink will be available to buyers of all age groups. Get them addicted while their young.

Anti-smoking League reactions are more curious still. They fear it could promote addiction. What probably makes them worry most is the fact that it would not be a smoking addiction, taking a lot of money out of their pockets when prevention has to be steered somewhere else. As they claim that nicotine is highly addictive, they so far have been able to gather considerable sums to their cause. If nicotine was so highly addictive, one wonders that tomatoes and egg-plants are still being sold. Worse, tomato sauce is a regular in school kitchens. As long as they pretend that nicotine is highly addictive and do nothing against food containing nicotine, they are a bunch of hypocrites.

The true addictiveness of smoking doesn’t stem from nicotine, as I explained in my article EU to Get Smoke-Stop-Rings on Cigarettes. Chemicals including ammonia added by the tobacco industry to all kinds of tobacco are the real culprits of addiction. As these additives represent 30 per cent of cigarette tobacco and only slightly less in other tobacco products, a ban on these additives is called for immediately. As smoking products thereby lose their flavour and their addictiveness, billions could be saved in prevention and health costs.

It is quite plain that neither politicians nor anti-smoke campaigners want to lose a considerable income. That’s even more sickening than the cigar being lit up at the next table while you are eating.