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Politics will be ending my career/job as well as dozens of my friends.


GoBengals

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Its not often that you are faced with the corruption and darkest side of politics to the point of it costing you your job, your families main income, and potentially wrecking a large circle of friends livelihood. 

 

Some may recall I ended up with a job in the E-Cig industry. I started to web and graphics, worked into marketing and sales manager, and am currently the operations director for the company(as of 6 weeks ago).

 

My climb was a result of the owners wanting to do less and less of the day to day things, and me being good at those day to day things.

 

I have been very successful here, and I have never had more fun in my life, the confidence in myself, my skillset and having a passion for helping employees grow and improve and growing the companies footprint and revenue, all have been a really good time. Losing this would devastate me mentally and crush my family financially. I bring in 75% of the household income, cost of living continues to increase, I was forced to get a new car recently so that expense has been added as well, (replaced an accord with an accord).

 

So back to the topic.  Im sure everyone has seen the "epidemic" of vaping across the country. This is where things get very hairy.

 

The youth vaping epidemic is complete bullshit. Fabricated numbers, lying to parents, students, etc.

 

I started working with the local school district (largest in the state) educating them on vaping, giving them product examples, what to look for as far as hidden devices. I wanted to be a responsible member of the community, I also dont want kids vaping, kids vaping is the ONLY threat to my industry.

 

So once the person i was working with went to the board, and they found out I worked in the vape industry, they cut all ties with me, returned the examples i gave them, and refused to speak with me any further. I was upfront and 100% educational. 

 

That was blow #1 to the world i lived in, the school system is turning away someone trying to help them. I get the potential conflict of interest thoughts, but i was giving them items they had never seen as they hit the market so shorten their learning curve. I gave them one device and they were like "OH MY GOD IVE SEEN THESE" having no idea it was a vape device. How am i not helping?

 

so lets fast forward to these "vaping" deaths. There are a few things here that are facts and all of which are ignored.

 

1. not a single death was from vaping, 100% of the deaths were from THC cartridges where the thc oil was extracted using vitamin e acetate, which is extremely harmful if inhaled, this is ONLY found in THC cartridges. 

 

2. THC cartridges are not vaped, even tho they are same same hardware, thc cartridges are filled with oil, so its a heat-to-burn system, and vaping is a heat-to-vapor system, so essentially inhaling steam with flavoring and nicotine. so the thc still isnt even vaping.

 

3. People are being encouraged to lie about their use, one guy admitted he was told to say he only used flavored nicotine products, ever, and there are endless photos on his social media smoking thc carts, blunts, etc. he said dr oz and governor in michigan encouraged him to say he only used ecigs. there are screen shots of his conversations admitting this.

 

lets circle back to the kids. when i first went to the district, they shared the stats from a survey they did, it was in depth, whoever did wanted to know the truth of the situation. it asked hve to ever vaped, have you vaped in the last 30 days, have you vaped 0-1 times in the last 6 months/yr, 2-5., 5-10, 10-20, 20+ . etc. getting great info. most everyone had tried vaping, and less than 3% were vaping regularly according to the stats. my son sends me a pic or copy of every survey he gets also so i see the progression.

 

now the last one they did, only asked: Have you ever vaped? have you ever seen a classmate vape? have you ever tried a cigarette? then some about drugs.

 

then a few weeks later the school sent out some numbers where something like 70% kids were vaping, and also something like 80% of kids who vaped, also tried cigarettes. whereas before it was 70% tried once, 8% tried up to 10 times, and under 1% vaping regularly.

 

boy those vague numbers are much scarier arent they? they are the ones on the news. my son says almost no one vapes, he knows of maybe 5 kids who vape semi regularly. my youngest, in middle school, has never seen anyone vape.

 

so i went to the high school parent meeting about vaping. i wont get into the misinformation and lack of understanding of the products. but i spoke with the security guy at the high school, he was standing by the "this is what we have confiscated" pile on display.. i asked how many items per day/week they confiscate. he said oh maybe 10-15 per year... PER YEAR.. keep in mind some of these are taken from kids who are 18 in high school and allowed to be vaping legally, just not on school grounds.  there is absolutely NO epidemic. none.  Our public school system is pathetic, and getting funds from the state to hire these counselors and they are creating panic to increase funding. the lady i talked to said the marijuana task paid for her job and they wanted to hire a few more. she was oblivious to the fact that she was pointing out they need to create problems to get funding to have those jobs, those counselors also run lunch duty, bus duty, recess duty, help at sports, etc. the schools are using counselor labor funded by fake panic to get free employees. they arent affecting anything our kids are doing, they dont even understand what they are doing.

 

so now comes the conspiracy part where it starts sounding like im a crazy person. i am very against government conspiracy theories. but these are sort of obvious to me.

 

there was a huge lawsuit from tobacco companies and the government. established from this was MSA funding per state based on smoking in the states, some states its hundreds of millions per year.  some states took out loans on these future payments to pay for other things. Vaping has caused those funds to get lower. some states are having issues paying back those loans with lowered funds.

 

every single one of the top 5 states who receive those funds, has banned vaping in the past 2 weeks. every single one.

 

did politicians just ban a safer alternative to tobacco to ensure people are smoking to ensure they get their state funds? it certainly appears so.

 

oh also, if anyone is on the fence about if vaping is actually safer, in Europe they have started adding vape shops to hospital lobbies to encourage people to stop smoking and start vaping, google it, there are photos, they established that vaping is 95% safer that smoking. same with the new england journal of medicine and countless others.  

 

We have customers in our retail stores all day that had their doctor send them in to stop smoking, from 25 to 90 yr olds. 

 

we have had dughters of 70-80 yr olds come bring us muffins and cookies and thanked us for helping them quit after decades of smoking, we had a guy come back in with a loaf of pumpkin bread for our staff and started tearing up that he could taste his wifes pumpkin bread for the first time in 30 years and wanted us to taste some too. 

 

vaping seems like a douchebag industry and a bad thing and all that, i get the optics, but i have never worked anywhere with a more positive impact on peoples lives than in this industry.

 

 

and state government and maybe the FDA, will be selling out citizens health and lives for free money from tobacco settlements oh and taxes, dont forget NY and their tobacco taxes they started missing out on.

 

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It's absolute hysteria.  There have been around 12 deaths from what I've read/heard.  10x as many people die from undiagnosed food allergies every year.  Just heard a report on NPR that close to 90% of those reporting health problems were using grey market or street-purchased THC cartridges. I'd bet the other 10% lied or had pre-existing lung problems.  

 

Naturally our solution to this is BAN ALL THE THINGS because that's our solution to everything.

 

There's never been any doubt in my mind that certain tobacco lobbyists were behind the panic.

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  • 3 weeks later...

had a few states reverse bans, had a few lawsuits hault bans, and a few of the bans are loosely worded enough to sell flavored elquid without nicotine and then sell a nicotine shot along side it...which is ridiculous you impose regulation that now has consumers handling concentrated nicotine themselves instead of someone like mycompany packaging in in a ISO 7 cleanroom with protective gear on.

 

you know... for safety concerns..

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Yeah, it's all bullshit. I've been vaping since April 2009, My wife started a year or 2 later. She gave up cigarettes completely, I still smoke some, nowhere near as much as I used to. You stop hacking up half a lung in the morning, you stop getting short of breath after every little thing you do.

 

When it first started becoming a thing, I used to spend some time on vaping forums. The number of people who quit smoking by vaping is astronomical, and many of them then quit vaping too. It should be encouraged for any adult who smokes. Of course kids shouldn't vape but it's better than them smoking.

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On 10/15/2019 at 11:47 PM, BengalBacker said:

Yeah, it's all bullshit. I've been vaping since April 2009, My wife started a year or 2 later. She gave up cigarettes completely, I still smoke some, nowhere near as much as I used to. You stop hacking up half a lung in the morning, you stop getting short of breath after every little thing you do.

 

When it first started becoming a thing, I used to spend some time on vaping forums. The number of people who quit smoking by vaping is astronomical, and many of them then quit vaping too. It should be encouraged for any adult who smokes. Of course kids shouldn't vape but it's better than them smoking.

I am headed to mexico to push our brand down there nov 1-4th, then i get back and head to DC for some rally and some meetings with representatives. 

 

Since you were around the early vape scene days, do you recall an asian rock and roll guy named Yosh and his company Vapergate? had a juice called Smurf, made the alliance and the mason and dumptank hardware?

he came along in 2012/2013 mostly. if by chance you do, thats who i work for.

 

what type of products do you use? if i can hook you up with any free juice (standard or salts) let me know, we make about 17 flavors, 0/3/6/12mg and 25/50mg in salts.

 

great to see you post, man it feels like a decade since i have had any meaningful conversations on here. i miss all of the original crew around here. i also miss the bengals being entertaining, lol

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2 hours ago, GoBengals said:

I am headed to mexico to push our brand down there nov 1-4th, then i get back and head to DC for some rally and some meetings with representatives. 

 

Since you were around the early vape scene days, do you recall an asian rock and roll guy named Yosh and his company Vapergate? had a juice called Smurf, made the alliance and the mason and dumptank hardware?

he came along in 2012/2013 mostly. if by chance you do, thats who i work for.

 

what type of products do you use? if i can hook you up with any free juice (standard or salts) let me know, we make about 17 flavors, 0/3/6/12mg and 25/50mg in salts.

 

great to see you post, man it feels like a decade since i have had any meaningful conversations on here. i miss all of the original crew around here. i also miss the bengals being entertaining, lol

No, don't remember Yosh or Vapergate. A lot of things sprang up around that time. I used a few of the different systems that came along but I was never one of those who chased clouds, built coils and all that. I just wanted something simple that worked. These days when at home in front of my computer I usually use a SMOK MAG with, I think it's a SMOK TFV12 PRINCE tank.

 

Most of the time I just use SMOK NOVO 2s though. It's a pod system the size of a bic lighter. Just fill the pod and stick it in your pocket. No leaks or buttons. Much better and easier than the crap we used to try to use. I've pretty much found the juice that I always like to use. Mad Hatter Sweet tobacco Salts, 25mg. It's only like $14 for 30ml at Direct Vapor plus they always have free shipping and run 20 to 25% off sales all the time. I never have liked the fruity, or food flavors, just tobacco-ish.

 

I miss the old days on here too, we had a great board. I guess times change, the world changes. Different things take on more, or less importance than they used to. I still follow the Bengals but not like I used to. Now if I have things to do, I DVR the game, and if they lose I don't even go back and watch it. My weekends are usually taken up watching my 11 year old granddaughter's soccer and basketball games. She's always the best player on her team and her teams usually win the championships. She's also very pretty and very lovable and she just got straight A's on her recent report card. I'm a proud grandpa in case you can't tell, and her future means more to me than anything.

 

I'm 60 years old and I have enough health issues to recognize my mortality. I'm not going to live forever and I no longer want to spend time on the internet arguing, berating and being berated over what I think and believe. At this point I'm not going to change my mind and I'm sure no one else on here will either. I could keep posting in here and have people come to hate me if they don't already, or I could come to hate them if I don't already. Or I could just drop in and read a little once in a while, post very rarely, and mostly just move on. That's what I've chosen.

 

Good to "talk" to you though Ryan. You're a hell of a guy.

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11 hours ago, BengalBacker said:

No, don't remember Yosh or Vapergate. A lot of things sprang up around that time. I used a few of the different systems that came along but I was never one of those who chased clouds, built coils and all that. I just wanted something simple that worked. These days when at home in front of my computer I usually use a SMOK MAG with, I think it's a SMOK TFV12 PRINCE tank.

 

Most of the time I just use SMOK NOVO 2s though. It's a pod system the size of a bic lighter. Just fill the pod and stick it in your pocket. No leaks or buttons. Much better and easier than the crap we used to try to use. I've pretty much found the juice that I always like to use. Mad Hatter Sweet tobacco Salts, 25mg. It's only like $14 for 30ml at Direct Vapor plus they always have free shipping and run 20 to 25% off sales all the time. I never have liked the fruity, or food flavors, just tobacco-ish.

 

I miss the old days on here too, we had a great board. I guess times change, the world changes. Different things take on more, or less importance than they used to. I still follow the Bengals but not like I used to. Now if I have things to do, I DVR the game, and if they lose I don't even go back and watch it. My weekends are usually taken up watching my 11 year old granddaughter's soccer and basketball games. She's always the best player on her team and her teams usually win the championships. She's also very pretty and very lovable and she just got straight A's on her recent report card. I'm a proud grandpa in case you can't tell, and her future means more to me than anything.

 

I'm 60 years old and I have enough health issues to recognize my mortality. I'm not going to live forever and I no longer want to spend time on the internet arguing, berating and being berated over what I think and believe. At this point I'm not going to change my mind and I'm sure no one else on here will either. I could keep posting in here and have people come to hate me if they don't already, or I could come to hate them if I don't already. Or I could just drop in and read a little once in a while, post very rarely, and mostly just move on. That's what I've chosen.

 

Good to "talk" to you though Ryan. You're a hell of a guy.

fair enough, is a small percentage that sticks with tobacco based flavors, so unless you care to give a bourbon tobacco or "nutty tobacco" probably not much i could send your way, but if your into either of those just let me know and ill send a bottle your direction. 

 

i never smoked and never vaped, but i truly enjoy helping people stop smoking, i have asthma and getting into a car that was smoked in but hasnt been smoked in in ears messes with my asthma a ton, walking behind a smoker kills me, if i can play a tiny part in people dying less from that habit, im a happy man.

 

im in the same boat with my kids as you are with the grandkids, my time surrounds their lives and development as men. they are 12 and 14, i had no kids when this place started!

 

i started driving lyft this past week just randomly after work, i work an hour from home, so i figure ill get paid to drive around in rush hour before i go home, so $50-80/night doing that isnt bad. but it all goes to pay for the training or price coaches or whatever the kids need, and tossing cash to my ohio buddy whenever i can.

 

thats great about your granddaughter, hopefully she keeps it up!

 

the internet changed, social media and apps replaced forums, thats why i added the app to help slow the death of forums..  would be cool if it all transitioned to the facebook group, but thats a pretty dead area

 

 

 

 

 

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On 10/13/2019 at 4:36 PM, GoBengals said:

then montana, a few weeks late. bans vaping, and a bunch of internal emails got leaked showing the governor(iirrc) and a marketing firm plotting the whole plan to PR murder vaping then banning it. 

 

Screen Shot 2019-10-13 at 2.35.47 PM.png

Surprised they don't have a unique darker color just for KY.  I was convinced that smoking was compulsory there, after seeing all the grandparents, parents, teens, children, infants, dogs, cats, and hamsters all with their Lucky Strikes.  I stopped at a rest area on I-65 south of Louisville and they were handing out freebies.... if you had a trailer and were demonstrably moving to KY each adult in your household got two free cartons of smokes... and three for every child.

Okay, it's not quite that bad, but just like reminding my kid when meeting someone from Pittsburgh that he needs to watch his knees, whenever we drive through KY I used to have remind him to not smoke.

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21 hours ago, Montana Bengal said:

yea some lawsuits, some ive been involved with some i havent, have killed some bans, the shitty politicians put them in place as an emergency health risk situation, the lawsuits forced them prove thats the case and judges have halted them. they will be faced again. on the ballot next year...unless the government does something nationwide, which will also be met with lawsuits..

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On 10/22/2019 at 12:14 PM, GoBengals said:

yea some lawsuits, some ive been involved with some i havent, have killed some bans, the shitty politicians put them in place as an emergency health risk situation, the lawsuits forced them prove thats the case and judges have halted them. they will be faced again. on the ballot next year...unless the government does something nationwide, which will also be met with lawsuits..

 

I wouldn't like the chances at the polls,  it's got the word "safety" in it so people will probably vote for it.  There's an epidemic of authoritarian bootlicking in this country right now so any law that regulates behavior has a good chance of passing even without the Helen Lovejoy "think of the children!" angle present in this particular case.  Vaping is new and different so it has to be bad, right?

 

 

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On 10/26/2019 at 4:24 AM, T-Dub said:

 

I wouldn't like the chances at the polls,  it's got the word "safety" in it so people will probably vote for it.  There's an epidemic of authoritarian bootlicking in this country right now so any law that regulates behavior has a good chance of passing even without the Helen Lovejoy "think of the children!" angle present in this particular case.  Vaping is new and different so it has to be bad, right?

 

 

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exactly.

 

we still have the one saferty net is they cant ban flavoured liquids, as soda, juice, etc.. so you can always play the "this is a flavoring additive for your food or drink" and then "this is a nicotine additive to make your own nicotine products at home" and they just dump the nicotine into the liquid and its done and done...

 

but the fact of having the consumer handle concentrated nicotine is a bad fucking plan is lost on everyone.

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22 hours ago, GoBengals said:

exactly.

 

we still have the one saferty net is they cant ban flavoured liquids, as soda, juice, etc.. so you can always play the "this is a flavoring additive for your food or drink" and then "this is a nicotine additive to make your own nicotine products at home" and they just dump the nicotine into the liquid and its done and done...

 

but the fact of having the consumer handle concentrated nicotine is a bad fucking plan is lost on everyone.

 

Yeah my first argument would be Mike's Hard Lemonade & those Kiwi-Gooseberry seltzers.   

 

A couple of my friends used to work tobacco every season in KY and would get kind of sick from it.  They had a name for it, something like "Burley Fever" or whatever.  These guys were smokers, too.  Concentrated nicotine is deadly.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/9/2019 at 7:07 AM, CincyInDC said:

 

Heard this from NPR last week & somewhere else as well.. Reuters maybe?

 

I think a number of people were saying this was the likely cause from the beginning?

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  • 3 months later...

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