To combat an electronic cigarette craze that is so established the Oxford Dictionary dubbed “vape” as the 2014 word of the year, the state Public Health department launched an online campaign last month. The website Still Blowing Smoke, part of this year’s $7 million anti-vaping advertising campaign, features bold, capital letters on a black backdrop warning that “big tobacco” wants to “turn kids into addicts.”
Virtually overnight, pro-vapers launched a nearly identical website, NOT Blowing Smoke, arguing that the vaping industry is made up of small businesses and that the state is spreading propaganda to secure funding. Proposition 99, passed in 1988, sets aside $11 million this fiscal year for a media campaign consisting of two TV commercials, ads on Pandora and Spotify, and posters in malls and movie theaters.
The mock website is perhaps the best indicator that the vaping industry is more than a flash in the pan. In fact, e-cigarette use among middle school and high school kids nationwide has tripled in the past year, according to data released last week from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). This e-cigarette trend has offset declines of conventional cigarette use, the CDC reported, since there was no decline in overall tobacco use among teens from 2011 to 2014.