General

As Dick Puddlecote has often pointed out on his blog - e-cigs have the potential to show up the plethora of lies, half-truths and utter hypocrisy of the troughers found in the tobacco control industry. There have been a few examples of this over the years, but there appears a new desperation setting in as a blatant, and rudimentary episode appeared from the land of down under.

As others have remarked, Australian tobacco control have swung so far, and missed so often that they have now taken to openly slandering ordinary members of the public; implying - each of them - they are nothing but a front for the tobacco industry.

In a not too unsurprising move, the MHRA has recently updated its E-Cigarettes: regulations for consumer products guidance. This latest update has provoked a fair amount of discussion along with theories as to who (or whom) have been badgering either the Commission or the MHRA for “clarification”.

Let’s just say I have my suspicions on that and leave it there.

The update, rather innocuously, is in the “Further Information” section of the guidance page which seem intent on clarifying some definitions.

As with any tobacco control milestone, you’ll hear all kinds of shenanigans bullshit from the usual suspects. But before we get into that, let’s rewind a bit. 10 years in fact.

At the tender and innocent age of 27 (snark), at (oddly enough) this exact time of year I was on the usual lads holiday. A week of sun, sand and lots and lots of beer. Well, it’d be rude not to.

Unsurprisingly, there’s another ‘campaign’ about second hand smoking.

Campaign launched about dangers of children’s exposure to second-hand smoke

I thought that this particular part of the anti-smoker arsenal had long since been over utilised, it turns out I was mistaken.

Y’see, in April this year one particular anti-smoking group kicked the bucket. It became an ex-anti-smoking group. Most folk I know celebrated the demise of Healthier Futures, which followed on from the demise of Smokefree South West - both groups tried a last ditch re-brand in order to stay current with “public health epidemics” - with Fresh NE taking ownership of the Healthier Futures IP.

Today saw the release of the latest set of data for smoking prevalence within the UK from the Office of National Statistics Annual Population Survey and the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey.

As you would expect from the UK, with its generally liberal stance on e-cigarettes, and despite the shitstorm of piss poor media reporting on various studies, stupid legislation proposals, daft bans, and general bullshit; e-cigarettes remain the most common aid for people to move away from tobacco.

As with most debates from tobacco control, regarding plain packaging there remained one, quite crucial, point that was conspicuous by its absence. No one could categorically say that plain packaging would work. Not one person could stand up and claim that drab, olive-green packs with larger warnings would amount to much of a decrease in smoking prevalence. Well, except Debs, but then she’s always had her head in the clouds (it’ll be responsible for 300,000 smokers giving up the ‘deadly weed’ of course. Bravo Bollocks).

This is one of those topics that you just know. One of those that you yourself understand, but find it somewhat tricky to put into some semblance of coherent speech. We all, to varying degrees, know what pleasure is. We all know what we enjoy, and we can all express; to an extent, why we enjoy something.

This is also one of those posts that’s taken far too long to write.

One of the many reasons I have a blog is so that I can spout, mostly nonsense, into the ether my thoughts on a particular topic that piques my interest. It just so happens that this blog has a specific focus. Most of the posts on these pages cover the various bits of “science” - mostly bad science - that grab sensationalist headlines, that do nothing more than to confuse a highly nuanced subject. Most of the time I am fairly factual, though quite often I will, quite frankly, take the piss.

Every once in a while a media article happens to come to my attention that makes me fall over in utter disbelief. Not simply due to the complete lack of understanding of the subject matter, but the complete disingenuity that the author takes to make as many bonkers points as possible.

It may be early in 2017, but this one is a strong contender for worst article of the year.

Every year, without fail people resolve themselves to doing something. “I plan to cut down or stop drinking/smoking”. “To lose weight”. “To go to a gym”. We’ve all made these resolutions and, 99 times out of 100, we never actually stick with them. Some do, and I’ve got nothing but admiration for those that can actually stick with a ‘New Year’s Resolution’, but most of us last maybe a week or two, sometimes a month before jacking it in.