There are times every once in a while where I do truly become completely speechless. Lunchtime today was one of those times. For those of you that aren’t aware, my access to social media is restricted during the working day - as it should be, I have work to focus on.
So imagine my surprise when I come across this post from one Dave Dorn and this tweet from Dick Puddlecote:
Surveys. I’ve touched on the usual suspects upholding their own data as though it was the Holy Grail before. ASH is utterly remorseless when it comes to trumpeting their own data, usually for their own means, and they also heap scorn on data that contradicts their sacrosanct view of the populace. Typically, in the UK we have two primary sets of survey data on smoking - the ASH survey (hosted by YouGov) and of course the Smoking Toolkit Study.
What a year it has been, the opening words of the E-Cigarette Summit 2016 Chair, Professor Ann McNeill. Could almost call that a throwback to the Summit of last year, but then the debate surrounding e-cigarettes hasn’t waned but intensified. This year, the Summit came hot on the heels of the FCTC Conference Of Parties (Seventh Session), which did get coverage (as did Brexit and Trump albeit briefly).
As with last year, I had the privilege of attending as a representative of Vapers in Power (says so on my badge), though I maintain that “Advocate” should be “Troublemaker in Chief”.
Readers will remember the “guidance” issued by Public Health England in a vague attempt to convince business owners, and other individuals that vaping in the workplace is not, in reality, such a bad thing, nor is it actually illegal. Folks will of course remember this post from Vapers in Power about banning smoking AND vaping on a beach. There is of course, this one where Nottinghamshire went beyond insanity and banned smoking AND vaping on any and all council owned property - including outside. I had a few words to say about that too.
Today marks the launch of a new, worldwide umbrella consumer organisation for nicotine product users. Predominantly this will have a focus on e-cigarettes, but will encompass other reduced risk products.
Formed in June 2016, INNCO is the collective voice for the most influential nicotine consumer organisations in eleven countries around the world: organisations who each recognise that there are safer ways to enjoy nicotine consumption than tobacco smoking.
You may remember of course that there had been a consumer advocates meeting at the Global Forum on Nicotine and a lot of ideas were discussed, and a plan of action formed - along with the delegation of various responsibilities. Much of which couldn’t really be talked about outside of the meeting (I’m sure you can appreciate. Plus I’m still not entirely sure why I was even invited to the session).
In a truly mind-bendingly terrifying moment, one of the key arguments used - particularly in the US - by the opponents of vaping has been gloriously ripped asunder. That argument is of course that The Children™ will use them and become “addicted” to nicotine. The thing is, there is a substantial portion of teens that vape without nicotine a statistic that is overlooked by the US tobacco controllers. You can imagine the shock and horror on their faces when they read that part of this study.
There’s been a number of changes around these pages recently. Some of them long overdue (I can never find the time to really sit down and tidy up around here), and some of them were… well just because I felt like it.
Recently, my good friend and expert blogger Dick Puddlecote considered these pages worthy enough to be nominated for Martin Scriblerus - a group of truly excellent bloggers that all share a similar vein of written excellence.
It never ceases to amaze me how ludicrous these anti-smoker folk are. Not simply content with banning smoking (and of course in some cases vaping too) indoors in bars, pubs and all the other fun places that we like to attend, now they’re taking aim at the great outdoors.
It’s not the first time, Swansea held a consultation, which they subsequently ignored. Pembrokeshire council made a beach smokefree (which of course included vaping), Bristol has a “voluntary ban” (complete with oh so cute sign posts) - arguably they were “the first” to do such a bonkers notion.
Thanks to Sarah Jakes, a short two-page document from ASH Scotland found its way into my twitter timeline. As you can probably tell from the title of this post, it’s all about youth and e-cigs. I had a read. I had another read. I had a third read. They also have a short blog post on the subject. I read that too. Then I read it again.
There isn’t really much to the document in itself, page one is primarily background stuff, while page two gets to the heart of the matter. Or at least tries to. It is a masterclass in fence-sitting.
When I was doing (part) of my write up of the Global Forum on Nicotine conference, I mentioned that I might have had something special coming up. As most of you should know by now, A Billion Lives - directed by Aaron Biebert - has premiered in New Zealand, Australia and of course Poland. Now, on August 6th A Billion Lives is coming home.
The film has garnered some well deserved accolades, a lot of attention, and has been reviewed by numerous critics and been called “A wake up call”. I had the honour of meeting Aaron, albeit briefly, at the Poland premiere, and like many others who have seen the film have been mightily impressed with how Aaron has directed the film, and I truly wish I could get across to the US to see it again at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee.