Thoughts, Ramblings and Shtuff

Ever since the media kicked up a small storm over a 14-year-old having his vapouriser confiscated I’ve been thinking about this area. Of course, my own opinions are likely to differ from a lot of folks so feel free to take them or leave them.

As I mentioned at the start of the previous post on this:

I agree wholeheartedly that proxy-purchase should be allowed for existing smoking youth only. That is a given. If your kid smokes, I have no issue with an adult buying them a vapouriser. I’m more ambivalent towards proxy purchase if the kid in question doesn’t smoke but again, no real problem with it.

Before I start this post there’s a few points I simply have to clarify:

• Underage vaping or smoking

As an advocate for vaping, I have no issues with teens taking to vaping or smoking if that is their choice. I would prefer that they didn’t do either of course, but if they were to do one or the other, I would prefer they vaped but I have no issue with them doing either.

This is another one of those “something on my mind” type posts where I’m going to try to clarify some thinking, and maybe organise the thoughts rumbling through my addled brain. It may also bring together some threads from previous posts that I’ve mentioned but not expanded upon.

Nothing really prompted this post as such, just a bunch of thoughts that need to be emptied out to make room for more. Time for a rewind.

What follows here is purely my opinion on what seems to be a subject that is becoming the flash point for a lot of debate, argument and bickering. I’ll try to be as coherent as possible.

Most of you know that the All Party Parliamentary Group on ecigs met last week and a lot of good things came from that, there is already a very good write-up on the meeting from James Dunworth over on the Ashtray Blog, after all he was there. I wasn’t. Most of the information that came from the APPG I know through either that blog, the VTTV show The Haze Hour the following day, twitter (of course), plus the following two blog posts. Sarah Jakes, guest posted on Lorien Jollye’s blog to clarify her personal stance followed by a second posting by Lorien herself.

There’s been a lot going around in the media lately about conflict of interest with regards to research into vapourisers. The biggest mud-slinging has of course been from The Lancet about the PHE Report. Of course, the trouble with the public health industry and science is this. There will always be a conflict of interest. These conflicts range from pure ideological views (Nanny McPhee et al), to funding conflicts. Sometimes the COI is subtle and sometimes not.

There is a saying on Twitter, “If you can’t debate in 140 characters or less, you’ve lost the argument”. Sometimes this could be true, but in others the character limit is incredibly, well, limiting, even with character substitutions and abbreviations it is incredibly difficult to get your point across on a complex subject.

This is one of the reasons I have a blog, so I can take my time and be as wordy as I need to be to explain the things I’m writing about.

Over the last few years vaping has been placed under an increasingly magnified microscope, every single aspect from safety through to perceptions have been heavily scrutinized. The consumers, that is US, have been deliberately lumped into the same bracket as smokers and subsequently have been treated no different to smokers. We’ve had scare stories about “cancer causing chemicals” and have been told that vaping is a “public health threat”.

Time for a rewind, to 2009 specifically. I was still happily smoking and had no idea that the vaping community and industry existed. I had no idea that the MHRA wanted vapourisers to be placed squarely under medical regulation. Instead, all I saw in relation to smoking was the incessant beat of the anti-smoking organisations, and campaigns on the telly-box. I never had cause to contact my MP or MEP at the time simply because I didn’t care.

Another day, and yet more divisiveness in response to yesterdays PHE Report. You’ll remember that construction companies relied heavily on the advice of the BMA for information about vaping in the workplace, in light of the PHE Report those companies look like they may have to have a bit of a rethink.

Even in a radio interview on BBC Scotland (approximately 20 minutes in) with the BMA and Linda Bauld, the BMA representative admitted that they would “review” their stance on workplace bans in light of the evidence stating that vapourisers are substantially safer than smoking. It was, one of the many wonderful moments of yesterday’s deluge of reports.

If you weren’t already aware, the FDA are currently accepting commentary on “Nicotine exposure warnings and child-resistant packaging for liquid nicotine, nicotine-containing e-liquids, and other tobacco products” whereby they are looking to, from those that are interested to comment, for information on the regulation of “tobacco products”. They are specifically looking for comments, data, research results and any other information that may inform regulatory actions that the FDA might take. If you haven’t done so yet, the link is here, it’d be worthwhile adding your own comments.

When I woke up this morning I wasn’t expecting a whole host of shenanigans to be floating around the media. I knew that something was coming at some point thanks to some very good friends in the know, all very secret squirrel like. What I didn’t expect was the sheer insanity of it all.

After listening to Simon Clark at Vapefest about the situation with proposed vaping bans coming simply because smoking has already been banned in public, it made perfect sense. The whole “denormalization” of smoking smokers began a long time ago, culminating with the situation we have now, like dominoes smoke-free laws were passed and now it’s “normal” to go into a pub, if you can find one that’s open and have a beer without being “engulfed in a fug”.