What is this? Another brain dump? Well, yes it is in fact another brain dump. You see, for once I actually went out and got a bit social with some folks for a friend’s birthday (21 again). Interesting side-note, the birthday girl is married to my boss, and most of this brain dump stems from his & hers opinions on smoking, the smoking ban and vaping. There’s also follow-up commentary from my last brain dump.
Most of my regular readers are aware that from time to time I’ll just put some random thoughts into some kind of (relatively) coherent form. These thoughts are not generally specific to a particular piece of research or media article, they also contain expletives as it is written precisely how I’m thinking it.
Today the Office of National Statistics released a report from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey on adult smoking habits in Great Britain for 2014.
Thanks to a fellow advocate, a new study has been brought to my attention and it is all about the myth that is secondhand smoke or in this case secondhand vapour. It is yet another blatant attempt to persuade policy makers that vaping in enclosed spaces is a bad thing, which we all know is a steaming pile bantha poo-doo.
From the abstract:
Secondhand smoke (SHS) from combustible cigarettes causes numerous diseases. Policies have been developed to prevent SHS exposure from indoor cigarette use to reduce health risks tonon-smokers. However, fewer policies have been implemented to deter electronic cigarette (ECIG) use indoors, and limited research has examined the impact of secondhand exposure to ECIG aerosol.
As most of my regular readers are aware I engage, quite frequently with my local MP. I had a delightful e-mail exchange on the run up to the General Election which sadly didn’t tell me much, other than:
I think it is vitally important that we get the right balance to manage the risks and the benefits of e-cigarettes.
Whenever a politician says “balance” I immediately cringe, especially as it is a phrase that is overly used by one Mark Drakeford when speaking in political wibble.
In a seemingly all too familiar refrain there’s another DoH Director, this time in Rhode Island, making grandiose and thoroughly misleading claims on vapour products. Last May, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott became the new director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, where she stated quite categorically that “some” of her priorities included: “addressing disparities in the health-care system and providing high-quality health care to more people”.
Frankly, that’s an admirable goal. As is building a “statewide, strategic plan” to address overdoses and a prescription monitoring system. So I guess in less than a year she’s figured all that out so she can turn her attentions to nannying the crap out of her state residents.
Last year in June, in the esteemed Tobacco Control journal there was an article talking about promoting vaping and smoking using social media with the inevitable conclusion: “Future studies should examine the extent to which Twitter users, particularly youth, notice or engage with these price promotion tweets”. Natch.
So, fast forward six months and there’s another one. Based on some of the methodology from the study last year, these researchers decided to look at an entire calendar year via a third party company Sysomos - “Proactive Social Media Monitoring”. - it’s true, they really are out to get us. Sysomos is a subscription based service that allows the subscriber to analyse their social media reach - they call it a"Social Intelligence Platform"… Unlike the previous study that used the Twitter Hosepipe API, this one went a little further. According to the Heartbeat solution page on the Sysomos website:
Saturday night was a night of glitz, glamour and awards. It also sparked a lot of media attention. Not for who won awards particularly, although there was some coverage on that, but for seemingly everyone’s favourite celebrity vaper. Leonardo DiCaprio. This in itself isn’t the root of the hypocrisy, oh no.
That all comes in the media backlash towards Mr DiCaprio and his ‘deeply troubling’ lifestyle choice.
Apparently a few folks over at the American Lung Ass’n are a bit miffed at the idea of a high-profile celeb not smoking.