Hard to believe it’s been a year since the sock-puppet charity ASH got their way with the ridiculous legislation on smoking in cars (with kids). Yet, a year it has been. I’m sure you’ll remember how ASH considered the passing of the legislation a “success” and how it would “drive down” smoking rates and all the usual platitudes when a state-funded charity imposes its authoritarian will by lobbying the government (with their own cash mind).
If there’s one thing to learn about folk, it’s that folk like things to be easy. But if something is easy, how do you learn? Where’s the sense of accomplishment?
Let me just remind you of something that someone I respect has said:
I’m struck by the low level of support from some in the UK as well, considering there are five British people featured in the movie (same as the US).
1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society, the most extreme realization imaginable of a modern-day government with absolute power.
So why on earth are fuss-buckets still insistent on interfering with our everyday lives?
Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers.
Social media. A rather quaint place. Filled with thousands of people from a variety of walks of life. You could be forgiven for thinking that social media is important, ‘cos it isn’t. Not in the least, but by that very same token it is important for Big Brother.
As I’ve written about before, researchers in the field of Tobacco Control absolutely adore social media as it gives them raw, unfettered access to a field of stuff that they know nothing about.
We’ve all seen the recent news about the lowest smoking prevalence on record and all that. Some quangos are of course claiming that this lowest rate is largely thanks to policies (obviously they mean bans and tax hikes among other ludicrous measures, such as banning smoking in your car) and plain packaging (which while passed hasn’t become a reality nationwide yet).
With a few exceptions, the elephant in the room hadn’t been discussed and that is of course the role that e-cigarettes have played. Which brings about another item. Stop Smoking Services (SSS). We’ve been told that the number of people going into these places is in decline (some areas more than others). Now you would think that with such a decline in SSS attendance, there would be a similar decrease in the number of people quitting smoking as in, the prevalence rate wouldn’t be the 16.9% it is now - rather it’d be close to the original 19.3% it was in 2012.
It’s been rather busy outside of my vaper-sphere recently which has unfortunately led to a lot of things slipping, including this post. Many of you are aware that the World Health Organisation recently released all the documents for the upcoming tax-payer funded shenanigans to be held in India for Conference Of Parties #7 (COP7). There’s a number of documents that are of interest, some of which I’ll write about here but the main interest at the moment is the originally named document FCTC/COP/7/11 ‘Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems and Electronic Non-Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS/ENNDS)’
Yesterday I had the pleasure of reading a Q&A between my friend Fergus Mason and David Goerlitz. Having seen the documentary film A Billion Lives, and having heard David on Smoke Free Radio with Dimitris last year, there wasn’t much in that interview that I wasn’t already aware of.
Still, it was worth a read if only to remind myself of just how the tobacco control industry is more about control then it is about reducing smoking, and it can quite easily be summed up in one line: