2017/01

It is well-known that within the UK, each of the devolved areas have completely different priorities when it comes to “running” their little piece of the country. Wales tried, and spectacularly failed last year to bring in a new “Public Health (Wales) Bill” which would, in effect have severe negative consequences for Welsh vapers. That Bill, the demented offspring of one Mark Drakeford, was defeated at the final hurdle, not by the weight of evidence as it should have been long before it got to the final vote, but by the “cheap date” comment.

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.

It must be something about this time of year for all the idiotic anti-vaping, anti-nicotine or anti-anything, to crawl out from under whatever rock they’ve been hiding under and spout a tranche of utter bullshit before scuttling back to their safe space, complete with a shiny new grant to cook up more bullshit.

Today saw the on-line release of three, well two, actually - one of them was an opinion piece - papers in the Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. It seems that AAP are ever so friendly with a certain rotund “professor” at UCSF, as one of these papers is his.

The European Union doesn’t have much love for tobacco at all, in fact it does everything it can to make life as miserable as possible for those they think are daft enough to smoke. Not content with pushing up prices on all forms of tobacco in a vain effort to get people to quit, the EU has undertaken a massive regulatory campaign to make it impossible or next to impossible for reduced risk products to be made available. Electronic cigarettes are only the latest in the crusade against all forms of “tobacco” use; despite of course the fact that e-cigarettes don’t actually contain tobacco, but they do mimic the act of smoking (part of the reason for the success for many users).

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.

Stan is an idiot.

There. I’ve said it diplomatically. For once. Never again.

Starting with e-cigs triples odds of starting cigarettes among college students; the evidence just keeps piling up

The latest of his blog titles screams at you that starting the use of an e-cig will most definitely lead the crazy youth of today to take up smoking. Y’see, Stan is a firm believer in the whole gateway theory. That theory goes that should a young, impressionable youth (up to the age of 30) be taken in by the kiddie orientated marketing of e-cigarettes by “Big Tobacco” then sooner or later that impressionable youth is going to progress to cigarettes. It is inevitable. Resistance is futile.

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:

I guess it’s a case of “start as you mean to go on” regarding ‘scientific research’ on e-cigarettes. The very first paper I read in 2017 has this in its conclusion:

FDA is required to publicly display information about the quantities of chemicals in cigarettes and cigarette smoke in a way that is not misleading. This information, if paired with information from advertising or FDA disclosures indicating that e-cigarette aerosol contains lower amounts of those same chemicals, could have the unfortunate effect of encouraging smokers to become dual users or increase their existing dual use under the mistaken impression that they are significantly reducing their health risks.