Within the realms of the so-called ‘public health’ arena, there is always an agenda. More often than not, those agendas may actually prove to be beneficial to the actual public. But that’s in terms of actual medical professionals, the boots on the ground. When it comes to the other entities claiming ‘public health’ agendas. Not so much. Wasted tax $$$ For years, smokers have been a target for a whole variety of campaigns to try to get them to quit smoking, but the smokers weren’t the original target.

Well come on in and have a seat folks we need to have a little chat. All the drinks are on the counter over there, sorry Dave, no home-brew cider, not after the last time. This post is going to take a slightly different approach to my usual style, but first I’ve said this before and it seems I must needs say it again: I have no affiliation with, nor do I work or receive payment from any vaping business or advocacy group.

Here we go again. It seems that a single day cannot go past without vaping hitting some headlines somewhere in some form. In this particular case, the ever inconsistent Beeb are the ones to publish an article in their online magazine. It is a bit on the weird side. Let me start by saying that I personally look on vaping as part of normal everyday life. I don’t think that it is a ‘subculture’, not in the manner that is put across in the article.

Most of you will remember the post Misinformation vs Information I put up a less than a week ago. That post led to Thud!. Both of those posts originated from a questionable article in Vox. Of course, the author of that article immediately came under fire from many within the vaping community. However, there is some (relatively) good news. The author, Julia Belluz has taken some time to speak to one of us vapers and put out an opposing view.

Let me start this post off with the following statement: I do not work for, nor am I affiliated with either the Tobacco or Vaping Industries. I am a semi-normal person that works a bog standard 9-5. I have opinions and feelings. There, now that is well and truly out of the way, on with the post. It seems that many in public health, and by extension the “smokefree” agencies don’t believe a single word anyone says.

This is definitely a recurring theme recently isn’t it. First there was “stillblowingsmoke vs notblowingsmoke” then we had Vox spreading the same drivel. Wired picked up the story, as did many others. All in all, the public are reacting to what those in Public Health are trying to tell them, but not in the way you’d think. I am of course talking about TobaccoFreeCA who really don’t seem to know quite what to say.

When I’m not working (or supposed to be working that is), I spend a fair chunk of my time surfing around in cyberspace. Not looking for anything in particular you know, just spending (alright wasting) time. On this occasion I ended up reading an article from down under and it got me thinking, which is always a worrying thing to happen. This is the point where I normally write something along the lines of “the article in question is here” and provide a handy link for you to have a read of it yourself.

Seems like my plan of taking a few days out have gone awry with some olds. There’s been an alarmist survey on teen e-cig use, covered in delightful depth by Clive Bates. By the way, the study that the news articles refers to hadn’t actually been published yet at time of print. The piece of olds I’ve been looking at has gone a little unnoticed. All well and good, means I can write this in relative peace 😉

Hmmm how to start this post. It is, or at least for me it is a bit of an upsetting topic but with the recent kerfuffle it needs to be addressed. Again. For this post, I will be heavily referring to the brilliant postings from the lovely Lorien over on her blog. True, she hasn’t posted for a while but she has been incredibly active elsewhere and I simply cannot give enough credit to her, or any of the other advocates.

Settle down folks this double posting isn’t going to become a regular thing. Sometimes something happens in the world of vaping that just requires a second post. By now you should have seen the debacle that is the article from Vox. It is, to put none to fine a point on it, dire in the extreme. Terribly one-sided, and all of it in favor of a particular US Researcher’s point of view.