OK, so not the most inspiring title ever conceived but I normally only post once every few days. Or try to at least. For once, you lovely folks are getting a double post out of me today.

No, this is not about the plain packs debacle. That one is just full of stupid for me to even contemplate right now. Besides, it has already been covered very nicely by Dick Puddlecote here. No, this one is all about our US friends. Specifically, Minnesota.

As we all know, vaping and electronic cigarettes are under increasing scrutiny. Some of it is surprisingly the good kind of scrutiny, the majority of it is not. We all have our stories as to why we vape. Some of us wanted to reduce harm to our own bodies. Others were looking to give up tobacco cigarettes. Mostly it’s the former.

What doesn’t help us in the ongoing, slow fight against the various regulations and legislation being brought up in the various political arenas is when vendors do stupid stuff. You know. Like this.

It is going to take me a while to compose myself to get this post written as I’m just laughing so damned much.

Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to Mr Roger Bezanis (make sure you spell his name right, he hates it when people get it wrong).

So who is this fine upstanding chap complete moron? According to his Twitter profile he is:

This is a post that I’ve been putting off for a while as it contains a number of personal things. They aren’t necessarily secret things, I’m just not the sort to talk about them publicly.

I was a heavy smoker. Like super heavy, easily going through two packs per day and sometimes three or four depending on the day. I had a routine, wake up then immediately spark up. Coffee and a smoke. Get to work, coffee and a smoke. Four or five smokes before work officially started at 9AM. Regular smoke breaks during the day, two or three during lunch. You get the picture. Most of my smoking was either habitual or as a way to calm down and de-stress (when working on a tech support desk, it can get really stressful).

Yesterday was a normal Friday. You know, looking forward to knocking off time at work, the weekend plans etcetera etcetera. I’d placed a couple of orders for some vapemail to be delivered the following day. Life was, in general pretty good. Then late afternoon, my less than perfect little world was seemingly torn apart. First, I’d like to give you a little back story. I am a huge fan of science fiction. TV series such as Stargate, Fringe, Star Trek, X-Files and so on. I grew up to William Shatner being the Captain of the starship Enterprise (NCC-1701, no bloody A, B, C or D in the immortal words of James Doohan). Yes, the show had long since been off-air, but several channels still ran the shows. I loved them, it was the highlight of my week to sit with my folks and watch a few episodes of The Original Series. Many of the lessons taught by Gene Roddenberry in those episodes still stick with me to this day. It is part of who I am.

I do just want to warn you there is some bad language (and possibly grammar too) in this post.

I want to put this out there from the start.I am a former smoker. I smoked best part of four packs_per day_ for almost twenty years. Do I regret it? NO I do not.

Put it this way, it was my choice to start smoking, and it was my choice to continue to smoke despite knowing the potential risks involved.

It seems like years since I last made an entry in this blog. It has in fact only been a few weeks. So little time has passed in the ever evolving world and so much has happened.

For a while there was plenty to be happy about within the vaping world. Dr Farsalinos managed to crowd fund his research, although it took a last ditch effort from the community. The San Francisco #curbit campaign got hijacked by vapers on social media. #FormaledhydeGate rumbled on, again. Got thoroughly debunked, again. The US Surgeon General called for “Clarity” on electronic cigarettes.

To All in Tobacco Control & Public Health,

Yes I’m speaking to you, and for once please listen instead of going glassy eyed and reaching for the infamous block button.

I vape and I’m not going to go away, nor am I going to stop vaping.

That’s right, I use an e-cig (or ENDS if you prefer the term coined by the WHO). I prefer to use it because I no longer want to smoke tobacco. Please see the difference here.

That is most definitely the question of the moment.

With the recent secret squirrel meeting of WHO in Russia (of all places) there has been a lot of talk in the media recently about bans. Specifically, banning the use of cigarettes (including e-cigs) in parks, coffee shops and, of course, TfL have decided to sneak in their own vaping ban.

Now, I’ve been stewing on these for a while waiting for any further fallout or other commentaries.

I’m going to begin this one by posting up a few tweets from various users.

If you like, the article mentioned in the tweet is here feel free to have a read, I’ll wait 🙂

Just so you know, Antoine Flahault is a respected Professor in Biostatistics and neither smokes or vapes, but is heavily vested in the truth.

I’m going to gloss over the tweets regarding Philly, because that little story is about money which is a whole different rant for another day 😉