Ecigs

With the recent announcement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb talking about the possibility of curtailing the marketing and selling of flavoured vapour products, it is timely that the Centre for Substance Use Research should have recently published a paper on the topic.

The CSUR came under fire when it published the Pleasure of Smoking report because, among other things, CSUR receives some funding from (you guessed it) the tobacco industry. Notably British American Tobacco and PMI. The same PMI that has kickstarted the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. So naturally, you can assume that the usual suspects will view this paper with the same disdain.

Thanks to Sarah Jakes, a short two-page document from ASH Scotland found its way into my twitter timeline. As you can probably tell from the title of this post, it’s all about youth and e-cigs. I had a read. I had another read. I had a third read. They also have a short blog post on the subject. I read that too. Then I read it again.

There isn’t really much to the document in itself, page one is primarily background stuff, while page two gets to the heart of the matter. Or at least tries to. It is a masterclass in fence-sitting.

“Much has changed since we ran the inaugural Summit in 2013, when calls for medicinal licensing and outright bans on e-cigarettes were dominant”.

Reading that in the introduction and welcoming statement in the e-cigarette summit programme highlights, at least in the UK, just how far things have come. When you have the likes of Professor Ann McNeill, Professor Robert West, Professor Linda Bauld, Professor Marcus Munafò, Dr Konstantinos Farsalinos, Professor John Britton, Professor Peter Hajek, Professor Ricardo Polosa talking about e-cigarettes folk sit up and listen. The list of names that gave talks is far longer. Including Clive Bates, Louise Ross, Lorien Jollye, Sarah Jakes, Professor David Abrams, Oliver Kershaw, Andy Morrison, the Department of Health represented by Alette Addison, Public Health England by Rosanna O’Connor.

Back in August I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Nicky from the Harrow Stop Smoking Service to talk about all things vaping. Talking about the devices, reasons for using them, differences, experiences and all that. It was a really good positive meeting and could quite easily have gone on for far longer than the time allotted.

The recent event was a heavily condensed version of that meeting with a guest speaker, Jessica Harding and myself. It was publicised as a ‘Stop Smoking Service Annual Update Meeting’ which would include the latest information on vaping, with an emphasis on the PHE Review. This post will include commentary from Jessica along with both our thoughts and impressions on the event and those who attended.

This is going to be a first. Normally, my posts (with one exception so far) are written entirely by me and me alone. They reflect my thoughts, feelings and opinions on the variety of subjects, points of view and commentary on “science” surrounding the topic of vaping. This time, I’ve enlisted the aid of a few other advocates and vapers to help me compile this post, as I feel this is actually a pretty big topic for just one person to cover. So, without any further ado let’s get started with commentary kindly provided with permission from Lorien, Shannon, and Fergus.

There is a saying on Twitter, “If you can’t debate in 140 characters or less, you’ve lost the argument”. Sometimes this could be true, but in others the character limit is incredibly, well, limiting, even with character substitutions and abbreviations it is incredibly difficult to get your point across on a complex subject.

This is one of the reasons I have a blog, so I can take my time and be as wordy as I need to be to explain the things I’m writing about.

It has definitely been an interesting few days all said and done. A televised debate took place over the weekend on vaping which kicked off the usual shenanigans with many folks sending the usual tweets to the person on the negative side of the debate. Of course, this was aired on Fox which has a certain reputation for being a little unusual, to put it mildly.

Who was involved in this debate? Well Greg Gutfield obviously who, as it transpires is a former smoker through vaping, and one Doctor Nina Radcliff. Being in the UK I missed out on the show itself so I had to play catch-up on Monday after it had aired in the US (really beginning to loathe these time differences) and frankly I was stunned. If you haven’t seen it the video is below.

It is kind of unusual for me to post anything this early in the day as I normally like to sit and think on what I’ve seen before actually writing anything. Today however, some antics on Twitter really upset me. I mean, close to tears upset.

The Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), specifically Article 20 is a God-awful piece of democratic bullshit. Don’t believe me? Read more about it, here and here. I don’t need to, nor am I willing to go into any great detail about it.

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).

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.