To borrow from Andrew Allison, once upon a time private property rights were highly valued. As long as it was legal, what consenting adults did was no-one else’s business. With the March of the Puritans, however, there are umpteen state-funded Quangos, sock-puppets and Government busybodies poking their noses in where it is decidedly unwelcome.
As reported by the Halifax Courier last week:
Calderdale taxi drivers and passengers face vaping ban in cabs
This week saw another release of the CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) with more information on ‘Reasons for Electronic Cigarette Use Among Middle and High School Students’.
Given that Scott Gottlieb made a big thing in his speech about youth, it is hardly surprising the route that this is going to take.
https://twitter.com/SGottliebFDA/status/964236004549971969
Those figures are, in fact, accurate. At least as far as the survey data goes. Remember, this is from the National Youth Tobacco Survey. As previously mentioned, the NYTS did change its questions on e-cig use which, unsurprisingly, led to a “shocking rise” in the use of said product.
Two surprising pieces of news appeared in my timeline this week. First, the Czech Republic are planning to reverse parts, if not all of the smoking ban. Secondly, Austria are planning to do the exact same thing.
Naturally, this has prompted a lot of screaming from the usual suspects, labelling the proposed reversals as “a public health disaster”.
Smoking has been banned indoors in restaurants and pubs, as well as many other enclosed spaces, since May 31, 2017. Similar laws are common across the European Union.
Isn’t that the saying? Instead, the Mayor of Greater Manchester; one Andy Burnham, is looking to make Greater Manchester “the first City Region in Europe to make smoking history.”.
Not sure how well that is going to work sunshine.
Y’see, on the eve of the ten-year anniversary of the most illiberal and damaging legislation which saw an accelerated decline of the British Pub, Mr Burnham wanted to drive down the smoking rates in Greater Manchester ‘faster and further than achieved anywhere else’:
Or in the words of Simon Clark, creeping prohibition. Which is exactly what it is.
Bexleyheath town centre could become the first London Borough to implement smokefree zone
Time, and time again we see councils doing mad stunts like this. Bristol, of course, did it with voluntary bans in two town squares. Wales then banned smoking on a series of beaches. Swansea held a consultation (subsequently ignored, natch), Sheffield has done it, and of course, various NHS hospitals are banning smoking anywhere on their grounds, and finally, Birmingham Children’s Hospital proposed enforcing a smoke-free zone for nearby roads outside their grounds.
Following on from the “Evidence Update” in September 2015, Public Health England has done it again. In fact, they have gone as far as repeating the same mistakes as last time, by mentioning the word “prescription”, and/or “NHS” in the press release.
E-cigarettes should be available on prescription, according to Public Health England (PHE).
The agency wants them to be prescribed on the NHS within the next few years because of how successful they have been in helping people give up smoking.
I noticed this piece in The Conversation yesterday (it also popped up on another, unrelated news site), and unlike the usual vaping related articles, it wasn’t penned by the illustrious Simon Chapman.
Of course, just because it wasn’t written by Chapman doesn’t mean it’s going to be a positive article. After all, The Conversation is his own playground.
I’ve written about regulations and standards before, and my views haven’t changed. The BSI PAS was in response to the TPD and thus had to operate within the confines of that Directive, which as we know is very limiting in what can and can’t be done. From regulation flows bad standards. From good standards flows good regulation. The downside is good standards can (and do) take years to put in place.
Remember when anti-smoking campaigners just wanted no smoking zones in restaurants? Or how smoking was banned on flights - for various reasons, the overriding one being “public health” - the biggest lie ever told?
Over the years, puritanical anti-smokers have insisted on the ever-increasing prohibition on where smokers can enjoy their legal habit. Culminating, of course, in the 2006/2007 nationwide smoking bans in all public places.
Naturally, as the graph shows, that didn’t have the substantial benefit that the scum-sucking knuckle draggers had clearly stated it would; it was all a “confidence trick” by the Puritans to get their way.
Now that we’re into the 11th year of the most spiteful and damaging social engineering exercise England has ever seen - otherwise known as the smoking ban - I found myself rather bemused by how innocuous the anniversary was.
I wrote about the impending anniversary ahead of time, planning to write another piece on the day; but as these things go, that never happened. It was unsurprising to see the usual cobblers being spouted by various social media accounts using the hashtag #smokefree10.
In a not too unsurprising move, the MHRA has recently updated its E-Cigarettes: regulations for consumer products guidance. This latest update has provoked a fair amount of discussion along with theories as to who (or whom) have been badgering either the Commission or the MHRA for “clarification”.
Let’s just say I have my suspicions on that and leave it there.
The update, rather innocuously, is in the “Further Information” section of the guidance page which seem intent on clarifying some definitions.