As with any tobacco control milestone, you’ll hear all kinds of shenanigans bullshit from the usual suspects. But before we get into that, let’s rewind a bit. 10 years in fact.
At the tender and innocent age of 27 (snark), at (oddly enough) this exact time of year I was on the usual lads holiday. A week of sun, sand and lots and lots of beer. Well, it’d be rude not to.
Unsurprisingly, there’s another ‘campaign’ about second hand smoking.
Campaign launched about dangers of children’s exposure to second-hand smoke
I thought that this particular part of the anti-smoker arsenal had long since been over utilised, it turns out I was mistaken.
Y’see, in April this year one particular anti-smoking group kicked the bucket. It became an ex-anti-smoking group. Most folk I know celebrated the demise of Healthier Futures, which followed on from the demise of Smokefree South West - both groups tried a last ditch re-brand in order to stay current with “public health epidemics” - with Fresh NE taking ownership of the Healthier Futures IP.
Well this is a rather lovely to-do isn’t it?
The smoking ban. Introduced on July 1st 2007 (in England, but the Scots had to go one better and implement it officially on March 26th 2006. Plus Wales did it on April 2nd 2007 – if only it had been a day earlier – and Northern Ireland on April 20th 2007). The ban is now almost 10 years old.
For those that don’t remember how it all came about, a brief history lesson is needed.
I know, it’s been awhile since I last put finger to key. Far too much going on outside the twitter- & blog-spheres for me to put aside time to regularly post. Real life eh?
It seems the hypocritical vapers friend ASH have been up to their old tricks. Again. I’m not at all surprised, after all this time last year they said the 250,000 vapers that use 20mg/ml and above don’t matter. Fancy that!
As I’m sure you’re aware, England has had their ridiculous ban on smoking in cars since September 2015. They even “celebrated” the anniversary this year where there was a totally unremarkable 3% decline in self-reported exposure in kids to smoke in cars - using their own survey figures of course. Now the so-called “ban” in England didn’t apply to Scotland, so instead they had to create their own version of the Orwellian legislation.
Thanks to Dick Puddlecote for reminding me about some more shenanigans from “public health” - this time in Sheffield. I had spotted this in my feed last week from Simon Clark but sadly work and my everyday life got in the way of putting finger to key.
Council chiefs are considering whether to ban lighting up outside hospitals and other NHS buildings, universities, council offices and leisure centres – and they are seeking the public’s views on the proposal.
Hard to believe it’s been a year since the sock-puppet charity ASH got their way with the ridiculous legislation on smoking in cars (with kids). Yet, a year it has been. I’m sure you’ll remember how ASH considered the passing of the legislation a “success” and how it would “drive down” smoking rates and all the usual platitudes when a state-funded charity imposes its authoritarian will by lobbying the government (with their own cash mind).
1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society, the most extreme realization imaginable of a modern-day government with absolute power.
So why on earth are fuss-buckets still insistent on interfering with our everyday lives?
Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers.
We’ve all seen the recent news about the lowest smoking prevalence on record and all that. Some quangos are of course claiming that this lowest rate is largely thanks to policies (obviously they mean bans and tax hikes among other ludicrous measures, such as banning smoking in your car) and plain packaging (which while passed hasn’t become a reality nationwide yet).
With a few exceptions, the elephant in the room hadn’t been discussed and that is of course the role that e-cigarettes have played. Which brings about another item. Stop Smoking Services (SSS). We’ve been told that the number of people going into these places is in decline (some areas more than others). Now you would think that with such a decline in SSS attendance, there would be a similar decrease in the number of people quitting smoking as in, the prevalence rate wouldn’t be the 16.9% it is now - rather it’d be close to the original 19.3% it was in 2012.
It’s been rather busy outside of my vaper-sphere recently which has unfortunately led to a lot of things slipping, including this post. Many of you are aware that the World Health Organisation recently released all the documents for the upcoming tax-payer funded shenanigans to be held in India for Conference Of Parties #7 (COP7). There’s a number of documents that are of interest, some of which I’ll write about here but the main interest at the moment is the originally named document FCTC/COP/7/11 ‘Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems and Electronic Non-Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS/ENNDS)’