Leave Us Alone

In a truly mind-bendingly terrifying moment, one of the key arguments used - particularly in the US - by the opponents of vaping has been gloriously ripped asunder. That argument is of course that The Children™ will use them and become “addicted” to nicotine. The thing is, there is a substantial portion of teens that vape without nicotine a statistic that is overlooked by the US tobacco controllers. You can imagine the shock and horror on their faces when they read that part of this study.

I would say that this is a break from the norm, but I’d be lying. You see, as vapers, ex-smokers and current smokers (and even never smokers to some extent) we all know that the tobacco control science is little more than bits of paper trying to justify disproportionate restrictions, taxes and even bans on the things we enjoy doing.

I get it, some folk really don’t like us for our choices and they really don’t want us outside of their sphere of influential control. That’s really the reason for much of this pseudo-science. Those in power, seek power entirely for their own sake. They are not interested in the good of others, they are solely interested in power, pure power.

I mentioned in a previous post that a certain Canadian MD - none other than Matthew Stanbrook, by far the most ideological and idiotic anti-vaper “researcher” there is, who claims that “e-cigarettes are a gateway that must be shut” - has had an opinion piece published, alongside a certain study, which is now getting some media attention. Hardly surprising really. Most notably (so far) is his mention in a Medscape article.

I’ve touched on this briefly a few times before (here, here and most recently here) and it’s all about smoking/vaping in the workplace in particular, and anywhere else in public in general. As many readers will know Public Health England recently released some guidance on the “Use of e-cigarettes in public places and workplaces”.

Before I go much further, let me remind you of a comment that had been left on one of my posts about this particularly thorny subject:

There is a strap-line from HM Revenue & Customs - “tax doesn’t have to be taxing” - yet despite their best efforts, if you really want to wade through the system, you are going to have to employ someone with letters after their name. The proles don’t really stand a chance of navigating the endless forms, cross referencing and waiting. Not to mention there are certain rules that need to be followed with regards to things like wage slips, P60 (end of year stuff for UK employees). Yet I’d be willing to bet that many folks don’t wholly realise how much tax they actually pay. Especially when it comes to tobacco.

There are times when I do get a kick out of receiving e-mail updates from medical journals. The Lancet in particular (it is free, and somewhat annoying at times - especially the “Department of Error” - which doesn’t actually tell you much in the e-mail, you have to click the bloody link - unlike every other link in the mail; sadly none of these are ever about vaping) does give plenty of entertainment value. Their own manifesto is a source of much hilarity, considering its penchant for allowing ridiculous anonymous smear jobs in its esteemed digital pages. The logo itself “The best science is a good start” provokes a minor snort and a Spock eyebrow, but it’s the message underneath that is my source of hilarity (emphasis mine):

First, let me be absolutely, 110% crystal fucking clear. I do not care which method of cessation you choose. I do not care if you are smoke free through one method or another. I do not care if you smoke. I do not care if you vape. Whatever choice you make is yours and yours alone.

I vape, and I do encourage others to do so if I feel they want to. I do not preach.

Whenever there’s some “new research” being touted in the media-news-space, I often find myself switching automatically into newspeak as 99 times out of 100, what is written on these online media places has little or no bearing on what is being said. (hint look up doublethink). Tracking down the cited paper was pretty darn easy (for once) and it is currently open access - which is rare considering that it was published in the journal Tobacco Control - you know, the subsidiary of the BMJ variant.

New EU rules on nicotine strength not a problem for most vapers is the headline of a pretty dire press release from ASH where, once again, they show that they’ve never really been the ‘vapers friend’. With an increasing number of smokers switching to vaping - estimated to be around 2.8 million in 2016 - ASH reckons that the Tobacco Products Directive “need not cause problems for most vapers”.

How on earth do they figure that the TPD “need not cause problems” ? Despite regular discussions with members of the New Nicotine Alliance and the increasing number of public health experts (actual experts mind) in the fields of smoking cessation, respiratory medicine, cancer research and many more - ASH have today announced that they simply do not care about vapers, and in particular a “small” group - roughly 9%, which when stated like that doesn’t mean much, how does 252,000 sound? - use e-liquid that falls foul of the TPD rules.

Yes, I know. Another post on rules and stuff. Sorry about that, but I’ve been doing my usual reading and thinking. I also watched Brexit: The Movie where I discovered a few things I hadn’t known previously - none of which made any kind of difference to how I’m going to be voting, but they were interesting nevertheless.

The thing is, and this is from Brexit: The Movie, post-war Britain was a shambles. Post-war Germany not so much. The difference? Regulation. Britain had rules for a lot of things, while Germany did the exact opposite. Interesting things happened, not least of which was the British economy suffered greatly while Germany prospered. Startling. So what does this have to do with this post?