Opinion

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the news is awash with an announcement from Philip Morris saying that their Heat-not-Burn product iQOS is coming to the UK. London specifically - for the moment at least.

Well, so what you might be asking, why has a new product launch attracted so much press? The answer to that is two-fold. One, it’s a new product from a tobacco company. We all know how much folks are beginning to despise the tobacco industry - particularly those in tobacco control and public health. Two, it sits in the middle-ish of the “risk-profile” (if such a thing is to be believed) with combustibles at the top, abstinence at the bottom, NRT, e-cigarettes, and snus all feature.

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.

What a year it has been, the opening words of the E-Cigarette Summit 2016 Chair, Professor Ann McNeill. Could almost call that a throwback to the Summit of last year, but then the debate surrounding e-cigarettes hasn’t waned but intensified. This year, the Summit came hot on the heels of the FCTC Conference Of Parties (Seventh Session), which did get coverage (as did Brexit and Trump albeit briefly).

As with last year, I had the privilege of attending as a representative of Vapers in Power (says so on my badge), though I maintain that “Advocate” should be “Troublemaker in Chief”.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of reading a Q&A between my friend Fergus Mason and David Goerlitz. Having seen the documentary film A Billion Lives, and having heard David on Smoke Free Radio with Dimitris last year, there wasn’t much in that interview that I wasn’t already aware of.

Still, it was worth a read if only to remind myself of just how the tobacco control industry is more about control then it is about reducing smoking, and it can quite easily be summed up in one line:

When I was doing (part) of my write up of the Global Forum on Nicotine conference, I mentioned that I might have had something special coming up. As most of you should know by now, A Billion Lives - directed by Aaron Biebert - has premiered in New Zealand, Australia and of course Poland. Now, on August 6th A Billion Lives is coming home.

The film has garnered some well deserved accolades, a lot of attention, and has been reviewed by numerous critics and been called “A wake up call”. I had the honour of meeting Aaron, albeit briefly, at the Poland premiere, and like many others who have seen the film have been mightily impressed with how Aaron has directed the film, and I truly wish I could get across to the US to see it again at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee.

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:

I’ve been mulling this over in my head ever since the first vaping bans were imposed by businesses such as Wetherspoons. I kept thinking to myself why? Was it down to simply banning something that “looks like smoking” - after all there is a comprehensive policy in place across the UK in that smoking is not allowed/prohibited/banned in work places, public places (bars/pubs/clubs/public buildings etc), smoking is now prohibited in cars with kids in (not that it’s being enforced - after all, the police have far better things to do). There’s even calls for smoking bans (inclusive of e-cigarettes) in parks - the US, and New York in particular are fond of their smoke-free parks, completely ignoring the fumes from the multitude of internal combustion engines.

Moving on from my previous post in this multi-part series of my coverage of the 3rd Global Forum on Nicotine, the conference proper started with the Michael Russell Oration, presented by Marewa Glover.

Entitled “Pioneering with Compassion” (Marewa’s slides are available from here) Marewa highlighted several key points, the biggest of which:

While there is low overall smoking prevalence, there is large disparity in sub-population groups

A point made early in the presentation with 42% of Mãori women and 34% of men - which when averaged give a total of 38% compared to the overall population of New Zealand total of 15%. Consider how many “sub-cultures” there are in any number of countries, then consider how many of that sub-culture smoke then look at the “overall” prevalence figures. It’s a terrifying disparity, and it is, unfortunately made worse mostly through the actions of tobacco control.

Well, I’m finally back after a hectic few days in Warsaw for the Global Forum on Nicotine 2016. I really wish I had decided to fly out earlier and stay a bit longer as everything felt a little squeezed on my trip. But the bottom line is it was really worthwhile. This will likely be a multi-part blog as there is a lot to cover.

The start of the event just happened to be a screening of Aaron Biebert’s (watch this space for something special in the near future!) documentary film A Billion Lives at the Kinoteka in the Palace of Culture (or as Sarah described it, the big spiky thing). Setting aside the film for just a moment, the architecture of the Palace of Culture is truly fascinating, and I wish I had more time to explore - maybe that is something for GFN 2017 (if they’ll let me go).