Public Health

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.

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.