2017

Today saw the release of the latest set of data for smoking prevalence within the UK from the Office of National Statistics Annual Population Survey and the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey.

As you would expect from the UK, with its generally liberal stance on e-cigarettes, and despite the shitstorm of piss poor media reporting on various studies, stupid legislation proposals, daft bans, and general bullshit; e-cigarettes remain the most common aid for people to move away from tobacco.

Once again researchers are scraping the bottom of the barrel in an effort to “prove” that vaping is bad for you. Most readers will remember the worst vaping article of 2016 in The Sun - though there was an altogether bizarre story drawn from an anecdotal story on Reddit which may pip that by a nose. This time around, vaping is apparently no better - or specifically, found to be just as bad as (wait for it) - unfiltered tobacco cigarettes.

As with most debates from tobacco control, regarding plain packaging there remained one, quite crucial, point that was conspicuous by its absence. No one could categorically say that plain packaging would work. Not one person could stand up and claim that drab, olive-green packs with larger warnings would amount to much of a decrease in smoking prevalence. Well, except Debs, but then she’s always had her head in the clouds (it’ll be responsible for 300,000 smokers giving up the ‘deadly weed’ of course. Bravo Bollocks).

Well. This is it. Today is the last day of the transition period. Tomorrow, May 20th, is the day when any non-notified vaping product can no longer be legally sold. Tomorrow is when the new legislation will really start to bite.

What will happen? There isn’t a straightforward answer to that.

Let’s look at what we, as a community of consumers have been able to enjoy.

Over the years, we have been able to enjoy tank sizes of up to a whopping 7-8ml. I once complained about the drive towards a particular subset. Was I right to do so? Maybe, maybe not. Let’s face it, the number of tanks on the market that are in excess of the ridiculous 2ml limit imposed aren’t generally going to be for new users, and rarely for the average Joe in the street that just wants an alternative to smoking.

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!

Undercover investigation finds 9 in 10 vape shops prepared to sell to non-smokers

This is news according to the Royal Society of Public Health. According to the quotes in the media, there is an industry wide ‘Code of Conduct’ that, apparently, all vape shops supposedly abide by. Thing is, that really isn’t the case.

There are two main trade organisations responsible for the vaping industry in the UK - ECITA and IBVTA - that govern the non-regulatory rules, a “best practice” if you will. In this instance, the RSPH have picked up on a point in the IBVTA code of conduct:

VCU researchers aim to educate the public about the dangers of e-cigarettes and produce results that would compel tighter government regulation.

This little gem comes via (yet another) ridiculously pointless “study” into the ’effects of vaping’ by researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University. A study that, by the way, has taken two years and collaboration between faculty from VCU’s Biomedical Engineering and Biology departments.

The study is one in a series of seven projects by research universities across the United States that look into the potential health impacts of e-cigarettes on parts of the head, face and oral cavity. Each study is funded with part of a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Regular readers will of course remember fondly that the EU held another “public consultation” recently, with the closing date of last month. This so-called public consultation was all about the taxation of manufactured tobacco products. Of course, being the EU and with the shiny new Tobacco Products Directive it just had to include the humble e-cigarette, despite (of course) neither the devices themselves, nor the liquid refills containing any actual manufactured tobacco at all - natch.

This is one of those topics that you just know. One of those that you yourself understand, but find it somewhat tricky to put into some semblance of coherent speech. We all, to varying degrees, know what pleasure is. We all know what we enjoy, and we can all express; to an extent, why we enjoy something.

This is also one of those posts that’s taken far too long to write.