Don’t trust me, I’m a doctor

I really wasn’t going to write this post today, but having seen some discussions on Twitter last night and again today, it did just send my blood boiling. Let’s have a look at what fired it all off.

Oh yes, keep taking a drug that has some seriously bad side effects never mind about the actual consequences because 1 in 2 will die anyway. Charming.

Now, we all know what kinds of “side effects” Champix can have. It’s pretty nasty stuff. I mean, who wants to take a pill that may induce suicidal thoughts ?

As nasty as Champix is, it isn’t the reason behind this post. It’ll be a long one, so make sure you’re settled in.

There’s a few bits in there that are disturbing. The first one up, is of course submission of letters under different authors. In other words, write hundreds of letters with one being from you and the other 99 being from made up people. They have a pop at vaping advocates as being “schills” or “astro-turf” when they are encouraging fraud as a means of advocating. It’s kind of a big issue.

Not content with fraud, they actually want people to potentially lie about things. Now, I’ll back up a little here. When I smoked and someone asked me to move along, I generally did simply because I’m a nice courteous person. When someone started having a major go at me (read being an aggressive little jobsworth), I stood my ground, at the end of the day, I was in public and smoking was allowed (at the time).

Take a moment to imagine the kind of “stories” in the media. General public being “harassed” by smokers when politely asked to move, is the very first headline I come up with. Most anti-smokers are, to put it mildly on a par with religious zealots, whilst most of the general public don’t really give a flying rats ass. It seems that there is a very hardcore group of antis that just want to make smokers lives all the more miserable, just for having a different lifestyle. There’s a word for folk like that.

So we have fraud, and potentially a lot of lying going on. What’s next?

Oh yes, don’t smoke but if you do and don’t quit, you’ll just have to die. The whole, quit or die syndrome summed up. Which is effectively what our so called friends in Tobacco Control would so love us to do. Quit smoking the way we want you to, and not how you want to, oh and here’s some suicide tablets to help. What really gets me on this, is the outright idiocy that certain members show when it comes to harm reduction or cessation. We get to Jane DeVille-Almond, such a charming immoral person. Tells a story about how a chap had a heart operation, continued to smoke and needed another one. This complete and utter maniac would rather folk pay for their own operations, which is nigh on impossible for the average person. If they can’t?

Well listen to what she says. It’s horrific, inhumane and completely immoral. It is as bad as the anti smoking zealots saying that smokers should be gunned down in front of their families, which is terrible enough.

I don’t know about you, but people in these kinds of positions need to tread very carefully before they say a damn thing. These are the kinds of people that insist you give up smoking using only “recommended” methods, but won’t give two flying fucks if you don’t because you’ll die anyway.

These are not the sort of people that are needed in Public Health, Tobacco Control, or even in Smoking Cessation. If the powers that be have any sense (which I doubt very much), then they’ll get rid of this evil woman and those like her. Smokers that want to quit should be treated with compassion and respect, not backed into a corner and most certainly not expected to “just die”.

Trouble is, there is a whole toolkit framework which has been used to aid various “charities” in their efforts to curb the smoking “threat” especially in relation to outdoor spaces. You may remember that a certain member of Public Health wanted parks in London to become “smoke free”. Which is completely and utterly bonkers as the fumes from all that traffic is going to be far worse for the average person than being around smokers.

They cite several barmy reasons:

• Protects from second hand smoke
• Increases motivation for smokers to quit or cut back
• Decreases negative role modelling for children
• Reduces litter, cuts associated clean up costs and protects the environment
• Reduces fire risk

Protection from second hand smoke. Hang on a tick, there’s been some questioning over how dangerous second hand smoke actually is. Which is to say, that the risks with SHS are only slightly elevated in public places.

Increases motivation for smokers to quit; uh no. Not likely. If there is one reason I kept smoking, it’s crap like this. I’m a human being with my own mind that can make its own choices. I didn’t (and still don’t) support any kind of public place ban on smoking (or vaping).

Decreases negative role modelling for children. Uh, OK. So I’m now responsible for being a role model for_other people children_? Seriously, if their own parents cannot raise their kids, then perhaps they shouldn’t have had any. If I’m having a smoke (or vape) it is up to the parent of said child to correctly inform them, not me and I sure as hell am not going to take my habit/ritual elsewhere.

Reduces litter, OK I can kind of see this one. But it does swing both ways you know. If these public places had more in the way of litter bins, it wouldn’t be such a huge problem.

Reduces fire risk. Again, can’t really argue too much with this one, except to highlight the lack of litter bins, specifically those that are used for cigarettes. So pretty much another non-issue.

Another little gem found in the “toolkit” :

Basically, anything that can be considered “smoking” which would of course include vaping wouldn’t it.

If you feel up to it, have a read of the toolkit. It’s 101 pages of insanity dressed up as “public health”. Honestly, it’d be more fun to read the telephone directory.