Yesterday demonstrated the effects of a coordinated effort to discredit one of the most disruptive technologies that has several groups within “public health” worried. Not only for their funding source, which is neither here nor there, but also for the steadily decreasing relevance.
Naturally, the media headlines don"t really get to the bottom of the issue:
FDA puts e-cig makers on notice: Fix “epidemic” teen use or products may be pulled from market
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.
It is well-known that within the UK, each of the devolved areas have completely different priorities when it comes to “running” their little piece of the country. Wales tried, and spectacularly failed last year to bring in a new “Public Health (Wales) Bill” which would, in effect have severe negative consequences for Welsh vapers. That Bill, the demented offspring of one Mark Drakeford, was defeated at the final hurdle, not by the weight of evidence as it should have been long before it got to the final vote, but by the “cheap date” comment.
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.
It seems that the run up to Christmas entitles folk to, frankly lose their damn minds. We are all painfully aware of the mantra “think of The Children™”, but never more so has it been apparent that the crusade against smoking and vaping has never really been about health.
First up:
A lawmaker from Louisville is hoping a tax would discourage Kentucky residents from using electronic cigarettes.
Hoping a tax would discourage residents, in other words a sin tax.
The thing with journalists is they tend to get friendly with regular sources of information. The “go-to” folks for soundbites and information, no matter how bizarre that information is. The flip side of that, is when they are ‘confronted’ by opposing views the immediately adopt the “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” stance by retreating past la-la land up to cloud cuckoo.
It must surely come as no surprise at all that there has finally been a response to the Public Health England 2015 review on e-cigarettes from the hard-core anti-vaping opponents. So I wasn’t particularly surprised when the excrement hit the whirling blades of the media, no sir.
Late last night various tweets were being posted by the media with previews of today’s papers front pages from i, _Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror _and The Times. All four were based on an impending publication from Public Health England (PHE), but as is the norm for the media, the headlines didn’t actually reflect the contents of the publication.
I’ll admit to being a little wary of today’s news based on those previews alone, despite assurances from Lorien Jollye that the report from PHE was actually a very very good thing. As with anything related to vaping and smoking I’m very cynical and the preview headlines all had a common theme which sadly led me to believe the wrong thing.
In the grand scheme of things much is said about how giant monolithic entities control and distort everything even when those entities have _absolutely nothing to do _with the subject. If that is the case, why then do many “public health” faux charities insist on blaming “Big Tobacco” for every fopar they have ever made?
It has definitely been an interesting few days all said and done. A televised debate took place over the weekend on vaping which kicked off the usual shenanigans with many folks sending the usual tweets to the person on the negative side of the debate. Of course, this was aired on Fox which has a certain reputation for being a little unusual, to put it mildly.
