To ban or not to ban?

With the fun and games over in Warsaw at the moment with the Global Forum on Nicotine, things have been relatively quiet on the anti or scaremongering front, but a couple of articles did catch my eye, one of which I’m a little hesitant to talk about simply because the underlying subject has such a wide range of opinions from the vaping community.

The first of these articles or stories would be this one:

Pretty much every time I see an article like this, they always focus on one particular group. Be it the LGBT community, the black community or any other community they have conveniently given a label. This time around they’ve focussed on the mental health patients. In many ways, this particular article makes me more uncomfortable than reading any other article, and I think the main reason for that is I cannot, and most likely will not ever understand what these patients are actually going through.  Does this mean they should be treated any differently from those classed as “normal”? Of course not. So why the big red bullseye over how much they smoke?

Ah, the “experts” are warning that smoking can increase depression and anxiety and reduce the effectiveness of medications. Well, as for the depression and anxiety part, I as a former smoker can attest to the exact opposite. Whenever I lit up, it was either out of some kind of ritual (first one of the day, after a meal etc) or because my emotional state was out of kilter. Did I ever feel depressed or anxious prior to lighting up? I can honestly say, yes I did on occasion feel anxious and more often I would definitely feel moody. Am I unique in that respect? Probably not, but don’t forget I do not knowingly suffer from a mental illness.

I would suspect then that the “increase depression and anxiety” is likely to be part made up, or at least mis-interpreted.

Of course, Public Health England (a registered charity) wants all mental-health hospitals to be smoke-free zones. This would no doubt include a ban in the grounds, and if we’re unlucky some jobsworth ushering smokers out of the gates. So whose bright idea is this then?

Oh yes.  National director of health and wellbeing. What I do not get is exactly how this buffoon is expecting a ban on smoking will bring about a change in the ‘unacceptable inequalities’. According to the article, a care worker has stated it is commonplace for staff to purchase smokes, accommodate smoke breaks and so forth, rather than trying to encourage them to quit.  Many patients most likely do not want to quit, also many most likely depend on smoking so enforcing a smoke-free policy is really not going to help much is it?

A report by the RCP estimates that 30% of the current UK smokers suffer from mental health problems at a cost of up to £40M per year. There be the supposed “link” between an increase in depression and anxiety and the reduction of drug effectiveness. As a charity, PHE should be looking at ways to accommodate both sides rather than calling for outright bans, especially given that mental health sufferers are possibly the most vulnerable.

A stance that I completely agree with, for those that smoke it is about the enjoyment, pleasure and relaxation factors. Some of it may be to satisfy cravings, surely a compromise can be reached? Either that or patients will just do a “screw you” to the ban. I do hope it’s the former, but I wouldn’t say no to the latter either.

On the subject of bans, another piece appeared in Chappers favourite place, _The Conversation. _Although this time it wasn’t penned by the scrotum-faced head-banger himself, it was actually penned by three vape-positive Queensland University boffins. These three speak a lot of common sense:

It all seems rather good so far right? But wait.

This sounds awfully familiar doesn’t it? Whilst it is good that they want to see vapour products sold, the level of restrictions they want to see are almost on a level with “prescription only”. In the opinion of this humble vaping blogger, that’s too restrictive.

I keep seeing “child-proof” and “child-resistant” being bandied about. Trouble is, they are in fact completely different things. It is another set of terms that are seemingly interchanged at will. Trouble is, most medications already have child-resistant tops and some of those even I have trouble opening. Me. A 35-year-old male, struggling to open a bottle of medication. Go figure.

This brings me to regulation. What exactly would be a “best fit”? Well to be honest, no existing proposal can be classed as a ‘best fit’. The EU TPD, absolute cobblers, over bearing, burdensome and totally inappropriate. The FDA, same again. Total ban on nicotine? Ridiculous. So what is it we want? What follows are my opinions:

Point of Sale & Sales

Restriction for U18’s is a reasonable step, however this would of course preclude any existing U18 smoker from being able to switch unless the regs allow existing U18 smokers to switch. This is probably the trickiest of the lot to address as there are still a reasonable proportion of smokers under the age of 18.

Advertising & Marketing

In some ways, the UK may actually have this one right. Vapor products can be advertised under certain guidelines, the issue we have is the ASA are incredibly inconsistent with their rulings. This is not the fault of the vendors but of the ASA. No doubt some of the complaints originate from certain folk within tobacco control or certain elements of public health.  The other aspect is one of our own doing, using sex, trademarks and child attractive designs. All three need to stop if this industry is to be taken seriously.

Device Safety

To my mind, device safety falls squarely under consumer electronics. Most UK standards for consumer electronics are pretty stringent and are generally more than enough for most devices.

Liquid Safety

This is probably the biggest achilles heel we have as a community. There are hundreds upon hundreds of flavours and strength variants of flavours out there. A definitive method of testing for inhalation nasties needs to be put together and all vendors should abide by it.

Efficacy

I hate the word with a passion, but many in public health and tobacco control insist on comparing vapor products with cessation products even though they are not intended as such. This comes down to the EU’s interpretation of “consistent dose” which is pure speculation as everyone uses their devices differently. I doubt that there can be any effective regulation in this area.

Only if the regulation is ‘light touch’ allowing the growth and innovation of the market. Implementing licensed outlets is a surefire way of adding a burden to vendors looking to sell these products. Here’s an option, allow specific vape stores to sell the products and stop them being sold elsewhere. That could put the dampers on the tobacco industry selling their crap in corner shops and gas stations, whilst still allowing the ‘smoker autonomy’ and allowing the powers that be to track the progress of the products.

Bans to regulation, both very difficult topics as there are a multitude of consequences that can happen. It’s pretty much guaranteed that the implementation of the TPD and the FDA ruling will hand vaping to the tobacco industry, the incessant need for elements of PH to ban anything it doesn’t like or regulate it to the point where it is pretty much pointless

The thing is, once a policy is implemented it is incredibly rare for it to be reversed. The proponents for the policy are obviously reluctant to yield, whilst the opposition for the policy often can’t make up its thrice damned mind what to offer in its place. Not to mention the crap tonne of paperwork.

Tricky.