First, let me be absolutely, 110% crystal fucking clear. I do not care which method of cessation you choose. I do not care if you are smoke free through one method or another. I do not care if you smoke. I do not care if you vape. Whatever choice you make is yours and yours alone.

I vape, and I do encourage others to do so if I feel they want to. I do not preach.

I do like it when someone poses an intriguing question on Twitter (or anywhere for that matter) that gets the ol’ grey matter churning. Not only does it make me think, it also makes me consider the implications of my own thinking - which is largely based in personal experience and opinion (on particular subjects), with some foundation in fact.

This question, posted by Gillian really got me thinking.

General Q: Where on hypothetical scale of reducing smoking rates wld you rate smoking cessation (by means that include a switch to vaping)?

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.

New EU rules on nicotine strength not a problem for most vapers is the headline of a pretty dire press release from ASH where, once again, they show that they’ve never really been the ‘vapers friend’. With an increasing number of smokers switching to vaping - estimated to be around 2.8 million in 2016 - ASH reckons that the Tobacco Products Directive “need not cause problems for most vapers”.

How on earth do they figure that the TPD “need not cause problems” ? Despite regular discussions with members of the New Nicotine Alliance and the increasing number of public health experts (actual experts mind) in the fields of smoking cessation, respiratory medicine, cancer research and many more - ASH have today announced that they simply do not care about vapers, and in particular a “small” group - roughly 9%, which when stated like that doesn’t mean much, how does 252,000 sound? - use e-liquid that falls foul of the TPD rules.

We had some forewarning of this dropping in the Medical Journal of Australia and frankly I wasn’t at all surprised by the authors of the opinion piece. Rest assured it is an opinion piece there is zero new evidence being bought forward. You could almost call it a review, if you are feeling incredibly generous. But I’m long past feeling generous to the three authors. We all know who they are. The three biggest dunderheaded buffoons that claim to be “experts” in the field.

Yes, I know. Another post on rules and stuff. Sorry about that, but I’ve been doing my usual reading and thinking. I also watched Brexit: The Movie where I discovered a few things I hadn’t known previously - none of which made any kind of difference to how I’m going to be voting, but they were interesting nevertheless.

The thing is, and this is from Brexit: The Movie, post-war Britain was a shambles. Post-war Germany not so much. The difference? Regulation. Britain had rules for a lot of things, while Germany did the exact opposite. Interesting things happened, not least of which was the British economy suffered greatly while Germany prospered. Startling. So what does this have to do with this post?

Not to put too fine a point on it this week has been, quite frankly the shittiest week I have experienced as a vaper. We saw the resolution of the Totally Wicked challenge - overturned, as expected by many. We also saw the FDA release its final ruling on ’tobacco products'.

To say that those that clamoured for both outcomes were crowing their victories from the highest towers would be a monumental understatement. Of epic proportions.

As we know, the revised tobacco products directive enters into force this month, and while many held out hope that it would be overturned by the Article 20 Legal Challenge (among other challenges) there has been a distinct lack of impact analysis of the Directive.

Thanks to Lorien Jollye for bringing this to my attention from ASH. The trouble with the ASH analysis is there is so much wrong with it.

It’s always nice to put finger to key and put some thoughts out into the virtual world isn’t it? I could, and often have, gone on for quite some length (especially when ranting) about a particular topic, but what good does it actually do? After all, I’m only “speaking” to like-minded folk right? What is commonly referred to as the “echo chamber” - indeed, most of those that read my words are either vapers, smokers or just plain ol’ libertarians who are, to put it mildly, fucked off with state interventions in our lives.

Ban. It is such a short, yet thoroughly Orwellian word. In short, ban is a simple word for prohibition. Prohibition has been attempted on numerous occasions and frankly, it never does turn out well.

Why do I want to talk about bans? Well there are a number of reasons actually, but the one that stuck in my craw was the utter insanity currently proposed by Nottinghamshire County Council. Just recently a friend asked me for some advice on countering, or at least informing a university smoke-free policy and it got me thinking.