Authoritarian Fuckwits

Readers will remember the “guidance” issued by Public Health England in a vague attempt to convince business owners, and other individuals that vaping in the workplace is not, in reality, such a bad thing, nor is it actually illegal. Folks will of course remember this post from Vapers in Power about banning smoking AND vaping on a beach. There is of course, this one where Nottinghamshire went beyond insanity and banned smoking AND vaping on any and all council owned property - including outside. I had a few words to say about that too.

1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society, the most extreme realization imaginable of a modern-day government with absolute power.

So why on earth are fuss-buckets still insistent on interfering with our everyday lives?

Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers.

It never ceases to amaze me how ludicrous these anti-smoker folk are. Not simply content with banning smoking (and of course in some cases vaping too) indoors in bars, pubs and all the other fun places that we like to attend, now they’re taking aim at the great outdoors.

It’s not the first time, Swansea held a consultation, which they subsequently ignored. Pembrokeshire council made a beach smokefree (which of course included vaping), Bristol has a “voluntary ban” (complete with oh so cute sign posts) - arguably they were “the first” to do such a bonkers notion.

There are times when I do get a kick out of receiving e-mail updates from medical journals. The Lancet in particular (it is free, and somewhat annoying at times - especially the “Department of Error” - which doesn’t actually tell you much in the e-mail, you have to click the bloody link - unlike every other link in the mail; sadly none of these are ever about vaping) does give plenty of entertainment value. Their own manifesto is a source of much hilarity, considering its penchant for allowing ridiculous anonymous smear jobs in its esteemed digital pages. The logo itself “The best science is a good start” provokes a minor snort and a Spock eyebrow, but it’s the message underneath that is my source of hilarity (emphasis mine):

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.

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.

It isn’t particularly uncommon for government agencies to bend the truth. What is thoroughly disingenuous is how they decide to bend the truth. If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll have noticed a bit of a trend. Wherever the use of e-cigarettes is prevalent, the overall combustible use declines. It is kind of hard to see how one equals the other, but that is exactly what the CDC have done.

Overall tobacco use by middle and high school students has not changed since 2011, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products in today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

When it comes to anti-smoking campaigns and organisations one of the key mantras is “protecting the kids”, the ever-present “think of the children”. Trouble is, whenever an organisation says to policy makers “thinking of the children” it inevitably tugs on said policy makers heart-strings. Everyone wants their kids to grow up and lead good, healthy, normal lives don’t they? Let’s face it, I grew up to lead a relatively normal healthy life. I made choices along the way, some good and some not so good, it’s all part of this little thing called “growing up”.

When I woke up this morning I wasn’t expecting a whole host of shenanigans to be floating around the media. I knew that something was coming at some point thanks to some very good friends in the know, all very secret squirrel like. What I didn’t expect was the sheer insanity of it all.

After listening to Simon Clark at Vapefest about the situation with proposed vaping bans coming simply because smoking has already been banned in public, it made perfect sense. The whole “denormalization” of smoking smokers began a long time ago, culminating with the situation we have now, like dominoes smoke-free laws were passed and now it’s “normal” to go into a pub, if you can find one that’s open and have a beer without being “engulfed in a fug”.