There’s always something, isn’t there? Last year, back in March, there was a “bit of a kerfuffle” in the vaping community which led to a lot of name calling and general unpleasantness.
So much so that this post was needed. As was this one.
Sadly, nothing seems to have changed as it has all kicked off, once again. The only saving grace is that it doesn’t appear to have been as widespread. Yet.
When Theresa May became Prime Minister it was thought that the downward spiral of anti-lifestyle policies wouldn’t accelerate. Fast forward three years and we now have this:
Smoking must be stamped out in the UK within 11 years, according to timeline set out in ambitious new Government plan
Daily Mail headline July 8th 2019
The release of this plan was delayed, for various reasons, but is now published as Mrs May’s lasting “legacy”.
This will probably piss a lot of people off and frankly, I don’t particularly care so, I’m just going to say it:
If a vape shop wants to sell heat-not-burn in the form of IQOS, GLO or any other HnB product, have at it. If you abide by the relevant rules and regulations, go for it.
For one, it’ll give IQOS users a broad array of places to get HEETS and the other accessories for the product, and that is no bad thing.
Social media. A rather quaint place. Filled with thousands of people from a variety of walks of life. You could be forgiven for thinking that social media is important, ‘cos it isn’t. Not in the least, but by that very same token it is important for Big Brother.
As I’ve written about before, researchers in the field of Tobacco Control absolutely adore social media as it gives them raw, unfettered access to a field of stuff that they know nothing about.
Last year in June, in the esteemed Tobacco Control journal there was an article talking about promoting vaping and smoking using social media with the inevitable conclusion: “Future studies should examine the extent to which Twitter users, particularly youth, notice or engage with these price promotion tweets”. Natch.
So, fast forward six months and there’s another one. Based on some of the methodology from the study last year, these researchers decided to look at an entire calendar year via a third party company Sysomos - “Proactive Social Media Monitoring”. - it’s true, they really are out to get us. Sysomos is a subscription based service that allows the subscriber to analyse their social media reach - they call it a"Social Intelligence Platform"… Unlike the previous study that used the Twitter Hosepipe API, this one went a little further. According to the Heartbeat solution page on the Sysomos website:
Saturday night was a night of glitz, glamour and awards. It also sparked a lot of media attention. Not for who won awards particularly, although there was some coverage on that, but for seemingly everyone’s favourite celebrity vaper. Leonardo DiCaprio. This in itself isn’t the root of the hypocrisy, oh no.
That all comes in the media backlash towards Mr DiCaprio and his ‘deeply troubling’ lifestyle choice.
Apparently a few folks over at the American Lung Ass’n are a bit miffed at the idea of a high-profile celeb not smoking.
If you are a regular Twitter or Facebook user you would have come across the latest shenanigans from the Chicago Department of Health that was launched amid much fanfare by none other than the Mayor himself. The VapingTruth campaign designed to increase youth awareness.
So what do we have here then? A “public education campaign” to increase youth awareness (The Children™) on the public health risks of e-cigarettes. Oh there’s a surprise. An education campaign to increase awareness on the “risks” of e-cigs.
Fairly recently a whole ’new study’ saw the light of day in the Tobacco Control Journal but it didn’t seem to get the fanfare of scary headlines that most get, mostly because the “research” is way too picky. Not to mention it is “the first of its kind”. Natch.
So what was this “study” all about then?
Price-related promotions for tobacco products on Twitter
At first glance you could be forgiven if you thought it was all about traditional tobacco products, cigars, cigarettes and the like, but you would in fact be completely wrong.
Hmmm how to start this post. It is, or at least for me it is a bit of an upsetting topic but with the recent kerfuffle it needs to be addressed. Again.
For this post, I will be heavily referring to the brilliant postings from the lovely Lorien over on her blog. True, she hasn’t posted for a while but she has been incredibly active elsewhere and I simply cannot give enough credit to her, or any of the other advocates. Some of you may be wondering why I’m referencing older posts, well the answer is pretty straightforward in that nothing has changed.
Settle down folks this double posting isn’t going to become a regular thing. Sometimes something happens in the world of vaping that just requires a second post.
By now you should have seen the debacle that is the article from Vox. It is, to put none to fine a point on it, dire in the extreme. Terribly one-sided, and all of it in favor of a particular US Researcher’s point of view. I’ll be honest and state that I suspect the article may have been written by that researcher with only a few changes made by the author herself. Call me cynical if you like.