Tuesday 28 January 2014

Smokers, Vapers, You're All Dogs Now

Via Nanny Beeb, we learn that the demonisation of e-cigs is well underway and is proving incredibly successful.
E-cigarettes should be banned from school premises to stop children assuming they are safe, heads say. 
Head teachers' union NAHT is worried pupils may want to copy parents they see using them in the playground.
Personally, I'd always assumed products were safe until conclusively proven otherwise in this modern huge state world we have to suffer - especially those regulated by 21 different EU directives - but it's clear that the recent BBC-led barrage of tobacco control industry misinformation has done its job, with e-cigs now considered evil and not fit for use in some public areas.

I'm very surprised, though, that this kind of attitude has been so easy to cultivate in such a short space of time. You see, even tobacco smoking is only now - after decades of denormalisation - being treated as a pastime which kids should be prevented from seeing.

For example, Chippenham Council recently installed a 'voluntary ban' on smoking in parks where children might see and also plans to bring it in for their High Street. We're way beyond the passive smoking excuse now, and beyond the looking glass into what smoking bans were always all about (hint: it's not health).

BBC Wiltshire held a discussion about this subject which I think you'll enjoy. The whole piece can be heard here, but below is the meat of a debate between Fiona Andrews of Smokefree South West and Dave Atherton of Freedom 2 Choose.

You see, Dave asked if Fiona thought e-cigs should also be included in this "think of the chiiildren" ban, to which she had no answer except to mutter her industry's weak and corrupt weasel words. She did think, though, that the initiative was perfectly acceptable because, I kid you not, we already ban dogs in case they shit in the play area. Seriously, it's less than five minutes long, do have a listen.



Note also that kids seeing a beer can is now considered unacceptable, but anyone suggesting that a similar principle might be applied to fizzy drinks - you know, containing "sugar, the new tobacco" - is being an alarmist. Like worrying about kids merely seeing smokers or vapers isn't, of course. Perish the thought!

Now, I can understand a bovine public falling for this after being bombarded by fake charities, trouser-filling state-funded hysterics and daft cranks bearing junk studies and lie-ridden sound bites for years. But with e-cigs, we're talking a matter of months between most people not having a clue as to what they are to now buying into an urgent situation whereby kids should never even see one.

The one thread running through all this is the state. Because, as we see from the BBC article yesterday, our fuckwitted overlords in Westminster seem to have made their minds up already.
The Department for Education said: "The government plans to introduce legislation that will ban the sale of e-cigarettes to children under 18 and make it illegal for adults to buy cigarettes for them. This will help parents protect their children from the dangers of smoking."
The wording in these releases is pored over by civil servants so that each utterance is crystal clear in its intention. If they wanted to differentiate their crusade against smoking with the approach to e-cigs, they would have done so. But they didn't. They were both lumped together in an all-encompassing comment which implied that banning sales of e-cigs to kids was part of helping "parents protect their children from the dangers of smoking".

The mythical gateway theory - for which there is no evidence and which isn't worrisome anyway - has been swallowed hook line and sinker by the state.

And when the state has made its mind up, those they fund will parrot likewise. Because vapers are just smokers who haven't fallen into line yet, according to ASH's latest accounts (page 6).


Fiona Andrews (see more of her nonsense here) was no more able to deny e-cigs are to be included in a vindictive, pointless, evidence-free voluntary outdoor smoking ban than she would be to tell her NHS funders to withhold her wages for the good of the country's debt problems. Preferable that she finance her new kitchen and bill the public than exhibit honesty and integrity, eh? She's not in the game for her health you know nor, it would seem, anyone else's.

Likewise, it's little wonder that state-adoring unionised teachers have been terrorised into calling for bans on harmless e-cigs being used by parents - parents, for chrissakes, the employers of fucking teachers - in front of children.

Smoker, vaper, it matters not. Shut the gate on your way out, won't you doggies? Just remember to leave your taxes behind, they're needed to kick you harder the next time you try to exercise your freedom of choice.

H/T to Tony W for the recording


24 comments:

moonrakin said...

What a disappointment it is that Fiona can't be had up for Moral Tirpitude wretched, wretched mendacious finger wagging, prod nosed, overpaid, health fund stealing parasite


Not her biggest fan :-)

Legiron said...

I avoid the high street already anyway. All those traffic fumes are bad for you.

I also avoid parks. Full of children and pompous gits.

Xopher said...

Very surprised to hear Dr Ellie (Cannon?) on Sky news this am. who basically promoted eCigs as a useful device although she did spout the thing about nicotine quantities being too variable so more regulation was needed . After being assured that patches contained a specific amount of nicotine, quite amazingly, Eamonn Holmes asked what was the difference when the user could put on 2 or 3 patches at a time. The answer was something like 'we can't legislate how they're used'.


The first time I've heard a news host suggest that patches are are less than perfect!!!!

dodderer1 said...

Prevalence is at a cross-roads - the decline from the 1950's arose mainly from decrease in take-up by each new generation.As the older generations start dying,the overall prevalence flattens out.

I think the ban in 2007 was meant to be lever to reduce rates at least to the Swedish level but it actually stopped the previous decline hence the increasingly rabid search for another 'silver bullet'.

If they had been prepared to learn the lesson from snus,ecigs would have been welcomed.As it is, the zero-tolerance dogma demands anything involving tobacco,tobacco smoke or the tobacco industry must be opposed and eliminated.

They are not sensitive to the needs of the smoker - a small majority of whom supposedly would like to stop - as they campaign to remove the best ways of stopping.

RooBeeDoo said...

Good point. How do TC know people don't abuse their approved product? Are they sold as single patches to prevent abuse? If not, why not? Image if a child got hold of a branded box of patches. Perhaps a pressure group is required.

Xopher said...

This same doctor pointed out that people, indicating Eamonn Holmes, often held and played with their pens suggesting the action was similar to smokers with their cigarettes/ecigarettes and this is an activity that patches cannot satisfy. - another doctor's critisism of NRT!

c777 said...

In 2011, proposals from Labour MP Alex Cuntningham Cunningham cleared their first legislative hurdle, before facing significant opposition from MPs of all parties.
Liebour lords to vote for it today.
You know, the scum who blocked the referendum bill.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25939908



Well, what a complete bunch of Huhne's?

truckerlyn said...

That is exactly why NRT doesn't work! It is not so much the nicotine as the actual, physical act of smoking that is what does it for smokers!

dodderer1 said...

You may be interested in the next marketing opportunity for NRT

http://www.nicotinedirect.co.uk/article_side_effects_of_nicotine_for_people_who_do_not_smoke.php

Nicotinedirect are a sister company of the one that organises the UKNSCC - tobacco control's annual jamboree

truckerlyn said...

I wondered when it would get to banning smoking in the High Street! So now a huge number of High Street pubs will go out of business because their smoking clientele will not be able to pop outside (onto the High Street) for a smoke! Brilliant thinking there by the morons!


Of course, it will also affect cafes with outside (pavement) seating, though probably not to the same degree as pubs.


Next step, NO SMOKING anywhere outside your own home for fear of the chiiiiildren seeing you and taking up smoking themselves!


My God, these morons have a really low opinion of children, don't they! Not only that, they have no understanding of them either. Let's face it, for many youngsters, the more you tell them NOT to do something, the more they are likely to do it!


As for raising the age for buying/obtaining/using tobacco products to 18, like drinking, it is mad when the legal age for getting married is still 16 (with parental consent), which means they can neither celebrate with a glass of champagne or a cigar! How bloody arse about face!

Iacta est alea said...

The Rubicon has been crossed,anything goes when dealing with health fanatics.They have no respect for Democracy,they have no time for Liberty,
they have no time for reason,no place for debate
They have total disregard for the memory of thousands who gave their life for our freedom. For cash they would sell their souls and their own people.
We have to treat them as any other Tyrant from history,no holds barred,
no rules of engagement,no Conventions, in simple words any action against
would be Dictators is justified is expected is necessary
There are some who will fight and there are those who will mumble in the shadows,all we need to know is ,who are the warriors and who are the wimps.
de fumo in flammam

timbone said...

I still say, get a discreet ecig, (not those big feck off state of the art vape-the-air jobbies) and you can vape anywhere. I AM A SMOKER. Sorry to shout, but I am so pissed off with the media and even holier than thou vapers saying the opposite. Anyway, back to the original point. I can be seen clearly in the audience of 'The Voice' on BBC1, but my ecig is something only I know about!

truckerlyn said...

"They have no respect for Democracy....."
Neither do any of the governments for the past few decades! Not sure they even remember what Democracy is!

Ian B said...

You know the big mistake? Calling them e-cigarettes. It's like saying, "e-heroin" or "e-kiddie porn". You've "admitted" it's a cigarette. Thus, easy to transfer the decades of propaganda from one to another.

Should've called them "SmokeFrees". Fancy a smokefree, mate? Don't mind if I do. I love a smokefree, I do, in my smokefree home and smokefree car.

Oh well. Nobody ever asks me.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I do, for one and glad you're here. If you're the Ian B I wish you'd consider writing guest posts here (I know you've previously said you're strictly commentariat now). If interested please drop me an email. :)

Ian B said...

"The" Ian B. Christ, I'll never get my head through the door.

Truth is Dick, I normally lurk, but am always reading. This whole sorry saga fills me with such utter despair, I cannot think of anything to say beyond a succession of plaintive, keening mewling noises.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Ha! I meant the Ian B who posts insightful historical observations regularly at Timmy's, as opposed to any other Ian Bs who may be out there.


The offer stands, though, any time you feel the urge. :)

Ian B said...

Thanks. I think everyone at Timmy's thinks I'm a total barmcake though. :)

Dick_Puddlecote said...

His content is wide-ranging, but we talk mostly about puritans here, you'd fit right in and be a valuable resource. Do think it over. :)

The Thought Gang said...

Oh.. you are.. but in the best possible way. Don't ever stop.

The Thought Gang said...

The problem with calling them something else is that it removes one of the similarities between them and proper cigarettes. What they're called is one of the reasons why they are working.

And anyway, this thing has gone so far beyond rationality that I'm glad if the name is a problem for the bansturbators. I want no concessions to them. They are insane. And they are evil. And the further they are able to go down these fucked-up avenues, the more chance there is that they will crash and burn.

Ian B said...

Very kind :)

Nichit Cigs said...

The new electronic cigarette is already a very popular item. Because of this, many different types have been created. This can be great because it offers many different options for all different types of people.

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