Thursday 20 March 2014

San Francisco Confirms It Has Never Been About Health

The second most viewed item on this blog last year was one detailing how e-cig use could be banned everywhere in California. It was picked up by news aggregator sites like Reddit, where commenters said I was an alarmist and being sensationalistic.

From SFGate.
Smoking electronic cigarettes in bars, restaurants and businesses will soon be illegal in San Francisco, after the Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to treat the relatively new product like combustible cigarettes. 
The legislation by Supervisor Eric Mar is intended to limit children's use of the nicotine product, which he and other supporters contend has been marketed heavily toward young people, and to protect all members of the public from the secondhand aerosol emitted by the devices, he said.
Well, I did say that the myth of passive vaping would be added to the myth of passive smoking at some point, but I thought they'd at least have the courtesy to wait for the junk science to be produced first. These guys are in a hurry, though.
Under the legislation, San Francisco would include e-cigarettes in its strict antismoking laws, banning them in most public places besides curbside on city streets, requiring sellers to secure a special permit, and prohibiting their sale in pharmacies and other businesses where tobacco sales are banned. The board will vote on it once more next week, and it will become law in April after the mayor, a supporter, signs it.
April, you say? It was April last year when I published my piece about something that might happen in California. Less than a year later, and the process is actually starting to happen for real.

What a sensationalistic alarmist I am, eh?
Mar puffed on an e-cigarette as he presented the legislation. 
"Sorry for poisoning all of you ..." [citation needed]
Whereas Superviser Eric Mar is not an alarmist at all.
... but it's really important to show - I have a banana-flavored one and a peach-flavored one ... they are really targeted at young people and right now it's not regulated," he said, ...
Nor sensationalistic, either, because everybody knows that only kids like bananas and peaches. Adults never, ever touch them.
... saying the product could create a new generation of nicotine addicts.
Err.


Being San Fantasyland, the article wouldn't be complete without a rent-a-quote from the deranged conspiracy theory-addicted mechanic.
Just because they are safer than cigarettes doesn't make them a healthier alternative, [Stan Glantz, head of UCSF's Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education ] said.
Course not, Stan, that would be completely illogical!

Do check out the comments under the line, where many are punching the air in delight at the full force of the law being employed so they no longer have to very occasionally experience a faint odour. Harm, you say? Who cares? It's only ever been about odours, not health.

I suppose we should take it as a positive that the pretence has finally been dropped.


17 comments:

Dragonmum said...

More than a year ago I made a post on a forum that under the proposed legislation I could be sitting on the beach enjoying my harmless vape and a guy a few yards away could be enjoying his Golden Virginia rollie - "Guess which one of us will be arrested?" was the tag line. I was offered the tin-foil hat too!

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX The board will vote on it once more next week, .....

and it will become law in April XX

Nice to see democcracy in action.

nisakiman said...

San Francisco has been a zealot's haven for years. Nothing they do surprises me. With Emperor Glantz presiding over the mindless bigotry, it was inevitable that e-cigs would be banned.

Sam Duncan said...

They're in a hurry because they know that the longer they leave it the more people will realise they're lying. They have to capitalize on public ignorance and uncertainty now, before it's too late.

Ed of Ballsworth said...

I wrote off California and New York a long time ago. I just wish they would get it over with and declare permanent martial law and suspension of every right or privilege in those Progressive, Totalitarian Utopias...

Frank J said...

Very true. They're going as far as they can, as quickly as they can, even in this country, in case of a roll back.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I'm thinking of opening up a new tag entitled "we did warn you" as the predictions are coming true quite rapidly now.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Yup, getting the lies in to sway useful idiots before reason and debate obliterates their case. It's all in the template.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

This -> https://twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/446339176175509504

Notdunyet. said...

Its not the barmy political freaks we should worry about,it's the spineless,yellow streaked,white feathered,chicken livered,spittle licking,butt kissing,whimpering cowards who hide away like fumigated rodents and twitter their grief rather than muster and kick ass. No surprise with lack of guts when we look at the recent history of the USA, late arrival in WW1 (1917),half time show up in WW2 ( AFTER RUSSIA TOOK THE FLAK),did a runner in Vietnam,Iraq and now Afghanistan and now petrified of a Vaping Ban.

DP said...

Dear Mr Puddlecote

" ...to protect all members of the public from the secondhand aerosol emitted by the devices."

Does he mean kettles as well? Herbal teas?

When will he wake up and smell the coffee?

DP

Longrider said...

I noticed yesterday that First Great Western have imposed a ban on e-cigs on their trains and stations because the sight of someone using them might unsettle members of the public who might mistake them for cigarettes.

nisakiman said...

'The public' is obviously remarkably sensitive, that the sight of an e-cig in use should 'unsettle' them. One wonders how we ever managed to build an empire.

Longrider said...

They might get a fit of the vapours.

Perhaps said...

because the sight of someone using them might unsettle members of the public who might mistake them for cigarettes.


My e-cig looks NOTHING like a real cigarette, therefore I am NOT smoking.


Even the dumbest member of the public CAN tell the difference.


It is interesting, though, to discover HOW little credit the public is being given.....

Longrider said...

I know - but seriously, that is what the notice says, word for word. Apparently this nation also fought and won two world wars. I wonder how unsettling that was?

Falstaff's lot said...

Pity the poor landlords now facing an additional BAN to enforce
According to a survey of 274 professions and occupations ,released by the Government Cabinet Office (see BBC web page) VICARS enjoy no1 position
for happiness and JOB satisfaction
Pub Landlords and Managers....................No 274......BOTTOM OF LIST
hardly surprising as the vast majority of them (not all) have shown themselves to be nothing but a bunch of cringing ,pathetic fellow travellers when it came time to stand up to the Health Freaks. Stuff em let them keep their 1 penny
reducttion on a pint,