However, even I am astonished at how eager prohibitionist and statist groups are to destroy their façade of integrity.
The latest to expose themselves as a bunch of petty interfering tools is the TUC in updated advice given to their shop stewards.
The TUC strongly recommends that unions should ensure that electronic cigarettes are subject to the same restrictions in the workplace as tobacco. They should not be used in any indoor place. This is because the risk to others is unknown, but also because it can be confusing if people are seen to be smoking what can look like tobacco. This undermines the smoking ban.So, because the 'risk to others' of water vapour produced by safe propylene glycol, safe vegetable glycerine and safe flavourings reacting with heat is unknown, they should be banned? Is this some kind of never before encountered chemical alchemy they are promoting here?
And it looks like smoking so ban it anyway? Hmm, there was me thinking that the state only made the very reluctant decision to restrict freedoms and trample on property rights following overwhelming evidence of harm from undisputed studies by impartial scientists (yes, I am being sarcastic).
However employers and health campaigners may wish to promote the use of electronic cigarettes for existing smokers to help them give up, on the understanding that they only use them when they would normally smoke a cigarette and not anywhere that smoking is restricted.Oh, I see. So it's still OK to let the comrades use them, but only where they might as well have a fag anyway, even though there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever - nor will there ever be - that passive vapour is a thing. It's never been about health, has it?
Personally, I welcome this weapons grade idiocy in the wider scheme of things.
You see, we jewel robbers know very well that second hand smoke is hogwash created by a tobacco control industry from the Godber Blueprint, named after the man who ordered the junk science to be created in 1975.
Nowadays, it's difficult to convince others of this; they have been told over decades that passive smoke is dangerous and believe it. After all, why would the 'benevolent' state and 'experts' tell them lies, eh? You can point out that the science is bunkum and the 'experts' self-installed to provide the myth they have swallowed, but they're still sceptical and believe that they can smell it so it must be harmful. They s'pose.
But with e-cigs it's a different matter entirely. As a walking advert for them myself, even Puddlecote Inc's evangelist ex-smoker turned anti-smoker is thrilled with them. People are curious to start with; then interested in how they work; followed by impressed that innovation seems to be solving a perceived problem to the benefit of all concerned.
No smell, everyone is happy and the world is a better place. That is, until the tobacco control industry started pressuring institutions and legislators to begin banning their use. The general reaction is disbelief and often hilarity. How can they possibly ban that? It doesn't smell and it's a quite brilliant device if even Dick P is replacing tobacco with it during the day. How stupid must the people be who want it banned?
Of course, I usually just gently remind them that the whole second hand smoke scare was a scam all along and where before there was scepticism, they are now far more receptive to the idea. Even if these kneejerk e-cig bans are one day backed up by {cough} scientific studies, the public simply won't believe it - well, I expect some will but they'd be the Mary Whitehouse types who just don't like people - and in their quieter moments they'll question their previous beliefs about second hand smoke too.
So thank you TUC and every other misinformed statist and authoritarian body - public or private - which jumps to ban e-cigs. You're supplying ammunition for the likes of me to prove that it has never been about health.
What a tangled web we weave and all that.
