E-cigarettes have been banned on the entire public transport network in London, the Standard has learnt.
Passengers face fines for “vaping” on Tube, trains and buses as well as stations, platforms and depots.
Transport for London implemented the ban in late August without any public announcement to minimise the response from passengers.We all know who's responsible for this, of course. ASH and their smokefree coalition, whose scaremongering transformed a country in 2007 from one which was largely unconcerned with ambient smoke to one which now empowers a minority of precious lambs in society who see vapour and either believe that they are about to die horribly, or complain of feeling "uncomfortable".
In other news today, e-cigs are being partly blamed/credited for a drop in tobacco sales.
The global cigarette market is expected to shrink this year as more people quit smoking or switch to e-cigarettes and as a weak global economy curbs their ability to spend.This should surely be cause for Debs, Hazel or Amanda to pop down the Shoreditch Tesco Express for a bottle of bubbly, especially since they claim to be supportive of e-cigs. Yet I've often wondered why they sit idly by whilst bans on vaping like Transport for London's are spreading like wildfire.
Courtesy of the Sunday Times, we may have a clue.
THE estimated 2m people who use ecigarettes instead of tobacco face widespread bans on their use in coffee chains, shops and attractions.
Starbucks confirmed this weekend it has banned the use of ecigarettes in its outlets, joining rail firms and airlines that already prohibit vaping.
The announcement follows the publication of a report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in August that recommended that ecigarettes should not be used indoors. Critics said the report was flawed and misleading.
In addition to Starbucks, All Bar One, Caffe Nero, Pret A Manger, KFC and Nicholson’s pubs confirmed that they have banned ecigarettes.
The National Portrait Gallery, the Tate Gallery, the Royal Opera House and the Natural History Museum are among main attractions that also prohibit their use. Some hotels, including Claridge’s in London, have also introduced bans.Yes, and you can add all Premiership football grounds and Aviva Premiership rugby clubs to that as well -indoors and outdoors - as we see from the recent ASA consultation.
All of this activity and yet there is not a peep out of ASH. Neither do they stick their oar in at the Times, but the article does carry a graphic of polling performed by YouGov though.
I'm sorry, but I just don't believe those figures on e-cigs, since a similar BBC poll in an article in November last year entitled "Public 'seem to like' e-cigarettes" claimed "most support [e-cig] use in public places and don't want to see a ban".
But then, that was before all the negative publicity created by the World Health Organisation in August, and before this weekend's COP6 declaration that vape bans should be encouraged.
So we firstly have to look at the credibility of the pollsters. YouGov, of course, is ASH's pet as their President is Peter Kellner who also serves on ASH's board; has helped produce reports for them; and regularly displays his conflicts of interest. As far as I know, BBC Breakfast can't be accused of the same.
Unless Kellner has gone rogue, there is no chance whatsoever that ASH were not aware of this poll being sent to the Sunday Times, yet they didn't think it worthwhile to insist inclusion of a quote from them in support of e-cigs. Or perhaps they considered it but thought it more in their interests to support YouGov backing up their "delight" at the proposal for smoking bans in city parks. Priorities, eh?
Add into the mix that Deborah Arnott attended COP6 as a representative of the FCA; enthusiastically wrote some of their most vehement anti-smoking stuff, including threatening democratically-elected governments; but failed to speak out publicly against the FCTC's ludicrous recommendations towards e-cigs. Remember also that her organisation changed its terms of reference from controlling tobacco to controlling nicotine in 2010, and we get a full picture of what seems to be going on here.
ASH don't appear remotely concerned about vaping bans despite their public face of being a friend of the vaper. In fact they appear quite content to not rock the boat until the MHRA/TPD regulations are installed in 2016, and are complacent about COP6 recommendations rapidly resulting in wholesale restrictions on e-cigs for no justifiable reason.
It seems that ASH can issue press releases on a whim about all manner of irrelevant nonsense but remain consistently comfortable with disinformation and mounting e-cig bans which are - as the latest statistics prove - actively deterring people from switching from tobacco.
The silence is starting to become cacophonous.
