Thursday 11 December 2014

Anti-Vaping Lie Comprehensively Busted (Again) By The NHS

To begin with a parish notice, the tumbleweed blowing around this corner of the internet recently has mostly been a result of pressure of work. I'm still mired in submitting for new business while also suffering the added complication of a sustained period of unusually heavy staff shortages which is shoving me out on the road on a regular basis.

The effort is paying off though, as we celebrated the largest remittance advice in our history landing in the Puddlecote Inc mail yesterday with one of our clients having a pre-Christmas clearout and paying £212,000 in one hit! Oh how I wish I'd had a Tardis at hand to go back and wave the little slip of paper in the face of the mid-90s me to assure him that the 16 hour days are/were worth it.

Yesterday was also a good day for producing this.
E-cigarette use rare in non-smokers, NHS survey shows 
Just 3% of adults are using e-cigarettes but almost all are current smokers or those who had given up, according to a new NHS survey of people’s health and lifestyles. 
The disclosure further allays fears voiced by some doctors and health campaigners that “vaping” could attract non-smokers who then get hooked on traditional cigarettes containing nicotine. 
The Health Survey for England 2013 found that 3% of its 8,800 participants aged 16 and over were using the devices, which have become popular in recent years. Some 29% of smokers and 6% of those who had quit said that they had used an e-cigarette, whereas just 1% of people who had never smoked had done so. Few children have tried them, it found.
This is yet more overwhelming evidence - after studies by ASH, the smoking toolkit and others in the UK which match the global trend - which proves that any tobacco controller or politician talking about there being a 'gateway' into smoking with regard to e-cigs is clearly a blinkered fantasist, an inveterate liar, or quite simply ignorant.

There isn't even any evidence that vast numbers of never-smokers are taking up vaping, let alone the extra absurd leap of logic which is required to claim that these pretend people would then bin their cheap, multi-flavoured e-cigs and plump instead for vastly more expensive, one-flavoured tobacco.

What's most amusing though, is the reaction of commenters at the Guardian piece to this new study. Mentions of the Pope's religion and bears shitting in the woods are woven into the thread as a recurring theme. Most are more worried that the NHS budget has been used to discover something so patently obvious. For example.
thomasdavid10 December 2014 11:22pm 
Er...why would I want to use an E-Cigarette if I dont smoke "normal" cigarettes?
So not only is the contrary evidence for this daft theory overwhelming, but the public wouldn't have expected it to be any other way. As hard sells go, it's right up there with flogging a guard fox to a chicken farmer. Any tobacco control industry dinosaur who still thinks pumping the 'gateway' line is a winning strategy is either incredibly stupid or so in hock to their pharma buddies at cost to their professional integrity as to require psychiatric supervision.

They're a bit like the Black Knight in Monty Python and The Holy Grail; you cut their legs off, you ...




16 comments:

Neptune said...

I have no doubt that vaping will prove to be a gateway to smokng, starting as early as next year. When the Tobacco Products Directive becomes law, and all the devices that us happy vapers are using are banned, we shall have no option but to start smoking again.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I get your point, and agree about the stupidity of the TPD. But that would be political ineptitude, not vaping, as a gateway to smoking.

woodsy42 said...

Sadly all they have to do is persuade some gullible politicians. Doesn't matter what the truth is the politicians will take action for the sake of the children.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

That's usually the case, but the evidence is so one-sided in this case that any politician doing so could be publicly labelled as a dunce without fear of contradiction. ;)

jude said...

I think its more likely that vapers will simply make better use of the black market, just as smokers have in Australia, with the added bonus that silly politicians believe those silly tobacco control lunatics, when they say that the "black market for tobacco" doesn't exist, or is so small as to be insignificant.

Norbert Zillatron said...

These surveys confirm what common sense tells you: Gate? No Way!

Sam Duncan said...

Your apology does you credit as a businessman, Dick, but seriously, one post a week of this quality beats most blogs hollow. Don't worry about it.


I honestly thought there'd be more takeup of e-cigs among non-smokers myself, but the idea that they'd then go on to real fags is bizarre. And someone should tell Chapman that we don't live in Poland.

JonathanBagley said...

If they try hard enough, vaping will be "proved" to be a gateway to smoking. A large number of teenagers will try vaping before they try smoking - easier to get hold of and parents won't smell it on their breath and clothes. These individuals would have eventually tried smoking had vaping not existed. A genuine gateway effect is implausible. Why switch from a harmless habit, which is not regulated, to a risky habit with similar effects, costing ten times as much, typically £50 a week, and banned in all non residential buildings?

JonathanBagley said...

I thought more takeup among ex smokers. Many of admit they'd love a cigarette but know they mustn't.

Dragonmum said...

But they really don't care as long as the kick-backs keep rolling in and the future promises a lucrative seat on some board or another. We should be thinking in terms of a vapers underground railway!

Dick_Puddlecote said...

You're very kind. :)

jude said...

If vaping had been around when I started smoking, I would definitely have tried it, and probably never would have taken up tobacco smoking. Being a nerd, (then and now), it was never about rebellion for me, I enjoyed nicotine then, and now, and enjoyed the actions of smoking as well, I found it calming, and a great way to escape from social situations that were boring, or irritating. Vaping ticks all the boxes for me.


I still like to hang out with the smokers, and now vapers, because in most social gatherings its the smokers and vapers who are the most interesting people, with the best conversation. Who wants to be stuck in a room with a bunch of pinch mouthed puritans who are scared of a bit of smoke or vapour, not me. Their bans and restrictions, based on their beliefs, (noticed I use the word beliefs because it certainly isn't based on evidence), have destroyed the pubs, the cafes, and just about anywhere else that used to be fun to visit.


Being a bit bolshy, I love being able to know that I'm not giving my hard earned cash to the government for their "sin" taxes, although I expect they will try and extract more by taxing vaping, oh well, I guess I'll be heading for a life of crime as I'll be utilising the black market that will be the inevitable result of bans or pseudo bans. I am sure I'll be in good company though :)

truckerlyn said...

Not exactly difficult to label most politicians as dunces, even without this issue! After all, they are all wrapped up in their own little well off bubble and can't see anything beyond the end of their noses - especially not the truth!

truckerlyn said...

"And someone should tell Chapman that we don't live in Poland."


Sometimes I am not so sure as I can go days when I only hear Polish being spoken, except when I am at home for a few hours kip! Even then it seem to invade my dreams - lol!

truckerlyn said...

Trouble is that vaping is also banned in many of the places that smoking is! Therefore, if any vaper did take up smoking it would probably be because they are shoved outside with us smokers!

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