E-Cigs, ASH And London Hospital Bans

Last week some brain donors at Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals in London were enthusiastically tweeting their shiny new piece of totalitarian scumbaggery.

Smoking & e-cigarettes won't be permitted anywhere on our hospital & community grounds as we go smoke-free on Friday pic.twitter.com/og89waiUrv

— Guy's and St Thomas' (@GSTTnhs) June 17, 2015

Those welfare-scrounging shitgoblins at ASH were very pleased to publicise this, of course.

Yes, that's the 'vaper's friend', ASH, gleefully telling the world about how vapers are to be told to get orff the land they have paid taxes to build, maintain and run, by people whose salaries they fund. Along with the smokers who have already been deemed sub-human by repulsive ASH-driven policies.

Now, I'm sure someone will point out that ASH were being paged by Guy's and St Thomas' and just retweeted when they saw "smokefree" - because they're customarily gleeful when it is smokers being kicked off the premises - and that it doesn't reflect their true thoughts on the matter.

Well, firstly, why is the government giving them our cash if they are so fucking shit at doing basic research? You may think that churlish, but considering most bans these days also tend to include e-cigs did it not cross their nasty vindictive minds that vaping might be included? Didn't they think to check, or could they just not care less?

Y'see, if they had looked into it further, they would have read the new policy at Guy's and St Thomas' which has this to say as justification for e-cigs being included.

11.1 E-cigarettes are included in the Smoke-Free Policy and their use is not permitted in Trust premises or grounds. While there is some evidence that they may support smoking cessation, they are currently not regulated as a tobacco product or as a medicine in the UK. 

Translation: E-cigs are all around us here in London, and we see people not smoking every day because of them, but we are so crassly ignorant that we will ban them until some overpaid public sector desk-monkey can grind their way through the snail-like morass of self-serving, intransigent, civil service psychobabble and actually do something useful. Spending public money is our game and we will discard sense and reason in favour of supporting anyone else who is employed in the same economy-draining scam. Screw health, who really cares anyway?

What's more ...

11.2 Staff must ensure that any patient bringing an e-cigarette into the hospital is offered approved nicotine replacement therapy as per Trust NRT withdrawal protocols. 

Brilliant! I see you're using something that works. I'm afraid you're not allowed that though, I insist you have some of this expensive state-funded Pharma tat that is completely useless instead.

It's even more astonishing when you factor in that the St Guy's and St Thomas' policy authors have purposely ignored advice which doesn't agree with their all-out ban. For example, they cite this Royal College of Physicians (RCP) statement which is ambiguous about vaping, while ignoring this more forthright RCP opinion.

Health professionals should embrace this potential by encouraging smokers, particularly those disinclined to use licensed nicotine replacement therapies, to try them, and, when possible, to do so in conjunction with existing NHS smoking cessation and harm reduction support. E-cigarettes will save lives, and we should support their use.

I think that's pretty clear. It tends to suggest that the RCP do not advocate banning e-cigs and offering anyone using one a fucking patch instead!

Still, I'm sure the 'vaper's friend' will be behind the scenes working hard to get this ban lifted. Won't they? Well actually, no. We know this because Guy's and St Thomas' also cite ASH as support for their policy, specifically this document, which states.

"ASH has worked with the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and the Trading Standards Institute to produce guidance for organisations considering whether or not to ban the use of electronic cigarettes on their premises. This provides a structure for thinking through the issues but leaves it to organisations to develop their own approach informed by the evidence."

They could have said something like "there is no justification whatsoever for banning e-cigs unless you're an authoritarian cockmuppet" but instead ASH - as usual - merely issue a few limp, fence-sitting platitudes when talking about e-cigs, which effectively tell Guy's and St Thomas' to carry on Doctor, ban 'em if you like, we really couldn't give a toss.

For the avoidance of doubt, it's worth remembering that every vaping ban - and I do mean every one - is directly as a result of 'passive smoking' hysteria and junk science promoted by ASH for the pure purpose of increasing their own bank balances. They and their fellow tobacco control industry grifters often talk about 'evidence-based policy' but there has never been even any junk evidence that smoking outdoors is dangerous, yet ASH support outdoor bans. As for e-cigs, there is not even evidence of harm to the user themselves, but the foundations were laid for anyone to complain about just about anyone else thanks to ASH's hideous and fundamentally anti-social smoking ban. In an ideal world, ASH wouldn't be schmoozing vapers and pretending they are on the side of the angels, they would instead be on their knees whenever they meet a vaper, apologising profusely for their stupidity and kissing anything that remotely looks like an arse.

Sadly, the upshot of the St Guy's and St Thomas' health-irrelevant policy is that we are left with yet another pointless, illiberal, and ludicrous ban based on not even a scintilla of harm to anyone. The culture of 'public health' fascism writ large.

They make my skin crawl, all of them.