A Glimpse Through The Blackout Curtain

This week is proving to be a defining one for the tobacco control industry. They appear to have taken a decision to go all out and prove me right in saying that their motivation has nothing whatsoever to do with health.

First we had proven liar and debate-phobic Lord Narzi proposing an evidence-free policy which is solely designed to bully smokers and incubate hatred towards them, now it seems the WHO are going down the same route with e-cigs.

Snowdon explains.

Apologies for the poor quality of the image. You can click to enlarge, but this is what it says (all strikes and underlines are in the original. ENDs are 'Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems', a daft term that only 'public health' people use for e-cigarettes):

(b) minimize as far as possible potential health risks to ENDS users and protecting non-users from exposure to their emissions;

3. The Parties are invited to consider banning or regulating ENDS including as tobacco products, medicinal products or consumer products [or other categories as appropriate] taking into account a high level of protection for human health with special attention to vulnerable groups such as pregnant women.

Urges Parties to consider banning or restricting advertising, promotion and sponsorship of ENDs.

Again, there is no credible evidence anywhere that e-cigs are harmful to bystanders, nor will there ever be. Likewise, there is no credible evidence or reasonable justification for banning e-cigs - in fact, the research so far conducted points in entirely the opposite direction. None of this puts off the COP6 movers and shakers though because, between the 24 of them, they trousered over $10 million in the past two years ... tax free (page 19).

This is just how tobacco control rolls. They increasingly don't deal in proper evidence and facts, just whatever affords them the greatest income. They don't care that outdoor smoking bans will have no positive effect on public health - they know that they won't - they just care that they have to be seen doing something or their funding gets canned.

With the WHO and e-cigs it is even more damning. They couldn't give a monkey's chuff if all the former smokers who have quit using e-cigs revert to tobacco, they merely see smokers quitting without their "help" as a danger to their future prosperity.

So they do what tobacco control has always done; simply repeat lies over and over until the shallow and ignorant in governments believe it's real. They are the adult equivalent of a kid throwing itself on a supermarket floor in tantrum and screaming until they get what they want.

I don't have intricate knowledge of the many deranged tobacco-hating delegations to this shameful gathering in Putin's backyard, but I can certainly comment on our own.

It's interesting to note that ASH (who helped Narzi to lie in 2009 remember?) went out of their way to say how "delighted" they were yesterday about a policy deliberately designed to attack smokers - which they should be appalled by considering their website claims they don't do such things - yet they've been silent on this issue today despite recently positioning themselves as the vaper's friend.

They regularly say bugger all about the rising tide of e-cig bans all over the country, let alone challenge the organisations proposing them or - God forbid - actively throw their weight behind vapers to get the bans rescinded. Today, their staff are in Moscow while this dangerous buffoonery is being played out but - since the public and press have been barred - we don't have a clue what ASH delegates said about it. They could have been nodding it all through enthusiastically and we'd be none the wiser - how convenient, eh?

So perhaps Debs Arnott holds no sway whatsoever with the FCTC; perhaps she has been overruled by the Department of Health's Andrew Black; or perhaps she's not really that bothered if laws start springing up all over the place banning or stupidly regulating e-cigs. The silence from Moscow and on ASH's media timelines certainly don't suggest her organisation is spitting blood about the FCTC putting forward such nonsensical proposals, does it?

If the final edit comes out anywhere close to what the picture above suggests, my guess is that ASH will say something along the lines of "well, we tried, but there was nothing we could do" ... and then just carry on as usual while vaping is systematically strangled. No big fuss, no stepping out of line and risking a customary tobacco control Mafia blackballing. Just sitting back taking the cash and hoping no-one will give them too much grief.

All just supposition until refuted (ha!) but I'll finish by just leaving this here.