Its 'research' is always almost exclusively policy-based garbage (see here and here for recent examples) which is hardly surprising considering the editorial board comprises a global who's who of tobacco control industry junk 'scientists'. However, an item in their July 2015 rag lowers that bar by some margin.
Four of the tobacco control field's finest
It was an interesting survey of e-cig prevalence in airports and planes, though, except that it was then followed by conclusions which had nothing whatsoever to do with the research!
"Allowing e-cigarette use in smoke-free places undermines the denormalisation of cigarette smoking ..."No it doesn't. If anything it normalises vaping instead of smoking.
"... particularly with respect to the milestone ban on in-flight smoking that flight attendant unions and smoke-free advocates fought incredibly hard to pass."They could make this claim if they had studied prevalence of smoking on planes and concluded it is increasing. But they didn't, and it isn't. E-cigs have made absolutely no difference.
"The use of e-cigarettes in air transit—both on aeroplanes and in airports—must be addressed in the current policy and regulatory deliberations in the US and around the world."Erm, why? Because some flight attendants saw them being used? Seriously, this is the level of execrable junk Tobacco Control publishes!
"Given the growing evidence around passive vaping and air quality associated with e-cigarette use ..."Yes, they are actually trying to pretend that passive vaping is a thing. Growing evidence? No, the fantasy concept is swiftly and effortlessly debunked every time some lying crank tries to suggest it is a threat.
"... banning e-cigarettes on aeroplanes and in airports is a needed step-forward for the protection of both passengers and crew."We are so far down the rabbit hole here, aren't we? Vaping must be banned because some flight attendants saw it going on, so their eyes must be protected from being sprained at the sight. Well, I can only assume that's what they mean because no credible study has ever concluded that there is even a hint of harm to bystanders from e-cig vapour in any concentration.
In short, this absurd article could have saved a lot of words (and a lot of taxpayers' money) by just saying "we don't like e-cigs because they look a little bit like smoking". That's it, they have nothing else.
We know very well that this is why tobacco controllers hate e-cigs because this cartoon in the same Tobacco Control edition illustrates it perfectly.
Michael Siegel described the revealed attitudes of this cartoon very well today.
Sadly, this is an accurate reflection of how so many tobacco control groups and advocates see vapers. While the nicotine patch is an acceptable way to quit smoking, the e-cigarette is not. Why? For one reason: it looks like smoking. And smoking is idiotic. And people who smoke are therefore idiots. Apparently, smokers who sincerely try to quit smoking using e-cigarettes are even worse idiots because they aren't even really smoking.
While that logic might sound stupid, it is precisely the thinking that characterizes the bulk of the "anti-smoking" movement today. That Tobacco Control saw fit to publish this cartoon demonstrates that they apparently see things in this way.Well, with Simple Simon and Mad Stan on their editorial board, why would they not publish it?
The fact is that, yet again, e-cigs are showing up the tobacco control movement for what it has always been. A spiteful, intolerant crusade against the choices of others, captained by cranks, shills, vile bullies and arrogant crooks.
They have never cared about health, they just make up any old crap because they don't like smoking. It's perfectly natural that they are now turning their pathetically inept guns on e-cigs, because they also don't like anything that looks like smoking.
The Tobacco Control Journal is not science, it is merely moral ranting, and only marginally more sophisticated than the demented craziness which emanated from certifiably insane puritan mouth-frothers in 19th century Britain and 1920s USA.
So next time you hear about someone being described as a tobacco control 'expert', remember the flight attendants 'study' above. Because, that being the standard of transparent bullshit their bible publishes, they're no more an expert than you or I.
23 comments:
Nicely stated.
Knowing they hate how it looks is why I have been railing(semi quietly) against cloud chasing(at least in public and in the media)because it can look 10 to 100 times as smokey to the uninformed.
I'm at a loss for words, it all seems surreal to me.
...,
Think they're collectively losing their marbles, meself, perhaps that's why they want smoking banned in mental health institutions. ;)
An excellent post Dick, up until you wrote: "They have never cared about health, they just make up any old crap because they don't like smoking."
The old campaigns to stop cigarette marketing to youth, enact smokefree policies in workplaces and reduce cigarette consumption were primarily led by people who truly cared about health.
Unfortunately, during the past 15-20 years, crazy tobacco prohibitionist (who campaigned to ban the lowest risk tobacco/nicotine products, which protected cigarette markets) were given enormous amounts of money by Big Pharma, then Big Government and subsequently Michael Bloomberg & Bill Gates to promote their crazy prohibitionist policies.
During that time, Simon Chapman replaced Ron Davis as editor at Tobacco Control, which resulted in that rag becoming the leading propaganda mouthpiece for the crazy tobacco prohibitionists (and its even worse since Chapman was replaced as editor by Ruth Malone).
Those extremists (with their hundreds of millions of dollars) turned our former public health movement into the quasi religion of tobacco control (where they perceived themselves as God's Angels fighting against the Devil (i.e. Big Tobacco) to save the souls of all tobacco using Sinners).
Meanwhile, many of the leading advocates for smokefree workplace policies, ending cigarette marketing to youth, and increasing cigarette taxes during the 1980's and 1990's became tobacco harm reduction advocates
(i.e. Dave Sweanor, Lynn Kozlowski, Clive Bates, Murray Laugesen, Mike Siegel, Joel Nitzkin, me) who have been opposing the anti THR policies being lobbied for by the crazy tobacco prohibitionists.
Great you popped by, Bill, and thanks for the insight.
If by smokefree policies in workplaces you mean sensible ones which separated those who didn't wish to smell smoke from those who didn't think it a problem, I can agree with every word. I'm afraid I can't ever agree, though, with 100% smoking bans when there are clearly options to keep everyone happy and maximise support for tobacco control policies. Choice has to come into the equation somewhere or else it's just bullying.
An interesting study on second hand smoke disputes the basis for airline smoking bans: Mortality from Cancer and Other Causes among Airline Cabin Attendants in Germany, 1960-1997," American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 156, No. 6, which states on p. 564,
"We found a rather remarkably low SMR [Standardized Mortality Ratio] for lung cancer among female cabin attendants and no increase for male cabin attendants, indicating that smoking and exposure to passive smoking may not play an important role in mortality in this group. Smoking during airplane flights was permitted in Germany until the mid-1990s, and smoking is still not banned on all charter flights."
2.
Godshall is a misocapnist; he utterly hates smoke/smoking/smokers, which I’ll come to in a moment. When Bill refers to "tobacco prohibitionists" in derogatory terms, he’s referring to those who would ban products such as snus. As far as Bill is concerned, the only “sinners” amongst tobacco users are cigarette smokers.
An article, from early last year:
Let's Talk About Rape And Smoking
Raping involves inserting something inside another person's body against his or her will. It often involves being inseminated with semen. Passive smoking against one's will involves a similar process.
http://urbantimes.co/2014/02/lets-talk-about-rape-and-smoking/
BTW The article was written by a man.
So being exposed to ambient tobacco smoke is “like” being raped, according to this antismoking nut case. But it’s not new in the realm of perverse ideas. In fact, Bill Godshall floated the same idea in 2006 in an email exchange:
http://www.theagitator.com/2006/01/19/smoking---worse-than-rape-terrorism-and-attempted-murder-combined/
Some excerpts:
Godshall: Your op/ed failed to mention lots of other freedom hating
laws that infringe upon people’s self perceived rights to urinate, defacate,
spit, fornicate, assault others, shot guns, blow up bombs, etc. in public.
Just as you think it should be a right to force carcinogenic tobacco smoke into other people’s lungs, other people also think its their right to force a part of their body into another part of someone else’s body. But rape was also outlawed.
………
Forcing anything (especially something that increases risks for cancer, heart disease, asthma and other illnesses) into someone else’s body without the consent of the affected person is not just disrespectful and uncivilized, its grounds for charges of assault or attempted murder. You should be pleased that public health advocates have proposed more lenient charges for those who force cigarette smoke into other people’s lungs.
Godshall was asked on Siegel’s blog in 2013 if he still held this view. Bill declined to respond. On Siegel’s blog, Bill also made the claim that smokers’ breath is “toxic” for many hours after smoking a cigarette - a la Chuck Crawford of Kimball Physics. He was corrected at the time that such a belief is delusional, with evidence. Shortly after he was asked on Siegel’s blog if he still held this view. Bill declined to respond.
Bill has another opportunity to respond now.
Check out how Crawford refers to tobacco users:
We would not allow a tobacco user to come into our
house. My wife would have my head if I did.
It’s how someone from the Ku Klux Klan would refer to an
African-American: “We would not allow a n*gger to come into our house. My wife would have my head if I did”. The idea is that these "inferior" people are not fit to enter my house.
Crawford is on the Board of Trustees of the American “Action on Smoking and Health”. In antismoking are there some seriously disturbed minds and Crawford is right up there as extraordinarily neurotic and bigoted. In Tobacco Control circles Crawford is considered a hero. Says it all.
Chuck Crawford, the fear and hate-monger in question.
Nicely said.
the joke in that cartoon of theirs isn't even original - heard it before somewhere.
I've started ignoring their crap a while ago. Used to be amusing to see the junk they try and pass off as science - now it's just sad and stupid.
The main reason smoking was banned on aircraft was to save money! The air filtration system was their route to this saving. By reducing the density of the filters which were excellent at filtering tobacco smoke and viruses, they could save a huge amount. It is also the reason why nowadays we are more likely to catch colds and other viruses on a flight than we would have done prior to the ban on smoking in aircraft.
Yet again, NOTHING to do with HEALTH - in this case it was purely financial on the part of the majority of airlines which also turned out to be not so good for health due to the cheaper, less effective filters.
So every person who drives or rides in a motor vehicle of any kind could also be deemed to be guilty of assault or even murder! After all, the toxic fumes from motor vehicles are far more prolific and dense than any amount of SHS could ever be, unless you live in the middle of nowhere and have a horse and cart for transport!
Looks like he should be taken to task by the Anti Fat Brigade!
As vaping cannot practically be banned - it is not sufficiently visible or detectable, they are aiming to ban the devices and liquid from airports and aeroplanes. I think batteries are already banned from hold luggage, so all they need to do is get a ban on ecigs and liquid in hand luggage. The way things are going, this could happen. The smoking ban started on short haul flights in the USA and spread round the world, starting from flights into the USA. Airports won't want to bother about who is flying where and so will ban ecigs and liquids from all flights.
It looks as if we are in a golden vacation window. Ingesting nicotine in a relaxed fashion. Make the most of it while it lasts. If you, for some unfathomable reason, want to visit Australia, do it now.
Nice pair of boobs, he's got!
It also saved on turnaround time, as the cleaners no longer had to extract the ashtrays from the armrests, empty them and clean them.
But yes, the airlines jumped on the 'non-smoking flights' idea because it saved them money.
Although the risks of exposure to tobacco smoke pollution have been exaggerated (e.g. for lung cancer, heart attacks) by some of the same extremists who misrepresent the risks of vaping, there is sound and consistent evidence that exposures to tobacco smoke pollution pose many different health risks to nonsmokers (as well as to smokers).
Another reason (in addition to the scientific and empirical evidence) I began campaigning for smokefree workplace policies and laws in 1986 was because I get incapacitating headaches whenever I'm exposed to tobacco smoke, and because I couldn't go into most buildings (because they were contaminated with tobacco smoke) without getting sick.
Besides, people have a right to not be harmed (by the actions of others). Smokefree policies and laws for indoor workplaces and public places protect everyone's freedom to breathe and freedom to not be harmed by smoke.
The anonymous poster above grossly misrepresents the views and statements of both Mike Siegel and me. And the weblink to my ACSH article is no longer valid, but I stand by my statements.
A more accurate portrayal of history is that the large US tobacco companies stopped misrepresenting the scientific evidence on cigarette risks and stopped marketing cigarettes to youth when they agreed to the 1997 so-called Global Tobacco Settlement, and the subsequent 1998 Master Settlement Agreement.
Since then, the anti tobacco extremists have been misrepresenting lots of scientific and empirical evidence on smokeless tobacco, nicotine, 2nd & 3rd hand smoke, snus, dissolvables, e-cigarettes, tobacco advertising and marketing, movies with smoking scenes, etc.
Perhaps anonymous can point to any law (or legal theory) that allows someone (or groups of people) to involuntarily force something harmful into another human being (without that person's consent).
Real libertarians understand that people have a human right to not be harmed by the actions of others.
With all due respect, Bill, there’s a critical problem with what you’ve just said. As is the case with antismokers, they typically disregard their own involvement in their problem.
I can accept that there are some, a very, very small group – a rarity, that cannot handle smoke given their physical constitution. But that’s where their problem is – with their physical constitution. Most people, a normative range, have no problem with smoke. They don’t get headaches or anything else. So it’s you who is carrying some abnormality. Your system can’t do what a normally functioning system can do. And that’s if your problem is solely physical. But, you’ll note that you depict your headaches as “caused” by smoke as if this a general propensity of smoke. It’s not. It’s your system that’s the problem.
A few decades of antismoking hysteria promoted as “science” has opened another Pandora’s Box of psychosomatic problems, an issue of mental health. Given that there’s a gullible portion of the population that absorbs the inflammatory propaganda, they are now suffering anxiety disorders, hypochondria, somatization. There are now those that walk about with hand cupped over mouth fearing that a whiff of smoke will drop them dead on the spot. There are others that believe that they’re “allergic” to tobacco smoke. Yet there are no allergens (proteins) in tobacco smoke to be allergic to. People waving their hands, hand cupped over mouth, “oh I can’t handle the smoke”, etc, were unheard of a few decades ago. It’s a recent phenomenon that’s been produced by the nut cases of Public Health.
We have people that have no problem sitting at a restaurant dining table with lit candles atop. They have no problem sitting next to an open indoor fire place. They have no problem with the smoke coming from the restaurant kitchen. Yet if someone lights a cigarette, in come the headache, the sweats, and the histrionics. That sounds like an anxiety disorder where they’ve come to believe that cigarette smoke is incredibly different to other forms of typically encountered smoke and aligned with fear.
People with anxiety disorders experience actual physical symptoms such as headache, dizziness, chest palpitations, dry throat, nausea. But these physical symptoms are psychogenic, i.e., they are psychologically mediated, usually through irrational belief. So someone who’s been manipulated into capnophobia (smokephobia) around smoke will start sweating, feel nausea, etc, and they’re convinced that it’s being caused by the smoke. It isn’t. It’s
being caused by their irrational beliefs about smoke that have been fostered by State-sponsored prohibitionists posing as “health advocates”.
So, my conclusion would be that most people that have problems with smoke have a psychological issue(s). It’s something that such people don’t like hearing because they usually haven’t spent too much time examining and scrutinizing what goes on in their minds and especially when the disorder is depicted as normal. To such people I’d say it’s time to look within. Let go of anger; let go of condemning thoughts; let go of obsessions with control; let go of attack thoughts. That‘s a start. It takes some work
particularly when we’ve never applied ourselves to the task. Clear your mind of the clutter and fear (and the physical symptoms of fear) typically drops away
as well.
With all due respect, Bill, there’s a critical problem with what you’ve just said. As is the case with antismokers, they typically disregard their own involvement in their problem. They attempt to explain things only in terms of externalities.
I can accept that there are some, a very, very small group –
a rarity, that cannot handle smoke given their physical constitution. But that’s where their problem is – with their physical constitution. Most people, a normative range, have no problem with smoke. They don’t get headaches or
anything else. So it’s you who is carrying some abnormality. Your system can’t do what a normally functioning system can do. And that’s if your problem is solely physical. But, you’ll note that you depict your headaches as “caused” by smoke as if this a general propensity of smoke. It’s not. It’s your system that’s the problem.
A few decades of antismoking hysteria promoted as “science” has opened another Pandora’s Box of psychosomatic problems, an issue of mental health. Given that there’s a gullible portion of the population that absorbs
the inflammatory propaganda, they are now suffering anxiety disorders, hypochondria, somatization. There are now those that walk about with hand cupped over mouth fearing that a whiff of smoke will drop them dead on the spot. There are others that believe that they’re “allergic” to tobacco smoke. Yet there are no allergens (proteins) in tobacco smoke to be allergic to. People waving their hands, hand cupped over mouth, “oh I can’t handle the smoke”, etc,
were unheard of a few decades ago. It’s a recent phenomenon that’s been produced by the nut cases of Public Health.
We have people that have no problem sitting at a restaurant
dining table with lit candles atop. They have no problem sitting next to an open indoor fire place. They have no problem with the smoke coming from the restaurant kitchen. Yet if someone lights a cigarette, in come the headache,
the sweats, and the histrionics. That sounds like an anxiety disorder where they’ve come to believe that cigarette smoke is incredibly different to other forms of typically encountered smoke and aligned with fear.
People with anxiety disorders experience actual physical
symptoms such as headache, dizziness, chest palpitations, dry throat, nausea. But these physical symptoms are psychogenic, i.e., they are psychologically mediated, usually through irrational belief. So someone who’s been manipulated into capnophobia (smokephobia) around smoke will start sweating, feel nausea, etc, and they’re convinced that it’s being caused by the smoke. It isn’t. It’s
being caused by their irrational beliefs about smoke that have been fostered by State-sponsored prohibitionists posing as “health advocates”.
So, my conclusion would be that most people that have
problems with smoke have a psychological issue(s). It’s something that such people don’t like hearing because they usually haven’t spent too much time examining and scrutinizing what goes on in their minds and especially when the disorder is depicted as normal. To such people I’d say it’s time to look within. Let go of anger; let go of condemning thoughts; let go of obsessions with control; let go of attack thoughts. That‘s a start. It takes some work particularly when we’ve never applied ourselves to the task. Clear your mind of the clutter and fear (and the physical symptoms of fear) typically drops away as well.
“Perhaps anonymous..”
Bill, you can call me What.
So you stand by your rape claims?
Bill, please note my comments above. A friendly suggestion.
Why not look into psychology. It could be an avenue to some inner peace.
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