Welsh Labour: So Dense They Could Bend Light

I have maintained for nearly six years now that e-cigs have the potential to show the tobacco control crusade up for the lucrative snake oil vending machine that it is, but even I didn't envisage them to cause dull-witted anti-smoking politicians to jump the shark in spectacular fashion.

Via Wales's Daily Post.

Using e-cigarette while working from home could land you in court 

People who work from home could soon be breaking the law if they use an e-cigarette while in their own house.

With the UK government's public health body reporting that passive vaping (ha!) poses "no concerns" and contains "negligible levels" of nicotine - about the only substance which could be classed as even remotely worrying - here we have Welsh Labour actually making it illegal to use them. In your own home. Alone.

Have I ever mentioned that it's never been about health with the ban brigade?

‘Vaping’ while working in your lounge or bedroom outside of nine-to-five hours could result in a fine if a radical bill is passed – and it will also apply to priests and vicars in their official residences.

Remember they said it was about protecting bar staff from 'proven' dangers of secondhand smoke? Yeah, course it was. Here we are with a law banning something that isn't dangerous, to protect no-one because no-one else is present. Of course, the tobacco control industry doesn't like e-cigs because they look like smoking and, you know, kids might see (this is where you put on a shocked face), but a vaper, on their own, in their own home, isn't even seen by anyone. But it will still be against the law and a fine is technically chargeable.

Will that be enforceable? Of course not! It's a complete and utter waste of everyone's time and of taxpayers' money.

Prof Drakeford has set out a series of scenarios where a court could decide you are breaking the law in your own home. 

1) A member of the clergy working from home, working ‘indefinable’ hours given the nature of the work, would not be able to vape in the room they are working. 

2) If you work from home between 9-5pm and take a work call in your lounge at 8pm or check emails every 15 minutes your lounge could be classed as a workplace – so the ban would apply. 

3) If your workplace is a studio flat you won’t be able to ‘vape’ at all in your home during working hours.

Barking lunacy! And these people administer billions of pounds of public services, how secure does that make you feel if you live in Wales?

OK, let's just imagine that this policy isn't being tabled by a jelly-arsed fuckstick with the mental capacity of a flagstone; that it is not weapons grade retarded dribble; and instead take the sanction through an audit.

You're a vaper who works from home somewhere in Swansea, but it's out of office hours and you're watching the TV while using an iStick. Your smartphone buzzes and it's a work-related email so you reply to it. But, sadly for you, there is a gap in your curtains and an environmental health officer from the local council - because it is they who enforce smoking bans - is on a stakeout at 9pm (because council workers always, but always, work outside of office hours on their own initiative) and sees you doing it (after, of course, knowing that it was a work-related email on your phone not something else). You're slapped with a fine but refuse to pay it, right up to the point that they threaten you with jail for non-payment of fines.

So off you jolly well toddle to clink, only to find that it's perfectly acceptable to use an e-cig there ... because the government is selling the bloody things!

Now, politicians sometimes bemoan why the public has such a low opinion of them. I can't fucking think for the life of me why, can you?

Good grief!