The FDA Blatantly Hands E-Cig Market To Big Pharma

Around about this time last year, the FDA's Scott Gottlieb made a public statement about e-cigs that many vapers thought was a new dawn in how reduced risk products would be treated in the US.

You may remember that I thought it was just a cleverly-worded hill of beans.

The FDA's announcement relents on some e-cig rules but only on the proviso that it might make vaping more attractive to smokers who will be deprived, by force, of nicotine from their combustible cigarettes. That is nothing more than vile coercion and should have no place in a land that claims to be free.  

I cannot possibly cheer the FDA's overall plan and I don't think there is anything particularly concrete to be happy about yet anyway. Smokers are being thrown under a bus but apart from that everything else is up in the air and subject to change.

Despite many vapers rejoicing at this "huge" announcement, and describing it as "momentous",  a "reprieve", with some even saying they had "every confidence" in Gottlieb, it stunk to high heaven in my book. The emphasis seemed to be more on pointlessly reducing nicotine in regular cigarettes rather than promoting e-cigs.

Nothing I've seen since has made me think that the FDA has any intention of taking harm reduction seriously as a policy to encourage smokers to quit. In fact, the evidence is all pointing in the opposite direction.

The FDA is incredibly slow in regulating #ecigs but lightning quick on advocating low nic cigarettes based on poor evidence. Hate to say I predicted this carve-up, but I did https://t.co/q1Nd0cfWKC

— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) July 10, 2018

However, the whole thing has since taken an even more sinister tone with the release of another Gottlieb FDA press announcement on Friday.

Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., on new steps the agency is taking to support the development of novel nicotine replacement drug therapies to help smokers quit cigarettes

"Novel nicotine replacement drug therapies"? Is he talking about e-cigs here? Well, yes he is.

We’re working on multiple fronts to recognize the role that more novel forms of nicotine delivery could play in achieving our public health goals, as part of an appropriately regulated marketplace. This not only includes encouraging innovation of potentially less harmful tobacco products for those adults who still seek to use nicotine (such as e-cigarettes), but also taking a closer look at our overall approach to the development and regulation of NRT products that are regulated as drugs, and designed to safely reduce withdrawal symptoms, including nicotine craving, associated with quitting smoking. 

The development of novel NRT products, regulated as new drugs, is a critical part of our overall strategy on nicotine.

I added the emphasis because it's quite clear he is not talking about a free market in e-cigs sold from vape shops.

Instead, he has issued some guidance on how to get e-cigs approved by the FDA (emphasis again mine).

This draft guidance, when finalized, is aimed at providing sponsors with recommendations on the nonclinical information appropriate to support development and approval of orally inhaled nicotine-containing drug products. It recognizes that a great deal of toxicity information is available for nicotine. But such information may not be available for other compounds contained in e-liquids and delivered by these products. These include the flavorings and heat-generated chemicals. These products can be used for six months or more over the course of a lifetime. So, it’s important to understand the risks to humans from these exposures, including developmental and reproductive toxicity and carcinogenicity.

Drug products? Six months over a lifetime? I've been using my non-drug e-cigs for about 8 years.

But then when you look at the guidance, it is quite clearly intended for a different subset of businesses than those which currently provide e-cigs for the US market.

It is guidance for a therapeutic product and nothing more. Such a product doesn't currently exist and any company which decided to have a go at it would have to have millions of dollars to spare. It is designed in a way that pharmaceutical companies would understand because it is a route to a pharmaceutical, or 'medicinal', e-cig. This would likely take the form of some ridiculously safe and bland cigalike which is so far removed from the products which are finding favour with smokers and driving the lowest smoking prevalence figures in US history, that it will be practically useless.

OK, it's fair to say that tobacco companies have the resources to throw huge amounts of money at getting a product of this type approved, but it will still be a therapeutic, medicalised e-cig designed for complete nicotine cessation, so it barely matters who manufactures it.

Gottlieb’s approach is cigarettes stripped of nicotine coupled with medicalisation of e-cigs. Because almost all of the products currently being sold in America by independents will disappear in 2022 thanks to the imposition of a predicate date.

It's important to note that Gottlieb has not issued guidance to current e-cig manufacturers on how to produce an independent product which could be sold on the open market as a consumer product. He has hinted that there may be some on the horizon but, for now, he has bypassed that and gone straight to issuing guidance - which heavily leans towards the pharma industry - on what is acceptable for a therapeutic product. At the same time as still insisting on rules which will effectively remove competition from anything recreational that is currently on sale.

It is, to all intents and purposes, a co-ordinated effort to make e-cigs a medical product and one which should only be used as a means to quit nicotine entirely. It is basically handing the entire market to the pharmaceutical industry. In other words - and especially considering the parallel regulations to take the good nicotine out of cigarettes and leave the harmful elements in - 'quit or die' on steroids.

Many were of the opinion when Gottlieb took over the job that he'd just end up being a pharma shill. He seems to be living up to those predictions quite spectacularly so far.

It is so blatant that it's astonishing. One can only assume that this is a result of the American disease of corporate lobbying, with pharma front and centre. I don't know about you but I don't think it's wrong to call this organised crime.

So, no, Gottlieb's announcement in July last year wasn't a new dawn for e-cig use. It was the start of a process which will see a brilliant innovation crushed and handed to corporate interests to destroy. It also proves, once again, that none of this crusade against smoking has ever been anything to do with health. They really couldn't care less.

We're on the side of the angels, always remember that. 

Crushing Safer Solutions For Profit

Sometimes, you really have to wonder if the whole tobacco thing with governments is just a big sham and that they really do secretly want smokers to continue smoking for the tax revenue.

Yes it sounds very much like a conspiracy theory, but how else do you explain heroically mendacious policies such as this from Korea?

Manufacturers of heat-not-burn (HNB) cigarettes, or heated tobacco products, will be required to put graphic warnings about health risks associated with smoking including cancer, similar to warnings all other cigarette manufacturers currently use. Such products will have to use graphic images of cancer-ridden organs, a much strengthened standard than the current image of a needle, which many have criticized as "unclear and ineffective."

Cancer-ridden organs? Has there been even one case anywhere in the world of cancer caused specifically by heated tobacco? No, of course not. But the lumpen-headed shitgibbons are going to plaster sick images all over the packaging anyway without even a cursory nod to reality.

The government plan seeks to dispel the conventional notion that such products are less harmful and therefore should remain exempt from stringent health policy.

Erm, it's not a 'conventional notion' that needs to be dispelled, for the simple reason that it is 100% true.

Just last week, for example, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) published a report on the emissions from HnB products, here is what they came up with.

We show that nicotine yield is comparable to typical combustible cigarettes, and observe substantially reduced levels of aldehydes (approximately 80–95%) and VOCs (approximately 97–99%). Emissions of TPM and nicotine were found to be inconsistent during the smoking procedure. Our study confirms that levels of major carcinogens are markedly reduced in the emissions of the analyzed HNB product in relation to the conventional tobacco cigarettes and that monitoring these emissions using standardized machine smoking procedures generates reliable and reproducible data which provide a useful basis to assess exposure and human health risks.

It seems the only thing that should be corrected in this 'conventional notion' is not that HnB is just "less harmful", but that it is "fuck-my-boots, off-the-launchpad and into the stratosphere less harmful". 80-99% is not just a statistical rounding, it is an abacus-shattering reduction! One which should induce in those who claim they want to save smokers' lives - because that's what they pretend it's all about - multiple orgasms of jubilation. Especially since the uptake in Korea is quite astonishing.

Korea Tobacco recently released its latest financial results, and their conventional tobacco sales make for grim reading, as do sales for all cigarettes in South Korea.

Click to enlarge

Cigarette sales plunged by a massive 10.7% (it was 14.4% the previous quarter) and HnB now accounts for a significant share of the market.

Data from the Ministry of Strategy and Finance showed about 230 million non-HNB cigarette packs were sold in January, while about 20 million HNB packs were sold, accounting for 8 percent of the market, almost a three-fold increase compared to 3 percent seven months earlier. 

So here you have millions of Korean smokers cascading away from tobacco and onto something up to 99% less harmful and their reaction is to slap gory warnings on the products - totally unjustified by the science so far - to deter smokers from switching. Instead they'd rather preserve a blatantly untrue perception that HnB is no different to normal cigarettes.

It's becoming a common theme isn't it? The same story is being played out in Japan where the government has initiated strategies to 'tackle' HnB which has had a dramatic effect on cigarette sales there too, if anything more markedly than in Korea.

Japan Tobacco Q1 results just out, domestic cigarette volume crashes 15.6% as reduced risk products now a whopping 20% of the market https://t.co/jL0JwQZkEA pic.twitter.com/FWLxMEyl2Z

— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) May 1, 2018

The National Institute of Public Health (Japan) is one of over 20 independent organisations to have reported that HnB is massively less harmful than smoking ...

“The concentration levels of hazardous compounds in the mainstream smoke of IQOS are much lower than those in conventional combustion cigarettes."

But - as in South Korea - this is being studiously ignored by the Japanese government, which is formulating regulations to ban it in public places.

Meanwhile Sweden is now openly attacking snus - despite boasting by far the lowest smoking prevalence in the developed world because of it - and even came up with some cock and bull story about how parental leave is responsible for their low smoking rates while arguing for the EU ban on snus to be maintained.

And, of course, there are still battles going on globally over e-cigs, with India currently moving to ban them entirely, just after Singapore and Thailand criminalised not just vaping, but also possession of vaping equipment. Yes, you can now be jailed in many jurisdictions for using an e-cig whilst their governments still profit from tobacco being sold widely.

What on Earth is going on?

Well, considering science is being roundly ignored throughout the world, you have to consider two scenarios. Firstly, maybe government really are addicted to the cash that smoking generates and reduced risk products are causing immense problems for their budgets. In other words, their policy would seem to be "keep smoking, we need the money".

Alternatively, the politicians really do think they are doing the right thing and are just appallingly advised. In which case, we have to look at which disgraceful people are advising them. Oh, hello there ideological tobacco controllers, speak of the Devil, eh?

I've said for years that nothing to do with tobacco control or 'public health' surrounding lifestyle choices has ever had anything to do with health. But to see such wilful ideological opposition by people who claim to be health lobbyists against solutions to problems which - to use their own parlance - are killing people, is absolutely vile.

Of course, you may have some other explanation for why these people are conspiring to prohibit far safer products despite overwhelming evidence that they could be harming the public. If so, I'd be very happy to hear it.

Otherwise, I can only hope that there is a higher being who will one day judge these callous bastards harshly for the carnage they are causing in order that they can keep their snouts in the trough. 

Keep Smoking, Thailand Needs The Cash

The drafts have been piling up here lately due to a hectic pre-Christmas in Puddlecoteville and at Puddlecote Inc, but here's a disturbing story from Thailand last week that deserves comment.

Net Idol arrested for e-cigarette faces 5 years saying police treatment "over the top"

A well known internet celebrity who was arrested in Pattaya at a checkpoint when an e-cigarette and vaping liquid were found has said her treatment at the hands of the local cops was over the top. 

Manutsaya Yaowarat - otherwise known as Fluksri Maneedeng - went on social media after she was filmed being dragged to the cells. 

It was confirmed that she had just one e-cigarette and one vial of liquid in her possession. No other charges have been mentioned. 

But a top lawyer said that she could still face 5 years in jail and a fine of four times the value of the vaping equipment and fluid that was found hidden in the console of her car. 

Popular online lawyer Kertphon Kaewket reminded the public that the importation of e-cigarettes and vaping fluid was a serious offence that could land people in jail for ten years and command 500,000 baht fines. 

But even possession was serious and could generate a 5 year prison term and from half to four times the value of the goods seized.

Presumably, if she'd have been smoking there wouldn't be a problem. Well yes, because the Thailand tobacco industry is a nationalised monopoly with a clearly stated aim.

Thailand Tobacco Monopoly was established in 1939 according to the Cabinet’s resolution. TTM operates in the tobacco production and distribution business in order to contribute revenue to the State for the country development and plays an important role in the economic system of Thailand.

The girl's 'crime', then, appears to be using something which would reduce tobacco duty income to the Thai state. Interesting way of governing a country, don't you think? 

A fellow jewel robber from the country (yes, there are some) pointed me in the direction of the law that was being enforced here, and it is truly laughable.

Testing by the Scientific Services Department of the Ministry of Science and Technology and by the Department of Disease Prevention, Ministry of Public Health, has found a number of hazardous chemicals detrimental to the body in these products, including propylene glycol, menthol, cyclohexanol, triacetin, benzene derivatives, lead, and cadmium.

Presumably, everything else containing PG and menthol will also be banned? It would make for quite a list.

Testing has also found that smoking with these devices may cause or contribute to the development and spread of diseases such as tuberculosis, colds, influenza, diphtheria, pertussis, and hepatitis B. Use may also lead to other serious diseases of the mouth, since users tend to share the devices among their peer group; a hazardous practice that may, in turn, lead to use of other addictive substances including ecstasy, ketamine, amphetamines, marijuana, or cocaine. 

So anything that can be shared is highly dangerous and could lead to the user becoming a junkie? Riiiight. I wonder what their stance is on kissing?

Anyway, who is to blame for this quite ludicrous state of affairs? Who has facilitated a national government to bring in a law prohibiting a less risky alternative to smoking in order to protect the Thailand tobacco industry?

Why, it's the World Health Organisation, of course!

In November last year I travelled to India for the WHO's COP7 shindig and Thailand was prominent on the group of 'parties' who were desperate that the word "prohibit" was not removed from regulatory options endorsed by the WHO. For two whole nights they were buzzing around trying to gain support, and they were eventually successful. The WHO's final guidance included prohibition and so Thailand can point to the World Health Organisation as a reason they have banned import, manufacture, sale and possession of a threat to their tobacco monopoly, and therefore justification for dragging a girl to the cells for possession of a bottle of e-liquid.

Great work guys at the WHO! The Thailand exchequer thanks you for being their tobacco industry's biggest supporter. 

The VLNC Junk Science Fest Gathers Pace

As I have written a couple of times recently, the FDA's announcement that they are viewing very low nicotine cigarettes (VLNCs) as a possible policy tool is extremely sinister.

Tobacco controllers have been banging on about this over the pond for quite some time now and, I repeat, it's daft and nothing but a rent-seeking scam.

It's not just questionable, it's insane. One can only assume that the people endorsing it are either corrupt or mentally compromised. 

The US FDA seems to think this is a great idea though. They will mildly relax regulations (perhaps) around vaping while at the same time taking an innocuous ingredient - nicotine - out of cigarettes but leaving all the other crap in. They couldn't be more crazy if they announced that they were to embark on an expedition to find out where unicorns live. 

So, why are they doing this with cigarettes? Well, apart from being subject to an almost Calvinist religious cult of a tobacco control industry in the good old US of A, there are also many financial pressures which mean they are reluctant to rock the boat. 

What I find absolutely astonishing above all else though, is that US-based tobacco control are even considering this. For years, they have been painting the tobacco industry as animals for producing low tar cigarettes. The fact that this was partly due to legislators forcing them to doesn't seem to matter. 

But now the tobacco control industry has had this fantastic idea that reducing nicotine in cigarettes is a brilliant new initiative, what went before seems to have been conveniently forgotten, at least in the USA. Fortunately, we are not subject to as much ignorance in this country.

But now it is being looked at by the FDA, the big wheels of the global tobacco control junk science machine are starting to turn. Grant dollars will be shovelled at the subject with the express purpose of hoodwinking the FDA into believing it is a good idea.

The latest - and by no means will it be the last - is this study released last week on the effect of VLNCs on smokers with psychiatric disorders.

RESULTS: Among the 169 daily smokers included in the analysis (120 women [71.0%] and 49 men [29.0%]; mean [SD] age, 35.6 [11.4] years), reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes decreased the relative reinforcing effects of smoking in all 3 populations. Across populations, the 0.4-mg/g dose was chosen significantly less than the 15.8-mg/g dose in concurrent choice testing (mean [SEM] 30% [0.04%] vs 70% [0.04%]; Cohen d = 0.40; P < .001) and generated lower demand in the Cigarette Purchase Task (α = .027 [95% CI, 0.023-0.031] vs α = .019 [95% CI, 0.016-0.022]; Cohen d = 1.17; P < .001).

In other words, the subjects didn't like them, so wouldn't buy them.

To the rest of us, this means that smokers will, in reality, do anything other than spend their money on VLNC because a large part of the pleasure has been removed. The response to this will obviously be a huge black market in proper cigarettes. We know this because we live in the real world.

But to a tobacco controller, it means the smokers will just quit.

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Reducing the nicotine content of cigarettes may decrease their addiction potential in populations that are highly vulnerable to tobacco addiction. Smokers with psychiatric conditions and socioeconomic disadvantage are more addicted and less likely to quit and experience greater adverse health impacts. Policies to reduce these disparities are needed; reducing the nicotine content in cigarettes should be a policy focus.

This is nothing but blatant sleight of hand by people with a vested interest in seeing their pay packets continue for a few more years. Nowhere in the study does it even consider what will happen in the real world, because they don't want to blur the clear message they want to send to regulators; that VLNCs are a brilliant idea with no downsides.

This is how tobacco control 'science' works. Salaries are dependant on policies; this is a policy, so let's do it. It doesn't matter to them if it works or not because they are not a results-driven industry; are entirely unregulated, and accountable to no-one except their funders who generally want the same thing as they do. Screw the public's health, they all just want to get paid.

The BMJ's Tobacco Control comic emphasises this world of flowers and rainbows in an article for their September round of propaganda.

Cigarette makers today keep the nicotine at 1%–2% by weight, having found this to be the sweet spot for creating smoker ‘satisfaction’ (one of several industry code words for nicotine addiction). Reducing this percentage by a factor of ten—to 0.1% or 0.2%—would make it very difficult for cigarettes to create or sustain addiction. Reducing it even further would make addiction virtually impossible. 

This would essentially eliminate the cigarette as an engine of addiction, while preserving many of the other reasons people smoke—to ponder the wafting of the fumes, for example, or to obtain some form of oral gratification. Or to emulate Johnny Depp or Keira Knightley. Smokers would be able to start or quit at will, without suffering the robbery of choice that defines addiction.

And as if to prove my point further, The Lancet also published an opinion piece on the subject just under a fortnight ago.

Last week, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a multiyear roadmap to begin regulating the amount of nicotine allowed in tobacco products. Researchers, including tobacco control advocates, have proposed nicotine reduction as a way of decreasing levels of tobacco use, and the USA may be the first country to seriously discuss using this form of regulation to produce a potentially less addictive form of tobacco. 

Many questions remain, but nicotine regulation may offer a promising tool in global tobacco control efforts.

So, it is apparently a "promising tool" even before they have answered these "many questions"? Isn't it odd how the precautionary principle is strictly applied to e-cigs (The Lancet amd Tobacco Control articles both mention concern that FDA controls which will obliterate the e-cig market are being delayed) and smokeless tobacco such as snus, but when it is tobacco control chasing a policy which could have vastly destructive unintended consequences, it's full steam ahead and nothing to see here?

Of course, if - as the study on smokers with psychiatric disorders did - you don't even address the possibility of the unintended consequences, and instead just pretend that they don't exist, it's easy not to have to answer those "many questions", now isn't it?

This is how it is going to be from now on in US tobacco control (and, I'm sure, consequently in other countries). Talk up the insane policy of VLNCs while stressing and amplifying the far less worrisome fantasy harm of e-cigs.

Now, which way do you think governments will jump under this kind of bombardment from the multi-billion dollar global tobacco control industry? 

Very Low Intelligence

Here is another to file in the "how e-cigs expose the hypocrisy and ignorance of tobacco controllers" folder.

There has been a lot written about the announcement on Friday that the FDA in Yankeeland has shifted very slightly on the subject of e-cigs.

Of course, this is very welcome, they have frozen their appalling policy designed - most probably at the behest of pharma lobbying - to take as many competitive vaping products off the market as possible by pricing them out. The policy was daft, ignored prevailing and accumulating science and was clearly unsustainable in the long run. Well, actually, it was sustainable only if the US decided to stay a barking mad outlier to the rest of the enlightened first world (Australia excepted, of course), but you get the idea.

This, for me, was the clunky passage that said they are now reluctantly recognising the concept of vaping as a harm reduction measure.

A key piece of the FDA’s approach is demonstrating a greater awareness that nicotine – while highly addictive – is delivered through products that represent a continuum of risk and is most harmful when delivered through smoke particles in combustible cigarettes.

Hardly a succinct sound bite, is it?

But, as others have already said, there is nothing to celebrate too wildly because of the other quite disgraceful announcement made at the same time.

The FDA plans to begin a public dialogue about lowering nicotine levels in combustible cigarettes to non-addictive levels through achievable product standards. 

Yep, this is the first country ever to try the extremely daft idea of reducing nicotine in cigarettes (Very Low Nicotine Cigarettes (VLNC)) to somehow stop people smoking.

There is nothing in that which recognises that nicotine is not the problem. In fact, it cleverly avoids saying that nicotine is benign. Shall we revisit that Michael Russell quote that the tobacco control industry embraced when they were promoting pharmaceutical patches and gum but seem to have completely forgotten since e-cigs emerged?

‘People smoke for nicotine but they die from the tar’

That was in 1976, and Russell was seen as a visionary back then, but he also said this in the same paper.

The logic of expecting people who cannot stop smoking to switch to cigarettes that have hardly any nicotine is questionable.

It's not just questionable, it's insane. One can only assume that the people endorsing it are either corrupt or mentally compromised.

The US FDA seems to think this is a great idea though. They will mildly relax regulations (perhaps) around vaping while at the same time taking an innocuous ingredient - nicotine - out of cigarettes but leaving all the other crap in. They couldn't be more crazy if they announced that they were to embark on an expedition to find out where unicorns live.

This is the end result of decades of tobacco control lunatics having the ear of government. Prohibition should have taught America that if you listen to extremist prohibitionists, you destroy society and create black markets, but it seems they are too stupid to learn.

So, why are they doing this with cigarettes? Well, apart from being subject to an almost Calvinist religious cult of a tobacco control industry in the good old US of A, there are also many financial pressures which mean they are reluctant to rock the boat.

What I find absolutely astonishing above all else though, is that US-based tobacco control are even considering this. For years, they have been painting the tobacco industry as animals for producing low tar cigarettes. The fact that this was partly due to legislators forcing them to doesn't seem to matter.

But now the tobacco control industry has had this fantastic idea that reducing nicotine in cigarettes is a brilliant new initiative, what went before seems to have been conveniently forgotten, at least in the USA. Fortunately, we are not subject to as much ignorance in this country.

“The idea of gradually reducing the addictive ingredient of cigarettes, nicotine, looks attractive on the surface,” said Robert West, professor of health psychology at University College London. “But unless nicotine is pretty much eliminated quickly and comprehensively in all available tobacco products – which seems unlikely – it runs a serious risk of making things worse as smokers smoke cigarettes harder in order to get the nicotine they need, leading to more exposure to the harmful tar.” 

Linda Bauld, deputy director of the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies and professor of health policy at the University of Stirling agreed that the move could end up exposing smokers to higher levels of toxins.  

“[The FDA] want to shift people to alternative products like vaping, which is good, but there are a number of risks,” she said, pointing out that reducing nicotine levels could also have other unintended consequences including people smokers smoking more cigarettes, or even an increase in black market activity.

Well, duh!

When 'light' cigarettes were introduced, there was an uptick in the amount of cigarettes smoked due to compensatory behaviour. Why the fucking hell do tobacco controllers think this will be different if nicotine is taken out of fags altogether?

Simple to answer really. It's because, yet again, they don't understand smokers. In truth, they never have done. This policy is borne out of non-smoking twats believing their own propaganda that smokers only smoke because they are addicted to nicotine. If they would ever actually talk to the people they are trying to "control" they would know this isn't the be-all and end-all of the matter.

I have many smokers work for me for whom giving up is not even an option. They don't consider themselves addicts, they consider themselves as smokers. They have done for years and it's part of their identity. Nothing will shift them. If you take the nicotine out of their cigs they will just feel the urge to smoke more. What sort of perverted 'public health' movement could come out with a policy which drives people to smoke more? It's the very opposite of harm reduction, it is harm promotion.

Even darker than that though, is the idea that the FDA - by mildly relaxing rules on e-cigs - may be doing something benevolent. No. It is not.

The FDA's announcement relents on some e-cig rules but only on the proviso that it might make vaping more attractive to smokers who will be deprived, by force, of nicotine from their combustible cigarettes. That is nothing more than vile coercion and should have no place in a land that claims to be free.

I cannot possibly cheer the FDA's overall plan and I don't think there is anything particularly concrete to be happy about yet anyway. Smokers are being thrown under a bus but apart from that everything else is up in the air and subject to change.

But at least it still shows I'm right in saying that it's never been about health, so I have that. 

Stop Pretending, 'Public Health' - You're Simply Common Prohibitionists

A few years ago comedian Steve Hughes jokingly spoke of the approach 'public health' has towards smoking.

"Can we still buy cigarettes?"
"Of course!"
"Where can we smoke them?"
"Nowhere"

Now, it's a regular refrain from the vile, selfish wankers who form tobacco control's fan base - basically curtain-twitching prodnoses who believe the world revolves around them, their shit doesn't stink, and that they are entitled to meddle in other people's lives - that smokers should smoke in their own homes and nowhere else.

Well, that's kind of the problem, because tobacco control fanatics can't tolerate even that, as we see from the weekend.

Professor John Middleton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said adults smoking in the home damaged the development of children’s lungs and put babies at risk of cot death. 

"Housing associations and councils are looking at smoke-free housing buildings. Where children are involved I think there is a real case for it,” Middleton said.

The head of "Faculty of Public Health", a civil servant who obviously fails to take into account the varied needs and desires of the public he is supposed to serve. Middleton cites a 'risk' - cobbled together using extreme cherry-picking and junk science - so negligible that when applied to Ibuprofen tablets, his colleagues summarily dismiss it, and employs this paltry non-concern to advocate depriving social housing tenants of one of the most fundamental rights of all; the freedom to do as one chooses in one's home.

These people are quite simply disgusting. There is no other word for it.

But then he has back-up from fellow state-funded tax leeches like Debs Arnott of ASH.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash, said the anti-smoking charity had a call last week from a woman whose granddaughter had cystic fibrosis and had never been able to visit because neighbours’ smoke from communal areas drifted into the grandmother’s home. 

Arnott said people were often “frustrated by councils’ and social landlords’ failure to take action”.

Hey, Debs, we have news for you. There are many more people who are "frustrated" that no-one in government is taking action to deprive you of the cash your organisation has been stealing from the taxpayer for over 40 years despite not a soul wanting to hand it to you voluntarily. Tell the woman the truth - that passive smoking is a long-fabricated lie fantasy health issue (as you very well know) - but if she is that worried, arrange a meeting in one of the thousands of venues you have ordered MPs to make 100% smokefree. Then, shut the fuck up.

In case you thought this is just a couple of barking mad outliers flaunting their wildest wet dreams in public, think again. Banning smoking in people's homes is a quietly-stated goal of all anti-smoking health professionals throughout the country, without exception. The reason for this cult-like wish to deprive smokers of their rights is, sadly, because the 'public health' abomination doesn't even recognise that people have rights in the first place, as this state-funded 2009 study from Scotland illustrates starkly.

On the one hand the home is a private space and there is some resistance found in the ethical debates inherent in public health literature to the blurring of the public/private boundary for smoke-free public health interventions. This is often articulated by libertarian arguments advocating the rights of smokers in their own home and opposing perceived encroachment of the State into private space.

On the one had the home is a private space? What other hand is there, exactly? As for the part about the encroachment of the state into private space being merely 'perceived'. No, it's real, because that is exactly what they are sitting around a table to work towards. We don't 'perceive' that they are working towards it, we can see with our own fucking eyes that they are.

Simon Clark has offered a very astute say on the matter here, so do go read, but I'd like to also add this.

Back in 2008, former Scottish Labour MP and decent sort Tom Harris had this to say about the very idea of home smoking bans.

But the Department of Health recently held a consultation on whether the smoking ban should be extended into people’s private vehicles and homes. Now, I know this caused a great deal of perfectly understandable outrage among a lot of people. So let me make this clear: the government will not, under any circumstances, legislate to stop people smoking in private. It would be a crazy move and, believe it or not, ministers are not crazy people - they’re politicians and they recognise political realities.

And if they did attempt to legislate in this direction, I would risk the wrath of those who don’t believe Scottish MPs should vote on English matters by voting against it.

But as I say, I won’t need to, because it’s not going to happen.

That was in 2008, but it shows how far down the absurdly dictatorial road those in 'public health' have taken us in the interim, with the backing of political lightweights who are as gullible as the lowest common denominator in their electorate.

If Harris is correct and politicians aren't that stupid, then why are people like Middleton and Arnott being funded? Who is calling them to account and telling them to stop this kind of Orwellian nonsense?

Secondly, why does 'public health' and the political class hate the less well off so much? This won't affect me because I own my home and if any of these people stepped on my territory to snoop I'd have a solicitor on them for trespass, a luxury not available to those in social housing that disgusting people like Middleton and Arnott wish to harass and bully.

Thirdly, if the tobacco control gravy train is now demanding bans in homes, can they stop denying they are full-blown, hysterical Prohibitionists? Even their most ardent troglodyte fans don't believe it is a justified measure, so why not just come out and admit it? Drop the facade and demand full prohibition of tobacco, and stop wasting everyone's time and money.

Steve Hughes made jokes about the ludicrous positions that anti-smokers make in the UK; he meant it as a parody. But they really are that ridiculous, and it's not funny any more. When they are actively attempting to remove rights of people in their own homes, politicians should act - as Tom Harris rightly said, rationally - recognise that they are beyond the pale; defund them; and also jail a few as the dangerous, bullying, inhumane, anti-social bastards into the bargain. 

More Limp Vaping Support From ASH & PHE

The ASH Twitter page believes in quality over quantity, which is why they proudly linked to this article in one of only two tweets today.

Public Health England: Vaping in the home: advice for parents - by Jo Locker https://t.co/oaxtcEvCnC

— ASH (@ASH_LDN) October 5, 2016

Here are a couple of interesting snippets.

In contrast to the known harm (yeah, right - DP) from secondhand smoke, there’s no evidence so far of harm to bystanders from exposure to e-cigarette vapour and experts have assessed the risks to be extremely low.

So therefore, an article entitled "Vaping in the home: advice for parents - by Jo Locker" should consist of a few lines after that saying it's none of their business, doncha think?

Course not, because this article was written by the £500m per year tax-draining Public Health England, and they have to be seen to be doing something with the money. So what does this guidance entail?

A parent who quits smoking in favour of vaping is one fewer smoking role model. However while they will no longer be modelling smoking, they will be modelling vaping.

Erm. And?

For those who find that allowing vaping indoors helps maintain a smokefree home, they might find it helpful to permit it. But those who don’t have a problem in keeping their home smokefree might want to consider what can be gained from permitting vaping indoors.

How about the fact that it is polite to allow people to do things they enjoy, and if - as the previous assertions imply - there is no harm, where's the problem?

They may as well be saying "be utterly selfish, do what you think is best for you and you only in your house, fuck visitors and anyone else who vapes". But then, as I've said many times before, tobacco control is built on selfish prejudice and greed and preys on the opinions of anti-social bigots, so it's hardly surprising.

More to the point though, is why PHE even thought this was a good way to spend our money. Why the blithering fuck is it any concern of theirs to tell others what they should be doing in their own homes? If householders are worried about vaping it's up to them to research it themselves. It might result in perverse outcomes from those sad enough to seek out the scaremongering stories just to suit their own prejudices, but how on Earth do PHE (and ASH) think that advice is going to counteract such attitudes?

They have just supplied two fantastic excuses for bigoted individuals to cite in banning vaping in private homes, and they can now say it is sanctioned by an authority such as Public Health England. This is how ASH's 'support' of vaping generally goes. It is half-hearted at best, mostly insipid, and always offers a nice option or two for those of a prohibitionist mentality to seize upon. PHE's is generally a load of over-cautious and unhelpful horse-cock too.

In other news today, ASH Scotland were asked to object publicly to a hideous policy from Aberdeen Council which bans smoking and vaping outdoors and has no other goal except to bully smokers and vapers.

@ASHScotland @NHSGGC Will you please speak out against the inclusion of vaping in this? Goes agnst good work done.. https://t.co/6p6E6R1lFe

— Andy Morrison (@GMFCfantasy) October 5, 2016

Here is the 'vape-friendly' organisation's robust and outspoken response.

So, having subtlely changed their mission statements in 2010 to include nicotine in their definition of smoking and stay clinging to the gravy train, the Action on Smoking and Health collective have morphed into Inaction on Vaping Bans (and if you want to install one we won't get in your way, in fact we'll quietly hand you the tools and even "fully welcome" them).

I despise these so-called 'friends' of vaping, but even I didn't expect they'd eagerly tweet advice which advocated occasions where vaping bans are appropriate in private homes so soon. The plan must be coming along nicely if they're all that comfortable.

Remember, we're the angels; they're bound for hell.

Hide The Filthy Smoker

Here we go again, 'public health' using children to mask their disgusting ongoing efforts to bully law-abiding smokers who choose to use a legal product where no-one can be harmed.

Many others have registered their disgust at this already, but it is worth adding my own thoughts because this kind of evil needs kicking very hard.

Smoking should be banned in all parks and playgrounds to reduce the chances of children growing up thinking that using cigarettes is normal, environmental health officers have told ministers. 

Zoos, theme parks and anywhere else children play should also become no-smoking zones, in a significant proposed expansion of the outdoor areas in which smokers cannot light up.

They are not even hinting at the possibility of harm now (simply because there can be none), as succinctly put by Sarah at the NNA.

The reasoning behind, and the issues with these proposed 'voluntary' bans is the same. The intention is to 'denormalise' smoking, which in practice means telling the public that a) smoking in kiddie areas is a widespread problem and b) it's harming your kids. It isn't and it doesn't.

Precisely. It is pure, distilled, vile, anti-social, stoking of hatred towards smokers. There is no other plan.

And the only outcome from such a sickening policy will be the encouragement of hostility and hatred towards smokers. If you have ever wondered - as millions of us have - how entire populations were turned into being supportive of the barbaric murder of sections of society in times past, just look on 'public health' in the UK in the 21st century. There is your answer.

That such stomach-churning cunts live amongst us and are paid a fat salary to come up with perverted and totalitarian shit like this should be a national disgrace. But then, if you've spent your life brutalising smokers so much that you find statements like this acceptable, you're probably so mired in the sewer that you and your colleagues have created that you can't see the decent people you are vilely harming through the effluence you spend your time wallowing in.

"Children should be able to have fun and enjoy themselves without seeing someone smoking and thinking this is normal behaviour", [said Anne Godfrey, the CIEH chief executive].

Firstly, it is normal behaviour. Secondly, Anne you hideous fuck, are you seriously saying that smokers are to be hidden from society? That they are too X-rated for children to see? Do you not realise how mind-bogglingly evil that is? Just because you want a new conservatory and have to come up with the odd policy to impress at your next appraisal?

I've been writing about these shameful wastes of DNA for nearly eight years now but they never cease to amaze me. Their inhumanity is absolutely stunning!

And then there is Jim McManus, a director of 'public health' who has made a few nice noises about e-cigs. But it appears it's more due to his psychotic hatred of smokers than genuine care for human beings.

@Dick_Puddlecote i disagree. When we ask parents and kids they are behind it. And we can use it to encourage switch from tobacco to vaping.

— Jim McManus (@jimmcmanusph) September 26, 2016

He sees e-cigs not as a way that smokers can continue to enjoy nicotine in a safer form, but more as a stick to beat smokers with and force them to bow to his will.

@jimmcmanusph You're anti-liberty if you think that's acceptable, read J S Mill

— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) September 26, 2016

So, apparently, an acceptable way of 'encouraging' smokers to switch from tobacco to vape is by giving the public a green light to abuse them in public. Because that is a (no doubt intentional) by-product of such insane policies. It is nothing short of incitement to abuse and even possibly violence.

I despair at the kind of mentality that would ever imagine such a despicable proposal to be a good idea. It's times like today when I pray that hell does exist, because these people are rotten to the core and that's exactly where they deserve, one day, to spend their eternity.

I'll leave the last word to Snowdon, because it is perfect.

Crawl back under your rock and take the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health with you.

Quite.

See also excellent articles from vapers on the same subject. McManus, you're an arse.

Denormalisation and virtue signalling - NNA
1984 is a Novel, not a Guide - Facts Do Matter
This is how freedom dies - Fergus Mason
Patience is a virtue anti-smokers don't have - David Dorn

Desperately Seeking Dictatorship

I've mentioned before that the tobacco control industry is totalitarian by nature. By that I mean that their methodology is identical to that employed by some of the most hideous dictatorships in the world.

Once you realise this it doesn't come as much of a surprise that tobacco control industry junkets are often held in countries where dictatorship and oppression of the public are perfectly acceptable ways of governing.

And, true to form, we've seen further reminders this past week that the tobacco control industry would like to enforce policies more suited to totalitarian dictatorships than western democracies too.

Take this 'research' published on the 5th for example.

Should electronic cigarette use be covered by clean indoor air laws?

Of the restricted vapers, only 12% (n=124) reported finding it difficult to refrain from vaping in places where they were not supposed to.  

CONCLUSIONS: This study found that most vapers report unrestricted use of their e-cig. Of the restricted vapers, the majority (88%) do not find it difficult to refrain from vaping in places where they are not supposed to vape.

It's pretty clear where that's going, isn't it? Like all tobacco control industry junk science, it started with a preconceived conclusion that comprehensive vaping bans are desirable everywhere, and the argument being implied is that not many vapers would mind too much so we may as well have a law.

As Clive Bates politely points out in the comments, their reasoning is that of a fucking dim teenager.

The authors cannot simply assume that everyone and at all times shares their preference for 'clean indoor air'. Vapers may prefer a convivial vape and a venue owner may be pleased to offer them a space to do it. Unless this is creating some material hazard to other people, why should the law stop this mutually agreed arrangement? Simply arguing that it doesn't cause that much discomfort among that many vapers isn't a rationale. If the law stops them doing what they would like to do there is a welfare or utility loss to consider.

Quite.

Then there is this separate 'science' published on the 8th, again in the extremist comic known as the Tobacco Control Journal.

Use of electronic cigarettes in smoke-free environments 

Only 2.5% of those who used e-cigarettes in smoke-free environments reported negative reactions from other people.  

CONCLUSIONS: E-cigarette use in smoke-free environments was common, suggesting that most e-cigarette users do not consider smoke-free laws to apply to e-cigarettes. Explicit laws should be considered if jurisdictions want to prohibit e-cigarette use in public places.

So what they're saying is that most people couldn't give a fig about e-cig use in public, but we need a law about it anyway.

Now, let's get this clear. The only reason that there are smoking bans at all is because there is perceived harm to bystanders. This was a result of 'research' into long-term enclosed exposure to secondhand smoke, which - even after heavy twisting, torturing and manipulation of the data - could only create a weak statistically piss poor relative risk. It was enough to con scientifically-illiterate politicians, though, so that's all that mattered.

I can predict confidently that there is no possibility whatsoever that crooked tobacco controllers will be able to repeat that trick with e-cigs. And, d'you know what? It seems pretty clear already that the inveterate liars in the tobacco control industry are well aware of that too. They have abandoned the "won't somebody think of the bar staff" route because they know it will never wash and instead are chasing the dream of a vape-free world because ... well, just because.

So, instead, they are just saying "it's not that difficult"; "vapers won't mind too much"; "e-cig users are not doing what we want"; and "the public aren't objecting enough, so we need a law to make them".

I shouldn't need to remind you that this is exactly why ASH was formed; the anti-smokers in the Department of Health were irritated that the public didn't hate smoking enough to create an anti-smoking movement, so they used taxpayer funds to found one themselves (and continue to waste our taxes feeding it).

Yet again, e-cigs are exposing the tobacco control gravy train for exactly what it has always been; a bunch of disgusting anti-social prohibitionists motivated variously by the money they can get out of it and/or a selfish dislike for the choices of others. It has never, nor ever will be, about health.

I do get that concern but I think if it annoys others it's an issue. https://t.co/9YJha9iccp

— Ruth Malone (@MaloneRuth) September 7, 2016

That's what it has always been about. Annoyance, not 'public health'.

And now, the tobacco control racket seems hell bent on getting e-cigs banned anywhere and everywhere simply because they don't really like them that much. But then, that was all the crusade about smoking was about too, so it's hardly a shocker, is it?

They have no concern whatsoever for the damaging consequences of their actions. None at all. Businesses can die; people can carry on smoking; unnecessary laws can lead to even more reckless ones; enmity, spite and intolerance can flourish; public can be set against public, vitriolically and sometimes violently; and totalitarian precedent-forming policies can be put in place in otherwise free countries where they weren't tolerated before; but tobacco controllers simply don't care. All they care about is what they personally want and what they can get out of it financially, nothing else.

This is why I often say they deserve to be in prison, because that is where we put people whose actions are a danger to society by way of menaces, coercion and fraud; it is where we send people who are damagingly anti-social and threaten civil cohesion. Tobacco controllers are guilty of these societally-harmful actions on a daily basis, and they are - as we can see from the tobacco control lunacy linked to above - still driving headlong towards a future where governments can ride roughshod over free choices, property rights, and the freedom of businesses to form their own policies on non-harmful activities.

And yet again it is e-cigs and vaping which rips away the thin veil of respectability behind which they try to hide their extremist totalitarian yearnings.

Always remember that we're on the side of the angels here, won't you? Not them.

An Investigation Into Whom?

So here we are, 6 days after Professor John Ashton's bout of Saturday night Twitter rage (see here, here and here for background), and the Faculty of Public Health has today posted a statement on their website.

Click to enlarge

Interesting to see that they're continuing to describe it as a Twitter "exchange" rather than a sinister trawling of vaper Twitter timelines followed by a series of insulting stand-alone tweets. The exchange of words only happened well after Ashton had begun his spiteful tirade. Still, at least they are taking it seriously.

But by "investigation", I'm wondering who exactly is being investigated. You see, one of the many vapers to have complained to the FPH is good friend of this blog Dr Steve W, who runs a sole trader e-cig shop in Bury.

Shortly after he sent off his complaint - and well before the FPH announced their investigation - his LinkedIn account had an unusual visitor.

Now, why do you reckon the Media and PR Officer at the FPH would be looking up Dr Steve on the internet, eh? I do hope it's not an attempt to dig dirt on their detractors and dismiss the whole thing as a conspiracy by big bad 'industry', because that would be a trifle naughty.

Unfortunately, it can't be ruled out owing to the nature of modern public health activists, as I described earlier in the week.

Additionally, there is the widespread public health annoyance that anyone is allowed to be anonymous online and that - as such - they must surely be paid shills. This not only further emphasises that they really don't understand how this internet thing has naturally developed since the 90s but also reveals the underlying tyrannical modern public health mindset. 

It's a facet of the tyrant for centuries that anonymity unnerves the dictatorial. If you have a solid case that can be backed up with unshakeable evidence, anonymity is nothing to be scared of, but public health haven't enjoyed that position for over a decade now. 

Instead, as Ashton has shown, the modus operandum for public health now solely consists of attacking the man not the ball. How on Earth can they do that if those opposing them can't be investigated and intimidated, eh?

And, indeed, dismissed as complainants thus avoiding the need to address the matter properly. It is a tactic that has always helped them avoid debate, so why not to deflect attention from a PR disaster too? Why should it matter to the FPH who is complaining? Surely the only thing that they should be addressing is the content of the complaint.

If you complained too, I'm sure you'll be thrilled that FPH Liz wants to get to know you better.

Stop! By Order Of The Council

I thought you might be interested in some classic slippery slope opportunism from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH).

Now, I've mentioned before that the government's plan to ban smoking in cars  - you know, that's the Conservative-led government which came to power in 2010 promising to roll back our liberties and challenge the nanny state - carries very sinister precedents that anyone interested in freedom should abhor.

Well, here is something else which proves that - whatever your view of the policy is - it's quite clearly a gateway to further power grabs by state-paid empire builders.

Local authorities may assist police in dealing with offences under a proposed ban on smoking in cars with children present, it has been proposed.

The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) said it “anticipates that local authorities will also want to authorise some of their own officers so that they can take part in campaigns to promote compliance and deal with offences when information and advice fail to have effect”. 

In its response to the consultation announcement, the CIEH noted that “dealing with offences under this legislation will not be without problems”. 

It “supports the government’s intention that enforcement will mainly be the responsibility of local police who will be able to use their existing powers to stop vehicles and require drivers and passengers to identify themselves”.

"Mainly", eh? Of course, it is only the police who are currently allowed to stop vehicles and require drivers to identify themselves. The CIEH looks very much like they are angling here to be afforded the same powers.

We are always told that the police are given that level of power due to the unique lengthy training that they are obliged to undertake. The same can never be true about local councils and their employees. Just think of the people you know who work for your local council - yes, we all know at least one - and think about how very unqualified for this level of power they are. Scary, huh?

How times change, eh?

And the CIEH goes further too.

[Principal policy officer, Ian Gray, said:] “The CIEH has previously stated that smoking should be considered to be a ‘driver distraction’ as is eating or drinking at the wheel or using a mobile phone, and that an additional measure for government to consider would be a total prohibition on drivers smoking in any motor vehicle on the grounds that smoking constitutes a hazard to safe driving.”

See, that didn't take long, did it? By crikey, the ink has barely dried on the consultation wording and they're already lobbying for an extension to it. Because, as I've also pointed out before, this is just another case where children are being used as a smokescreen. It has always been the plan to ban smoking in all vehicles, this charade is just the initial vital step to con the public into giving up domain over our own private property.

Next stop, your home. And good luck with the local environmental health officer demanding entry to your property to have a look around what you keep in your fridge, eh?

The smoking ban for cars consultation is here and open till August 27th. Perhaps we should have a bash at it.

The Most Corrupt And Anti-Democratic Movement In Post-War History

Further to my piece on Monday about the World Health Organisation's plan to class e-cigs as tobacco products - and consequently subject to crippling taxes, display bans, graphic warnings etc - former ASH supremo Clive Bates has obtained a leaked copy of the minutes which reveal it, and written a comprehensive article on how criminally misguided this approach is.

I would highly recommend you read it in its entirety as Bates lifts the veil on how crooked and unconcerned with health the WHO really is in relation to e-cigs and harm reduction products such as snus.

However, this particular paragraph cuts to the very heart of how the global tobacco control industry has got to where it is today - the most corrupt and anti-democratic movement in post-war history.

Notice that these minutes are leaked, and not simply routinely published as we now expect from 21st Century transparent government.  There is no reason to keep them secret and every reason to publish them – other than how embarrassing they are to the participants.  But then one gets an idea of this institution’s interest in openness in Agenda item 8: para 57-60, where they discuss screening and excluding members of the public who are associated with the tobacco industry – note this isn't about granting ‘observer status’ (the right to sit in the negotiating room and occasionally make statements when invited by the chair), it is about the right to sit in the public gallery, when the public gallery is open. Then they discuss holding closed sessions: why?  This is not a place where anything needs to be secret – no operational security detail are discussed – and the sunlight of public scrutiny is always valuable. The idea that WHO chooses which stakeholders are granted access to a process that may significantly [affect them] is reinforced at para 34-36, where they (correctly) note tobacco growers have a legitimate interest in Article 17 and 18 of the FCTC (economic diversification and environment), but then decide to shut the ITGA (International Tobacco Growers Association) out of the proceedings all the same.  One wonders about the integrity of a process that is so fragile that it cannot tolerate dissenting voices.

Indeed.

In fact, it's not just tobacco growers who are frozen out of the debate. At the last WHO FCTC meeting of this kind in 2012, journalists were banned too, for fear of the media challenging any press releases the pharmaceutical industry backed WHO might come out with after the event.

World Health Agency Evicts Press, Public From Talks on Global Tobacco Tax

According to Drew Johnson, a "waste hunter" with the Newsmax website, the agency's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control began its biennial gathering Monday "on a high note by ratifying an agreement to combat smuggled and pirated tobacco products." 

However, that goodwill quickly evaporated the following day, when delegates of the conference's member nations chose to meet behind closed doors for a discussion about raising taxes to reduce smoking.

Johnson added that attempting to cover this meeting was "frustrating" and "raises some serious questions about an organization that for years has operated largely behind the scenes and without the benefit of much public scrutiny." 

"When is the media more necessary than when an unaccountable, shadowy organization that devours millions of tax dollars each year from people across the world debates getting in the business of issuing global taxes?"

By 'unaccountable', of course, he refers to the fact that the WHO have never been made to suffer the inconvenience of having to attract even a single democratic vote to provide them a mandate. It is so astonishingly totalitarian that even the democracy-light EU was attacked in 2012 for not bowing to its demands [opens in pdf].

Furthermore, the WHO didn't stop at excluding tobacco growers, journalists, or the public. Even international police are not welcome!

Here's an interesting fact about these 'Conference of the Parties (COP)' shindigs. It won't surprise you to hear that the tobacco industry is not invited to participate, but they are apparently not even allowed to observe proceedings from the spectator's gallery. These are—I say again—publicly funded conferences. Refusing to allow the relevant industry to even hear what is being said strikes me as peculiarly paranoid—as if tobacco execs are so powerful that they can transmit pro-tobacco messages by just being in the same room. 

But it gets worse. As if it wasn't crazy enough not to allow the industry to see what goes on in these meetings, the fanatics have now banned Interpol (yes, that Interpol) from attending. Why? Because the tobacco company Philip Morris recently gave Interpol 15 million euros "to support the agency’s global initiative to combat trans-border crime involving illicit goods, including tobacco products". 

This is madness. Is there any organisation these maniacs do not suspect are 'front groups' for Big Backy? The real issue here is not allowing the industry—or Interpol—to engage, it is that no opposing views are allowed whatsoever.

But this is how tobacco control has always worked and why just about everything you have ever heard out of them is either grossly exaggerated or untrue.

Anti-smoking groups like ASH were not demanded by the public; they were created by anti-smoking politicians and staffed at taxpayer expense simply because there was a feeling that the public were not anti-smoking enough, not just in this country but around the world. In short, no-one really cared but were made to.

This is the same scenario from bottom to top. They exist purely to talk to policy-makers (i.e. idiot career politicians) and encourage the silencing of all dissent by way of their own rules (Article 5.3) and by pressuring 'scientific' journals to ban all studies which might come up with a heretical conclusion.

It is a long-standing tactic of the anti-smoking movement to make it impossible for the public to make their own minds up after being presented with both sides of the debate. From smoking bans to plain packaging, they know that their evidence is so incredibly weak that it would be roundly rejected by the public if they were informed properly ... so they pro-actively ensure that you can never be properly informed.

With regard to the WHO's proposals on e-cigs, this is precisely what will be happening again in Moscow when the massed ranks of highly-paid tobacco control executives meet for their latest exercise in truth-avoidance and unaccountability. As Bates explains.

The people involved in the bureau and secretariat are supposed to be neutral civil servants serving the decision makers, who are national governments and ‘state parties’ to the FCTC.  But on this evidence and all that has come before, they are not acting that way, but betraying crude ideological biases of politicised officials with a little self-serving power but no accountability.

To illustrate this, who do you think will be representing the UK's interests as bound signatories to the WHO's FCTC? Well, Deborah Arnott of ASH attended the previous one in South Korea but can't be trusted to object strongly to the WHO I reckon - for a start ASH has changed its focus from smoking to nicotine and, besides, I'm sure being a black sheep at the WHO is probably more than her massively-salaried and uniquely enhanced pensioned job's worth.

That would then leave us beholden to 'neutral civil servants' like Jeremy Mean of the MHRA, an organisation whose forerunner was described in 2003 as having "a stated objective to facilitate the development of the UK pharmaceutical industry"; and which is still "funded entirely by the pharmaceutical industry". So, with his organisation being so far up pharma's backside that he cleans their teeth every morning, there's not much hope of Jeremy objecting there either.

All we can do, then, is to keep on the side of the angels - as we have always been - and carry on pointing out the deeply corrupt nature of the WHO and its preference for pharmaceutical bottom lines over and above what it claims to care for. Because it has certainly never troubled itself with concerns such as democracy or informed choice, and now doesn't even seem to be bothered about health.

Have Politicians Ever Been More Vile?

Via Snowdon, there is a marvellous piece at the Telegraph today by Peter Oborne which is a must-read. It's all good, but this passage is especially pertinent.

Politicians of Right and Left have been transfixed by these anti-smoking campaigns. Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, has shown hardly any appetite to challenge the conventional wisdom of his own department, while Luciana Berger, the shadow health minister, is a breathless proselytiser for the anti-smoking lobby. No mainstream politician has dared to challenge the consensus, and only Rothmans-puffing Nigel Farage of Ukip really gets the point. 

I believe something is changing in Britain. George Osborne’s Budget, with its tax cut for beer and bingo and permission for people to take charge of their own savings, has caught a wider mood of national rebellion against bossy government. I noticed that when Question Time debated smoking in cars a few weeks ago the biggest round of applause was against the anti-smokers. 

This new politics of personal maturity is a problem for Ed Miliband. As Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin show in their important new study of Ukip, Labour has abandoned that sector of the population which used to be known as the working class. Mr Miliband’s Labour instead is in danger of becoming the party of the public-sector workers, the health and safety experts, the Brussels bureaucrats, the quangos and the wider political directorate.

We jewel robbers have known this for quite some time, but as if paid a few cream buns to confirm Oborne's morning article, up pops Diane Abbott on the Daily Politics at lunchtime to ram the point home. Scroll to 1:20 in on the video below for an astonishingly disdainful performance.

Has there ever been a more stark exhibition of 'bossy government' than that?

"One of the reasons why the {pause, smug grin} the Tories have been so reluctant to introduce plain packaging is {even smugger grin} wha' I call Lynton Crosby politics. {in contemptuous caricatured cockney accent} A penny off a pint, a penny off beer, and you can have your fags as well."

Have you ever seen or heard anything so contemptuous of the public a politician is supposed to be serving? We "can have" our fags as well? We are only allowed what politicians say we are now?

And what of the contempt for reducing tax on a pint of beer? This is a British politician sneering at the temerity of the government to drop tax by a tiny amount; disgusted that any politician could contemplate making the noose less tight around the public's neck!

And, having delivered this self-absorbed display of disgusting snobbery, she sat back - satisfied after having chided her class for daring to make working class life that little bit more tolerable - and her haughty, self-satisfied face spoke volumes.

Now, on the plus side, her arrogant, insulting performance will undoubtedly have swayed hundreds if not thousands to distrust the plain packs lobby. But, on the other, it's very sad that the British are not the kind of people to demand the repulsive bitch's head on a spike.

Oborne's Telegraph piece is titled:

There’s a quiet rebellion under way against bossy government

The rebellion won't be quiet for long if Abbott's Marie Antoinette-esque attitude becomes more widespread.

Sir Cyril Chantler's review of plain packaging is due to report by Monday. If it sides with monstrous arseholes like Abbott instead of the public - who provide her wages, remember, and who have overwhelmingly rejected the idea - it will be a watershed moment in showing how politicians despise and deride every single one of us.

The Extermination Of Personal Choice For Sugar

It might be about time the title of Chief Medical Officer was changed to something more in tune with the burblings of the most recent incumbents. I suggest Panic-monger General.

The last CMO - a clinically obese guy called Liam Donaldson - left for a cushy job at the WHO after predicting up to 750,000 deaths from bird flu, and 65,000 deaths from swine flu in 2009 which persuaded government to order 110 million doses of the vaccine Tamiflu (a nice little earner for his friends in Pharma HQ), the Department of Health to order 32 million face masks, and the Home Office to make plans to dig mass graves.

That's a tough act to follow, but it looks like current post-holder Dame Sally Davies is going to try her damnedest.

Speaking to the Health Select Committee Dame Sally said: "We have normalised being overweight. I do fear this generation of children will live less than my parents' generation."

Yes, in an age where life expectancy is soaring and the Office of National Statistics predict that a third of kids born today will live to 100, she is instead using a sound bite picked up from Jamie Oliver.

Note, too, the use of the term 'normalise' because it is an indicator of what kind of cranks (apart from jerk-off Jamie) she has been listening to.

She said she believes "the research will find sugar is addictive" and that "we may need to introduce a sugar tax".

Again, the language - in particular the emphasis on addiction - is straight out of the tobacco control template so can only have been whispered in her ear by an anti-sugar pressure group who want to place their own snouts in the same tax trough so successfully gorged on by anti-smokers.

It's nonsense, of course, as Simon Cooke explains.

I'm sorry but it simply is not true - not even a tiny little bit - that sugar is addictive. Except in the 'it's very nice and we like to eat it' sense of addiction. 

The idea - commonplace amongst the purveyors of New Puritan junk science - is that, because sugar stimulates the brain to produce dopamine in the same way as cocaine therefore it is addictive.

But this is to miss the crucial point, which is to redefine the way the public look at sugar. Junk science it may be - and Simon quotes a proper definition of addiction in his piece - but it has worked brilliantly before.

Some may remember this famous exchange from a US Committee hearing in 1994, which was publicised gleefully by anti-smoking activists at the time.

Now, you can argue till the cows come home about whether you believe nicotine is addictive or not, and you can debate at length if the tobacco industry executives were lying or truly believed in their testimony. But it's widely accepted, even by anti-smokers, that the tobacco industry is not daft and understands how to defend itself.

They knew very well at the time that to admit tobacco is addictive would completely eliminate their ability - and, by extension, the public's right - to object to taxes, restrictions and bans on the basis of personal choice. You only have to look at what has happened since 1994 to see how that panned out

This is precisely the same tactic now being used to 'denormalise' sugar.

"Hey, how dare you tax my Mars Bar, I enjoy it!"
"Well you would say that - wouldn't you - because you're addicted. You don't choose to eat a Mars Bar, you are compelled to by Big Sugar. You lost the dog in this fight so a 15% tax it is ... for starters!"

And Dame Sally isn't erring on the side of caution when it comes to your personal choice, either, she has made her mind up.

She said she believes "the research will find sugar is addictive"

Of course it will. They are already working on producing it in the tried-and-trusted manner of paying for a pre-conceived result from start to finish.

We've seen it all before because it's all in the tobacco template - pretend a product is addictive instead of enjoyable and all objections can be safely ignored. Just get that addiction thing embedded in the minds of the bovine and, voilà! The extermination of personal choice as a barrier to government over-reach is your new weapon, and opposition-free legislation your prize.

Who cares if it is a fraudulently-manufactured moral panic? Jamie is selling books, Action on Sugar are seeking rent like a MoFo, and Dame Sally gets to emulate her predecessor by walking into a WHO position after aiding and abetting their latest initiative.

Now repeat after me ... there is no safe level of cup cake consumption.