The Sugar Tax Con Trick

So the sugar tax was introduced on Friday and on social media many are starting to wake from their slumber as to what it all means.

We are already seeing smaller chocolate bars being sold for the same price, popular drinks that have been national favourite for decades being effectively discontinued, and meal deals being wrecked at the altar of 'public health' fantasy.

The public are being screwed out of their cash for no good reason, and - as Mark Littlewood writes today in The Times - it is hypocritical government which is doing the screwing.

[I]nterventions such as the sugar tax undermine the government’s narrative in other key areas. As leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband struck a chord when he campaigned on behalf of the “squeezed middle” and talked of a cost of living crisis. In the early stages of her premiership, Theresa May said she would be a champion of “just about managing” households. With real wages having been obstinately flat for years and house prices staying high, politicians of both stripes have been keen to empathise with families whose modest budgets barely allow them to purchase the essentials of life. 

Consumption taxes, such as the levy on fizzy drinks, have a measurably regressive impact. They chew up a relatively high proportion of the incomes of those least able to afford them. According to the Office for National Statistics, these types of taxes account for nearly a quarter of the disposable income of the poorest 10 per cent in British society, compared with a more manageable 13 per cent for the richest decile. The next time a Tory spokesman sympathises with those who are struggling to get by, the electorate may ask why the government is gearing the tax system to make it more difficult for those on budgets to afford staple products.

If an industry conspired to ramp up prices in an entire sector as this tax does, it would be condemned as a cartel by government and be subject to scandal and heavy scrutiny. We might expect to see price caps and business owners would likely be prosecuted for fraud.

Yet the government is the one doing the price-gouging and impoverishing the poor, so apparently it's OK. It's not OK and is a national scandal that the government should presume it ever has the right to decide what we are allowed to eat and drink!

But what I find most interesting about this whole grubby affair is the huge con trick that has been played on the British public.

For example, we are told that this measure is required due to the spiralling levels of child obesity. Let's look at those from the latest HSCIC figures, shall we?

The increase - if there is one - is minimal and even that is tempered by the fact that the NHS admits the stats up to 2009 were under-estimated. There really isn't a "crisis" in child obesity.

And even if there is, it has nothing to do with sugar.

And certainly nothing to do with soft drinks consumption either considering it has remained flat for over a decade, with low sugar alternatives making up a greater proportion of that in recent years. If, like me, you are a child of the 70s and 80s, you will remember that we drank much more fizzy drinks than kids today and there were far fewer low-sugar options. We had a lot more tooth decay than kids today but we were - according to the health 'experts' - far slimmer. So how can anyone say it's the sugar causing this mythical obesity crisis? It's quite clearly not.

Yet we are told there is enough evidence about the evils of sugar in food and drink to fleece the public to the tune of £240m to £500m, depending on how trusting you are in the power of the coercive state to make predictions.

It's complete arse-biscuits.

Instead, what has happened is that the public has effectively been brainwashed into believing this fantasy, led by 'public health' cranks with an agenda to promote and a bank balance to feed with grants and advocacy salaries.

Which is why we have the bizarre situation where even articles like Littlewood's, which calmly debunks this paranoia and government over-reach, are always followed by comments from people who just can't get their head around how they have been comprehensively conned. And, to be honest, it's because many of them really want to be conned; they are eager for the poppycock they are fed to be true.

They fall into three camps, but all are based on good old-fashioned selfishness, ignorance and class hate.

Firstly, you have the look-at-me virtue-signaller. These are the ones who will boast about how they always cook food from the healthiest ingredients at home, will ban their kids from McDonald's and never have poison like fizzy drinks in the house. Oh no, they are a better class of person, not like those common oiks they see in the High Street. They are so much better than you and can't wait to jump onto radio phone-ins to explain at length how very perfect they are compared to the rest of society. They will often also requisition your kids as their own by saying action is necessary to save "our children". Ironically, these holier-than-thou types were banging on in the 90s about how they give their kids orange juice not Coca-Cola, but will never admit that now that orange juice has been demonsed too.

Secondly, we have the ones who claim their interest is because they are being unduly taxed for the sins of other people. They will scream about the cost to the health service as if this is costing them personally. The cost to the health service argument is shonky at best considering we're told the obese die earlier than those fine, upstanding healthy people thereby saving a fortune in government's biggest expenditure, pensions. But it always amuses me to think there are people around who honestly believe if everyone was slim they'd get a reduction in taxes. Of course they wouldn't. These people are actually arguing that the sugar tax is good because it will cost the NHS less (which it won't) and that might benefit them (which it won't) so are happy to see the government whack taxes on products that they may buy (which definitely will cost them). They should look up Parkinson's Law.

And lastly, we have the type who knows very well that this is a load of bollocks but just like the fact that sin taxes are regressive. They will leap on any old nonsense to justify a tax which punishes the poor, for the simple fact that they hate people who are not like them. They don't care whether the sugar tax will work, they are simply a modern version of a Victorian aristocrat who would sneer at the choices of the poor. It is now considered shameful to advocate an income tax rate for the low-paid which is higher than that for the rich, but positively encouraged by government to support disproportionately gouging the less well off for products which the rich can afford quite nicely, thank you.

It should be repellent that so many people support this assault on their fellow citizens, but politicians have been conned as much as the rest of society has. The facts show that sugar consumption has been falling consistently for decades; that sugary drinks consumption in the UK has been declining; that taxing that consumption - which makes up such a tiny proportion of our diets - will have little effect on what we buy let alone our waistlines; and it has proven to be a failure wherever it has been tried.

But we still try it because ... snobbery, as Alex Deane described at the time it was announced.

Virtue-signalling politicians, bureaucrats and celebrities feeling tremendously good about themselves because they’ve bossed the rest of us around, and imposed a stealth tax on those least able to afford it.

Still, it's only a small imposition isn't it? The government punishing the poor over fizzy drinks will be the end of the matter. Well not really, no, and if you believe that my local pub has a smoking room you can buy at a decent price.

The sugar tax is born out of the same vile and scum-infested middle class base as the smoking ban. The only difference being that back then it was smokers, now it is the overweight. The precedent was set a decade ago, a precedent which gave a green light for the most hideous in society to point fingers, criticise the choices of others, publicly vomit insults, and demand government force be brought to bear on people who they feel offended at seeing. That's all, just seeing!

The sugar tax proves that an entire population can be conned into the most grubby of sentiments purely by the repetition of lies designed to prey upon hidden prejudices. History has seen this before with disastrous consequences. 

Simon Chapman: Expert Merchant Of Doubt

As the evidence mounts up as to the harmlessness - and even the benefits - of e-cigarettes, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the tiny few denialists still remaining to foretell a future of 'public health' catastrophe as a result of vaping. It might be something to do with the fact that e-cigs have been around for over a decade now and there still hasn't been a single case of death or significant disease, throughout the world, attributable to using vaping equipment as intended.

In Australia, particularly, their backward government is coming under increasing pressure to legalise the use of nicotine in e-cigs while all developed nations around them - most significantly neighbour New Zealand - are realising that the campaign against new nicotine products is mostly vested interest lobbying and hot air.

However, if you're a narcissistic Aussie pensioner who cannot bear to admit you're wrong, the futile struggle still goes on like some Jap soldier still fighting the Second World War. Perhaps sensing that it's inevitable that Australia will have to join the real world and legalise e-cigs with nicotine at some point, Simon Chapman has begun a rearguard action to try to make sure that, if they are, that there will be nowhere to use them ... and his reasoning is hilarious!

Groundhog day as vapers try to talk their way into our smokefree public places 

Over the 30 years between the time we banned smoking in cinemas, buses and trains and when it was finally banned in all public indoor spaces, we saw many truly bizarre attempts to justify its continuation in offices, then in restaurants and finally in the last bastions, pubs and bars.

The last bastion, Simon? Surely that's private homes where mouth-frothing anti-smokers have always demanded that smokers be confined to. Is that campaign on hold now then?

Tobacco industry sponsored “courtesy” campaigns told us that smokers would be considerate and not smoke near others. That worked so well. The it was proposed that the laws of physics did not apply to smoke: it would simply not cross a magic line two metres from the bar so it couldn’t harm bar staff. Breathing it 2.02 metres away for the rest of us was OK, apparently. Secondhand smoke from very wealthy gamblers in high roller rooms where smoking is sometimes still allowed (as when the Barangaroo casino opens) is not harmful to others. It’s only harmful when it comes from ordinary mortals’ cigarettes, apparently.

It's not harmful even then unless you believe the hysteria over passive smoking entirely constructed by tobacco control junk scientists, some of the most accomplished liars the world has ever seen. And Simon knows that very well.

Still, let's set that aside for now and ask instead why the old duffer is going on about smoking when the headline is about vapers. Well, it's to conflate smoking with vaping, of course.

Today we are seeing the same sort of nonsense being rehearsed to twist the arms of state governments to allow vaping in spaces where smoking is banned. 

What, that vaping is harmless to bystanders? How is that nonsense when it is true? Unless Simon has some proper evidence to the contrary, it is absolutely no business of any state or national government to ban their use in public.

Vaping advocates first tried to argue that vape was as benign as exposure to steam in your shower, a sauna or from a kettle. The sometimes massive cumulonimbus-like billows you see blown by vapers consist of yes, water vapour, but also particles and nanoparticles of partially vapourised flavouring chemicals, propylene glycol (PG), nicotine and traces of metals shed from the battery-activated metal heating coil that vapourises this brew. Despite their small mass, such particles may have significant toxicological impact because of their increased propensity for deep penetration into the pulmonary and cardiovascular systems.

A lot of scary words there but - and this is quite important - has there been any observable or recorded proof that any of these "particles" and "traces" have or will in the future cause harm to vapers themselves, let alone non-vapers in close proximity (or from a distance considering many jurisdictions ban vaping in the open air!). The answer, of course, is no. And, again, Simon "doubt is my product" Chapman knows this very well too.

Vaping has only been widespread in some nations for 6-8 years. Chronic respiratory and cardiovascular diseases typically have latency periods of 30 or 40 years between the beginning of exposure to noxious agents and the first clinical signs of disease. So it is far too soon for anyone to be making calls that any apparent absence of health impacts from active or passive vaping means they are either benign or dangerous.

This is regularly trotted out by denialists but simply isn't true. You see, it may have escaped the old geezer's attention but we have advanced technology nowadays and an acute understanding of how chemicals react with the human body. We no longer need 30 or 40 years to observe what will happen because all these elements are well-known and their effect on humans understood. And considering  the volume of the "particles" and "traces" Simon refers to are so vanishingly small that it is only because of advanced technology that their existence can even be noticed, only an imbecile would try to pretend they present a realistic danger. This is why PHE can say with a huge degree of confidence that "there is no evidence of harm to bystanders from exposure to e-cigarette vapour and the risks to their health are likely to be extremely low", because it's true.

However, our intrepid tobacco industry useful idiot soldiers bravely on, determined to sow doubt and confusion till his last breath.

The recent 680 page door-stopper report on e-cigarettes from the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine repeatedly describes the extent and quality of the evidence about vaping as scant, immature and often of poor quality. However, it noted that “there is conclusive evidence that e-cigarette use increases airborne concentrations of particulate matter and nicotine in indoor environments compared with background levels.”

It would be surprising if they didn't, but Simon has still not come up with anything to say that this increase has any significant effect on health. But then, that isn't the point of the piece, he just wants to sling mud and hope some sticks.

Next up, we see Simon's legendary ignorance about how businesses work.

The Dow chemical company which makes PG advises “Dow does not support or recommend the use of Dow’s glycols where breathing or human eye contact with the spray mists of these products is likely”.

Well of course Dow is not going to put its name to anything like that. Why would they? Any business which did would be run by morons. There is no need for Dow to do so, so why do it? I'm sure privately they'd be very pleased that their products are being used in an emerging market but vaping is pretty niche considering the huge use of their chemicals in other global industries. It's not even worth their while investigating it considering they know others will do so without them having to invest a single dollar.

Note how Chappers has scratched around for something, anything, which agrees with his prejudice against vaping. It's almost like he sees a flicker of hope for his dying campaign and just grabs it, no matter how tendentious it is. While dominoes fall all around him - the UK BMA and the American Cancer Society recently cautiously jumped his ship and made favourable noises about e-cigs - someone should tell Simon about this thing called confirmation bias. Oh hold on ...

Oblivious to his double standard considering he slates climate change deniers for clutching at straws, he then cherry-picks once more by citing the fantastically absurd study - published in the Tobacco Control comic he used to edit - of junk scientists undercover at a vaping convention.

Compared head-to-head, cigarette smoke emits far more of most of these ingredients than does vape from an e-cigarette. But when you get lots of vapers in a room, particle concentrations can build significantly. 

When researchers counted particles in the air of 4023 cubic meter room at a vaping convention on six occasions with between 59 and 86 people vaping, particle counts were 125-330 times higher than in the same room when it was empty, with concentrations higher than those recorded in bars where cigarette smoking was allowed.

As someone who has spent a career pretending to be a clever 'expert' on epidemiology, Chappers should know that it's not just the prevalence of particles in the air that is important, rather their make-up.

As I have mentioned before, Chapman trying to conflate smoke with vapour - as he is doing here - illustrates a profound ignorance on the subject matter or is a deliberate attempt to mislead the reader.

Still, those numbers are scary aren't they? Well kinda, except that they are talking about particulates as if vapour is the same threat as other airborne pollutants. The Scottish EPA describes 'particulate matter' as "the term used to describe particles of soot (carbon), metals or inorganic salts", while the US Environmental Protection Agency categorises them as "emitted directly from a source, such as construction sites, unpaved roads, fields, smokestacks or fires.  Most particles form in the atmosphere as a result of complex reactions of chemicals such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which are pollutants emitted from power plants, industries and automobiles.". E-cig vapour is an aerosol made up of liquid droplets, which are entirely different chemically and physically. Again, do you think they knew this or are just thick?

You have to ask the same question Australia's most prominent crank, I reckon.

So here we are, halfway through his article, and we still have nothing but innuendo and deliberate misdirection to prove his theory that vaping should be legislatively banned in public places.

But he's only just getting the bullshit wagon into second gear.

E-cigarette advocates like to paint folksy scenes of one or two “considerate” vapers having a quiet and discreet vape in the corner of a pub. But occupational health and clean air regulations are not drafted to accommodate a little bit of asbestos or an occasional excess of carbon monoxide.

Yep, having just made the leap of comparing water droplets with bitumen, he doubles down by suggesting that vapour is on a par with asbestos and carbon monoxide which can kill in a short space of time, despite just having said we won't see any evidence of harm for 30 or 40 years. It's the argument of a 10 year old.

Public policy needs to deal with the diverse densities of patrons who might vape indoors. If vaping were allowed indoors, would any restrictions apply? Would bar staff be required to limit the number of people vaping, or request or order them to be discreet or “considerate” with their exhalations as with the ineffective approaches that were once made to smokers? Will arguments occur about whether a plume is excessive? How might “clouding” be forbidden?  Will airlines allow a maximum of five passengers to vape but not 50? Good luck with all of that.

Well, considering Chapman has not yet proven any evidence of actual harm, it's a bit premature to be talking about the problems that governments might have making policy, don't you think? But then, it is his default setting that there is no role for anything other than the state where his prejudices are concerned.

It is precisely why it is such a nuanced debate that it should be up to the individual property owner to decide these things, not the state. No-one has proven causative harm from passive vaping yet - nor, I suggest, will they ever - and Simon hasn't made any credible case for it either, yet he is leaping forward to talking about what the law might look like. I know the geriatric bore is getting on a bit and his remaining years are limited, but if you are regulating people's lives there really should be a bit more patience before reaching for the statute book.

Vaping advocates also claim that indoor vaping bans will cause former smokers who now vape to go outside, where exposure to sensory cues from exiled cigarette smokers will trigger their relapse back to smoking.  This would be all the fault of non-smokers selfishly putting their own health and comfort ahead of vapers and contributing to their exiled stigmatisation.

For someone who has spent a lifetime telling us all that health trumps absolutely everything else, and that smoking is the most dangerous threat to life in history, this is absolutely hilarious! Now, apparently, the comfort and wild conspiracy theories of a few non-smokers who actually give a fuck about vaping are more important than vapers relapsing to smoking. You seriously couldn't make this up.

He finishes the article with yet more classic Chapmanisms, such as this one straight from his anti-tobacco playbook.

If e-cigarette emissions were really benign, indoor vaping advocates should take courage and call for vaping to be also allowed in classrooms, crèches, operating theatres and neonatal wards. If they know it’s harmless after just a few years of accumulated often poor evidence, why hold back redressing these heinous attacks on freedoms?

This is a rehash of his "if smokers enjoy smoking so much why do they not encourage their children to smoke" fallacy.

Yes, e-cig emissions are definitely benign but Simon, we don't live in a fantasy world like you do. There is absolutely no reason why a teacher shouldn't be allowed to vape occasionally while his students study - they probably wouldn't even notice it and I'm sure many teachers already do. Likewise it's not a threat in any of those other places. New mothers who smoke or used to smoke should also be allowed to vape in neo-natal wards; you might have conflated smoking with vaping in your own mind but you're a dinosaur and many others don't.

But just thinking up as many {gasp} unimaginable places to vape as a scare tactic misses the point, as I expect he intended to do. As policy goes it's not worth vapers demanding those areas are vape-friendly because very few want to vape in them and we live in a real world where snake oil salesmen like Chapman have scared people into thinking vapour is dangerous. Again, why would anyone bother spending their time and resources demanding something which has very little benefit? Only an idiot would suggest they do.

With delightful irony, the 2016 Global Forum on Nicotine held in Warsaw, banned ENDS use by delegates in the conference rooms. The organisers’ plea that delegates in public areas “please be discreet and considerate. Use low powered devices as it helps to keep the amount of vapour created to a minimum” could not have been more revealing.

No Simon, I think you'll find the Polish government banned vaping. The fact that so many 'public health' advocates at the event cared not a jot that people were stealthing proves that such laws are pointless, that you are on the wrong side of history and also a bit of a global embarrassment.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard tweeted over the weekend that NSW would not be allowing vaping where smoking was banned. This is prudent, responsible health policy that will be very welcomed by the 85% of adults who don’t smoke.

Most adults who don't smoke couldn't give a shit. This is like the dafties who claim that people who don't vote automatically would have voted against the party/cause that won. It is impossible that it could ever be true, so to claim 85% of non-smokers will welcome an ignorant policy from a retarded politician is just laughable. In actual fact, the vast majority of non-smokers don't care. If anything, a law like that would be welcomed by a small minority of anti-social snobs and prodnoses who like to interfere in everyone else's life. Fortunately, such people are probably less than 10% of any population.

I am pretty sure that the politician will be changing his tune before too long anyway, because Australia can't go on being a laughing stock amongst developed nations forever.

Of course, the crusty Aussie pensioner can carry on being a dedicated denier pumping out doubt-fostering propaganda as much as he likes alongside the Irish wobble-bottom bubble gum obsessive, the obese Californian alleged sex pest and the journeyman physiotherapist from Lincoln, but I don't see why the state should have to fall in with their tin foil millinery business.

Nicotine, Public Health, And The Profit Motive

It's taken me a few days to get round to writing this but there was a BAT Investor Day held in London last week that threw up a small, but vital, nugget of information.

Wells Fargo Securities circulated a summary of the event via email and described the presentation on next generation products (NGPs) as "the highlight". It spoke of how the global NGP category is likely to reach £30bn by 2020 and how both BAT and PMI expect NGPs will represent 30% of their revenue by 2030. Between them, the companies are now operating in 43 markets (PMI 31, BAT 12) after investing literally billions in R&D and roll-out, and both companies have struggled to reach manufacturing capacity to fully satisfy demand.

But this particular piece of info tells a huge story:

"In terms of profitability, BAT expects tobacco heating product (THP) margins will be higher than combustible cigs and sees vapour margins even higher than THP given that vaping taxes are lower."

You have to bear in mind that this is financial information the company is under an obligation to report truthfully to their shareholders, and there are stiff penalties if they mislead them (just look at Tesco recently). It's not the kind of airy-fairy say-the-first-thing-that-comes-into-your-head propaganda more preferred by the tobacco control industry. No, instead BAT have looked at profitability and identified that e-cigs and heat not burn both offer them more potential profit than traditional combustible tobacco, with the highest margin being derived from vaping products.

I've mentioned this before, but if you seriously want to know why the tobacco industry has gone headlong into reduced risk products in the past few years, there is a very simple reason. It's because they will earn more money out of them. Period.

Cigarette profit margins v E-cig profit margins

Cigarette profit margins v Heat not burn profit margins

Now, considering this hierarchy of profit within the industry, you have to wonder at the mentality - and motivation - of tobacco control conspiracy theorists who claim that it's all a plot to keep smokers smoking instead of quitting. Here's an example from one such cretin who still makes this same claim to this day:

Only the most naïve or captured advocates for vaping could fail to acknowledge that the tobacco industry wants people who vape to smoke and vape, not vape instead of smoking.

Erm, why would any company want its customers to continue using its least profitable products when they have more profitable ones to offer? In reality, much of the reason that the tobacco industry isn't bombarding smokers globally with marketing to make them switch to NGPs is because governments - aided and abetted by tobacco control lobbyists fearful of losing their lucrative seat on the gravy train - have banned them! So if they can't sell their most profitable products they are locked into a situation where they can only, by law, sell their less profitable ones.

We are therefore in this bizarre new world where industry is desperate to sell less harmful products because they are more profitable, while 'public health' runs around spreading misleading information and lies to ensure that the more dangerous combustible tobacco is the only product available. It's a simple and classic case of "follow the money".

Many in public health will often condemn industry for putting pursuit of profit ahead of health, yet all over the world now, it is clear that 'public health' is the greatest threat to the public's health when it comes to nicotine. And, in much the same way as we are on the side of the angels here, it is increasingly also clear that it is now industry working to reduce harm, while the tobacco control cartel works furiously to prolong it. 

Scream Test Update

It's been just over a week since it was announced that PMI were unconditionally throwing $1bn at a former WHO cabinet director to conduct research into reduced risk nicotine products, and the squealing from 'public health' has been a joy to behold.

Let's just revisit what that world-renowned tobacco control expert, Simon Chapman, says about this phenomenon.

When it comes to tobacco control, you can determine the most effective policies by using the litmus test of how the tobacco industry reacts. This has long been called the “scream test”. 

So when they cry blue murder about the civilisation-ending potential of a policy, it’s not rocket science that they appreciate its threat to their bottom-line.

One can only assume, then, that by Simon's own logic, tobacco control must be absolutely shitting themselves about the project and - by extension - the threat to the cosy cartel they have built up from decades of junk science and lying.

At time of writing, there are 116 'health groups' who have signed a letter to PMI demanding that their initiative can only be taken seriously by the company "immediately ceasing the production, marketing and sale of cigarettes". It's the kind of maturity and considered understanding of the world you'd expect out of an eight year old, but then you have to take into account that they are all very scared, bless 'em.

These people are supposedly 'experts' in the field of public health, and so will have studied the industry intensely over the years. They know very well that instantly cutting off supply of cigarettes would cause carnage. Organised crime would burgeon overnight, pension funds would be decimated, supply chains of wholesalers, packagers, retailers, and even entire national economies would be destroyed. Enforcement costs would skyrocket, perfectly law-abiding people would be criminalised and imprisoned, and people would - undoubtedly - die, in their thousands.

They know this, but suggest something absolutely inconceivable and irresponsibly damaging anyway. Complete prohibition of tobacco is an extreme position that not one of those 116 groups would ever advocate openly, but they are pretending to suggest that PMI do it. Yes, that's how very scared they are.

They are scared because - despite their lame protestations that the tobacco industry is only interested in alternative products because they want to drag people back to smoking - they know that industry is only doing what any other sector would do when faced with a "Kodak moment": following the consumer. What's more, they know very well that innovative products are more profitable and that any business would be foolish not to pursue the opportunities, as these graphics from Bloomberg show.

Cigarette profit margins v E-cig profit margins

Cigarette profit margins v Heat not burn profit margins

I don't remember 'public health' complaining too much when food companies took salt out of their products, in fact the salt loonies actually took credit for forcing them into it. But when the tobacco industry invests heavily and produces new products which take harm out of consuming nicotine, the tobacco control lot scream. You have to ask why. It's because they are scared.

They are scared because they know that they have fucked up. 'Public health' science ceased to be real science a very long time ago. They have simply spewed out all manner of partial bullshit for decades. They discovered that persuading politicians to do their bidding didn't rely on actually producing academically admirable work, it just relied on sounding plausible and getting politicos to believe the lies.

So we entered the era of research that generally went like this, if they were honest:

"Taking funding from a source which was seeking a biased conclusion, we took a pre-conceived policy idea and decided to carefully design a study which promoted it. We threw out any data that didn't fit, and scoured what was left to find something - anything - that remotely hinted at an association with what we wanted to do. We did send it for peer review on this occasion - though sometimes can't be arsed - but only after we released it to the press to grab a cheap headline. We don't even care if what we told the press is true, because if the study says something completely different - which it very often does - no-one will read it anyway, especially since we keep most of it behind a prohibitively expensive paywall so the public can't see the shit we send MPs for free. And even if they do, by the time our scam is debunked the headlines would have already flown around the world and millions will believe it.

We then concluded from our bollocks study that this is incontestible proof that the public need to be battered by more illiberal laws; that we want more cash more research is needed; and that if politicians don't listen to us we will tell everyone they want to kill little children."

It is into this stultifying and perverse environment of professional liars that e-cigs just happened to stumble.

Here was an alternative that was attractive to smokers and was threatening to make the tobacco control industry look a bit foolish. Their tired 'quit or die' gravy train was stalling, public sector cash was being squeezed, and along comes a product which, for many, was just as much enjoyment but without the harm. It even prompted forums, vape meets, festivals, and competitions, something never seen with patches and gums for some weird reason.

Faced with this clear threat to the livelihoods of many a comfortable, ruddy-faced 'public health' careerist, there was only one option. Attack it.

So they did. They believed that the same approach they used with smoking would work with vaping. Why not, it did before, didn't it? So they lied, and lied, and released junk science, and press released scary stories, and, and, and ... showed themselves up to be liars to a far bigger cohort of the public. Because, for the most part, the public don't care about e-cigs like they did about smoking, so they saw that they were being lied to.

The lies were so gobsmackingly ridiculous that some of their own even splintered off, perhaps wisely noting that history would judge who was being at least superficially sincere and who was just protecting their income to the detriment of the public's well-being.

In the case of reduced risk products, though, tobacco companies were employing proper scientists and doing proper science. The kind of stuff that may as well be written in Sanskrit as far as the assorted sociologists, psychologists, public policy advisors, aircraft engineers and self-declared 'experts' in tobacco control are concerned. Big Tobacco employed true global experts in their field, tobacco control just relied on their tried-and-tested ploy of pretending tobacco controllers were experts despite being woefully underqualified {waves at Martin McKee}.

But despite producing real science, the tobacco industry was ignored and sidelined because Big Tobacco, innit. The charlatans were gaining headlines for their biased crap, while the real deal was being ignored. If the tobacco control industry hadn't been so arrogant as to think that they could lie their way to banning e-cigs and other less harmful products, the PMI deal would probably not have happened.

It's said that Aristotle was the first to note that "nature abhors a vacuum", so considering that tobacco control were so cavalier about how they imagined, conceived, tabled and presented reseacrh in this area - while imploring everyone to ignore far better quality stuff from industry - is it any wonder that PMI said "Fuck it! Let's shovel a load of cash at people who will do it impartially".

'Public health' had their chances to do impartial science; proper science. But instead decided to just lie and cheat their way through it. Well, now there are a billion reasons why they should have acted more honestly in the past instead of deciding that with risk-reduced nicotine their policy should be "doubt is our product".

We know that they will scream - as the 116 stuck pigs mentioned earlier are doing - but this just shows that the research is something they are terribly afraid of. Why else try to obfuscate with something as facile and pathetic as a demand for a new worldwide Prohibition which would cause chaos? It's a last flailing of a cabal which is fearing its sepulchral end.

If those 116 'public health' organisations want to blame anyone for why it has come to this; that a tobacco company is firing a billion crispy oncers towards real unbiased research with no conditions, they only have to look at the garbage they have been foisting on the public for the past 30 years, then look in the mirror. 

Today's Lesson In Who Not To Trust

Welcome, Ladies and Gents, to today's lesson in our ongoing course on why you should never trust a tobacco controller.

You may have noticed that the Royal Society of Public Health released a report today on who vape shops sell their legal products to, since it was covered pretty widely by the media, including in the Daily Mail, Independent, Telegraph, and Gizmodo amongst others. It was, of course, also given loud prominence by the BBC.

Almost nine in 10 e-cigarette shops in the UK are selling vaping products to non-smokers against the industry's code of conduct, an investigation reveals. 

The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) said 87% of shops were knowingly or unwittingly prepared to sell e-cigarettes to people who have never smoked or vaped.

It's the usual anti-smoking cocktail of misdirection, ignorance and scaremongering, but what's extra significant about the RSPH doing this is that they are another 'public health' organisation which claims to be on the side of vapers.

They are just the latest of such bodies to stab vapers in the back. Just like a football team which nobbles the opposition's star player by taking turns to clatter his shins enough to earn a yellow card but not a red, it seems today was RSPH's turn to rubbish the e-cigs category in the minds of the public, while still pretending that they are the vapers' friend.

ASH have been doing this for years; from campaigning to ban all non-medicinal e-cigs in the early years, through to many and varied further abuses in the intervening period. Arnott and pals have kept up the facade of being on board with vaping while simultaneously doing everything in their power to handicap its progress.

In 2014, the thankfully now defunded Smokefree South West shat on the category by swearing to vaping advocates they wouldn't undermine e-cigs but then treacherously doing so anyway, and last year ASH Wales chipped in by "fully welcoming" the UK's first ever outdoor vaping ban.

Today's effort from RSPH came about due partly to a cross between appeasement and cronyism from the Independent British Vape Trade Association (IBVTA). In their code of conduct they produce for their members (and their members only) , they include this rather stupid clause.

Vape products are for current or former smokers and existing users of vaping devices, therefore never knowingly sell to anyone who is not a current or former smoker, or a current vaper.

Erm, why? E-cigs are a product which anyone over 18 can legally buy, this condition is just a sop to public health miseries, and is tacitly accepting the false premise that nicotine in e-cigs is a wildly dangerous and highly addictive drug, which it isn't.

It was an open invite to the RSPH to come along, pretend that this is some kind of industry-wide set of guidelines instead of a voluntary code with some spineless simpering to tobacco controllers in it, and exploit it for a report like today's.

Chief executive of the RSPH, Shirley Cramer, said e-cigarettes should be treated as "evidence-based quitting aids, rather than lifestyle products", and therefore should be aimed at smokers. 

She said: "We applaud the Independent British Vape Trade Association code of conduct, which is in line with this principle. 

"However, as our investigation shows, the majority of vape shops in the UK are not adhering to these important standards. 

"We are keen to support the sector to strengthen their codes of best practice, and for individual retailers to sign up and ultimately adhere to them."

I don't know about you, but that almost sounds like an advert for the IBVTA to me. And you know what? In order for IBVTA to fully comply with Shirley Kramer's demands, I think the IBVTA should insert another condition into their code of conduct that states all vendors must advertise that their products are "evidence-based quitting aids". Oh hold on, they can't because that would be illegal under advertising regulations.

What a crock of shit.

RSPH's study apparently toured 100 different shops (not necessarily IBVTA members so not bound by this code) and must have cost a fair bit considering they also employed secret recording equipment to do so. I'm sure it must have been very exciting for them but - as Clive Bates points out today - it has no value whatsoever for 'public health'.

This is a matter of adult choice involving a low-risk activity that is an alternative to a high-risk activity.  Is RSPH about to start intervening on every minor risk-taking activity? 

So, have you considered that this is simply none of your business? Perhaps you should stop wasting time and money on stunts that have the aim or effect of demonising much safer alternatives to smoking, harming decent businesses doing a good job, misleading the media and diverting attention from much more pressing problems. 

For the Royal Society of Public Health, this has not been its finest hour.

Quite. Though it could well be its grubbiest and most ignorant hour.

Nobody comes out well in this. Totally Wicked - whose owner is founder of the IBVTA funnily enough - has applauded the "reliable" and "important" RSPH research despite it further encouraging a public already willingly disposed to disliking vaping to view it as a grubby industry. Well done guys!

Meanwhile, the RSPH has shown that they have absolutely no clue about the subject matter if they cannot recognise that e-cigs being "lifestyle products" is exactly why they are successful, and - as Bates says above - have also sullied their reputation while dumping on vapers from a height.

Oh yeah and RSPH, I have news for you. Cigarettes are sold to non-smokers. Every. Single. Day.

Have you considered that while you were raising alarms about a non-story in the country's press? Sometimes you have to wonder if the tobacco control industry is becoming terrified that vaping could threaten their funding once politicians realise that they don't need to spunk millions of our taxes on prohibitionist make-works, when it's been vaping doing all the hard yards for smoking cessation in recent years at no cost to the Exchequer whatsoever.

See also:

In cheap publicity stunt Royal Society of Public Health sounds a fake alarm about a non-problem - Clive Bates

Much ado about nothing - Facts Do Matter

A Vapid Anti-Vaper Writes

Following on from yesterday's article about vapid anti-vapers (the term was stolen from an admirable editorial in The Times on Tuesday), you just knew it wouldn't take long until the point being made by The Times was proven in real life.

To explain, let me point you to an article by Carl Phillips where he accurately describes the difference between tobacco industry science and tobacco control industry junk science. Making a good call by comparing 'public health' pronouncements with the parody Twitter account @DPRK_News, he highlights an accurate observation.

The @DPRK_News comedy includes treating one-off problems from the news of the day as being representative of all life in Western societies. “Public health” treats transgressions by cigarette companies that occurred two generations ago, by no one who is still active today, as if they have a bearing on the quality of current research. What makes @DPRK_News particularly funny, more so than if similar jokes came from a mock Mother Jones or Rush Limbaugh feed, is the contrast between the supposed Western problem and the reality of North Korea, which is worse by most any measure. The parallel with the accusations from “public health” should be clear: A huge portion of “public health” research is utter junk science, blatantly tortured to serve their special-interest political goals, while research done by the tobacco companies is honest and consistently high quality, and has been for a few decades.

This is true. By way of example, just have a look at the report BAT released today about innovations in tobacco harm reduction here. The striking thing about it is that it is written by people with degrees in proper science such as molecular virology, medical oncology, molecular cell medicine and polymer chemistry. Not, you notice, people trained in sociology, marketing and fixing aeroplanes like you'll find in the parasitic and counterproductive tobacco control industry.

Phillips goes on to suggest a spectrum of scientific credibility, on tobacco harm reduction specifically but can be extended to tobacco too, which - although probably a revelation to most of the public who like to believe in QI-style myths - makes perfect sense if you have the wherewithal to think through the motivations at play.

If you were doing to do an ad hominem ranking of the probability that a research study conclusion is overstated or out-and-out wrong, it would be: major tobacco company at the low end (they wouldn’t dare); e-cigarette company or advocates in between (they have truth on their side and are truth-seeking, but have less to lose and more to gain from pushing beyond what is really solid, and are unlikely to get called out for it); and “public health” people worst by far (their discipline is inherently dishonest, so they have absolutely nothing to lose from lying, and they know the truth is not on their side).

Quite. The proof of this is that you will never see tobacco controllers trying to replicate results of industry science, because they know it is sound (they also lack the required skillset, being sociologists and mechanics etc). Instead, they will always, but always, just scream that it is performed by tobacco companies so should be ignored entirely, and strive to make sure it isn't published anywhere.

So how do we test this hypothesis?

Well, as Phillips was publishing his article, the very scenario was playing itself out in the letters page of The Times. First up is career anti-smoker Mike Daube, a "Professor of health policy" who effectively banned the classic opera Carmen because it is set in a tobacco factory, and then lied about it.

Dropping words in there such as "much debate", "cautious", and "potential harmful", Daube is employing exactly the same 'merchants of doubt' tactics his profession claims were appalling when long-dead tobacco industry execs did the same. In fact, all the doubts and scare stories about e-cigs have been created by him and his charlatan colleagues, and there is no credible science behind any of them. Daube's is a lucrative industry which has long since forgotten what science actually is.

I'm sure I don't have to also remind you that the tobacco industry is not "in the forefront" of anything to do with vaping, in fact they are miles behind the independent sector on e-cigs and their trade accounts for only a small fraction of the market, but Daube doesn't concern himself with that. His only motivation - stung as he is by being called, rightly, a "vapid anti-vaper" - is to ignore any science and instead hark back to decades old actions by tobacco companies to try to pretend e-cigs are some kind of nefarious plot. It doesn't matter that his scare stories are not backed by any evidence whatsoever, and he doesn't even bother - nor has his kind ever - to try to provide real science to justify his stance. Nope, ad hominem all the way.

Exhibit B is on the same page, by the guy who is in charge of all those scientists we spoke about earlier.

As Phillips points out, this is in keeping with how industry operates, and so far removed from tobacco control's cartoon portrayal of tobacco companies that Daube should be embarrassed to raise his head above the parapet and write such vapid nonsense.

Of course they are researching products in their space, along with associated behaviors and health effects, with an expectation that it will help them be more successful in the future — help the individual company, that is, not the mythical unitary “the tobacco industry” the public health people seem to think exists.

BAT are employing specialist scientists not to collude with their competitors and fit in with tobacco control's fantasies, but instead to stay relevant and continue selling stuff when the market is shifting towards harm reduced products. It's not rocket science but vapid anti-vapers - like Daube has self-identified himself as being by writing such a laughable letter - understand business less than they understand science, which is quite astounding considering they don't even have the first clue about the latter.

One day this will be something that is understood widely, but in the meantime we will have to continue to suffer comprehensively stupid old farts like Daube exposing themselves as vapid anti-vapers in response to an article entitled "Vapid Anti-Vapers". Congrats to The Times for helping that along with such an irresistible carrot to mud-hurling lunatics like Daube.

"Deciding Who Lives And Dies"

In customarily melodramatic anti-smoker style, Cancer Research UK recently released a video designed to raise cash ... for their friends in the state-funded tobacco control industry.

Entitled "Could you decide who lives and dies?", it's a typical example of the industry's overwrought shroud-waving bullshit, as you can see.

The blurb accompanying the clip claims that there is such a dire shortage of funding that they're having to turn smokers away!

With cuts to public health budgets, Stop Smoking Services can no longer be offered to everyone. Someone has to decide who gets help and who doesn’t. 

I'm sorry but that smells like dustbin juice to me. If you tell your doctor you want to quit smoking, watch how quickly he'll sign you up to a meeting with a stop smoking counsellor. Faster than you can say '20 Lambert & Butler please' I'd wager. And you'll get an appointment far easier than the one with your doctor!

Of course, what the CRUK vid doesn't tell you is that there is a perfectly reasonable - and entirely justifiable - reason for the cuts.

A sharp decline in the number of smokers using an NHS support programme to help them quit has been linked to the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes. 

Nationwide figures have shown a similar trend to those in the south west of Scotland. 

In 2013, the Information Services Division reported that the number of attempts to stop smoking had fallen by 13% compared with 2012.

It's quite simple. If no-one wanted to quit smoking there would be no need at all for stop smoking services, and the same principle applies if there is a decline in demand. If there is a decline of 13 per cent then quite obviously the services will require fewer resources, probably in the region of around 13 per cent funnily enough.

So what level of cuts are being applied then? Well, they're not very savage according to ASH.

Overall, smoking cessation budgets were down: in 39 per cent of local authorities, smoking cessation budgets had been cut compared to only 5 per cent where they had increased. They stayed the same in 54 per cent of local authorities. More than a quarter of local authorities (29 per cent) had seen cuts of more than 5 per cent. 

5 per cent seems to be quite a paltry figure under the circumstances. We don't know what the upper end of the level of cuts is because ASH only mention those exceeding 5 per cent. Presumably, if some authorities had cut by 10 per cent or more ASH would have chased a headline by saying so.

Therefore, considering a decline in demand of 13 per cent, in real terms most - if not all - smoking cessation services are now better funded than they were before.

Hardly deciding "who lives and dies", now is it? If anything, those statistics above make a great case for there being scope for more cuts to better reflect demand.

A better example of "deciding who lives and dies" can be seen in Belgium, however, where tobacco control industry policies have bred and nurtured a quite disgusting decision.

In Belgium, patients with lung fibrosis will not get reimbursed for a treatment if they have smoked in the last 6 months. The smoking abstinence will be controlled by a urine test, which needs to be negative to open rights to reimbursement of the drug. 

The former secretary-general of the French Society of Tobaccology (SFT) confirms that the urinary tests incriminate all nicotine consumers, including former smokers who continue to use substitutes such as patches or gums, and vapers.

Be in no doubt, the tobacco control industry are solely responsible for this kind of vile social eugenicism. Their sustained campaign of bullying and 'denormalisation' of smokers has encouraged behaviour which would be considered appalling if directed at any other section of society.

In Belgium, they really are "deciding who lives and dies", unlike the paltry cuts referred to in CRUK's pathetic video which amount to no such thing.

So, to answer CRUK's question, "Could you decide who lives and dies?". It appears from their video that the public would find it an unconscionable and detestable thing to do. However, the 'public health' community in Belgium (and elsewhere) seem to have no trouble with it at all.

All Things Not Being Equal ...

Now we've always known The Conversation website to be something of a 'public health' poodle, but they've excelled themselves with their latest article on e-cigs. It is so incredibly piss poor that it doesn't surprise me that it took three people to write it ... there's simply too much stupid in there for it not to have been written by a committee.

E-cigarettes could now be prescribed by doctors as a way of giving up smoking, after regulators granted one such product a drug licence for the first time. This marks a significant point in the growing popularity of vaping, which has created a global market for e-cigarettes now worth over US$6 billion. Yet the technology remains highly controversial.

It's only controversial because hideous people with vested (or bigoted) interests have been talking up imaginary dangers and spreading junk science to promote illegitimate scare stories. Before their intervention no-one really cared much, it was a non-story. Just from the intro we can safely presume this article is going to be more of the same baseless rhetoric which created the 'controversy' out of evidence-free windbaggery and hot air from people who profess to care about health but clearly don't.

Proponents of e-cigarettes argue that they have helped increase the rate at which people are quitting smoking. But sceptics fear that vaping might make smoking a more socially acceptable habit again, that it could become popular among children who may then move on to conventional cigarettes,

Well it's clear that the proponents are correct then, especially amongst youth. Anyone who fears vaping will lead to smoking being popular among children and lead them to smoke is quite plainly nuts considering the exact opposite is happening worldwide, and quite dramatically too.

Source: US National Youth Tobacco Survey

That's the USA, where the effect of e-cigs couldn't be more stark, and in France it's been the same.

"A spectacular decrease in four years"

So straight away we have the three authors' agenda. They don't wish to look at incontrovertible evidence, just spread smears, rather like this.

and that it even poses a possible direct health risk due to the chemicals it involves.

This is yer common-or-garden anti-vaping tactic, point to some cherry-picked study - in this case an already-debunked one involving mice in a lab - and completely ignore that e-cigs have been around for over a decade now; have been used by millions of humans worldwide; yet have not offered up a single verifiable death anywhere when used as directed.

So now they have set out their agenda of doubt and misdirection, they then go on to create the straw man they intend to attack in the piece.

One important area identified for further research by academics, organisations and government is the nature and impact of the dual-use of electronic and conventional cigarettes. Instead of simply assuming that vaping is a way for all people to cut down on smoking for health reasons, we should consider that they may be complementary activities for some. Regular smokers are often subject to regulation and social pressure. For example, they may no longer be able to smoke in their workplace or in places where they meet with friends or family.

The assumption they want you to take away from that is that there is no possibility for smoking in any of those situations; that the rules are so strict that the only escape is to vape. This is quite simply not true, of course. I don't think the family or friends would stay that for long if they forbade anyone to go outside to smoke, likewise almost all companies allow smokers to go outside for a puff (it's sadly more likely that they would ban e-cigs but allow smoking breaks instead!). Rather than accept that in the absence of e-cigs these people would, indeed, go outside and smoke, the authors pretend that the act of using e-cigs in those situations is only competing with abstinence. Which is execrable garbage.

In those situations, e-cigs are not competing with abstinence in all but the most extreme of circumstances, they are replacing opportunities to smoke. Their entire argument falls apart on this point, which is why they pretend that reality doesn't exist and focus instead on a fantasy scenario which only exists in their own imagination.

So smokers now have the option to smoke regular cigarettes where they can and complement this with the use of e-cigarettes where it is not possible or appropriate to smoke tobacco.

How awful that smokers have options, eh? Yet they skimmed over the most important part as if it was a bug and not a vital feature of the huge popularity of e-cigs.

E-cigarette use, on the other hand, is often unregulated and provides both the nicotine fix associated with cigarette use and some of the social element.

This is why smokers are switching in their millions all over the world, because of exactly that. You'd think 'public health' would be pleased wouldn't you? But then, it's never been about health, so why would they?

It carries on in the same vein, always relying on that critical straw man they created.

If e-cigarettes were only adopted as substitutes and helped more people to quit smoking, they could increase the associated health and financial benefits that come with this by cutting tobacco use. But where e-cigarettes act as a complementary product, they could instead blunt regular anti-smoking regulation and keep more people smoking for longer.

But they are cutting tobacco use, every jurisdiction where e-cigs have not been banned shows exactly the same trajectory in smoking prevalence ... downward. For every time an e-cig is used where smoking is prohibited it removes the need to go outside and smoke, which is why these charlatans pretend that option isn't available when it quite clearly is.

This straw man riddles the piece from start to finish, it's like they were committed to proving their pretend theory before they started or something.

If the public is focused on the success stories of those who have used e-cigarettes and ceased smoking, they will underestimate the extent of complementary vaping.

It matters not if it is over or under-estimated if 'complementary vaping' is a net benefit by way of fewer fags being smoked, which is undoubtedly the case.

However, just because some people use e-cigarettes as a complement to tobacco doesn’t mean they don’t want to quit. Our research actually found that complementary users were more likely to be using another quitting method or product, such as nicotine gum or patches, in addition to e-cigarettes. This suggests that for some trying to quit, their progress may be hindered by e-cigarettes.

No it doesn't. It just proves that NRT can also be used in situations where "they may no longer be able to smoke in their workplace or in places where they meet with friends or family". Like e-cigs it replaces the opportunity to smoke with something else because NRT is also endorsed as a harm reduction aid by NICE. Yes, for 'complementary use' too!

If the authors cannot understand that the principle is the same, you have to wonder what their underlying motivation is. I suppose we can look forward for their next piece which will debate "instead of simply assuming that NRT is a way for all people to cut down on smoking for health reasons, we should consider that they may be complementary activities for some" and their extended reasons why patches and gum "instead blunt regular anti-smoking regulation and keep more people smoking for longer".

2016 is beginning to look like becoming a year of evidence-free health mendacity on a vast theatrical scale, and we're not even two weeks in!

The Lies Of Reilly

In Ireland, 2015 began with Irish politicians proposing to take action on e-cigs due to crass ignorance, but this is a time of year where new leaves are turned so Irish Minister James Reilly is beginning 2016 by ... taking action on e-cigs due to crass ignorance.

“I am very concerned about e-cigarettes. We didn’t have sufficient information and I didn’t want the ‘perfect’ to get in the way of the ‘good’ in relation to including that in the legislation,” Dr James Reilly said. “But the evidence is starting to pile up now that this is a serious problem.”

Is that so, James? That's curious because the prevailing consensus seems to most of us to be going in the opposite direction.

The deputy leader of Fine Gael said he was concerned that e-cigarettes could become a “gateway” to traditional nicotine consumption. 

Really James? So you're not aware of your own government's Healthy Ireland Survey 2015, which found “just 0.1% of never-smokers use e-cigarettes.”.

“I don’t want to undermine anything we’re doing by not having good, strong evidence, well-researched." 

So your own government's research isn't good, strong or well-researched? Is that what you're saying? Quite a damning statement, but OK how about the Irish Cancer Society’s position paper on e-cigarettes from last year which said that 0% of non-smokers currently use e-cigarettes? Is that nonsense too?

"I know that there are people in America very concerned about this. What they’re finding over there now in recent surveys is that there are more children using e-cigarettes than smoking, as the first step. So now the danger is it’ll become a gateway into tobacco smoking and that’s a really serious issue.”

Is this the same America where teen smoking is at its lowest level in recorded history? Where it seems that the advent of e-cigs has coincided with a huge fall in the number of kids smoking? Is that what tobacco controllers are worried about in America, James?

And how is it a "serious issue" or a "gateway" if smoking prevalence is continually declining? Is this some kind of weird Irish mathematics?

He said the Government would keep “a close eye” on e-cigarettes. “If more information comes through to us on the damage that they’re causing, we will act on them too, if we’re in Government, obviously.”

I don't see any damage, James, nor does your own government's advisers. Do you have a different definition of the word over there?

"I always feel the greatest negligence is when you know there’s a danger and you do nothing about it.”

I can think of worse negligence, sunshine, how about talking up danger that doesn't exist solely because you harbour absurd, irrational and hysterical prejudices?

The Most Pathetic Nanny State Whine Of 2015

We may be approaching the end of 2015, but it wasn't too late for the most pathetic nanny state whining of the year to emerge over the Christmas period. I mean, just get a load of this!

Discount chain sparks fury for 'tempting children to alcohol' with Frozen themed champagne-style drink

Now, on reading the headline I believed that some drinks company had produced a Champagne-style alcoholic treat in Disney packaging. A bit naughty, I thought, so understandable that some might not like it, even though many adults enjoy Disney films too. But no, it isn't that at all!

OUTRAGED campaigners have blasted a Frozen-themed children’s drink in a champagne-style bottle for tempting kids to try booze. 

The non-alcoholic fizzy drink, covered in pictures of the Disney film’s characters, is described as “sophisticated” and “grown-up”. 

But campaigners say the drink should be removed from sale immediately.

That's right, this is a non-alcoholic drink. That is, a non-alcoholic drink aimed at children, packaged with characters which children like. There are actually people around us who worry about stuff like this.

Dr Sarah Jarvis, medical advisor to charity Drinkaware, warned: “Selling products which not only normalise but glamorise alcohol could increase the risk of young people wanting to experiment with alcohol.”

Hmm, I've got news for Sarah Jarvis, alcohol is already quite normal, you can't normalise something which is already normal, dear, it's kinda impossible. An overwhelming majority in this country see alcohol as a perfectly normal consumer product, anyone who believes differently is in a tiny minority and therefore abnormal, it's that simple.

We also have these normal things called pubs, Sarah dear, where normal kids can be found eating and drinking normal non-alcoholic fizzy drinks while their parents drink normal alcohol out of often the same normal glassware, we look forward to your campaign to ban kids from these normal establishments with interest.

But then this is the same Dr Jarvis whose obnoxious, condescending attitude towards the public and the advice she thinks we should be force-fed with was astutely described by Tom Paine in 2012.

She was a personable lady whom I would be happy to have as my GP and whose advice I would try to take. She simply didn't grasp, in her backed-by-state-force arrogance, that there was a difference between being an advisor and a boss. 

When we nationalised medical services in Britain (a mistake in my view, but that's for another time) we did not give the medical profession a promotion. We still expect them to serve us, not direct us. Nor do we expect them to describe us as a "cost" to the NHS, when the NHS is a cost to us. It may sound a bit Downton Abbey but this woman simply does not know her place.

Quite. And her place is most definitely not wagging her finger and voicing absurd dismal hysteria about an innocent soft drink at Christmas time. Of course, the Scottish state-funded prohibitionists are even worse.

Alison Douglas, chief executive of Alcohol Focus Scotland, insisted: “This product should be removed from sale immediately."

No it shouldn't you repulsive crone. These bottles have not broken any laws but have doubtless brought smiles, happiness and joy to thousands of kids this Christmas. That you want to take that away on the basis of some far-fetched theory about something that - as Grandad has pointed out - will almost certainly not happen speaks volumes about what a superlatively miserable and pathetic human being you are.

It also shows that these hideous bottom-feeding shroud-wavers can't even zip their sanctimonious, soulless pinch lips for a few short days, at a time of the year when the rest of us are in a happy mood. I do truly believe it is a form of mental illness and they require psychiatric help.

One thing is for certain, they should never be allowed to voice their abnormal views near politicians or be given cash for their puritannical anti-social extremist theories ... oh hold on!

Tobacco Control: Big Industry's Biggest Friend

Boy, the effect of e-cigs in exposing tobacco controllers as vacuous loons just gets better and better.

The 'public health' movement would, I'd say, overwhelmingly self-identify as left of centre and 'progressive'. Tobacco control has leapt on the back of this by using terms such as "tackling health inequalities" to explain some pretty hideous policies which hurt the poor far more than the well off (more on that later in the week). Their biggest political supporters worldwide are invariably lefties. In the UK, Labour almost swoon whenever a tobacco controller speaks.

With their stance on e-cigs though, just look at the actors who are benefitting. For example, here is an article from Malaysia about a new initiative to persuade smoking athletes to quit tobacco.

Johnson and Johnson Malaysia recently launched a new anti-smoking campaign with the theme “Do Something Amazing” and it also introduced the Nicorette patch, which is an improved nicotine replacement therapy to help smokers fight their cravings. 

The campaign is also to encourage smokers to overcome tobacco-dependence through the setting of attainable goals, which allow them to maintain focus and have more control over the quit attempts.

Johnson & Johnson, eh? Big Pharma and their lovely magic nicotine which is entirely harmless. Unlike, of course, the stuff in e-cigs which the same people in this picture consider deadly.

No, really! Pictured alongside J&J execs are two individuals - Dr Helmy Haja Mydin and Dr Amer Siddiq Amer Nordin, both associate professors at University Malaya - who also happen to be on the Ministry of Health e-cigarette committee, and are signatories to a letter advocating bans on e-cigs in Malaysia.

 I. restrictions be immediately put in place for the retail sales and public use of electronic cigarettes and vaping  

 II. a discussion in Parliament in the foreseeable future regarding the need to implement a ban for both electronic cigarettes and tobacco 

Fancy that!

Meanwhile in Italy, the government is planning to be the first to apply sin taxes to e-cigs. I can't for the life of me understand why, but perhaps this might explain it.

That's André Calantzopoulos on the left - CEO of Philip Morris International - sitting next to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at an event in September.

We know, too, that pharma companies lobbied the EU to implement strangling regulations on e-cigs which has resulted in the Tobacco Products Directive which effectively makes every product currently on the market illegal in May next year. We also know that PMI are advising the UK government to introduce sin taxes to e-cigs in this country, because they told the world so in their response to a consultation [page 286] on something entirely unrelated

@PMIScience Discussion on taxing #ecigs perhaps? #ecigsummit https://t.co/8W37Fe542V pic.twitter.com/2FXFhFWD4V

— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) November 12, 2015

This is the kind of cronyism and big industry involvement that the tobacco control industry is inviting by their appalling approach to e-cigs. On the one hand you have utter lunatics vilifying consumers, spreading falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and bare-faced lies about the dangers of vaping, on the other you have those in tobacco control - who claim to be in favour of harm reduction - idly sitting by as vape ban after vape ban is installed, creating precedents all over the shop.

In May 2016, just about every e-cig currently on the market will be banned all over the EU thanks to the TPD - something vaper's friend ASH UK, for example, is hugely in favour of - while elsewhere vaping is being obliterated entirely by daft laws prompted by mad tobacco controllers deliberately lying to spread fear amongst politicians simply because of their damaging anti-social prejudices.

So, next time you hear someone in the comfortable, highly-funded tobacco control industry saying that they are just looking after those poor smokers. Remind them of who is actually benefitting by their incompetence, inaction, bigotry and institutional mendacity ... huge multi-national corporations. It's just too easy, isn't it?

The term "useful idiot" has never been more aptly applied than when describing professional anti-smokers.