Reality Bites In Snobland

Oh frabjous day!

Long time readers may remember when the sugar tax was installed by a timorous, erm, 'Conservative' government quaking in their boots under pressure from a gullible TV chef. I called it "a triumph for repulsive anti-social snobbery".

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.

Since then we have seen the laughable spectacle of Jamie Oliver's menu offerings being found to be more unhealthy than Burger King and Pizza Hut and Public Health England have come out with draconian measures of what is deemed to be unhealthy.

This has come as a bit of a shock to some of the food snobs amongst us. Farmdrop is a company which has advertised "fresher, fairer" food on the London tube for a few months now. I've seen their adverts and I personally wouldn't buy from them because I just know it will be expensive but I have no problem with their business angle at all, I wish them the very best of luck. I'm sure most of their customers wouldn't think the same about ads for Burger King or KFC, but then that's the difference, isn't it?

Well Farmdrop just got a dose of reality. L. O. L.

To combat childhood obesity, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has enforced a ban on junk food advertising across London’s public transport network, which we fully support. But is it really a ban on junk food as we know it?

For a company which is in the food business, to not see this coming is a fatal error. And, sorry guys, if you fully support this you just lost any sympathy from me.

Preventing brands from aggressively advertising junk food to children on the transport network is a step in the right direction and we fully support it. The link between heavily processed junk foods and obesity is well established (it's not - DP) and recent studies suggest that diet-related diseases like diabetes are rising among children, which is hugely concerning. The majority of Londoners support the decision as well, including respected figures in the food industry like Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

I could go into the concept of polls which ask airy questions without going into detail but I don't think these guys would get it, but they should because what if the poll said "would you be in favour of banning advertising of 'junk food' which includes farm-produced butter, eggs and bacon?" because that's the PHE definition. I reckon they would get a different result and wouldn't be so supportive of the results.

Naturally, we were pretty shocked that a picture of some fresh groceries with a healthy mixture of fruits and vegetables, dairy, eggs and cupboard staples would flout TfL’s new junk food rules. But it turns out that TfL score foods individually according to a nutrient profiling model created by the Government. It’s a pretty crude measure and means that foods you would still think of as junk, like fizzy drinks with artificial sweeteners or low-fat fried foods, could in some scenarios comply with the new regulations.

At this point I imagine the Farmdrop guys be like ...

Well yes because ...

We fully support the Mayor of London’s decision to prohibit junk food advertising on the transport network but we’re concerned about how it’s being applied. We hope that TfL sees some sense and starts to apply the ban with a little better judgement. 

Hey, it's not TfL's judgement of what is HFSS food, it is towards PHE that you should be directing your complaint. Reason being that if snobs call for bans on products they find icky because chavs like them (come on, own up, that's what it is about really) then the constituents of those foods need to be analysed and a policy formulated based on the ingredients. Just a feel-good about who makes it won't wash once you get the big state involved.

It is quite hilarious to see a company piggy-backing on hipster snobbery being hoist by a petard entirely fashioned by its snooty customers. The replies on Twitter to Farmdrop's astonished tweet were testament to it.

Here's the rub though. The companies that Farmdrop fully support having their ads banned - they touch upon McDonald's in their article - will, at some point, get round the rules by reformulating their products. Farmdrop, however - if it is true to its unique business selling point - will not be able to reformulate natural butter, eggs and farm-produced bacon. Their ads will still be banned unless PHE changes the rules.

And the only way that they can do that is by admitting that it's all snobbery after all and that the restrictions will only apply to large fast food chains and not to Jamie Oliver's sugar-laden hypocrisy or Farmdrop's perfectly natural, but sadly high in fat sugar and salt, produce.

Then we will see some pretty momentous court cases.

There is one thing that might help Farmdrop though. They could stop pandering to snobbery and join us in attacking ridiculously arbitrary rules and object to any restrictions on what we are allowed to see on advertising billboards. Now they have worked out that it really isn't about health, would they be prepared to join we who are on the side of the angels? I doubt it.

Once they and the people they sell to learn to be accommodating of the choices of others maybe we might get somewhere as a society. Until then, chalk one up for those of us who have been warning them for a long time about this and revel in the discomfort. 

10 Questions, 9 Of Them Stupid

Forgive me Father, I have sinned. It has been three weeks since my last article, hand me the hair shirt and beads.

Real life has been getting in the way like a mofo recently, I'm afraid. Business, family and personal pressures have conspired in such a way that I've had little time to even catch up with what's going on let alone write anything. If you follow me on Twitter too, you may have noticed.

But prior to a busy week, I've a window to have a go at some recreational writing and what better to comment on than an unintentionally funny article from Sydney pensioner Simon Chapman on his blog last week. I do feel for the guy, he's getting old, the dementia might be kicking in and he is still desperately clinging to tried-and-trusted smears against industry which don't hold up in the modern world. You know, like your grandparents who get shouty when you say they should have data on their phone and they reply that "I just want to ring someone on it!".

One of my obstructions recently has been that I've had a lot of building work on my house done, and I mean tons. The team doing it are incredibly experienced (for that, read old) and brilliant at what they do, but the moment the idea of smart bulbs which can be operated by an app came up, their hackles raised and I was told "a light should have a switch, you turn it on and off, that stuff is just nonsense". It's the old dog and new trick mindset, and one which is amusingly illustrated by Chapman in this article entitled "10 questions for Philip Morris International on their “transformation”".

Its basis is this tweet from Moira Gilchrist of Philip Morris.

I know there's a lot of skepticism around @InsidePMI and our #smokefree vision, so I want to have an open conversation about better alternatives for the millions of men and women who would otherwise continue smoking. Tweet me with any questions you might have.

— Dr. Moira Gilchrist (@DrGilchrist) February 20, 2019

Now, the impertinence of a tobacco company exec invading the crusty guy's decades long smear-led safe space is red rag to a bull for Chappers, so he leapt into action ... by reproducing correspondence he had with a former PMI exec in 2005, before today's alternative products were available and about a completely different subject.

Anyone with elderly parents will recognise this harking back to the old times as if they were just yesterday. The modern world can be so confusing, can't it?

But anyway, that's not the point of my article. I don't know if Gilchrist will take up his offer of publishing a blog on his site of up to 2000 words, but his 10 questions are so inane and rooted in the past that they're well worth fisking. Corporate reticence, a fiduciary duty to shareholders, along with a legal department shitting bricks and a reluctance to give away info to business competitors might prevent her from replying in depth, but I can have a go.

1) You say you want smokers to switch to IQOS, but Philip Morris USA (a separate company to Philip Morris International which just happens to share the words “Philip Morris” in its title) is on record recently as saying on its website that cigarettes are “our core product” and that they are working hard to keep their smokers happy with “best quality” cigarette products. Are cigarettes also PMI’s “core product’? Or asking another way, how much global revenue does PMI make from tobacco today, and how much from IQOS and what are your forecasts for these numbers in the next 10 years? Are your shareholders happy with you purposefully trying to drive south (by far) your biggest income stream?

The original draft described Philip Morris USA as an "affiliate" of PMI, which is 100% wrong. It is a separate company as he has had to correct but it kinda hurts his line of smear, so he did so in a snarky way. But this is just the start of his quaint misunderstanding of the modern world.

He knows that cigarettes are PMI's core product because, ahem, there are a lot of smokers in the world. So obviously PMI makes a lot more revenue from smoking than it does from nascent products. Chappers, who seems to revel in the fact that new products are just a fraction of 'Big Tobacco's' main offering, went a bit silent when the question of global revenue was answered quite emphatically on Twitter.

So what of his concern for shareholders? That's a first for a guy who is so right-on he's been hating big business of every stripe since he was at university and vandalising bus shelters. They may well be unhappy with a company declaring they are changing their "core product" over time but here's the thing Simon - you cretin - if they are doing that they are doing exactly what tobacco controllers say that they want, reducing the number of cigarettes they sell.

You'd think a rampant lefty who hates smoking would be happy with this double whammy - shareholders losing out and percentage of combustible tobacco declining - but his sympathy for shareholders is just a pubescent debating tactic as we shall see further down.

2) What are the KPIs (key performance indicators) for the sales, marketing and public affairs staff in your cigarette division today? Are they being asked to try and sell less cigarettes or to keep on trying to sell more? Could we all see copies of some of those please?

Fewer cigarettes, Simon, fewer.

In the pensioner's tiny little mind, this is a very simple equation for a multinational company. There is only one policy and it is global. Erm, but it depends on jurisdictions and what the legal framework is, doesn't it. Let's take, for example a random country. Say, I dunno, Australia. How does PMI sell e-cigs containing nicotine in that country when they are banned? How do they transition smokers away from tobacco when they can't sell iQos? I wonder who is behind that kind of retarded policy? Wouldn't it be pretty brazen if someone who had a hand in it then accused a company of being disingenuous by not selling enough products which they had done their damnedest to ensure remain illegal?

Every country is different. Simon only sees a homogenous blob of countries with fully-aligned legislative and trading criteria, or pretends to. Either he is woefully stupid or he is preaching to the unthinking. You decide.

3) In Indonesia, Philip Morris International owns the Sampoerna tobacco company. In 2016, Reuters reported that you were trying to get “wider reach” there via “stronger cigarettes” What do you say to those who say you are being duplicitous with all this reduced harm talk when this is what you are doing when you calculate that people in the west might not notice? Similarly, when the city of Balanga, Luzon in the Philippines wanted to implement a smokefree campus and surrounding environs, you supported the Philippine Tobacco Institute in its (successful) legal case against the proposal. So you say you want people to quit smoking, but only if they switch to IQoS, is that it? And if not you will continue fight effective tobacco control as usual?

Similarly to the bollocks he spouts in question 2, what chance when Indonesia bans e-cigs and any other alternative products?

Indonesia's trade minister Enggartiasto Lukita set off a backlash from anti-smoking groups in November when he suggested tobacco farmers would be hurt by the fledgling industry, and that those turning to e-cigarettes -- also known as vaping -- should smoke regular cigarettes instead. 

"We should turn vapers into conventional cigarette smokers," he said at the time.

And do you know what? I think the old coot knows this.

4) In recent years, your company has aggressively opposed tobacco control policies like graphic health warnings, plain packs, and increasing tobacco tax, all known to reduce smoking. When you do this, can you understand that many people think you are flagrantly lying when you say you want to help tobacco control?

See what he did there?

Plain packs has had no effect on reducing smoking in Australia except in his increasingly senile mind. Nor has it in France or in the UK. There has never been any significant evaluation of graphic warnings either, with many studies showing that smokers just ignore them. But Simon skips past all that controversy and states a bald fact which is debatable at best and simply not true at worst.

Vaping, however, has had a dramatic effect wherever it has been allowed to flourish, which doesn't include Australia.

And, erm, when did PMI ever say they want to "help tobacco control"? Considering how shockingly poor their results have been recently - and the abject misinformation they have been peddling on alternative products - tobacco control is the very last industry producers should be helping. Harm reduction talks directly to consumers and cuts out the parasitical tax-funded leeches of which Chapman is a prominent reactionary in a self-enriching cohort more interested in delaying their obsolescence than any concern for health.

5)  What do you say to critics who say that your business model is surely all about smoking AND vaping, not smoking OR vaping?

There is only one of those, and it's Chapman. Considering all tobacco companies have said that their risk reduced products are more profitable than conventional tobacco, a 5 year old should be able to see that's a nonsense conspiracy theory.

6) I don’t think I’ve ever met a smoker who wanted their kids to grow up and start smoking. Do you feel the same way? Would you also hope that children would not take up vaping? If you really believe ecigs are of minimal risk, why not openly encourage kids to vape?

No-one has ever said that kids should be encouraged to vape, but the old duffer knows this, he's just using an old argument about how even smoking parents don't want their kids to smoke. But it is exactly that, a decades old argument and this particular old dog is still doing old tricks and wondering why he's not getting the same biscuits.

I know Gilchrist wouldn't be able to reply as I do, but I personally couldn't give a toss if my kids took up vaping. And it doesn't seem to have crossed Chapper's increasingly-shrinking mind that if a kid smokes already vaping is a better option for his side, and that if they vape instead of starting smoking, that's something he should be celebrating. I know it's tough for an imbecile to imagine multi-factorial outcomes such as that, but you'd think with more time to feed his carp since retiring he'd have thought a bit more deeply.

7) Smoking by Australian teens is at a record low (1.9% of 15-17 year olds currently smoke) I find it hard to believe if your company had not modeled the impact of such a dire situation on your bottom line into the future if this was to continue. So what does that modelling show? And am I wrong in thinking that if your IQOS product does not attract a significant number of kids into regularly using it, then your company will wither and die within a few decades because if only smokers switch, many of those will quit and die, with no cohort of young people moving through to replace them.

This is the only decent question he asked, and it's a very good one. He could have saved a lot of words and just restricted his article to this one valid point. I remember that this question was asked of PMI's Mark McGregor at a fringe event organised by Forest at Tory Party Conference in October, but it's sadly not made the cut in the highlights (Updated to add the transcribed exchange, scroll to the end of the article).

8) The  parent company of Philip Morris USA, Altria, just invested $US12.8billon in Juul, the vaping product that has spearheaded 20% of US teens using ecigs in the last 30 days.  Are you going to tell me that this teen use of ecigs “concerns” you or that there were a lot of champagne corks popping at work when you all saw that data?

Yawn. Just a rehash of his 'think of the children' scare story from question 6. He knows very well that everuse in past 30 days is experimenting, but he and similarly ideological denialists use this as a dog whistle to scare the living shit out of unwitting parents.

And now for the highlight. You're gonna absolutely love this. If he'd wanted to illustrate to the world that he has not a clue about how e-cigs work and should probably just pick up his pension and go feed the ducks when he is tempted to comment on harm reduction, he couldn't have done it better than this.

9) The average daily vaper inhales 200 times a day and up to 600. The average daily smoker inhales about 95 times a day. Does that comparison suggest that nicotine delivered via vaping might be very, very addictive? Does that bother you?

Stop sniggering at the back, he's an elder statesman don't you know, and degenerative mental health is not a laughing matter.

Does this erstwhile antipodean anti-smoking colossus really not understand that nicotine delivery is vastly different between combustible products and non-combustible products? Here is a graph to illustrate what I mean, courtesy of Lynne Dawkins of South Bank University.

Clive Bates explains further here:

“My wife/boss/friend/agony aunt/dog etc. uses it constantly. S/he must be getting more nicotine”. 

Myth: This is a commonly expressed view that we hear from those whose partners/ friends/ family members have switched to vaping (and retarded Australian blowhards - DP). Given that vaping results in less efficient nicotine delivery to the blood than tobacco smoking, those switching to e-cigarettes need to vape more than they used to smoke (vapers commonly refer to this as ‘grazing’). Concerns over ‘excessive vaping’ can be reduced by switching to a higher nicotine-containing e-liquid.

Now, Chapman likes to tell the world he is an 'expert' on such matters, so why is it that he is so woefully ignorant on something that is central to the debate? I mean, this is a fundamentally basic error. He is arguing on the same level as a Daily Mail reader with not even  basic understanding of the product.

Far from suggesting "that nicotine delivered via vaping might be very, very addictive", it shows the polar opposite. That vapers take or leave their nicotine habit and just top up here and there, never reaching the levels of the big instant hit that smoking delivers.

Is this wilful or is he really that fucking stupid? Can't lie, but it could be either couldn't it?

And now for his jovial "and finally" moment.

10) I’ve heard people very unkindly quip that it would be a good idea if all tobacco company employees were obliged to smoke or vape (in the obverse way that no cancer control agency would hire a smoker). It would be hard to imagine a senior executive in a car company who chose to not drive or own a car, but to always cycle or walk and openly declare that; or the head of a meat marketing board who was an open vegetarian, or a skin cancer prevention advocate who was deeply tanned. So why do you think your company is comfortable with some of its employees choosing not to smoke or vape? Do you smoke or vape yourself?

I'm sure people work for meat companies who are vegan, and I'm sure people who work for car manufacturers only cycle. Classic bait and switch from the old fool to conflate "some of its employees" with upper management to con the gullible with a trite argument.

Irrelevant anyway, as he could have found out if he ever accepted any of the many invitations he has been offered for conferences on harm reduction. Because if he had not been so cowardly, he would have seen that Moira Gilchrist uses an iQos. Relentlessly.

So anyway, 1 hit out of 10 ain't bad for a pensioner. I'm sure there are more brain-addled Australians around, but not many who are still convinced they are sages in a field of which they have very little understanding outside of the funny farm.

You can read his blog unfiltered here, it's great fun.

UPDATE: Relating to Chapman's question 7, thanks to Simon Clark, who has sent me a transcription of the exchange between Chris Snowdon and Mark MacGregor at the Tory Party Conference fringe event.

CS: You don't recommend IQOS for anybody other than existing smokers ... 

MM: No, no. 

CS: ... and you want to reach a point as soon as possible where there are no smokers, so what is the long-term prospects for PMI? Within 70 years there's no smokers to convert to IQOS and all the IQOS smokers are getting older and dying, so within a century, outside, you're finished, aren't you? 

MM: Well, I guess we've quite a big challenge with those billion, or 1.1 billion, smokers so if we could get 300, 400 million of those to convert to IQOS I think that's a big enough challenge for now. What you do in the longer term feels more like a debate for somebody else.

Make of that what you will. 

Popcorn Poppycock

You'd think, wouldn't you, that the US governmental Food and Drugs Administration would be tasked with giving the public information based on rigorous and robust science. Sadly, you'd be wrong.

This week - in the face of hysterical panic about youth use of e-cigs - they have produced a poster which they will be sending to every High School in America to be put up in school bathrooms. Now, let's put aside for a moment the laughable idiocy of showing kids the new risky fad that many of their peers use and that they might be missing out on, and look instead at what is in it.

Well, as you can imagine from an arm of the tobacco control scam, it is full of lies, none bigger than this.

Erm, inhaling flavours from an e-cig causes popcorn lung? Well that's the message they seem to be wanting to send here. This is the biggest lie that tobacco controllers have ever told, and that is from a long list of fucking massive lies that their industry is renowned for.

Michael Siegel has written extensively about this and, to cut a long story short, it is absolute bollocks.

There is no evidence that e-cigarettes cause popcorn lung. Despite millions of e-cigarette users, there has not been a single confirmed case of popcorn lung caused by e-cigarettes. Moreover, since the level of diacetyl in cigarettes is 750 times higher, on average, than in e-liquids, why isn’t the Tennessee Department of Health warning kids that smoking can cause popcorn lung? The rest of the story is that popcorn lung has not even been associated with smoking. There is absolutely no evidence that vaping causes popcorn lung. 

Juul, the market-leading product in the US which has caused panic amongst knuckle-dragging American parents countrywide, and which the FDA seeks to demonise, doesn't sell flavours containing diacetyl. But then again, nor do any other vape companies because e-liquid manufacturers stopped stocking products containing diacetyl back in 2015, so it's difficult to contract popcorn lung from a substance which is hugely diluted compared with that in cigarettes if it isn't even in any products at all.

But that's the message these government-funded goons are sending to the entire country. 

Shouldn't the FDA know these kinds of things? Instead of basing their decision-making on solid science they are embarking on hare-brained public information rooted in fantasy and seem to be on an intellectual par with medieval witch-finders. It makes you wonder if they are even in the business of seeking the scientific truth at all. Which means that if they can get this so badly wrong, what is the value of taking anything the FDA says on trust? 

The answer, of course, is absolutely none. 

Tobacco Control Junk Science Of The Week

Or maybe even the year, or decade. Or ever!

From the Tobacco Control comic, naturally.

Indeed, while IQOS heat-sticks (HEETS) include a variety of flavours (tobacco, menthol, bubble gum and lime), no IQOS heat-sticks include capsules. 

Heets come in three 'flavours'. Gold tobacco flavour, amber tobacco flavour and blue (menthol) flavour. Bubble gum or lime heets simply don't exist.

It's a struggle to work out how they can make such a fundamental error like this until you read further.

Furthermore, when British American Tobacco (BAT) introduced its ‘glo’ HTP into the Korean market in August 2017, their heat-sticks (Dunhill Neosticks) did not include capsules. Like IQOS, the heat-sticks included flavour options (tobacco, menthol and lemon ginger), with three additional flavours introduced in December 2017 (‘Ruby fresh (cherry)’, ‘purple fresh (grape)’ and ‘smooth fresh (light menthol)’). 

There also isn't a Lemon and Ginger flavoured Glo stick from BAT.  So what the hell are they wibbling about?

And then the penny drops. Glo dishwasher liquid does in fact come in Lemon and Ginger flavour.

Idiots.

None Of Your Business, Boston Council

It is odd that recently the establishment seems pretty confused as to why the public despises them. They don't seem to understand that if they act like petty dictators, sooner or later they will piss the entire population off in some way.

Here is a perfect example from Lincolnshire.

Council discuss banning market traders from smoking and vaping at their stalls

We're only on the headline but unless you're an arsehole you should already be thinking, erm, why is it any of the council's business? Well, here's why they think it is, anyway.

Councillors in Boston have discussed whether market traders should be banned from smoking and vaping while working on their stalls. 

The suggestion to ban smoking and vaping from the Boston market was suggested by students from Boston Grammar School, Haven High Academy, Giles Academy and Boston High School, during a recent consultation.

Can you believe that? Market stall holders are taxpayers and also pay rent to the council; their customers are taxpayers; kids at fucking school are not taxpayers. Who did the council listen to? Yes, the ones who don't vote and don't pay taxes.

It is also another example of authorities who are clueless as to current recommendations around vaping. They are entrusted with power at a local level but are exercising it without even bothering to read up on the subject matter.

That aside, this is still quite insane. It is absolutely no business of the council what market stall owners do with their stalls, they are beholden only to their customers. There is no law against smoking or vaping outdoors and Boston Borough Council have no power to implement one. So what fucking right do they think they have interfering?

June Rochford from Frampton said: “I don’t think people should be smoking behind their stalls, especially if it’s a food stall. But then it is still a public place where people can smoke. I have seen a few traders smoking but they often move from behind the stall. 

"If this was imposed they would have to stop everyone from smoking in the Market Place as it wouldn’t work."

Well, yes June, you'd think people entrusted with running a council might have the brains to work those things out for themselves, but they obviously can't.

How this ever reached the level of becoming a council proposal beggars belief. A bunch of propagandised kids think up some hare-brained nonsense and the local authority leaps gormlessly into action despite it being an utter absurdity.

Now, do you think they consulted the market traders or their customers before embarking on such a wild goose chase? No, of course they didn't.

Fortunately, the idiotic policy dreamed up by a load of spotty indoctrinated kids has been shelved because the thick-as-shit council eventually had to concede that it was a waste of everyone's time and money to even consider it. But doesn't it show you the mentality of the modern politician? It is now a definitive them (who think they know better) versus us (who they see as ignorant and incapable of making our own decisions). No wonder voters all over the country are increasingly eager to give the political class a kick in the balls when we get to the ballot box. One day they might get the message and start respecting the people they serve. I'll repeat that, the people they serve.

As one trader pointed out, instead of a daft policy which will require rigorous enforcement, why not just leave it up to a natural - and free to taxpayers - method of regulation which has worked for millennia. That is, the customer is always right.

“Customers will enforce that – if somebody is selling goods and they have a fag-end hanging out their mouth then customers will make their own decisions.”

Quite. If customers are still buying regardless, they are obviously not bothered and the council are just dreaming up makework to justify their existence. Readers at Lincolnshire Live certainly don't give a penguin's pecker about it.

It looks like Boston is another council which has far too much time and money on its hands and could do with more government restrictions on their budget. Slash away, Chancellor, on this evidence there is still much more council waste left to cut. 

Is Barnsley The Doziest Council In The Country?

With councils squealing about 'austerity' and 'savage cuts' at every opportunity, the BBC reported yesterday on a vital public service being promoted by Barnsley Borough Council.

Smoke-free zones are set to be introduced outside 80 primary schools in Barnsley. 

The move is an extension of a council scheme which has already been implemented in the town. 

Each of the schools will be given signs, letters to send to parents and "tool kits" to help staff set up the zones around the premises. 

Kaye Mann, senior health improvement officer, said: "The aim is to make smoking invisible to children."

So it's a council scheme, is it? Because that's not what was conveyed to the media in May. 

ABOUT 150 children staged a peaceful protest imploring parents not to smoke near their school kick-starting a project to make smoking ‘invisible’ to school children across Barnsley.  

Pupils from Laithes Primary at Athersley South linked arms to form a chain on front of the school’s entrance, waved placards and shouted chants at the event on Wednesday - some even took to the megaphone. 

Yep, it was all the kids' doing, even down to the professionally printed banners. They bought those out of their pocket money, natch. 

Let's leave aside for a moment the vile manipulation of children here - completely oblivious to how it must make kids with parents who smoke feel to see their loved ones treated like that - and look at what Barnsley is actually doing. Because, as is quite obvious, it's fuck all to do with the kids, and not really anything to do with health either. 

Mawsley of POTV has been asking the council some searching questions.

Planet of the Vapes contacted Barnsley Council for comment. 

A spokesperson told us: “It's not an outright ban, more of a request, but yes, vaping is included."

So it's the usual 'voluntary ban' which I hope many will completely ignore. And erm, why is vaping included? 

"We want to encourage a smoke free generation and make all smoking invisible to children so they don't see it as a regular adult behaviour.”

If every kid at that school took up vaping at 18, they would still be "smoke free". Don't Barnsley get that? 

Well of course not. Because Barnsley Council is run by utter morons, as we can see from last year's Freedom to Vape survey of local authority policies on vaping in the workplace. 

Barnsley was one of the most committed councils in the country to ensure that smokers don't switch to e-cigarettes instead. 

Whilst the Council acknowledges PHE's statements that e-cigarettes carry a fraction of the risk of cigarettes; have the potential to help drive down smoking rates; improve public health; and help to denormalise smoking; and accept that current evidence indicates that the risk to the health of bystanders from exposure to e-cigarette vapour is extremely low, the use of e-cigarettes in the workplace: 

- Is a matter of professional etiquette and projection of a clean and healthy image for our premises
- May lead to ‘lookalikes’ (e-cigarettes made to resemble cigarettes) being misconstrued as cigarettes
- May have an impact on public perception of the Council and its employees
- May affect people with asthma and other respiratory conditions who can be sensitive to a range of environmental irritants, which could include e-cigarette vapour
- May be a distraction for those vaping and also a nuisance or distraction for people nearby
- Would be contrary to the Council’s aim of inspiring a ‘smokefree generation’ in the borough 

The council also requires vapers (and smokers) to remove their Council ID card and lanyard so they cannot be immediately associated with the Council. Employees are not allowed to vape (or smoke) whilst wearing a council uniform.

OK, they are quite entitled to set their own vaping policies, however retarded they might be. And Barnsley's is one of the most jaw-droppingly ignorant in the country. But none of those barrel-scraping excuses justifications above have any bearing outside of schools. 

Now, remember that only a couple of weeks ago the government's Science and Technology Committee made this recommendation. 

Many businesses, public transport providers and other public places do not allow e-cigarettes in the same way that they prohibit conventional smoking. But, there is no public health (or indeed fire safety) rationale for treating use of the two products the same. There is now a need for a wider debate on how e-cigarettes are to be dealt with in our public places, to help arrive at a solution which at least starts from the evidence rather than misconceptions about their health impacts.

The Government's Tobacco Plan - subtitled "Towards a Smokefree Generation", yes the same words used by the cretins up in Barnsley - aspires to "help people to quit smoking by permitting innovative technologies that minimise the risk of harm". and Public Health England says "e-cigarette use is not covered by smokefree legislation and should not routinely be included in the requirements of an organisation’s smokefree policy". 

Yet Barnsley Council is blissfully unaware of any of this. Here's what their bone-headed council lead said on the subject. 

Cllr Jim Andrews, Cabinet Spokesperson for Public Health, said: “We want to ensure smoking becomes almost invisible to protect children’s health. Children and young people are influenced by adult behaviour and are less likely to start smoking if they do not view it as a normal part of everyday life."

So why are you 'banning' devices that smokers are using to stop smoking, you bellend?

“We’ve brought the latest campaign to the school grounds and it’s fantastic to see the children get involved too. We’re soon to see more schools across the borough take up this scheme and hopefully it will see parents listen and be more considerate about where and when they smoke, if not make them consider stopping completely.”

By 'prohibiting' devices that "have become the most popular stop smoking tool in England" according to CRUK? How does Barnsley get such dipshits as councillors? Are they selected by way of a lucky dip? Jesus wept!

It's clear that Barnsley has no clue about the subject and are just spunking taxpayer money up the wall on pointless, and arguably damaging, vanity projects.

In April, the local MP was bemoaning the fact that Barnsley is suffering from government cuts.

“Once again, local authorities are being forced to shoulder drastic cuts in funding through this government’s continued obsession with austerity. 

“Barnsley Council has seen its budgets slashed since 2010, but demand for vital local services in our community continues. 

“It’s grossly unfair and unrealistic to expect local authorities to continue providing the same level of local services with ever-dwindling resources. 

“This government needs to take responsibility for their cuts and provide the resources local authorities like Barnsley desperately need to continue providing for local communities.”

I'd say there is huge scope for further savings if Cllr Jim Andrews and his equally ignorant - and probably highly-paid - staff are an example of how Barnsley Council operates. They could start by sacking the lot of the useless idiots at no detriment to local taxpayers whatsoever. 

Scottish Tobacco Control Plan Hypocrisy

On Wednesday, I promised to revisit the Scottish Tobacco Control Plan at some point, so better late than never.

In particular, let's examine this knuckle-headed nonsense from the document.

There is some evidence that dissuasive colour or dissuasive messages on cigarettes could reduce the attractiveness of, and therefore the potential demand for, cigarettes. Other studies have considered composition – reducing the nicotine level or flavours that mask the true taste.  

For the same reasoning which led to the introduction of standardised cigarette packaging, legislation could be made to make cigarettes less attractive. This could be done through changes to colour, composition and/or warning messages on each stick.

So what is this "some evidence" of which they speak? Well, it's the brainfart of one weird individual in New Zealand called Janet Hoek who is a botanist, zoologist and Beowulf expert and - amongst other ideas she hopes will launch her into global nanny state stardom - would like to see plain packaging for fast food and fizzy drinks and processed food to be treated like tobacco. Oh, she's not  a fan of vaping either, but that's hardly surprising from so-called 'public health' these days.

The "some evidence" is a study of 'Poo Sticks' in 2014 which drew on interviews with 14 adult social smokers aged 18 to 24, followed by another in 2015 which examined "two focus groups and 13 in-depth interviews". Compelling stuff, huh?

That's it.

Now compare that with the new advances in heated tobacco which have seen literally millions of smokers quit smoking in Japan and South Korea and which government inquiries in the UK, US, Russia, Germany and Japan have conceded will dramatically reduce harm.

Also, consider that there are approximately 40-50 new pieces of research on e-cigs coming out every single week, and none of them are finding any great danger, only hinting at innuendo and smears about those who use them, simply because the tobacco control junk scientists behind the research are shitting themselves at being out of a job.

Which does the Scottish government find compelling? Yep, the random isolated study of a handful of people by a zoologist obsessed with irony in an ancient text.

Their policy towards e-cigs is to further ban advertising and the approach to heated tobacco is to put it in plain packaging.

This is, quite simply, government by imbeciles.

It's almost like they find it more attractive to ban stuff and piss on the public's liberties than protect their right to make their own health choices by providing accurate information.

That's not government by consent and it's not evidence-based policy. It's authoritarian abuse of a population worthy of some backwards banana republic. If you're Scottish, I pity you. 

Scotland Plans To Gold-Plate The TPD And Further Restrict E-Cig Advertising

Yesterday I wrote about the tobacco control industry's habit of cherry-picking evidence and - more recently - disbelieving real life evidence because it doesn't agree with their wild, junk science-led fantasies of how the world works.

Today sees a new low, though, as the Scottish Government released its Tobacco Control Plan. Snowdon has highlighted some of the blinkingly barmy aspects of it, so do go read his piece.

He said that he had only skimmed it and that there is bound to be more crazy in there, and he's correct. There is. For example, how much does this send your hypocrisy detector buzzing?

In the ministerial foreword, Minister for Public Health and Sport Aileen Campbell boasts about NHS services and how "there are new, more effective medications and our services are now more e-cigarette friendly", while further down the document it states:

On the basis of current evidence vaping e-cigarettes is definitely less harmful than smoking cigarettes. So, e-cigarette use as a means to quit should be seen by health professionals as a tool which some smokers will want to use. 

It also says about "smokers in mental health settings":

Raising awareness of the need to take a new approach in these settings and particularly about the possibilities which e-cigarettes being made available in appropriate non-NHS prescribed ways could have a big impact on the physical health of these patients.

So what are they going to do about these products which they have obviously recognised as being something which smokers are choosing to use and which have led to smoking prevalence tumbling?

Well, they're going to ensure that almost no-one knows about them, of course.

Providing protection through regulations and restrictions 

We will consult on the detail of restricting domestic advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes in law.

The key word there is 'domestic' because the EU's article 20 of the TPD specifically banned cross border advertising, therefore broadcast and online media. Domestic advertising such as posters, leaflets, direct mail, cinema and ads on buses are not covered by EU law.

So, the Scottish government is consulting with a view to gold-plate the EU regulations by placing further restrictions on 'domestic' advertising; that very e-cigarette advertising which is currently not burdened by the ignorant, lobbyist-led stupidity of Brussels.

With the UK's advertising regulator recently having given evidence to the UK government's Science and Technology Committee that they are looking at allowing e-cig vendors to make truthful claims about the safer nature of vaping - as in, relaxing the regulations - the Scottish government is planning to go the other way and make sure as few people know about vaping as possible.

The Calvinist puritanism being displayed in Scotland right now is jaw-dropping, but this takes the biscuit. We have a tobacco control plan for England committing to "maximise the availability of safer alternatives to smoking", at the same time that Scotland has decided it only wants safer alternatives available via state-run channels. If they can't control it, they'd prefer you don't even try.

There are also sinister hints that they intend to go even further down the rabbit hole of anti-vaping moral panic.

Over the course of this action plan it is likely that the markets for e-cigarettes and novel heated tobacco products will develop further. This could mean that the current focus of tobacco control enforcement changes over time to take account of these newer markets. For example if there were changes to the law on restricting the sales of non-nicotine containing e-liquid for e-cigarettes this would have implications for enforcement.

If markets for e-cigs and heat not burn increase, that is a good thing! But not for Scotland, it seems. There is also a hint there that there might be more regulations on the horizon for nicotine free e-liquid, again not covered by the EU TPD.

Have I got your attention yet, Scottish vape reviewers? Yep, that could be the end of short fills.

There may also need to be programmed initiatives on ensuring e-liquids are authorised products ...

Well, considering the TPD created a new category for e-cigs so they are already kinda "authorised", could they mean yet another gold plate layer on top of EU regulations? Or maybe they just mean the whole hog and enforced medicinal licensing. We shall have to see.

... and perhaps even on whether these age-restricted products are being marketed in a way which primarily appeals to young people. 

They've really swallowed the anti-vaping Kool Aid in bucket loads, haven't they?

And as for this ...

During the summer of 2018 we will work with health boards and integration boards to try to reach a consensus on whether vaping should or should not be allowed on hospital grounds through a consistent, national approach.

It's not illegal, it's not dangerous, the same document talks about smokers using e-cigs to quit. Where is the debate?

I reckon the best take I can offer to you is that if you are Scottish and a vaper, remember that ASH Scotland - who will have advised the government in detail on production of this plan - is not your friend. Neither, I would suggest, is the SNP. Worth remembering next time some politician asks for your vote.

Like Snowdon, I have only skimmed the document and - like him - I think "these people are off their heads". I'll leave it there for now, though, but I'm sure I'll be coming back to this utter insanity, maybe tomorrow. Watch this space. 

Tobacco Control's Retarded Understanding of Economics

Things have been hectic at Puddlecote Inc recently hence the lack of content here, but some of that busy-ness is down to something quite momentous which could be on the horizon. The drafts have been piling up but I'll get round to them sometime.

Starting with this. Oh boy!

Next time any tobacco controller tries to tell you they understand everything about how the world works - because they always claim to - simply point them at this hilarious nonsense.

Basically, no one wants Philip Morris tobacco products anymore https://t.co/IRwIK170n9 #PhilipMorris #Tobacco

— Africa Tobacco-Free Initiative (@Theatfi) April 21, 2018

This is in response to a crash in Altria shares following less than expected growth in the iQos HnB platform. Yes, growth, because sales are still on an upward trajectory, just less dramatic than was forecast.

Previous to this, sales of iQos in Japan have been phenomenal, wildly better than any tobacco control initiative in history. According to the Financial Times ...

Shipments of traditional cigarettes fell more than 7 per cent, following an 11.5 per cent decline in the first quarter of 2017, while shipments of alternative “heated units” rose to 6.4bn from 1.2bn in the same quarter last year. 

During the quarter, almost 9 per cent of Philip Morris’s worldwide revenues came from “reduced risk products”, compared with 1.8 per cent a year earlier, with much of this shift occurring in Japan.

This is quite simply unprecedented. The biggest sea change in shifting smokers away from lit tobacco in the world. Ever.

As CNBC reports, the correction to stock prices was just a market reaction to growth - yes growth - slowing.

Philip Morris International shares plummeted 16 percent in the company's worst day since it spun off from Altria in 2008, after PMI posted mixed first-quarter results and said growth of iQOS, its heat-not-burn tobacco product, slowed in Japan.

However, in the cult-like battle that tobacco control is waging against tobacco companies, this was a straw that had to be clutched. So the {cough} wise and knowledgeable 'experts' in the tobacco control industry duly did so, retweeting this hilariously ignorant article with knuckle-dragging enthusiasm.

How stunning success in Japan which has dramatically reduced the sales of cigarettes can be described as "no-one wants" these products anymore is anyone's guess. But then, tobacco control has lived in its own wibbly-wobbly world of mendacious woo for so long that it must be difficult, after a while, for them to work out what is real and what is not. It's not like they're that bright to begin with, after all.

What is actually happening here is that the tobacco control industry is embarrassed that after decades of sucking on the taxpayer teat to the tune of hundreds billions of pounds, they have never once been able to produce results anywhere near as dramatic as this.

Graph pinched from this article, do go read it

And nor will they ever. Because they're morons who have completely abandoned any fig leaf that they are interested in helping smokers and improving public health. As we saw in Cape Town recently, they don't care what smokers do, they only care about bashing industry.

And if they have to support vacuous and incorrigibly retarded articles written by people who have about as much business savvy as a three year old, then that'll do for them, Tommy.

It's quite scary that governments listen to cretins like that, isn't it? 

None So Blind ...

It's only early April, but we have a contender for the most delusional and ill-judged tweet of the year.

Wow! Okay, if you actually believe Big#Tobacco's behavior to be exemplary, I'm thrilled, because I have several bridges in the San Francisco area for sale at very reasonable prices!! I remain mystified as to why vaping advocates have become avid supporters of tobacco companies https://t.co/uQJUpjuY49

— Ruth Malone (@MaloneRuth) 31 March 2018

Now, I've always said that new products such as e-cigs had the potential to show up tobacco controllers as the charlatans that they are, but the incompetent behaviour of some in the face of a changing nicotine market has exceeded even my hopeful expectations. That tweet - from an editor of the Tobacco Control comic - says it all.

For the best part of a decade, tobacco controllers have been telling outrageous and blatant lies about e-cigs in order to get them banned. Meanwhile, the tobacco industry has been quietly developing proper science around their products.

Industry has been selling products that consumers like while tobacco control has been issuing junk science study after junk science study which are so lame that they take minutes to see through. 

It takes an incredibly cult-like outlook on life to not understand, then, why vapers trust industry over a bunch of liars who have restricted choice of products in the EU and are still doing their damnedest to either tax e-cigs into oblivion or take them off the shelves globally.

Of course the tobacco industry now has more integrity in the eyes of many vapers than tobacco control, and rightly so.

Incredibly, Ruth "remains mystified" as to why, despite the evidence being all around her, as Mike Siegel wrote in 2014.

When the tobacco industry decided - sometime back around 2000 or so - to stop monitoring tobacco control science and to just let us say anything we wanted to - I thought they had made a poor decision. But in retrospect, I think it may have been brilliant. They apparently knew that before long, without the restraints of having to answer to Big Tobacco's public questioning, our science would deteriorate and we would just start saying anything we wanted to. Unrestrained, the tobacco control movement's scientific rigor would fall to such a low level that we would end up discrediting ourselves and undermining our own credibility. 

Well, we're there. We're officially there.

We are indeed, yet many tobacco controllers just keep digging that hole, oblivious to the harm it is causing them.

Hilarious!  

First The Pubs, Now For The Corner Shops

I've written about the pathetic and futile tobacco control policy of 'divestment' before. If you've not heard of it, the theory kinda goes something like this:

"If we convince people to stop investing in tobacco companies, Big Tobacco will inevitably fail and victory will be ours! Ours I tell you! Muahahahaha!"

It's the kind of daft policy a ten year old with a very loose grasp of how the world works would think up, but tobacco control apparently seem to think they're onto a winner. Hint: They're not.

As I've explained before, it just goes to further show that tobacco controllers have absolutely no clue about economics and finance.  

The only loser in this sad story are the poor pensioners and future pensioners who are cursed to have lost high performing stocks as a result of stupidity. The tobacco industry couldn't give a toss. 

You see, the price of a company's shares is entirely separate to the profitability or true worth of the business. Unless the company concerned is thinking of announcing a rights issue to raise funds - something tobacco companies don't have to do because they are highly profitable - the share price is irrelevant to them as far as income is concerned. 

Profitability and worth are real things, share price is just a measure for those who wish to make money on the back of that profitability and worth by way of yield and dividends. 

Righteous types can sell billions of shares on principle but it doesn't matter one iota to 'Big Tobacco'. The share price may wane but nobody will stop smoking because of it, but whoever buys the shares after that makes a lot more money.

The sum total of people who will quit smoking as a result of divestment is precisely zero, as Snowdon further emphasised writing for City AM last year. 

You have to wonder whether campaigners for divestment really understand how the stock market operates. From their rhetoric, you would think that Exxon Mobil and Philip Morris were startup companies looking to raise money by floating on the stock exchange, and that they can be starved of cash if people refuse to buy their shares. 

This is obviously not how it works. Divesting from tobacco stock will have a negligible impact on the share price and will have absolutely no impact on either cigarette sales or company profits. There is no mechanism by which selling shares could deter a single person from smoking.

Yep, it's just further proof that tobacco control has now ceased most of its efforts at helping people to quit smoking, and are now dedicating their time towards pseudo-political posturing against big industry instead. It's not about health anymore, it's just about bashing 'Big Tobacco', as we saw from the laughable and Orwellian WCTOH earlier this month. 

Well, now it seems that Cancer Research UK is hoping to extend this idea to UK corner shops, as this research funded by them illustrates. 

In comparison to other products sold in small retail shops, profit margins from tobacco are low (4–6%). For example, profits (sic) margins on confectionary (sic) sales are estimated at 30%

Well yes, if I compare apples with oranges I could make many stupid claims too. Of course margins on cigarettes are going to be small, probably because of the huge 80% tax that government has slapped on them; margins are larger on confectionery because the Exchequer has not found a credible way of taxing children ... yet. They're still working on that particular piece of hideous state interference. 

Yet again, though, we see tobacco control embarrassing themselves with their knowledge of how businesses work, abjectly failing to understand smokers, and overlooking what their role is supposed to be. Let's, for example, assume that CRUK manage to persuade small retailers to abandon cigarette sales entirely. What public health benefit will accrue? 

Well, nothing, of course. How does a retailer deciding to stop selling cigarettes make anyone quit smoking? 

These cretins seriously believe that corner shops stopping selling cigarettes will inevitably lead to locals smoking less or quitting because of the nuisance. Erm, no, it would more likely mean smokers would buy from supermarkets instead - almost certainly cheaper due to economies of scale - and they'd stock up by buying in bulk rather than as single packs. The only loser here is the local shop who has stupidly forsaken footfall as a main driver of his business, on the advice of tax-sponging no-marks employed in an unproductive industry which is a costly drain on our economy.

Because, you see, the study admits this in its data. This research found that tobacco is important not just because of footfall, but also because of revenue: 90.3% say tobacco sales are important or very important and 80.2% say they rely on tobacco sales for footfall - precisely the mechanism that drives customers to the more lucrative 30% profit margins of other products such as, well, confectionery.

If tobacco controllers weren't such irretrievable morons when it comes to basic economic principles, they might have worked it out for themselves. After all, 250 years ago Adam Smith wrote about how self-interest drives business, not the financially-illiterate, state-led coercive bullshit peddled by cranks and charlatans in 'public health'.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

This is true of any business. I don't run mine to benefit my customers, I run it to make a living. Just like corner shops sell cigarettes because it is helpful to their bottom line; if it wasn't they wouldn't sell them. If I didn't make that living, what's the point? I'm not a charity. Only people who float through life not having to worry about where the next dime is coming from can possibly get this fundamental business principle wrong.

Which is why it is completely alien to tobacco controllers.

Hmm, so let's think how corner shops could better serve their own self-interest and simultaneously benefit health goals without obliterating their footfall, shall we? The authors of this research say that some retailers reported higher margins on e-cigarettes, but make nothing of it. Wouldn't this be a better message to send from a CRUK-funded study than this blunt and flawed insistence that small shops abandon cigarette sales simply because tobacco control hate the tobacco industry and don't give a monkey's chuff about the profits that local retailers need to stay in business?

Well yes, but you won't hear tobacco controllers making that argument. In fact, in Cape Town, one of their finest said the exact opposite in a press conference about e-cigs.

Between 2012 and 2015, the UK phased out the display of cigarettes in shops, and all cigarettes now have to be hidden behind shutters but “as tobacco was removed, e-cigarettes came in and took their place within their displays,” said UK scientist (University of Stirling) Catherine Best.

Yes Catherine, isn't that the entire fucking point? This, by the way, is the same University of Stirling which advised government that no pubs had closed as a result of the smoking ban. Do you see a trend?

There really is no pleasing these people. And let me emphasise once again that this study was funded by CRUK, those fine upstanding champions of e-cigs and harm reduction. Yet their researchers were presented with an open goal here and hoofed the ball into row Z of the upper tier instead. They can advocate for retailers to cease selling fags as much as they like, but the only result will be as many bankrupt and empty corner shops as there now are pubs. Here was an opportunity to offer a positive message but, dagnabbit, they just couldn't shake that addiction to coercion and bullying of honest, hard-working businesses instead.

Christ! What a waste of their time and, more importantly, everyone else's money.  

The Cult-Like Stupidity At #WCTOH2018

As Snowdon has also written, the World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH) last week was a staggering car crash of an event where the tobacco control industry basically announced to the world that it had abandoned any last remnants of the facade that it cares for health.

The level of lying was off the scale, but it was the sheer unadulterated stupidity and naivety on display which deserves more comment in my opinion.

Firstly, in an era where peace is valued more highly by modern society than war, it's hilarious to see state-funded delegates queue up to talk about waging war on a globally legal industry which provides handsome tax receipts for governments, erm, everywhere! The idea that, for example, the UK Treasury will be shorn of circa £12bn in duty is never going to fly with any legislative body, they are screaming into the void.

We know why they do this, of course, it's because it is political suicide to talk about waging a war on smokers - which the vast majority of sneering arseholes at that conference would much prefer to do - so they deflect the anger towards 'Big Tobacco' which is only servicing the demands of consumers and investors. It's not rocket science.

That this has led them to embark on a stance towards The Foundation for a Smokefree World (FSFW) which could end up comprehensively embarrassing them is pure comedy gold.

See, if I was advising these tobacco control clowns, apart from pointing out that their shoes are far too long, I'd be saying that the odds are better in their favour if they were to fully embrace the idea of FSFW.

Confused? OK, well just consider their reason for objecting to FSFW. It's because they despise 'Big Tobacco' and have a fascist rule to ensure they never have to properly debate article 5.3 to say that the tobacco industry should have no say in policy. They would claim that FSFW breaches that even though there is no evidence that it has or will do. They point to the fact that industry lied 50 years ago so cannot be trusted. But what are they afraid of (and as I wrote last week, they are fucking terrified)?

They are afraid, simply, because the FSFW might deliver positive results. This doesn't bear thinking about for many reasons, one of which is that we'd need fewer tobacco controllers, but also because it would prove that collaborations with industry - as is Derek Yach's stated ethos - might actually work.

It takes away one of their arguments - that industry should never be trusted - but they're playing with fire trying to keep it. Because imagine if what FSW proposes did work, and  governments recognised and accepted that it worked? How bad would it look if the entire tobacco control industry had fought with every sinew to stop it working?

Now, they will say that it's nonsense, it's all a scam as Mike Siegel declared recently. But what if it is? It's still not in the tobacco control industry's interests to oppose it. Why? Because if it is designed to hoodwink everyone then the cretins at WCTOH are playing right into 'Big Tobacco's' hands. Politically the tobacco manufacturers can say that they tried their very best but had to give up because those who are supposed to be in favour of reducing smoking stopped them. What other choice have they got except to go on making cigarettes?

There is no scenario where tobacco control is going to win with the stance they are taking.

Imagine instead that they supported FSFW and it did turn out to be a 'scam'. Well then the industry has a problem because if they have support and are proven to have been playing games again, their reputations are shot for another few generations. As things stand, WCTOH's daft position threatens to shatter tobacco control reputations far more than on the other side.

It's a masterstroke from the industry which could, hopefully, show up the charlatans in tobacco-based 'public health' for what they really are; just a bunch of lying, low intellect blowhards and journeymen with no political nous whatsoever.

What's more, if FSFW does deliver and tobacco control hasn't backed them, there is only one place that the adulation is heading to, and it ain't tobacco controllers.

It's not even as if WCTOH came up with anything radically different than their usual, tax, restrict, ban mantra. Just the same old low-grade, expensive and non-efficacious gravy train-perpetuating nonsense.

Personally, I hope they carry on being utterly stupid about it all and trash their reputations at the same rate as the public appreciate the renewed sincerity of the tobacco industry, it will be pretty to watch.

We are living in a bizarre world where Simon Clark expresses deep mistrust about FSFW, and tobacco controllers, including Debs Arnott of ASH, are of the same view. I mean, doesn't that raise a few alarm bells in the batshit crazy tobacco control Mothership? Their cult - because that it exactly what it is - has become so pervasive in its brain-washing that the vacant, weasel-headed, blovating cocksplats in Cape Town last week can't even see what is good for them. Some might say they are addicted to idiocy, they can't help themselves, and should seek help.

With this whole cult thing going on, you have to wonder why those amongst the tobacco control community who are energised by the promise of reduced risk products - and there were some there - bothered to turn up. To change things from the inside, I guess. But this movement is so utterly indoctrinated by ignorance and powered by hatred that the idea of change from within is absurd. It's like someone in the 1940s popping along to a Nuremberg rally on the premise that "if I could just meet a few of them, I'm sure I can talk them round".

We live in interesting times, don't we?

UPDATE: Via Twitter, it seems I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

Utter Waste Of Public Money

Just a quick one this. Let's lay to rest an inane argument that keeps repeating itself in ignorant comments sections and social media and has done for years.

On Friday, Mark Pawsey MP wrote an article on Con Home to say that vaping should be supported by government. As I was reading it, I just knew that someone would react like this ... and in fact three did in the comments.

"If this is the best thing you have to occupy your thought processes then I feel sorry for you. Its a trivial matter, compared to many big issues where the country is so obviously doing badly." 

"All-Parliamentary Group for e-cigarettes? You couldn't make it up." 

"complete and utter waste of public money wasting time on stuff like this"

Now, these dismissive arguments have cropped up for years when anyone discusses relaxing restrictions or de-regulating on lifestyle issues. For example, in 2010 when David Nuttall presented a ten minute rule bill on amending the smoking ban, the coverage was besieged by those who said he was wasting parliamentary time.

I don't remember anyone saying the same when the Health Bill 2006 was being debated in parliament. The triumphal response afterwards was that this was one of the most amazing and important things ever to have happened to the country, a massive watershed moment. I also don't remember anyone saying that the EU was wasting their time and taxpayers' money by spending two years debating how big the size of an e-liquid bottle should be.

Nor do you see many people ridiculing the government for spending its time on the pressing issue of people enjoying a Coca-Cola, or on debating exactly how far a kebab shop should be from a school. It seems to be vitally important when the ratchet is being tightened. 

But once the rules are in place and you talk about changing them, all of a sudden it's a waste of time. Something serious politicians shouldn't even lower themselves to contemplate.

See, I could agree with those who argue this if they also said that politicians shouldn't even be considering regulations on private choices and laws on what goes on in private property. But they don't. And all the while our elected reps think it's important to tell us what we should and shouldn't consume by way of legislation, it's perfectly bloody reasonable that they should also be considering that the rules could be changed for the better afterwards.

We didn't ask for these things to be included in politics, daft politicians led by the nose by state-funded troughers did that. Therefore these issues are absolutely part of politics. Saying otherwise is just a nonsense. 

'Sensible' Regulation For E-Cigs

Just catching up after an illuminating couple of days in Ireland, I saw this and thought you might be amused.

Isn't that marvellous? The EU has imposed a regulation on all 28 member states which describes a solid inanimate object as containing nicotine when it plainly doesn't. The regulation is so ridiculous that simply by applying it the manufacturer is contravening legislation designed to protect the public from misleading information.

The MHRA then suggests that a way round this is to add qualifying text which corrects the regulation which is contravening legislation designed to protect the public.

But ... this text then contravenes the original EU regulation because it illegally modifies the EU's original demand. 

However, that's OK because the MHRA won't enforce it, probably because it would make them complicit in contravening the EU TPD.

I know it's a hackneyed phrase, but you really couldn't make this kind of absurd EU incompetence up, could you? Can we leave yet? 

Signage And The Anti-Vaping Status Quo

In July, the government released its Tobacco Control Plan (TCP). It claimed to be supportive of e-cigarettes, including this part about vaping in public.

Public Health England has produced guidance for employers and organisations looking to introduce policies around e-cigarettes and vaping in public and recommend such policies to be evidence-based. PHE recommends that e-cigarette use is not covered by smokefree legislation and should not routinely be included in the requirements of an organisation’s smokefree policy.

As vaping bans sweep up and down the country without a whimper of objection from 'supportive' tobacco control groups we could mention, it doesn't appear that many employers or businesses are taking much notice of the TCP. In fact, it doesn't even appear that NHS Trusts have bothered to read it either, here's a telling picture of two ghastly goons from Chesterfield unveiling their retarded policy to the media earlier this month.

The very next day, Darent Valley Hospital in Kent went one better. They didn't just completely ignore the TCP, they also celebrated the Stoptober campaign ... by banning the products Stoptober said smokers could use instead of tobacco!

21st Sept, @stoptober announces you can use #ecigs to quit, on 25th, @DarentValleyHsp celebrates Stoptober by banning them #Idiots pic.twitter.com/9q3s4lyii7

— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) October 6, 2017

Of course, as we have come to expect, these creeping bans on vaping were met with complete silence by those in the tobacco control industry who claim to be onside. 'Twas ever thus.

In the meantime, Transport for London - which, again, is a state-funded arm of government - insists on these signs on all its taxi and private hire vehicles in the capital.

It is the legally-mandated no smoking sign, just with the addition of vaping as if to imply that using e-cigs is against the law - which it is not, of course - but they tweet regularly about how you can be fined by a court anyway. As I understand it, if a vehicle does not carry this sign, it will fail inspection and not be licensed.

Don't you have to wonder about how sincere the TCP and the tobacco control industry is about supporting vaping when these signs are going up without so much as a stern word from anyone in 'public health'?

Recently we have also seen private companies pretending that e-cig use is against the law when it isn't. I wrote last month about London Midland trying to brazen it out when challenged that - despite what their policy says - vaping in public is not a criminal offence. Yet here we have Aldi claiming the same thing.

@AldiUK It's not against the law to vape anywhere in the U.K you need to alter your sign, it's incorrect @PHE_uk @NNAlliance @jsummers71 pic.twitter.com/bjKnOWiumH

— Brian Coe (@BrisyCoe) October 4, 2017

Greggs, too, either think vaping is against the law, or just like pretending that it is.

.@GreggsOfficial Please change this - ecigs are not smoking & you're helping confuse people about a safer alternative pic.twitter.com/Wabing90UY

— NNA_John Summers (@jsummers71) October 12, 2017

Now, in light of this apparent support of vaping recently from 'public health', how can it be that so many organisations - both private and public sector - can be allowed to bastardise the law to insinuate that using e-cigs is a criminal matter rather than just a boneheaded policy decision by lazy and/or stupid people?

Surely making claims, either directly or indirectly, of law-breaking when it is nothing of the sort should be subject to some kind of sanction in a country that supposedly values freedom? Well, apparently not, because you see the government itself has said that this kind of fraud is perfectly OK.

Their update to the The Smoke-free (Signs) Regulations in 2012 states:

"While it remains a legal duty to display at least one legible no-smoking sign in smoke-free premises and vehicles, the owners and managers will have discretion as to the design and location of no- smoking signs."

In other words, you can change the legal no smoking sign however you choose, and many have chosen to include e-cigs in theirs.

How about that for joined-up government, eh? The TCP makes a pledge to support vaping, PHE provides advice saying that policies should distinguish between smoking and vaping, but all the while a government statutory instrument allows a wild west affair whereby just about anything can be described as illegal alongside smoking ... and the same state-funded organisations claiming to be in support of tobacco harm reduction just whistle and look the other way.

A cynic might conclude that seeing as tobacco control gets its grants from advocating tax hikes, bans and pseudo-prohibition, it is quite happy for vaping to be demonised in this way, considering how e-cigs have clearly been far more successful in creating former smokers - without any cost to the taxpayer whatsoever - than anything they have done at huge cost to the public purse.

Every week we see research studies from tobacco control about safety of e-cigs, liquids, views of children on vaping, even social media scrutiny of vapers themselves. I have yet to see a single study, though, which touches on the derogatory effect of vaping bans on smokers switching. It's almost like they are happy with the way things are going and really couldn't care less, isn't it?

The status quo is very profitable for tobacco control, don't expect their 'support' to be anything more than a few words here and there designed to con vapers that they actually care, when they really don't.