Dick Out And About In Shrewsbury

On Saturday we Puddlecotes went on holiday or, to be more accurate, we grown up Puddlecotes withdrew a ton of money which the little Ps will mostly spend on our behalf. On the way, though, we dragged them to Vapefest 2015 to put them through some excruciating boredom beforehand.

Held in Shrewsbury, Vapefest is an event which attracts much of the beard, tattoo and piercing lung-loading end of the vaping market as you can see from this overview vid.

Not exclusively though, and I was invited by Vapers in Power as part of their programme to introduce vapers to the unavoidable politics which e-cigs have prompted, and the idea of advocacy. There were a number of speakers during the two days, Simon Clark and I were scheduled for about tea time on the Saturday (you can read his write-up of the experience here). We both spoke for a few minutes before a very enthusiastic Q&A session.

I chose to speak about why vapers should support smokers in objecting to smoking bans and made a few mnemonic notes as a guide before taking the microphone. As such, I can't say that this is what I said verbatim because it was mostly off the cuff, and there was a fair amount of digression with an engaged audience, but it's not too far off the mark.

Thank you for the invitation, especially from Liam, to speak.

I'm going to explain why vapers should stand up with smokers against smoking bans. The very simple reason is that anything visited upon smokers will eventually happen to vapers too, without question. We know this because it is already happening. From memory I can only think of one case where legislators have made exceptions for e-cigs.

There have been two recent examples to speak of. In February, Scottish hospitals were told by the devolved government to ban smoking in NHS grounds and even the car park, there was nothing in the government directive about e-cigs - in fact, that decision was left entirely up to NHS managers - but all except one NHS trust included e-cigs anyway. The BBC reported one NHS spokesman as saying:

"They should be treated like any other nicotine product"

And in June, Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals in London proudly announced on Twitter that their outdoor smokefree policy included e-cigs. The trust's smokefree policy revealed the justification for their loony decision was that:

"They are currently not regulated as a tobacco product or as a medicine"

This statement illustrates the mistrust of e-cigs from the 'public health' community. If e-cigs are regulated as a tobacco product it will be banned; if they are regulated as a medicine, it will price them out of the market and eradicate the appeal. In the view of the NHS, vaping will never be accepted.

Now, some of you may know that I'm not overly keen on ASH, but I don't think vapers were pleased with them either when they eagerly retweeted the brilliant news from Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals. They have also raised little objection to other bans that include vaping.

ASH are, however, very happy with outdoor smoking bans and have supported the silly idea of a ban in Hyde Park, along with Brighton's proposed ban on beaches - which also may include pub gardens - along with outdoor bans in Bristol and proposals for the same in Leicester.

It's a fact that everywhere smoking is banned, e-cigs are included. The New York parks ban includes vaping, as have bans in Canada and elsewhere. Just yesterday, Boulder Colorado announced that their ban on smoking in social housing will include pot and e-cigs too. That's vaping in the home. Banned.

The reason why vaping is not excluded despite being completely different is that politicans, civil servants and managers cannot be bothered to make difficult decisions, they like easy rules. You can lobby them as much as you like to exclude e-cigs but the default is to just ban vaping along with smoking because it's just simpler that way.

You can see the same principle in the case of sports stadia. Wembley, Twickenham and Cardiff's Millennium Stadium already ban vaping, amongst others, and in other venues where it is not in the ground regs, it's not worth asking for a ruling because the easiest decision would be just to ban to save confusion. None of these people understand vapers or smokers so would simply write one line in the regs including e-cigs in their policy and have done with it.

Now, I'd ask you to think back to before July 1st 2007 when the smoking ban in England began. Do you really think anyone would have even the remotest objection to e-cigs inside or out if it weren't for the ban on smoking? No-one would have batted an eyelid at vaping if it wasn't for the smoking ban. There is a direct causal link between smoking bans and bans on vaping. If you're standing outside with your inoffensive e-cig, you have a smoking ban to blame it on.

I've said this before on the blog but it's worth saying again. Every e-cig ban - and I mean every one - is directly as a result of prejudice-driven smoking bans. Without exception. One follows the other surely as night follows day.

Yesterday I watched a video of a woman who had quit smoking using e-cigs and was rightly proud of it. She wasn't ashamed of having been a smoker as she enjoyed it, she even still identified with smokers much to her credit. But she described how she goes to the smoking area to vape along with others, even saying vapers outnumbered the smokers. This is just plain wrong and I worry that vapers are already self-shaming like many smokers did to allow disgraceful people to ride roughshod over them.

Vapers are a powerful vocal force and should be vehemently objecting to any ban on vaping, anywhere. To see meek submission in the face of ignorance and bigotry from anti-smoking obsessives was very disappointing and could serve to weaken the impact empowered vapers are slowly having on politicians.

Because politicians get a pat on the back from lobbyists for passing smoking bans, and - whether they put them in place by law or leave it up to the NHS, private businesses or others - the result is always the same, e-cigs are lumped in too. Starbucks, Wetherspoons, Scottish hospitals, sports stadia, you name it, the list of places vaping is now banned for no reason is endless.

Today at Vapefest we're seeing thousands of people who are proud of their kit and their innocent pleasure, they shouldn't be thinking of themselves as outcasts, nor should anyone else. Vapers shouldn't self-shame, they should be proudly and confidently rejecting and fighting vaping bans wherever they are suggested. The most effective way of doing that is to stop bans happening to smokers in the first place.

Well that's what I think anyway. Feel free to discuss.

Link Tank 08/08

Silly season with a dash of sense.

Why anti-alcohol campaigners fail to understand British drinking habits

The surprising history of London’s lost tobacco houses

'Public health', lying again

In the war on Uber, the public loses out

How India's porn ban backfired and united the nation

"Demand for commercial sex is therefore inevitable"

Italian town warns people to 'stop dying'

New Zealand pub serves up deer semen beer (pic)

Chinese local authority bans birthday parties

Yorkshireman takes his sheep to McDonald's

Spicy animal sex

Clash Of The Also-Rans

It's Friday, so how about something absurdly comedic.

Irish study to find best way to quit smoking for good

[T]he Tobacco Free Research Institute (TFRI) at the Dublin Institute of Technology is using a controlled sample of 300 smokers as guinea pigs to test the success rates of Allen Carr's Easyway smoking cessation programme versus the HSE's Quit.ie initiative.

Well, it's definitely an Irish study if it is seeking the "best way to quit smoking" but excludes e-cigs, isn't it?

The 12-month Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT), which is free for participants and funded through the Department of Health's Lottery Fund, is intended to show which programme - if not both - is the most likely to help smokers quit for good.

This is like lottery money funding a study to decide which is the best football team in the Premiership, Watford or West Brom. It's little more than pointless junk but, hey, someone's getting paid for it.

"Unusually, we have recruited publicly because we want to compare these two treatment modalities," said TFRI founder and consultant respiratory physician Professor Luke Clancy.

Oh I see, Luke Clancy is involved. An obsessed man whose dislike of smoking is only eclipsed by his utter unhinged hatred of tobacco companies. The fact that the tobacco industry owns a small proportion of the e-cig market has obviously helped him completely abandon the idea of his role being anything to do with health, not that it had much to do with it before. Standard stuff, really.

While the number of smokers in Ireland is at its lowest ever level, at approximately 20pc of the adult population, Prof Clancy, who was instrumental in bringing in the 2004 smoking ban, said Ireland still has a way to go if we are to achieve the health department's goal of being virtually smoke-free, with just 5pc of the population smoking by 2025. "We worried that no matter what we do, we won't reach this target," he said. "So we're looking to see can we improve things."

Well, you could always consider e-cigs, Luke. Erm, Luke, Luke, look over here Luke! Oh, he seems to be ignoring us.

Fighting To Stay At The Trough

See, via the BBC, this is why 'public health' is an expensive and wasteful drain on our taxes and society in general (it doesn't reflect well on the BBC as a renowned news source either, to be honest).

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. 

The Smoking Matters service in Dumfries and Galloway helped 102 people in deprived areas kick the habit in the past year - 251 below target.

What's not to like, eh? Instead of quitting smoking the expensive way for the country - by taking up the time of public sector staff being highly-paid out of funds ripped from the wages of workers who quite need the cash right now - smokers are spending their own money on something much more effective and which doesn't cost the state an arm and a leg during times of austerity.

Public Health Consultant Dr Andrew Carnon said the trend was being mirrored across Scotland.

Public health 'consultant'? Good grief, it's wheels within wheels of waste, isn't it?

He said many people saw e-cigarettes as a stepping stone to stopping smoking.

Yes indeed, I believe the figure is 1.1 million ex-smokers thanks exclusively to e-cigs ... and counting.

That was the first decrease seen in recent years and it was also suggested this could be "partly explained" by the rise in the use of e-cigarettes.

Partly explained? Does this guy know how very big a number 1.1 million is?

Dr Carnon said that although there was still a lack of evidence about their effectiveness, the NHS might have to review and adapt its smoking cessation service in the future.

Erm, there are 1.1 million confirmed cases proving that there is, indeed, evidence of the effectiveness of e-cigs. This guy is a doctor, are they not required to be able to count?

"The position of e-cigarettes is at the moment not fully clear because they are so new there hasn't been all the research carried out," he said. 

"We actually don't know at this stage just how effective they are in helping people to stop smoking."

No, we really do. And research really has been carried out, I've linked to some of it above. There is also a dedicated report from the Smoking in England site if he would care to look, it comes to the same kind of conclusions.

Shouldn't someone being paid out of our taxes as a 'consultant' have some clue of what he is meant to be talking about?

"There is also a risk, potentially at least, that smokers may use them in certain settings where they are not allowed to smoke tobacco but without any intention of actually stopping smoking tobacco cigarettes."

That really is none of your fucking business sunshine. Are you really saying that e-cigs are bad because they offer smokers a choice? If you offer patches to a smoker and they decline, that's as far as your involvement should go. Same applies with e-cigs if they choose not to quit. The most insane and tyrannical reaction is to condemn e-cigs entirely because people won't bow to your fascist demands, you weapons grade chimp.

He said that was clearly a case where they would not be of any benefit to a smoker's health.

Utter bollocks. If they are using an e-cig instead of going outside to smoke, there is a benefit. How the tobacco control industry has evolved to believe that the theories of Paracelsus have been suspended for just one substance is quite remarkable. It's nothing short of being a cult now.

"The third possibility, which again would not be a great one, is that people who don't smoke might feel that e-cigarettes are something that are much safer that they would like to try," he added.

It's only a possibility in the minds of people whose income relies on pretending it is a possibility. All research worldwide has concluded that it isn't happening. I think Mr Carnon should take his fat nose out of the tax trough and go do something more worthwhile with his life ... like fetching shopping trolleys for Asda.

"We just don't have the research evidence at the moment to say whether there is a risk that those people who might simply be experimenting with e-cigarettes might get drawn into using tobacco cigarettes at a later stage."

No, Carnon, we damn well do! In fact, even ASH say that "there is no evidence from our research that e-cigarettes are acting as a gateway into smoking". You're on the same side, you must have heard of them, surely?

Dr Carnon said it was clear from research that people had the best chance of quitting with some support.

No it's not. There has been a dramatic uptick in successful quitting since e-cigs appeared on the scene, and considering most stop smoking services don't advocate e-cigs, it suggests you're badly wrong.

"It is not just about the nicotine replacement, it is not just about use of e-cigarettes," he said.

No, it's also about your wallet, isn't it?

"It is actually about working with somebody to help you through the difficult process - because it's not easy to quit smoking."

Well, apparently, for over a million ex-smokers, it is with an e-cig.

"So really we would encourage people either to go to the smoking cessation service which is called Smoking Matters or to one of their local pharmacies who can help them or they can ask their GP if they would like some advice."

Or they can save the country money by doing what 1.1 million smokers have done, do it on their own without shovelling wasteful cash at self-enriching parasites like you, who endorse a service which boasts an embarrassing record of failure at an astonishingly high cost to the public.

The sooner costly, inept, smug, and mendacious troughers like Carnon are unhooked from the state's teat, the better.

Follow the money, it's never been about health.

The "Negative Health Outcomes" Of Lung Cancer Screening

Carl Phillips has written some must-read articles on the extremists who exist in the tobacco control industry scam recently.

He describes anti-tobacco extremism very well in this article, but a previous post explaining why 'public health' loves lung cancer is particularly well drawn.

About ten years ago, I coined the term “anti-tobacco extremists” to refer to those who take the most extreme view of tobacco use. This was an attempt to push back against anti-THR activists being inaccurately referred to as public health, given that they actively seek to harm the public’s health. I have since given up on that, and recognize that “public health” is an unsalvageable rubric, which should just be relegated to being a pejorative. But the extremist concept remains useful. The test for anti-tobacco extremism is the answer to the following question: If you could magically change the world so that either (a) there was no use of tobacco products or (b) people could continue to enjoy using tobacco but there was a cheap magic pill that they could take to eliminate any excess disease risk it caused, which would you choose? Anyone who would choose (a) over (b) takes anti-tobacco to its logical extreme, making clear that they object to the behavior, not its effects.

Of course, this is only theory until we see something to prove Carl's point. Fortunately, though, there is always one comedy tobacco controller willing to step up to the plate.

New push to screening for lung cancer signif reduces motivation to quit. Magical thinking abt screening. Qual study http://t.co/t9Sn8bq8Q5

— Simon Chapman AO (@SimonChapman6) July 31, 2015

Yes, it really does appear that Chappers is promoting a study which suggests better lung cancer screening could actually be a bad thing! But it gets worse when you look more closely at the study itself.

Firstly, it analysed a mere 35 people, so can in no way be claimed to be representative of the general public. Now, I thought Chapman was pretty hot on such derisory sample sizes, but apparently not. But then, the 'public health' movement is increasingly not much to do with health, more a deep-seated hatred of anyone who earns money selling stuff that people enjoy and choose to buy.

The body of the study Chapman found so interesting (35, dude, just 35) is yet another classic example of looking at 'intent' rather than actual behaviour, just like those pumped out by world-renowned junk scientist Mad Stan.

Tobacco control scammers like to publish on perceptions because they don't like doing proper science and following people up to look at quit rates or behaviour change, it's too much like hard work and they are addicted to easy tax-funded cash. In this case, the study conclusion is that smokers believe cancer screening can mean either they are not going to get cancer (as they haven't already) or, if they do, it will be caught and treated so they're safe. This could be useful if it leads to better conversations with patients, but the process of screening itself cannot possibly be described as potentially harmful by anyone but a blinkered 'public health' nutter who actually finds lung cancer quite useful for campaigning purposes.

Most importantly, though, the authors don't actually know if those who have been screened will actually refrain from quitting or instead if, after a little reflection and a bit of time after the screen, might actually decide that the very threat was enough and quit anyway. And the reason they don't know? Because - naturally for the tobacco control industry - they couldn't be bothered to follow people over time and find out.

Still, there you go, another day in the wibble-filled world of tobacco control, eh?

On Being On The Side Of The Angels

Things have been hectic in Puddlecoteville and beyond recently, so there is a lot to catch up on. I thought we might start with this from Brendan O'Neill in Newsweek at the weekend.

Commenting on Oxford students demanding a statue of Cecil Rhodes be removed, O'Neill pointed out that such denial of history is something only tyrannical regimes would even consider.

[ISIS's] English-language magazine Dabiq justified the destruction of artifacts at Mosul Museum in Iraq as a means of "erasing the legacy of a ruined nation." It boasts of having "laid to waste the...legacy of a nation that had long passed from the face of the Earth." 

What ISIS and the Oxford lot share in common is a Year Zero attitude, a desire to rewrite history. It’s a deeply authoritarian instinct: not merely to discuss the past and challenge its events and ideas, but to cleanse all remnants of it from the present. It's cultural cleansing, disguised as an Islamic duty by ISIS and as radical anti-racism by Oxford students.

I couldn't let this pass without adding another hideous set of intolerant re-writers of history to that list, they being psychotic anti-smoking nutcases.

There are too many examples to choose from to illustrate this phenomenon, it occurs occasionally when some rancid smoke-hating inadequate allows the red mist to descend and shows themself up to be incapable of living in decent society. I wrote about just such an unknown pathetic individual from the past in 2010 which you may be interested to read if you're new around here.

By the same token, a statue of Oscar Wilde in London has been so regularly vandalised by anti-smoking cocksockets that Westminster City Council gave up.

Suffolk artist Maggi Hambling's sculpture of the Irish poet, playwright and author in London has been targeted three times by vandals who have sawn off the cigarette he holds. 

Hambling, who lives near the Suffolk coast, has said she will not replace the cigarette for a fourth time until Westminster City Council installs CCTV to ensure it is protected. 

But the council has now said it cannot justify spending money on security cameras because there is not a “serious problem” with vandalism in the area. 

[Hambling said] “The way Oscar Wilde held his cigarette completes the sculpture as a piece of work. It's vitally necessary and very seldom was he seen without a cigarette. It's very much part of the portrait of Wilde. 

“It's very sad indeed if someone thinks a sculpture of someone from the past must be crucified like this because of the anti-smoking fanatics about. 

“Are people going to start airbrushing Winston Churchill's cigars or Humphrey Bogart's cigarettes?"

Well, it's funny she should say that, because that's exactly what some ungrateful socially-deficient obsessive did a couple of years after Hambling said that.

Which serves as a very apt juxtaposition. Andrew Marr, in his Making of Modern Britain documentary in 2009, suggested that "the greatest Briton of all time" would have been firmly on our side if alive today.

One phrase that would certainly have resonated with the old boy is 'health Nazi' - the interfering busybodies who instruct us on what is good or bad for our health. 

He never drank quite as much as he pretended to, but his consumption was still oceanic compared to modern recommendations, and life without cigar-smoking he would have regarded as barbaric. He came from a big-eating, heavy-drinking, tobacco-consuming generation which paid for their pleasures by dying earlier but - it might be argued - had a happier time before the final call.

Lined up with us against intolerant fascistic fucknuckles are the type of people who fought fascism; abhor censorship; condemn falsification of history; and reject denial of reality, while those ranged up against tolerance and freedom of choice can comfortably be compared with a certain smoke-hating former German dictator - who Churchill defended Britain against - and ISIS in their methods.

This is why when I say we are on the side of the angels here, and that tobacco control tax spongers deserve prison time for encouraging such hate and division in our population, I really do mean it.

Link Tank 01/08

After a busy week in Puddlecoteville, hence the light content.

Tesco’s Ribena ban will do nothing to satisfy public-health zealots

Is banning smoking outdoors a step too far

A fridge too far

Australian nannies call for a tax on meat

Western world is coming down from the hallucinatory war on drugs

England's first ever crisp sandwich shop opens in Yorkshire

Cameron: Free porn websites could be shut down within months

Socialist paradise of Venezuela faces beer shortage

KFC launches bucket that is also a photo printer, why did no-one think of this before?

Norway makes world record ice cream cone

Drunk Polish badger

And an interesting primer on free range parenting.