Gosh, No Idea

Yesterday I saw a tweet which fair astounded me.

Wonder why these harm perceptions just keep going in the wrong direction? Gosh, no idea :( #UKCTAScpd pic.twitter.com/1nqHTl4HLt

— Linda Bauld (@LindaBauld) May 9, 2016

Bauld is no doubt referring to those in her industry who like to spread misleading information, junk science and lies about e-cigs, and she is correct to do so.

However, the world's prime promoter of such things - Mad Stan Glantz - has been a star in the tobacco control industry firmament for a very long time. Bauld and the rest of the UK tobacco control community have known he's a weapons grade lie machine for decades, but have been quite happy to let it all go without comment.

Glantz has been falsifying data and producing jaw-dropping junk research (like this, for example) since many of the current crop of career tax-sponging anti-smoking prohibitionists were in nappies, yet not one of these fine upstanding 'experts' and 'scientists' has ever bothered to pull him up on any of it before.

So there is some vague hint there by Bauld that some tobacco controllers like Glantz have been a bit naughty, but that'll be all it is; a vague hint. To make it any more than that would - quite rightly - call their own expertise and impartiality into question.

@CaeruleanSea His previous junk has been very useful to PH people. They can't suddenly admit that he's a clown.

— Christopher Snowdon (@cjsnowdon) May 7, 2016

Of course they can't, they've feasted on his crap for years and actively encouraged him. And that includes Robert West who produces the Smoking Toolkit study that the slide in that tweet is taken from.

The hypocrisy is staggering enough on its own, but let's consider something else. Y'see, for a long time the tobacco control industry has considered bans on the use of tobacco as being a prime tactic in the 'denormalisation' of smoking. Read World Health Organisation documents and public bans are regularly praised as being instrumental in making smoking unacceptable in the eyes of society.

Here's a good explanation of the concept.

Smoking restrictions, in addition to protecting non-smokers from the harms of environmental tobacco smoke, can contribute to denormalisation because they reduce the acceptability of smoking (Albers et al. 2004;Department of Health and Human Services 1991); in fact, some commentators regard smoking restrictions as the most effective way of denormalising tobacco use (Bell et al. 2010a;Brown et al. 2009). Many countries have now adopted legislation that bans smoking in work-places, restaurants and bars (Mackay et al. 2006) and, more recently, bans in outdoor spaces have also been considered (Chapman 2000; Bloch and Shopland 2000; Thomson et al. 2008;Colgrove et al. 2011). 

One mechanisms through which smoking bans can contribute to denormalisation is by reducing the general visibility of smoking. One study finds an association between the frequency with which youth observe smoking in different locations and the perception that smoking is socially acceptable; the authors conclude by recommending smoking bans specifically as a means of reducing the social acceptability of smoking (Alesci et al. 2003). Smoking bans in bars and restaurants also help undermine the association between smoking and exciting life-styles promoted by tobacco marketers (Hammond et al. 2006). Thus, smoking bans help establish non-smoking environments as the ‘norm’ (Brown et al. 2009). 

In addition, introducing smoking bans can in itself express and promote a negative attitude towards smoking and contribute to its denormalisation. As Glantz suggests, ‘clean indoor air legislation reduces smoking because it undercuts the social support network for smoking by implicitly defining smoking as an antisocial act’ (Glantz 1987, my emphasis).

Yes, that's the same Glantz in case you were wondering, 29 years ago!

The ways in which such bans are communicated can contribute further to these effects. For example,Chapman and Freeman emphasise that smoking bans on flights are announced in a way that emphasises that smokers are addicts:

At the start of every airline flight to, from and within Australia passengers are warned via onboard announcements that smoking is banned in-flight and, evoking memories of warnings given to schoolchildren about toilet-block smoking, an added warning is given that they must not smoke in aircraft toilets … When each flight ends, it is then seen as necessary to remind smokers that they cannot light up until they get outside the airport buildings. Again, the subtext of the message is plain: here are desperate addicts counting the seconds until they can smoke. (Chapman and Freeman 2008).

And there is Simple Simon too, presumably one of the people Bauld would blame for the public perception of vaping due to his Luddite attitude towards harm reduction.

Now, consider recent bans on vaping that we have seen. Erm, where was the public condemnation from those tobacco controllers who claim to be "supportive for quite some time" of e-cigs? They all know very well - because they have plotted for years to make it happen - that the smoking ban is the single most important measure for conning convincing the public that smoking is dangerous to bystanders.

Prior to the UK-wide ban there was an avalanche of articles pumping the line that passive smoking was harmful but the public really didn't care. They went about their daily lives watching soap operas, going to football, attending Weight Watchers, avoiding the news like the plague, all the usual stuff, but the vast majority would have barely read past a headline of a passive smoking article, and most just dismissed it anyway. They still went to pubs, met and socialised with smokers and simply weren't concerned.

There's a reason why ASH and the rest of their tobacco control chums were cock-a-hoop about the implementation of smoking bans in the UK ... because all of a sudden the state had legitimised what the tobacco control industry is well aware is a purposely-created myth. Few bothered to listen to them though, until the power of the state sent a loud message that a wisp of smoke is lethal.

Of all people in our society, ASH and the tobacco control industry are the most acutely aware of how damaging vaping bans are to the acceptability of e-cigs; yet they have sat on their hands and said absolutely sod all as ban after ban is installed. In Wales they even "fully welcome" such things and are unapologetic that the ASH Wales logo is on signs that tell the public that vaping has now been deemed a dangerous and abnormal habit which should be hidden from the eyes of children.

So Linda, if you want to know why "these harm perceptions just keep going in the wrong direction", it's very little to do with a few sparsely-read articles and the quotes of a few lunatics, it is far more the public perception which comes with vaping being banned on trains, buses, NHS premises, pubs, restaurants and just about everywhere else while your fellow "supportive" tobacco controllers do nothing about it. See, I'm pretty sure ASH and others know very well that the rantings of an aircraft mechanic from San Francisco will have far less influence on a housewife in Aberdeen than a vaping ban in a car park which, unsurprisingly, ASH Scotland have stayed staunchly silent about.

So why are those graphs going in the wrong direction while vape-friendly tobacco controllers say nothing? Why is public perception of the safety of vaping deteriorating, all the  while what tobacco controllers know very well is the most powerful denormalisation tool is employed against something they claim to support? Gosh, no idea!

Diary Date: Will Regulation Ruin A Free Market?

Regular readers here might have detected my suspicions that the tobacco control movement has absolutely nothing to do with health, but what of other concerns?

While most of the focus on Article 20 of the Tobacco Products Directive has been about its effect on health, there is also the very real damage that it will do to successful businesses for no valid health reason whatsoever. The industry which has sprung up around e-cigs and vaping has been an almost perfect free market which has driven progress and innovation at a breakneck pace, to the benefit of manufacturers, vendors and consumers alike. The TPD threatens to pull the handbrake up on all of that.

So it's good to see the IEA are to host an event about the subject on Wednesday May 25th. Their website carries the details.

In recent years e-cigarettes have flourished in Britain under a free market. Light touch regulation, low barriers to entry and strong competition have resulted in choice, value and innovation. That could all change from May 20th when new EU regulations are introduced. Under Article 20 of the Tobacco Products Directive, most forms of advertising will be banned and limits on product size, strength and capacity will come into effect. Retailers and manufacturers will be faced with new bureaucracy and restrictions. 

As the dust begins to settle, what will be the effect on vapers and the vaping industry? Join us for a discussion about the practical implications of Article 20 on e-cigarette use in Britain at 6.30pm on May 25th.
Speakers include:

• Mark Pawsey MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on e-cigarettes
• Lorien Jollye, New Nicotine Alliance
• Fraser Cropper, Totally Wicked
• Ian Green, Southampton Vaping Centre
• Christopher Snowdon, IEA head of lifestyle economics (Chair)

As I understand it, other (perhaps surprising) speakers are still being sounded out.

If I know the IEA there will be wine and nibbles before and hopefully after the discussion, so it's a date you should consider for your diary.  I'll be going along on the night and, I expect, on to a local boozer for a bit of post-debate banter afterwards. The event starts at 6:30pm, lasts about an hour and a half, is completely free, and the venue has a pleasant smoking area and is vape-friendly. What's not to like?

If you're interested, just go to this link and fill out the simple registration form at the foot of the page to add yourself to the guest list. I hope to see you there.

Link Tank 07/05

In case you haven't already fired up the barbie.

Mexico's sugar tax hasn't worked

A billion lies

The decriminalization of sex work is a feminist issue

Departing Mayor Boris's finest moments on camera

The surprising health benefits of drinking beer

Letting kids walk to school is "terrifying" apparently

New York bans bars from refusing serving alcohol to pregnant women

Model socialist Venezuela faces a beer shortage

KFC launches chicken-flavoured nail polish

Brad Pitt the parasitic wasp

"Vaping Is Trending!"

For the past two years I've attended the Global Nicotine Forum (GFN) in Warsaw (I wrote about the 2015 event here), and I'm planning to do so again in June so have been scanning the agenda.

As far as I know, GFN is unique in welcoming attendees from all interested stakeholders, including 'public health', industry, consumers and just about anyone else who is interested. Unlike other conferences we could mention, there are no reporting restrictions and no-one is denied a chance to voice their opinions.

Now, I may be wrong, but I can't think of any other arena where mingling areas can contain for example - within yards of each other - representatives from organisations like ASH, companies like Imperial Tobacco, journalists, vapers, smokers, and erm, me. And no-one throws a paddy about it. How very grown up and civilised, eh?

On such a note, a couple of sessions have jumped out at me already. I mean, how about this?

Click to enlarge

There, on a panel, is a scientist from a tobacco company. But then, so they should be, because whether one likes it or not, tobacco companies make e-cigarettes too and - as Carl Phillips often mentions - arguably perform far more rigorous science than the assorted sociologists, Marxist marketing detractors, career lobbyists and airplane mechanics which make up the tobacco control industry.

An article in Vapor Voice magazine this month by a BAT scientist makes the case for industry researchers to be given a chance to chip in too.

Science students are more likely to end up working for an industrial organization than for a government or university. They can’t all be bad. That is not to say that mistakes have not been made in the past. But surely we can learn from these mistakes and work together to engender a culture of transparency and collaboration—to fulfill our duty of care and to ensure that society benefits from the immeasurable good possible through scientific and technical innovation and expertise. 

It cannot be right to judge an industry based on incidents that happened many decades ago, in a different world, in a different century. Indeed, generations of scientists have passed through the doors of the research laboratories of the tobacco industry since then.

Well yes, but tobacco control dies on its arse if it has to admit that its own methods are now far more packed with lies than those of 'Big Tobacco'. Which is increasingly true, as someone who once taught tobacco controllers in the art often explains.

One thing that used to distinguish the anti-tobacco movement from the tobacco industry is that we always told the truth while the industry often lied. Unfortunately, and ironically, the tables have now turned.

Don't we just know that, eh?

Yet journals such as the BMJ now exclude any science produced by able scientists in the tobacco industry, while simultaneously being perfectly happy about 'public health' professionals knowingly lying on their pages.

The Vapor Voice article continues in the same vein ...

In the past few years, hundreds of millions have been invested by the tobacco industry in e-cigarettes and other next-generation products. These products are now used by millions of consumers. Vaping represents a new subculture, with its own jargon and its own technology. High levels of investment means that this technology is evolving rapidly and is often the topic of conversation, controversy and debate. Almost every day, e-cigarettes appear in the mainstream media. Vaping is trending!

Ain't it just!

Search social media for vaping or e-cigs and you'll be overwhelmed by a rapid turnover of messages that it is difficult to keep up with. News outlets are struggling to keep up too, and publish dozens of articles every single day. It's a big subject that needs plenty of analysis from all corners, to not do that and instead forbid some from commenting while other - arguably more conflicted and mendacious - vested interests are handed a one-sided debate would be quite absurd. It would also be a disservice to the public not to allow all opinions to be heard.

So, as you can imagine, I'm rather looking forward to that particular session. I also hope that the tobacco controllers who are attending are not so petty as to turn their nose up at it because it would be immensely childish if they were to do so.

There is also a section of the Saturday afternoon plenary which a good friend of mine should find attractive enough to board a plane to Poland for.

Are vaping advocates throwing smokers under the bus by making alliances with public health?  Luc Van Daele  (EVUN, Belgium)

I feel sure that my friend would have quite a lot to say on that particular matter considering he's written many a blog article about exactly that scenario in recent months. And, as if I really need to remind him about an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, GFN is also offering a European first screening of A Billion Lives which he has expressed an interest in watching.

Hopefully this will be too irresistible a draw for him to not come share a Żywiec or two over there.

In fact, if anyone else fancies joining me over there in June, go have a look at the GFN site. You'll be buying the first round, obviously, but I always buy back. It's rude not to.

Health? Yeah, Right

Yesterday saw the release of CJEU judgments on the EU's Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) which should prove to anyone that the EU and its agencies are far from scrupulous and could even be deemed to be deliberately corrupt.

As Snowdon points out in the Spectator, the TPD is fatally flawed under the very terms that the EU claims it was set up for.

Remarkably, none of it is explicitly in the name of health. The EU has no mandate to set health policy and so all of the new laws in the Tobacco Products Directive have to masquerade as market harmonisation measures. But where is the harmony? Sweden keeps its exemption from the EU’s ban on smokeless tobacco (‘snus’). Countries which ban the sale of e-cigarettes, such as Finland, will not be encouraged to lift their prohibitions. Menthol cigarettes will be banned across the EU despite no member state seriously contemplating a ban of its own. Every country must have graphic warnings on fag packs making up 65 per cent of the surface area, but if countries want to go the whole hog and introduce their own ‘standardised packs’ they are free to do so.

It's a total crock, and serves only to show that the EU is a gaggle of regulators glad-handing other career pecksniffs to perpetuate a tax-funded merry-go-round to the benefit of nobody but themselves.

In the case of e-cigs, it's not just that there is no market harmonisation, but also that there is only one outcome for public health (as if they really care about that), and it is a net negative.

In the same week that the Royal College of Physicians joined Public Health England in lauding the benefits of vaping, the EU Directive - tabled by prejudiced self-serving lunatics three years ago - proves that those who screamed for it are on the wrong side of history.

A Government impact assessment has warned that the restrictions set down in the Tobacco Products Directive could drive users back to smoking, as well as hiking the price of e-cigarettes and creating a black market of products that fall outside the new regulations. 

The Department of Health fears are revealed the day after the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) issued a report strongly promoting the use of e-cigarettes as a healthier alternative to smoking.

Could? It's quite clear that the TPD will drive many back to smoking. I don't know of many smokers who have switched to e-cigs who didn't start on 24mg nicotine content or higher when they first took up vaping. Even one of the most ardent pro-vaping advocates began with 36mg before reducing and getting into the alternative.

Let's be clear here, the TPD's 20mg limit (which will more likely be a top level of 18mg due to companies being terrified of fines for straying over) can only possibly result in more smokers finding e-cigs unsatisfactory and continuing to smoke. What's more, there are many vapers using 24mg and beyond for whom the experience will now be less satisfying than smoking so they will return to buying tobacco.

ASH - being part of the tobacco industry themselves, of course - are over the moon about this.

Press release: ECJ rules #TPD is lawful; gives backing to UK's policy on standardised packaging https://t.co/mnoYIdfmun

— ASH (@ASH_LDN) May 4, 2016

So determined are ASH to legitimise the pointless and absurd attack on 'Big Tobacco' that plain packaging represents, that they are happy to kick vaping in front of an express train. I know I say this a lot, but it proves categorically that the tobacco control industry has no care about health whatsoever, should be in prison, and will hopefully be going to hell for eternity.

The TPD ASH are enthusiastically backing was based on no proper evidence at all, beholden to no public consultation or impact assessment and - as I think we can all remember -  avoided scrutiny by our own parliament thanks to the idiocy of Anna Soubry and the oleaginous string-pulling of the DoH's Andrew Black.

And if that wasn't bad enough, here is the type of ridiculous poppycock that the EU court's decision was based upon.

68 – An e-cigarette can be smoked for a much longer time without interruption and many more drags can be taken than from a conventional tobacco product.

It's quite clear from that that the court didn't have any idea of the product they were ruling on, and were departing from their remit. E-cigs 'smoked? 'Drags'?

The case was nothing to do with what e-cigs can and can't do, or how they are used, it was supposed to be whether the TPD enhanced or detracted from the free European market and harmonisation of Europe-wide legislation.

On the plus side, yet again e-cigs are exposing corrupt tobacco control liars. After skulking in the shadows, tobacco control industry cockroaches are being held up to the spotlight of disdain and now even dragging the EU and its smug and complacent anti-democratic practices into sharper view as well.

Long may that continue.

If you ever thought tobacco control industry troughers had any care about health (see today's crap from across the Atlantic too), you should really think again.

Happy Days At Puddlecote Inc

I was planning to write about today's amateur and laughable CJEU judgement on article 20 of the TPD (and ASH's gleeful jubilation at the banning of many vaping products) but something pinged in my inbox at 5pm which changed things somewhat.

You may remember last month I mentioned a large contract Puddlecote Inc was waiting on ...

The tender we submitted is in the region of £650k pa for a contractual seven years and would entail significant staff recruitment to cover, as well as vehicles to source in a hurry. It's not something you approach lightly so in advance of this we have undertaken a major business reorganisation. This involved taking on three key professional managerial staff for our office (one more will be necessary if our bid is accepted), renegotiating around 40 staff contracts, and commissioning building work to extend the premises to cope with the added workspace that will be required should we be successful. It has been a process which has been many months in the planning, has been quite costly (and continues to be), unfortunately involved unavoidable redundancies, but gained me three free coffee cups and a load of post-it pads from a grateful Reed Employment.

Well, we've just found out that - pending a few routine contract approval procedures - we have been awarded it!

As I said at the time, this means that there is now a lot of work to be done and my time is going to be squeezed.

Of course, if we do win it then the contingency plans for that go into effect and all hell will break loose! At which point you won't see hide nor hare of me during certain periods I expect.

By crikey, my options for sneaking away to the cricket on weekdays this summer look likely to be diminished too.

A Whatsapp group with my office staff has been buzzing away this evening with a combination of excitement at the award, and trepidation as to the extra efforts which will be required to implement the contract successfully. We're arranging a lunch tomorrow for all of them to say thanks for their efforts so far in gaining the new business and also to brief about the plans we have to put in place straightaway for such a large undertaking.

The overall feeling is that these are happy (if undoubtedly stressful) days to come, and I have to say that it's at times like this I'm proud of the team we have assembled at Puddlecote Inc HQ.

There is one of my key personnel who isn't on Whatsapp, though, so I had to text him instead. He's our Fleet Maintenance Manager (FMM), a down-to-earth guy who will be tasked with helping to source the large number of extra vehicles required and keeping them maintained and regulation-compliant along with the 70 odd he already handles.

It was a short conversation:

DP: We won the new contract.
FMM: Fuck! 

I think a new bonus scheme might be in order.

ASH And Tobacco Control Caused All Vaping Bans

An article published today in the Leicester Mercury highlights just how nasty and intolerant a world self-serving tobacco controllers have created for us.

Leicester City fan banned from last home game of season after smoking e-cigarette 

A Leicester City fan has been banned for two home games due to smoking an e-cigarette in the stands.

Erm, why?

No harm has ever been attributed to e-cig use indoors let alone outdoors, so there is no harm being inflicted on anyone and no victim. There is no problem here, so a guy has been deprived of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of seeing his team win a miracle Premiership Title because of a rule applied simply for the sake of having a rule. This is the vile state of modern Britain - where the intolerant and prodnosed are pandered to - and it has been created and encouraged by the tobacco control industry for no other reason than their own bigotry and bank balances.

As I've written before, the only reason e-cigs are included in stadium bans is thanks to a bunch of pharma-funded 'public health' charlatans at Healthy Stadia and the Health Equality Group deliberately spreading false information to sports clubs.

But there's more to it than even that. Consider this zombie argument that you will see repeated often.

Erm, why would anyone need to "differentiate between people using e-cigs and people smoking normal cigs"? The ban on smoking in stadia is purely a vile bullying policy imagined, lobbied for and supported by grubby, tax-sponging organisations such as ASH and others in the same mould.

There is, and never will be, any measurable harm to others from passive smoking outside, it is a fantasy demon that the tobacco control industry has created amongst the public. Worse still, those in tobacco control who promote this fear are very clever with their words because they know very well that they are purposely lying about the potential 'dangers'.

So what if someone slips under the radar and smokes amongst others who are vaping? Neither is any kind of a problem we should be worrying about. If it is, we sure as shit need another war to illustrate what discomfort is really all about, and to remind many that a lot of people fought very hard to protect the freedoms that the selfish and affected amongst us are now seemingly content to flush down the toilet.

Ah but, I hear you say, some people don't like the smell of smoke, so it's only fair they be catered for. Well of course, but did anyone consider smoking and non-smoking areas? Well of course not because that wouldn't sit with ASH's chosen policy of bullying and 'denormalisation' of perfectly law-abiding people consuming a legal product. It is only the effete, snobby and repellent who ASH cater for.

Besides, if the smell of smoke is so rancid and identifiable, it wouldn't be much of a problem to spot, now would it?

Naturally, now ASH and other tobacco control industry organisations are "supportive" of vaping, I'm sure they'll be along soon to condemn Leicester's policy of banning fans who are using a product which Public Health England & the Royal College of Physicians say are a boon for public health.

Only a matter of time before ASH publicly voice disapproval about vaping bans instead of supporting them; likewise ASH Wales will ride in all guns blazing at some point to criticise vape bans instead of "fully" welcoming them; and I'm sure ASH Scotland's deafening silence will soon end as they use their clout to publicly shame the idiots who are creating anti-vaping policies up and down the nation on an almost daily basis.

In fact, I'm sure ASH are, as we speak, writing to Leicester City FC to tell them how absurd their policy is towards this fan and how cruel the punishment for something which they and others recognise as being conducive to improved public health. The public statement will follow soon after, I expect.

@ASH_LDN You're still being very quiet about the Notts Council vaping ban. When can we expect you to publicly condemn it?

— Fergus McFergface (@FergusMason1) April 28, 2016

Yep, anytime soon.

I mean, considering ASH and the tobacco control industry are responsible for every vaping ban ever implemented, it's the very least they can do, isn't it?