Pick And Mix

When you go to vote in an election, do you ever agree with every single proposal in the manifesto of the party you stick your X against? No, of course not.

Likewise, do you 100% agree with every position taken on every subject by all of your friends? I'd suggest this would be quite impossible, in fact if you insisted on such a high bar of agreement I would guess you would probably have very few friends, if any at all! Jeez, how many of us even agree with everything our family or partners think or say, let alone people who have no familial or spousal connection?

I say this because yesterday's article here prompted two others elsewhere which - I venture to suggest - misunderstood my point about a Clive Bates rant quite spectacularly.

Firstly, Simon Clark wrote this.

"Bravo!" applauds Dick. "Watch and enjoy," he tells his readers, "because this is what advocacy should be like: confident, forthright and pleasantly free of nitpicking and weasel words."

Personally I find it quite nauseous.

I've made it clear (several times) that I admire Clive's skills as a campaigner but that recognition comes with a serious caveat.

In November 2014, for example, I wrote:

Clive is a shrewd, sincere and intelligent campaigner. I have a lot of respect for him but I must point out – not for the first time – that the idolatry (#ImWithClive) that greets his every word is ironic because in my opinion he must take some share of the blame for the culture of intolerance that has swept the nation with regard to smoking and, by association, nicotine.

As director of ASH Clive was no stranger to fear mongering about passive smoking. Few of the allegations made much sense and during his time in charge the threat of second hand smoke was repeatedly debunked.

See The Canonisation of Clive Bates (Taking Liberties).

I fail to see how this is relevant. I don't have to subscribe to everything Bates has ever said to be able to applaud one brilliantly accurate rant. Of course I'd disagree with him if he believes passive smoke is anything but a myth (which it is) but it would be pretty stupid to dismiss everything else he says on that basis.

If he says something good I'll applaud it, if he says something I disagree with I'm happy to do the opposite. Life is a series of pick and mix choices like that, or we'd all go insane.

Likewise, my esteemed Irish pal Grandad had a poke too.

Where the vapers are wrong is in their attempts to prove that vaping is safer than smoking.  That is completely irrelevant.  By doing that they are playing the Nanny State game.  The argument should be that no one should be dictating how we live our lives in the first place. 

Maybe smoking does have health implications, but they aren't as bad as the Nannies make out.  That is irrelevant as I make my own decisions about what I do.  I cannot see why it is anyone else's business.  If I enjoy doing the ton on a motorbike then provided I don't kill anyone else then that's my choice.  If I decide to climb Mount Everest I know there are huge risks but they are my risks and I choose to take 'em. 

So whether it's smoking, vaping, alcohol, fast food or sugary drinks it is none of the Nannies business, and the stance should be to tell them to fuck off and keep their noses out of private people's lives.  The gubmint does not have a responsibility to keep us healthy – that is our responsibility as individuals.  If we make the wrong decisions and end up as obese alcoholic chain-smokers then so be it – we may regret it in later life but we knew the risks and took them.

Yep, I agree with most of that. He's right, for example, that it is none of nanny's business. He's also correct that we should be allowed to make our own choices in life, and it's absurd that there is a heavily state-funded industry dedicated to perverting that. But we are where we are; in sporting terms the saying is that you can only play what is in front of you and it is pie-in-the-sky to stick to just one weapon when you have others available.

Vapers that I know have exactly the same opinion of 'public health' as Simon Clark, Grandad and I, but there are two arguments for vapers to use when tackling the avalanche of hysteria being slung at vaping; choice and health, why would it be a good idea for them to abandon one of those entirely?

Grandad also makes this point:

Unfortunately a hell of a lot of vapers have climbed on the Tobacco Control Bandwagon.  Their constant references to vaping being safer than smoking and that vaping is saving millions [a billion?] of lives is nothing short of regurgitating the mass hysteria pumped out by TC.

Look, it's perfectly fair to say that passive smoking is a myth, because it is, but it's not the same to pretend that smoking doesn't present health risks. I've explained this at length before in relation to the A Billion Lives documentary (which was the last time, incidentally, many people spectacularly missed the point).

No-one, but no-one, has died from secondhand smoke - we even have court cases stating that it is fantasy - let alone 165,000 kids! It is wrong and should be called out as wrong whenever it is mentioned. Many of the problems vapers face are rooted in this mythical nonsense - when people see vapour, they get scared they will be poisoned and die because they have been conditioned to think that anything they can inhale must be dangerous ... when it's not. It is a tool that has been used by anti-smokers to circumvent the idea of free choice. The extremists in tobacco control still cling to the hope that this irrational and baseless fear will convince the public to hate e-cigs too. To use it in favour of vaping can only be self-defeating.

So why am I comfortable with the "billion lives" stat being used, I hear you ask. Well, it's because that is an entirely different onion. It is undoubtedly a tobacco control industry exaggeration too, but it is actually rooted in some basis of fact. Personally, I don't think that a billion smokers will die as a result of smoking before the end of the century - which is what is claimed - but many will. This is because (some would disagree, see these debates from 2010), it is true. We can argue about how many exactly - and a billion is almost certainly an exaggeration - but it has an element of truth about it.

In that case, it is perfectly acceptable to throw this stat back at tobacco control liars and ask them why - if they believe a billion people will die from smoking - they are determined to deter as many as possible from switching to something even the most absurd of their profession admit is far less harmful ... and doing so with outrageous lies.

Y'see? Pick and mix. I'm understanding about the documentary makers throwing heroic claims back in the faces of tobacco controllers, because it is a valid tactic, but there is a limit.

I don't see that I contravened those pretty basic rules yesterday. Bates was making very accurate arguments on this particular subject; why that somehow means anything else he has said in the past is automatically true, or, why it signals that I now subscribe to every thought he has ever had on any issue, ever, is a mystery.

It's perfectly possible to agree with, promote - and even celebrate - Bates's vaping and snus advocacy whilst still disagreeing fundamentally with his former role and, if need be, everything else he has ever uttered since birth. The reason I did so was because it exhibited a dislike for coercive policies (Bates has been a very vocal opponent of daft tobacco controllers and ultimately stupid 'endgame' fantasies, for example) which fits in with my general ethos that the carrot is far more effective than the stick.

Feel free, as always, to make of that what you will and flame away if you must.

"Just Leave Us Alone! Just Get Off Our Backs!"

Forget Ant & Dec or Back in the Room or whatever passes for Saturday evening TV these days, watch the 8 minutes or so of this instead.

Clive Bates was interviewed by online Canadian news outlet Regulator Watch recently, and went into a top rant. Here are a couple of great quotes.

"There's no reason at the moment to believe there is any harm associated with vaping" 

Well exactly. You have to seriously query the motives of anyone who states or hints otherwise, whichever side they are on.

But Clive's denouement was stand-up applause-worthy. Putting himself in the shoes of a smoker-turned-vaper, he let rip. Brilliantly.

"You told us to quit smoking. You taxed the pants off us; you've bullied us with your public information campaigns; you've racked up the stigma that we felt. You've tried to stop us using these products wherever we can. You've hit us with massive societal disapproval. Tobacco companies haven't done that, government and public health have done that.  

So we've done the right thing. We've got off smoking; we've protected our health; we produce a vapour which doesn't harm anyone; most people aren't troubled by it. 

Just leave us alone! Just get off our backs!"

Bravo! It's almost like, I dunno, it's never been about health. Isn't it?

Watch below and enjoy, because this is what advocacy should be like: Confident, forthright and pleasantly free of nitpicking and weasel words.

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM - CLIVE BATES TALKS NICOTINE, HARM REDUCT...

ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM - CLIVE BATES TALKS NICOTINE, HARM REDUCTION & PUBLIC HEALTHNicotine sits at the heart of the vaping debate as public health officials and regulators see it as the same old threat, while vapers believe it’s the indispensable ingredient to liberating the health benefits of e-cigarettes. Nicotine in e-juice provides the kick that allows many smokers to make the switch. But for some, it comes with vexed ethical questions and a measure of moral panic—it is the elephant in the room.In this episode of RegWatch hear from Clive Bates, former executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, the UK’s leading group in the war against smoking. Bates says nicotine in e-cigarettes is an opportunity not a threat. Find out why—only on RegWatch by RegulatorWatch.com.Produced by: Brent StaffordReleased on April 2, 2016

Posted by Regulator Watch on Saturday, 2 April 2016

It's important to remember who is - and has always been - the real enemy here. Public health and government. Everything else is fluff and nonsense.

Link Tank 02/04

Not guaranteed to be April Fool free

There’s been a Tweet but, worry not, DCI Taggart is on the case

What Brexit means for vaping businesses

As the UK revealed to be 3rd worst nanny state in EU, Germany gloats

If we want to be best for business, we must leave the EU

Psychoactive Substances Act suspended while MPs work out what they've banned

Of course kids should watch Watership Down

Is this the end for CAMRA?

Alberta bans coloured outdoor Christmas lights

Japan invents electric 'salt-flavoured fork'

Burger King release the hottest ever UK burger

Nit-picking monkeys

Nothing To See Here

Yesterday, I'd just finished telling a member of my staff who smokes but is interested in switching to ecigs that there are only 4 ingredients in e-liquid, and that nobody has ever died from vaping, when I came across this article from Australia.

Toy town ‘stereotypes’ spur plain-packaging call

Children’s toys should be subject to plain-packaging laws similar to cigarettes, an inter­national women’s group says. 

“Sexualisation of young children through products, dress, toys and cosmetics reinforces that girls should be sexy, submissive, and boys should be dominant, macho, important and strong,” it says. “These products reinforce boys to grow to males that can be powerful and strong, and that girls need to be attractive and submissive to males. (We) suggest making a campaign like the successful plain packaging of cigarettes.”

That can't be right, surely, cos tobacco controllers said it wouldn't happen. Fact!

FACT: Tobacco is not like any other product, it is the only legal consumer product on the market which is lethal when used as intended. That is why the UK and over 170 other governments have signed up to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control which places legal obligations on governments to strictly regulate tobacco products. Plain packs for tobacco will not therefore set a precedent for other consumer products.

Deborah Arnott said the same, remember?

[T]he “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false.

So we're obviously seeing things.

Nope, no precedent at all, there can't possibly be calls for plain packaging of toys, because that would be following a precedent, now wouldn't it?

Let's Discuss Angels On A Pin

There was an awful article posted at the weekend about vaping entitled "6 Misleading Pro-Vaping Arguments We Should Stop Using". It should more properly have been headlined "Let's discuss angels dancing on the head of a pin" for the usefulness to the cause it presented. That is, on balance negative.

It centred around a whole load of smug pedantry to strike down effective sound bites which are useful to vapers in general when seeking to spread the message about the benefits of e-cigs.

For example, 'misleading' argument number one concerned ingredients.

We’ve all heard it. “Cigarettes contain thousands of chemicals with about 70 carcinogens, whereas e-cigs just contain four: PG, VG, nicotine and flavorings.” In essence, the core point is true – e-cig vapor does contain vastly fewer chemicals than tobacco smoke, and especially less toxic ones – but the specific formulation (“four ingredients/chemicals”) is blatantly incorrect.

No, it's really not. There are four ingredients in e-cigs - nicotine, PG, VG and flavouring. It's true that some make an erroneous comparison between that and the purported "thousands" of chemicals in tobacco smoke, but it's not incorrect that there are four ingredients (as opposed to chemicals) in e-liquid.

If that were the case, we'd have to describe a Big Mac as thousands more words than "two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions, all in a sesame seed bun" and the public would be confused, not better informed. A strawberry included as an ingredient in a dessert is described as a strawberry, not as 279 chemicals.

Because that's what the author was seriously suggesting.

@flamablecharlie @BaughmanGreg To get through to me, come up with a coherent, consistent definition of ingredient which suggests 4 in juice

— Lee Johnson (@JackLebeau) March 28, 2016

Now, that might be OK if you just want to exhibit your intellect to the world - and well done to him for that - but it is crassly damaging when applied to simple messages which resonate with the public. An easily-digestible message should take priority over theoretical moral grandstanding.

The second apparently misleading argument was that “all of the ingredients in e-cigs are generally recognized as safe”. The author admitted that this was "technically true", but only for ingesting not inhaling.

In other words, "we just don't know". Now where have you heard that before?

Inhaling flavorings probably isn’t going to kill you, but it’s one area where we really do lack information about the risks, and saying they’re “generally recognized as safe” is undoubtedly misleading.

No, again it's really not. If the average vaper is asked a question about what is in an e-cig from an interested smoker, the answer is that there are four ingredients (see above) and that they are generally understood to be safe. Saying otherwise is confusing, counterproductive, and really quite silly.

Number three spoke about how the assertion that PG is used in asthma inhalers can't be verified, except that the author admitted that ...

There is one study looking at the potential to use PG as a carrier for an inhaled medicine and another which mentions that PG or ethanol may be used as a cosolvent in nebulizers, but no evidence presented of an asthma inhaler or nebulizer that is actually used today containing PG.

Which quite obviously means that authorities have identified it as safe enough. It is nitpicking of the first water to then go on to say.

We’d love to be proven wrong on this one (and will update/remove this as needed), but it seems like this argument – especially for inhalers – is total bullshit.

No it's not, the only possible tweak could be that it should be stressed PG is approved by incredibly risk-averse regulators to be used in inhalers. The fact it isn't actually used is pretty irrelevant and a result of market forces and pragmatism rather than proof that a sound bite is "bullshit". Especially coupled with the insulting and smarmy denouement.

Much like those who repeat anti-vaping arguments without fact-checking, this one in particular shows that we vapers can do exactly the same thing.

Well, not the vaping author, of course, because he's far cleverer than you.

Number four is quite simply laughable.

“Nobody Has Died from Vaping”

No, they haven't.

But if we twist things enough and add a hell of a lot of speculation not supported by evidence, we can tell vapers they can't use that either.

To see the problem, you can just imagine cigarettes had only been on the market for 10 years or so. Would we be seeing any deaths from smoking? Well, probably not, no.

Yes you would because cancer does not respect time limits and macro epidemiology. To say that we wouldn't have seen a single death from smoking after a decade of use by millions of people with differing metabolisms and susceptibility to disease is utter garbage.

So the image he contemptuously published as an example of this supposed 'misleading' argument is absolutely spot on.

I made this graphic. I believe it is truthful; I stand by it; I will continue to use it, in good faith. pic.twitter.com/XLj9dHDNM7

— Monitored by ANTZ (@AgentAnia) March 28, 2016

It's a powerful and accurate image. The gravedigger patiently waiting for a first client is particularly brilliant. Not for our intrepid pedant though.

In short, after 10 years of smoking, chances are you’ll still be alive, so the lack of deaths from vaping at present means pretty much nothing.

No, it means that there is still no verifiable death from vaping, only theoretical - you know, like those theoretical 'deaths' that tobacco control like to talk about. Hmm.

Number five is even more pointless pedantry. Quibbling over whether diacetyl is 100 or 750 times less prevalent in e-cigs is not even worth the effort of putting fingers to keyboard. I mean, what would someone on the other side say in response? Can you just imagine it?

"You're lying! The lies we told were about something 100 times more invisible, not 750! Yah boo sucks!". No, they simply wouldn't because it would be exposing themselves as pathetically stupid and, as a result, scaremongering liars. This, when advocating e-cigs, is exactly what you do want!

The self-defeating navel-gazing was rounded off with number six.

“Smokers Don’t Get Popcorn Lung from the Diacetyl in Cigarettes”

Yep, that's quite true. They don't. Well not unless you try very hard to create speculation where they do, of course.

So smokers might not be diagnosed with popcorn lung very often, but they are regularly diagnosed with COPD, a more general obstructive lung condition, and this happens a lot more than you’d expect even heavily diacetyl-exposed people to be diagnosed with popcorn lung. Of course, smoke contains tons of bad chemicals, but it’s not exactly easy to say that diacetyl doesn’t contribute to the problems smokers have. Plus, when presented with a smoker with lung problems, is a doctor going to jump to popcorn lung as a diagnosis, or just assume it’s COPD?

All well and good, except Michael Siegel stated categorically that this was not the case in December.

Despite the much higher levels of diacetyl in tobacco smoke than in e-cigarette vapor, smoking has not been associated with "popcorn lung."

And you know how readily tobacco control like to link just about everything with smoking, the fact they don't tells you all you (should) need to know.

Likewise Professor Peter Hajek said the very same two weeks ago. Used the term "never" too.

So who do you believe? It's not a 'misleading' argument to make, it is in fact supported by two different tobacco control academics who - let's face it - make the rules of this game. Carry on using that fact (as in, not a "misleading" argument) at will, because it's true.

Again, what possible benefit is there from dissuading vapers from pointing this out, you can imagine that by this point I was questioning whose side this geezer is on.

So, to sum up.

1) Yes, e-cigs contain four ingredients, just don't compare them with the apocryphal (and probably massively exaggerated) 4,000 or 7,000 in smoke. This is as far as the article was useful.
2) Yes, feel confident to state to people who are thinking about vaping that the ingredients are generally considered safe, because the alternative offered is anal speculation.
3) You can say PG is approved for use in asthma inhalers because it is. Whether it is actually used or not is purely pointless semantics.
4) Nobody has died from vaping. This is a supportable fact, the suggestion that it might not be true is supported only by smug innuendo.
5) Use whichever figure you want about the comparative levels of diacetyl in e-cigs and tobacco - especially if the flavour you use doesn't contain it as most now don't - because ...
6) ... It is irrelevant, diacetyl at much higher levels than in e-cigs has never been linked to popcorn lung even in smokers however much one may try to contort reality.

So if you're one of those who has declared this week that they feel like they can't make these simple arguments to people they meet anymore for fear of being condescendingly termed inaccurate or dishonest from an ivory tower, don't. What you're doing is just fine.

See also: Fergus on the same subject.

Truth To Power

Warning: This article contains nails hitting heads 

You'll often read on these pages about how I believe there should be wholesale prosecutions of public health charlatans - in particular those in tobacco control - for example in the last article here.

Let's just compare something here. Say your employer lied about you to have you sacked, it would be illegal for them not to allow you your chance to debate them. 'Public health' has no such concerns, they can close businesses down on a whim and put thousands - or even millions - on the dole simply to boost their own bank accounts, and without fear of censure or financial penalty. 

The 'public health' industry is the most vile, corrosive and damaging drain on the well-being of the public that there has ever been. There is not a single person working in 'public health' today who hasn't, at some point, lied to the public and to politicians. They all, without exception, deserve to be in jail.

The reasons should be clear if you have kept a close eye on their cynical manipulation of truth and their abandonment of the well-being of the public in favour of political aspirations and their own personal financial betterment.

However, I don't think I've ever seen the tobacco control industry described more accurately than in the comments under this article by Carl Phillips. Replying to an oncologist asking why he is not enamoured with the profession, he had this to say.

Well, given that tobacco control hurt a lot of people (usually intentionally), lie to the public, undermine the credibility of the sciences they abuse, threaten the credibility of real public health, and erode modern values, I don’t think it is actually possible to be too hard on them without committing a felony (oh, and they frequently do that too).

And furthermore.

It has demonized smokers and tried (often successfully) to make them feel miserable about themselves, to take just the theme of this post, as well as compounding the harm from smoking with the harm from punitive taxes. It has aggressively blocked harm reduction efforts. It has actively promoted scientific innumeracy. It has turned large subsets of epidemiology and other sciences into utter junk. It has eroded Western values, taking us down a path where the state dictates individual choices. It has perverted the concept of public health and damaged the credibility of real public health. I could go on.

Bravo!

It is important to note the above when you next hear some tobacco control industry liar talk about how they are a weak, flailing David in the face of a powerful industry Goliath. It has ceased to be true around two generations ago and their appallingly destructive behaviour since is a direct result of being allowed to run rampage while any opposition has been silenced. By their bullying, of course.

If you like a drink, by the way, you should be a trifle worried that these extremely experienced socially-violent tobacco control frauds - just as their equally destructive and fanatical antecedents in Prohibition era America did in reverse nearly a century ago - are now coming after alcohol too.

We did warn you.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Huge kudos to Pete Brown for once again calling a spade a spade when it comes to anti-alcohol liars.

Via the PMA:

A new report, picked up by the Publican’s Morning Advertiser (PMA) on 9 March, claimed that alcohol taxes are too low because the revenue collected by Government from alcohol sales is far lower than the cost of alcohol to society. 

The report hinges on the claim that the Government collects £9bn in taxes in alcohol, whereas alcohol costs society £21bn a year. If these stats were true, there would be a strong case to answer. But the comparison between £9bn revenue and £21bn cost is completely erroneous. 

How about with that £21bn? As I’ve written previously, this number seemed plucked from the air. The vast bulk of it consists of ‘intangible’ (and therefore incalculable) costs such as the impact on the economy of the emotional trauma of the victims of alcohol-related crime (£4.7bn of the total.) 

The £21bn figure, even if it was correct, is the total cost of alcohol to society, not just the cost to the taxpayer of health and emergency services dealing with alcohol-related harm. 

And yet in the plus column, this report and others before it only consider duty receipts from alcohol direct to the government. There isn’t an honest accountant on the planet who would accept this as an acceptable balance of cost versus benefit. 

If the IAS were to compare like with like, they would have two options: firstly, to compare the cost to the UK taxpayer of alcohol abuse with the revenue to the UK treasury from alcohol sales. That would be a fair comparison. And it would reveal — as has previously been reported — that revenue would exceed cost to the tune of more than £6bn a year. 

If they want to include every single cost of alcohol to society — including everything from lost productivity due to hangovers to expenditure on alarms to prevent alcohol-fuelled crime — they need to also include the broadest possible range of benefits from alcohol consumption. 

And that would include the contribution pubs make to their local economy, and corporation tax paid by brewers, to the intangible benefit of the stronger social networks, increased community cohesion and stress reduction that moderate consumption gives the majority of drinkers. 

Anti-alcohol campaigners are aware of all this, and yet they continue to quote their figure of £21bn versus £9bn figures as fact.

Very well put.

The problem, of course, is that 'public health' is an inherently dishonest profession. By that I mean that they are not at all interested in truth, scientific integrity or even what is beneficial for the public, and don't even care that much what is good for public health. They only care about their own lucrative tax-sponging nest and how best to feather it for the future.

Brown puts this very well in his denouement.

If you continue to insist something is true when you know it’s not, that makes you a ‘liar’. It’s time the drinks industry went on the offensive against these people and named them for what they are.

Indeed. And the possibility that the drinks industry might very well do that is why the anti-alcohol version of 'public health' is seeking to do exactly what their anti-smoking counterparts have done - silence all speech by anyone who might meaningfully debate them.

Let's just compare something here. Say your employer lied about you to have you sacked, it would be illegal for them not to allow you your chance to debate them. 'Public health' has no such concerns, they can close businesses down on a whim and put thousands - or even millions - on the dole simply to boost their own bank accounts, and without fear of censure or financial penalty.

The 'public health' industry is the most vile, corrosive and damaging drain on the well-being of the public that there has ever been. There is not a single person working in 'public health' today who hasn't, at some point, lied to the public and to politicians. They all, without exception, deserve to be in jail.

But where do the anti-alcohol liars get their methods from? Well, from the anti-smoking liars, of course.

In 2010, a pal of Action on Smoking and Health - Henry Featherstone of the Policy Exchange think tank - peddled an economically bankrupt study in order to 'prove' that smoking costs more to the public's finances than it generates. Their report was destroyed by other economic think tanks and panned into ridicule by the printed media (apart from the Guardian, natch) because it was demonstrable nonsense from start to finish, and the author knew it as much as his pharma funders and his cheerleaders in the tobacco control industry did.

But tobacco controllers - the most corrupt liars of the lot - still quote it to this day and so do their vacuous poodles in parliament. It doesn't matter if it's bollocks, because they know very well it's bollocks but spout it anyway.

No-one from the anti-alcohol bandwagon will sue Pete Brown for calling them liars because - as he points out - they know very well that they are. They know that if they dared to take it to a court case, the court would judge them to be lying scum and scales might fall off millions of eyes.

So they'll just carry on using the £21bn figure even when they know they are lying, just as anti-smoking liars continue to use their own laughable lies when they are well aware that the figures they are quoting are pure fantasy.

If you're not keen on the lies being told about alcohol, fizzy drinks, e-cigs, fast food, chocolate or any other popular product, always remember it started with the liars in the tobacco control industry being allowed to get away with it. They're just copying the tobacco control playbook and destroying people's lives every day that they are permitted by our weak and pathetic politicians to do so.