Mondays round up of News & Blogs from around the Vaping World

Simon Chapman and Trolls. Random Vaper, why Simon Clark is getting a breast of himself and more Trolls! More from Puddlecote Inc. A great looking new Website from Fergus Mason. News of an E-Cig ban being lifted. Tobacco sales down in France. Why are Anti-Smoking Groups Recommending a Smoking Cessation Drug That Has Been Linked to Hundreds of Sudden Deaths? Nicotine Science and Policy Daily Digest

Why I block trolls on Twitter

The concept of an internet troll is unavoidably subjective: what one person regards as hostile or inflammatory can be genuinely intended by the sender as an attempt to engage in debate. But having a Twitter account is not an obligation to engage with anyone seeking to do this, no matter what adamant trolls might want to insist.

Electronic cigarettes consultation – our views

ASH Scotland comments on the recent Scottish consultation

ASH Scotland doesn’t take a simplistic view either “for” or “against” electronic cigarettes. Our interest is in helping people improve their health and so we welcome harm reduction as a principle. We believe that ‘vaping’ will prove to be less harmful than smoking – but not harmless, as some supporters suggest.

Many types of e-cigarettes contain nicotine and the market for any addictive product should be regulated, because the companies involved – some of them part of the tobacco industry – are under strong commercial pressure to recruit new generations of customers….

Why are Anti-Smoking Groups Recommending a Smoking Cessation Drug That Has Been Linked to Hundreds of Sudden Deaths?

Imagine that there were reports linking the use of electronic cigarettes to hundreds of sudden deaths. Unquestionably, health and anti-smoking groups would be calling for the removal of e-cigarettes from the market. At very least, they would not be recommending the use of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation. How then can these groups recommend the use of Chantix?

Simon Clark is getting on my tits.

A double bill from The Random Vaper

Ok, firstly, to give him his due, Simon Clark, director of Forest, has been a good advocate for e-cigarettes. I’m not sure I can think of a single thing he has said about them with which I could disagree. Forest explains that it advocates for e-cigarettes because many smokers use them and they wish to represent the interests of those consumers. That’s great, no problem there.

The reason that Simon is getting on my tits is his complete failure to understand vapers. Not smokers who vape, vapers….

See Also: Lorien Jollye – uber troll – you heard it here first.

The elephant in the room

Simon Clark keeping on a breast of things:

It’s the elephant in the room because if some public health campaigners are lying about e-cigarettes it’s reasonable to suspect they lied or embellished the facts about tobacco too.

I wonder what Joe Jackson, who wrote a very well-argued essay challenging some of the arguments against smoking, thinks.

 Too Early?

More from Puddlecote Inc

So we’ve gone from “Ecigs are a gateway” to “surveillance is required to assess the possibility that ecigs may prove to be a gateway.”
>Evidence matters, eh?
[T]he Scottish Government might do well to take anything they say on the subject of e-cigarettes and vaping in public places with a huge pinch of salt. The evidence clearly shows that they are not to be trusted….

Vaping

Excellent new website from Fergus Mason. Well worth a look and subscribing to.

I am a vaper – a user of electronic cigarettes. I’ll get this out of the way right now: I’ve been paid, in my capacity as a freelance writer, to create web content about e-cigarettes. Does that make me an industry shill, as one particular Marxist academic with a strong Northern Irish accent recently threatened to “unmask” me as? No, it doesn’t. I’ve also created web content about mattresses, cable TV services and alpaca yarn. I’ve produced articles on bike share schemes, car insurance and life jackets for dogs. Memorably, I once wrote 20 articles on male chastity devices and in the process learned much more than I ever wanted to know about what some people will shackle to their genitals. Nobody, I assume, is going to accuse me of being a paid advocate for Big Padlock. People hire me to write for them and I write. Then I take money from them. It’s how I earn my living….

Tobacco sales going down again in France in November

Scroll down on the original article for English

According to OFDT data, cigarette sales decreased by 6.1 % in November 2014 compared to November 2013. The downward trends observed in 2013 seem to be confirmed this year. The cumulative data for January-November 2014 still represent a decrease of 5.8% compared to last year.

A similar trend is observed for roll-your-own tobacco, which decreased by 5.3% in November 2014 (-4.3% for January-November), compared to last year.

Wolves lift ban on e-cigs at Halliwell Jones after signing new sponsorship deal

The comments are much more of a read than the article itself!

A club spokesman said: “Wolves’ decision to reverse the vaping ban follows a similar decision by the O2 Arena in 2013, when they teamed up with another e-cigarette brand and reversed their own vaping ban, allowing their guests the ability to vape without having to leave the O2 grounds.”

Alex Wilson, Wolves’ commercial manager, said: “We are firmly committed to helping our fans make informed choices, particularly when it comes to health and fitness….

 Nicotine Science and Policy – Daily Digest – Mon, 12 January 2015

The surging popularity of electronic cigarettes has prompted calls for regulation, bans, or prescriptions on the NHS.

Across the four medical centers, researchers recruited a total of 1,246 treatment-seeking smokers.

The tobacco landscape is changing right in front of our eyes. The slowdowns in the tobacco industry, increasing health consciousness among consumers, and higher taxes have hurt volumes…..