In the News September 26th

Mondays News at a glance:

This is how freedom dies – Denormalisation and virtue signalling – Hide The Filthy Smoker – Patience is a virtue anti-smokers don’t have – 1984 is a Novel, not a Guide – Britain must speak up for e-cigarettes – Public health urgently needs a “new deal” – The wilful ignorance of tobacco control – Reducing smoking, a challenging campaign – Bogus vape study connected to big pharma – The Secret Tool the FDA Uses to Control News – Conference calls – Inside the mind of an Anti – Big Tobacco Destroys Vaping Industry – Nicotine Science and Policy Daily Digest – Monday, 26 September 2016

This is how freedom dies

Fergus Mason

Ever heard of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health? No, I didn’t think you would have. It sounds respectable enough, of course. “Chartered Institute” suggests a sober, responsible organisation that maintains professional standards across an industry. My father’s a chartered surveyor, for example. My mother is a chartered accountant. All highly respectable.

Denormalisation and virtue signalling

Sarah Jakes – New Nicotine Alliance

Today the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health has called for a voluntary ban on smoking everywhere and anywhere that children play or learn. On the face of it that would seem like sensible advice – except it wouldn’t be advice, it would be a command, albeit not one that is currently enforceable.

The vast majority of smokers I know would not choose to smoke around kids. Unlike non-smoking adults who can move away if they find the smoke unpleasant, kids don’t always have that option and smokers appreciate this.

Hide The Filthy Smoker

Dick Puddlecote

Here we go again, ‘public health’ using children to mask their disgusting ongoing efforts to bully law-abiding smokers who choose to use a legal product where no-one can be harmed.

Many others have registered their disgust at this already, but it is worth adding my own thoughts because this kind of evil needs kicking very hard.

Patience is a virtue anti-smokers don’t have

Dave Dorn – The Sun Also Rises

Apparently there have been calls – with, it says ‘ere, support from “the public” to “voluntarily ban” (no idea – you work it out – it’s either a ban or it isn’t) smoking from children’s playgrounds, zoos, theme parks and so on. As discussions appear about it on Twitter, the motives behind the call become more and more clear.

1984 is a Novel, not a Guide

Paul Barnes – Facts Do Matter

1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government. In 1984, Orwell portrays the perfect totalitarian society, the most extreme realization imaginable of a modern-day government with absolute power.

So why on earth are fuss-buckets still insistent on interfering with our everyday lives?

Britain must speak up for e-cigarettes

Professor Gerry Stimson – Spectator Health

Last week Public Health England announced that fewer people than ever are smoking in England (less than 17 per cent). They also highlighted the role of e-cigarettes in helping smokers to quit cigarettes.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) estimates that 2.8 million Brits vape — more than in any other country outside the US. In Britain we see this as something to celebrate.

Public health urgently needs a “new deal”

Dr Farsalinos

Science is about being open-minded, engaging into an open debate, respecting the different opinion (even when you disagree) and exchanging views, arguments and ideas. This is how science progresses. Dialogue is an absolute necessity. On the contrary, secrecy, censorship, exclusions and intimidation are not only useless but dangerous…

The wilful ignorance of tobacco control

Clive Bates – The Counterfactual

Just when you thought public health could sink no lower, it pulls it off again! This time, a couple of “tobacco control” organisations, CTFK and ENSP, have been writing to several participants in a conference (GTNF 2016) to be held next week. The letters tell them they must be mistaken, that they can’t possibly have realised tobacco companies were involved and that they should pull out before it is too late. All backed with a threat of reputational damage if they don’t. I find this deeply depressing and disturbing. Let’s take a look at:

VTTV – The Monday Show

Tonight Marco & Dave Dorn talk about all things E-Cig related and Marco looks at the Arymi Gil Kit

Reducing smoking, a challenging campaign

Kevin Crowley – Vaping Links

The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CFTK) has shown a rare glimpse into the desperate reach it wants to have with one of the finest examples of illiteracy in tobacco harm reduction.

CTFK and the European Network for Smoking and Tobacco Prevention (ENSP) have joined together asserting themselves with this letter to Dr Christopher Russell presumably not meant for public consumption.

CTFK threatens researchers, but you should not really care – Carl V. Phillips

Dear Matt Myers

President of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids:

As I am sure you are aware, public health and tobacco control organizations must posture themselves with efforts to play a fictitious lead role in tackling the tobacco pandemic, which causes the death of 480,000 US citizens every year. This is without factoring all the suffering, disability and personal tragedy linked to tobacco use along with millions of dollars in funding, none of which can ever be quantified.

Bogus vape study connected to big pharma

Jim McDonald – Vaping360

Does a study from Canada prove that using e-cigarettes and nicotine reduction therapies (NRT) together makes it less likely that smokers will quit smoking cigarettes?

Stanton Glantz thinks so. The nicotine-hating California professor titled a blog entry about the study, “The evidence that e-cigarettes inhibit quitting smoking cigarettes just keeps piling up; strong longitudinal study from Canada.”

American Lung Association

Tells Public that Smoking May Be No More Hazardous than Vaping

Michael Siegel – The Rest of the Story

Despite the abundance of scientific evidence, including clinical studies, which demonstrate that vaping is much safer than smoking, the American Lung Association – as recently as last week – told the public that smoking may be no more hazardous than vaping.

Secret Tool the FDA Uses to Control News

Peter Suderman – Reason

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), apparently not satisfied with exerting a considerable and often wildly inappropriate amount of control over what people can put in their bodies, has also taken extraordinary and secretive steps to control what sorts of information people can read about the agency’s decisions.

Volunteers Needed…

You can contact Sairah on Twitter: @sairahss Or by E-Mail

Conference calls

Simon Clark – Taking Liberties

Next week I’m attending the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum in Brussels. Formerly called the Global Tobacco Network Forum, the name was changed a couple of years ago to reflect the increasing focus on emerging products, especially e-cigarettes.

When I say “increasing focus”, delegates at GTNF could be forgiven for thinking the tobacco industry has moved on from smoking altogether.

Inside the mind of an Anti

Head Rambles

I dropped by the Ashtray Blog yesterday…. They posted a series of “most shocking” images put out by our good friends in the Tobacco Control Industry and asked whether they would make us want to quit smoking, have a cigarette or did they have no effect at all. Of course, like any straw poll I found myself muttering “none of the above”.

Amazing turnout at the rally to stop the job-killing PA vapor tax https://t.co/XiShDrQuyw #ecigs #vaping #pabudget pic.twitter.com/DjSBk3oJRp

— The AVA (@AVABoard) September 26, 2016

Big Tobacco Destroys Vaping Industry

Hang The Bankers

It may seem ironic that tobacco industry giant RJ Reynolds is leveraging its might against anything to do with nicotine and tobacco, but that is exactly the case.

One of the biggest tobacco companies in the world has lobbied hard with the US Food and Drug Administration to make ‘open-system’ nicotine vaporizers illegal, according to an article in the Winston-Salem Journal.