Vapers Digest 18th July
Tuesday’s News at a glance:
Personal Rights and the State – New Nicotine Alliance Talks to EcigClick – E-Cigarette Regulation Is Hurting, Not Helping, Society – Forest reacts to UK Government’s new Tobacco Control Plan – English tobacco control plan embraces tobacco harm reduction – The Tobacco Plan: too much stick, not enough carrot – IBVTA response to the new Tobacco Control Plan for England – Tobacco Control Plan – NNA response – ASH Keep Their Jobs (Again) – NSP Daily Digest
Personal Rights and the State
Junican, Bolton Smokers Club
The State is grabbing more and more CONTROL over us. If The State can pass a law saying that you cannot smoke on a beach, in the open air with a sea breeze blowing, then The State has deviated from its purpose.
We should not be afraid of comparing Tobacco CONTROL with Nazi Germany or Communist Russia. The operative word is CONTROL.
Why were publicans threatened with massive fines and possible withdrawal of their licences if they did not FORCE smokers to comply with the ban? I shall tell you: it was because they, and even their associations, did not know their Personal Rights. They should have fought like hell to refute the idea that they were criminally responsible for what other people do on/in their premises. In other words, if someone pulls out a knife and skewers another person, the publican could be held responsible because he did not have every punter searched.
New Nicotine Alliance Talks to EcigClick
Neil H, ecigclick
Vaping seems to have been under threat since day one and even today with the plethora of scientific evidence out there pointing to e-cigs being 95% safer than smoking it continues to come under fire.
So called health professionals – the media and in particular Governments seem to chime in daily with vaping health scare stories – fake science and of course the constant need to ‘tighten’ legislation.
The vaping world as we know it would be a very dark place these days had it not been for the vaping advocacy movements that have sprung up to stem the flow of at times hysterical backlash towards e-cigarettes.
One group in particular has become a shining beacon of hope and a voice for the vaping movement as a whole.
E-Cigarette Regulation Is Hurting, Not Helping, Society
Carrie Wade, Daily Caller
Every so often, a burst of technology can change society’s trajectory in major ways. Airplanes have shrunk world travel to less than 24 hours. Cellphones have freed us from landlines. We are now faced with a disruption that could dramatically change the way we use nicotine and improve the country’s health, except many lawmakers won’t let us.
Without the deadly tar and other products of combustion found in tobacco cigarettes, e-cigarettes are growing in popularity as a way to transition off combustible cigarettes. While e-cigarettes are not totally safe or healthful, they are far less harmful than cigarettes. Public Health England estimates that electronic cigarettes are no less than 95 percent safer than combustible cigarettes and both Public Health England and the Office of the Surgeon General report that e-cigarettes have a similar risk profile to other nicotine replacements, such as the patch and nicotine gum.
Forest reacts to UK Government’s new Tobacco Control Plan
FOREST
Forest has criticised the targets set by government in its new Tobacco Control Plan and called on ministers to consult consumers before introducing any further measures.
Although the plan, announced today, lacks detail it nevertheless targets a further reduction in smoking rates, from 15.5 per cent down to 12 per cent by 2022.
Simon Clark, director of the smoker’s group Forest, said:
“Setting targets encourages punitive measures. The best tobacco control plan puts education and choice ahead of prohibition and coercion.”
English tobacco control plan embraces tobacco harm reduction
Clive Bates, Counterfactual
The Department of Health (UK/England) today released its tobacco control plan for England: Towards a smoke-free generation: tobacco control plan for England (PDF)
The embrace of vaping and other low-risk alternatives to smoking runs through the text. This is probably the first significant government policy paper anywhere that recognises and pursues the opportunities of tobacco harm reduction, rather than defining these technologies as a threat to be suppressed. For that, the Department of Health and its allies deserve considerable credit.
The Tobacco Plan: too much stick, not enough carrot
Christopher Snowdon, Velvet Glove, Iron Fist
The government has published its new Tobacco Control Plan for England. This will come as a relief to Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) who have been waiting 18 months for a justification for their taxpayer subsidy.
The government has set an entirely arbitrary target of reducing smoking prevalence to 12 per cent by 2022. It has no way of doing this. Britain is still a nominally free country and people can choose to smoke if they want to, albeit within the constraints of extortionate taxes and a draconian smoking ban.
This is welcome news in the new tobacco control plan and something we have been fighting for: pic.twitter.com/iEhQdWTMDX
— NNAlliance (@NNAlliance) July 18, 2017
IBVTA response to the new Tobacco Control Plan for England
Independent British Vape Trade Association
Today, the Department of Health published the new Tobacco Control Plan for England. IBVTA welcomes the recognition given to the significant contribution vaping is making to reducing smoking rates across the UK. IBVTA also welcomes the positive stance taken towards vaping in public places and places of work. We hope organisations in both the public and private sectors will take note of this.
Vaping represents a market-based, user driven, public health insurgency. That is why it is so successful. No taxpayers’ money has been spent, yet smokers are stopping, switching, and cutting down through the use of vape products. It was therefore concerning to see the new Tobacco Control Plan for England referring to “medicinal regulation for e-cigarette products” and making vape products available on NHS prescription. Far from encouraging vaping IBVTA is concerned that this would have the opposite effect.
Tobacco Control Plan – NNA response
New Nicotine Alliance
Today the UK Government’s long awaited Tobacco Control Plan was published and is encouraging reading for those who, like us, have an interest in tobacco harm reduction. Although the plan is short on detail there is some emphasis on a pragmatic, harm reduction approach, rather than on further punitive measures intended to force smokers to quit – although those already in place are set to continue.
The plan sets out some ambitious targets, including the goal of reducing smoking prevalence in England from 15.5% to 12% (or less) by 2022. It concentrates on reducing prevalence in pregnancy, among mental health patients and on reducing variations among different regional or socio-economic groups.
ASH Keep Their Jobs (Again)
Paul Barnes, Facts Do Matter
After weeks of posing the same question in Parliament and being told, repeatedly, that the new tobacco control plan will be published soon, it’s finally happened.
The Government have released their new tobacco control plan – “Towards a Smokefree Generation” – which says it all really.
I’ve read the thing. I tweeted my immediate thoughts as I was reading. Let’s just say I was less than impressed. I’m not going to dissect it line by line, it’d take far too long for one, and I doubt my blood pressure could handle it.
In the opening page, there isn’t even a hint of the impact that e-cigs (or any other reduced risk product) have made.
Visit Nicotine Science & Policy for more News from around the World
