Many users of e-cigarettes enthuse about them because they wanted to give up smoking and found that e-cigarettes allowed them to do this. For this reason they are fully endorsed by former chief of Action on Smoking and Health Clive Bates, who supports e-cigarettes as a sane method of 'tobacco harm reduction' and criticises those who support only pharmaceutical methods of stopping smoking.
Smokers are suspicious of this benign approach to tobacco harm reduction, feeling that if generally accepted it will lead to more erosion of choice, as efforts are put into denormalising tobacco use in favour of e-cigarettes.
I see it as a prohibition issue. There is no need to make rules against the use of e-cigarettes, certainly not to ban them (where tobacco itself is not banned). According to an extraordinary BBC report,
Why don't we just ban the sale of matches, lighters, gas refill canisters, candles, gas fires, ad infinitum? There is nothing dangerous about sensibly used e-cigarettes in a realistic environment (i.e. one where people don't have to use them covertly).A spokesperson for NHS Fife, which has banned staff from using them at work, said: "Potential fire and safety risks have been identified."The heating element provides a source of ignition similar to a traditional cigarette which could ignite bedding or clothing."
This one is the best though ...
Dr Vivienne Nathanson said that e-cigarettes look bad because they 'look like smoking'. She should consider that the reason e-cigarettes have so quickly 'renormalised' smoking is that denormalisation hasn't worked as a strategy. Banning the use of e-cigarettes in the workplace because of their similarity with smoking has to be the most self-defeating ban imaginable.Dr Nathanson said: "They are designed to look like smoking so what they do is they renormalise the concept of smoking, just at a time when we've all got used to the fact that smoking in the workplace is not normal nor allowed."
7 comments:
Heaven help us. When we try stop smoking, we should definately not enjoy it by switching to e-cigs.
These puritans make me sick and they are a danger to our health.
There was a lovely play on the TV many years ago. In this play, scientists had discovered an 'elexier of life', but this substance was EXTREMELY expensive and time-consuming to produce. It was therefore decided to provide this substance only to scientists, in the hope that these people would have the time to produce wonderful things for the advancement of mankind.
In the event, what actually happened in the play was that the 'immortal' scientists just slowed down and spent their immortal time delving into more and more minuscule differences. When asked about progress (after, say, three generations of ordinary mortals), they replied, "Well... we are getting there - but what's the rush?"
E-cigs are a stopgap. They are neither here nor there. They cannot possibly replicate the enjoyment of tobacco since they have no TASTE (unless they are flavoured). I have an ecig and I have used it, but only on an American cruise ship. It is OK in the sense that it replicates smoking, but it does not deliver THE TASTE.
Whatever... It is not for me to tell ecig manufacturers what to do (damn it! They should produce ecigs which resemble pipes as well as cigs!Imagine, after a meal, a person producing his e-pipe and puffing away without any possibility of harming anyone else! No wonder Tobacco Control are dead against ecigs - they are way ahead of us!. They have already thought these thoughts!
Junican.
By the way, Nathanson has no more right the title of "Doctor" than you or I. The title is meaningless. At a meeting of Zealots, she was 'acclaimed' - "honoris causa".
What a con!
Last thing.... I have no doubt that you think that the catchpa is wonderful. The reality, however, is that it is seriously off-putting. Thanks for making Tobacco Control's job easier!
(It looks like .... erm... is that 10 or 19? Or is it ? or is it X? And are those two symbols which look like two 'u's a 'w'?
Kick it into touch, Belinda. It just puts people off. Suffer the spam - it does not matter. If you get too much, don't bother reading it - delete! Any important post will be repeated.
We have a lot to learn, not least of which is how not to antagonise people!!
Now.... what is that number on the cacthpa???? Is it 1 or 4? and is that 'ou' or 'on'? Oh, sod it! I can't be bothered with this stuff. I'll not bother with this site again....
Erm... just a mo.... Is that 14? Looks like it.... I'll just try it, but if it does not work, then sod it. .........
Belinda, Dear, stop trying to CONTROL! Trust your provider and simple delete spam. Do not even look at it! Get rid of the catchpa nonsense!
Junican
I didn't put Captcha there. I am not sure how to remove it. It's an addition to a spam filter, not instead of one.
I'll have a look later.
Belinda. Don't take me seriously! It's just that I had tried three times and got it wrong each time before being successful....
Junican
Now this one is quite easy to read....
So. What can be done when some little Hitler thinks they can impose a ban on members of the public discretely and unobtrusively, safely and harmlessly self medicating their legally acquired disease (that is nicotine addiction) as they are legally free to do by means of vaping anywhere and any time they feel any inclination or need to?
The NHS Fife spokesperson is, simply, lying about having identified "Potential fire and safety risks". There is no way that the heating element of a vapouriser (e-cig) could ignite bedding or clothing. That's a complete fiction. You know why people who use vapourisers for their nicotine fix, instead of cigarettes, don't need ashtrays? It's because nothing gets burnt in the process and there's no ash.
I don't believe bans on using glycol-vapour based electronic nicotine delivery systems (yes, I went there) such as NHS Fife or Lothian Buses have any legal status and can be ignored. They are, legally, nothing more than a rude objection by private individuals to other private individuals' behaviour. It doesn't matter if it can, sometimes, look like smoking from a distance. It isn't smoking.
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