Forest, e-cigarettes and the BMA's "self-serving politically correct agenda"
Monday, October 21, 2013 at 9:05 Forest has been fairly quiet on the issue of e-cigarettes.
I have written about them from time to time but we have enough on our plate - plain packaging, proposed bans on smoking in cars and in parks, EU-led bans on menthols, ten packs, small pouches of RYO tobacco etc etc - without fighting a battle that others are perhaps better placed to win.
Nevertheless Forest supports consumer choice and electronic cigarettes offer exactly that, whether you want to cut down, quit, or merely want an alternative to cigarettes in places like pubs and public transport where you can't smoke.
Most of the current focus is on harm reduction, with e-cigarettes being promoted as a smoking cessation aid.
That's fine, but it ignores the fact that a great many e-cigarette users (not the loudest, perhaps) are using them in addition to cigarettes, not as a direct replacement.
Forest's job is to support and defend adults who want to smoke tobacco.
There's a clue in the name - Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco - hence our annoyance when some e-cig advocates (and manufacturers) turn round and lambast smoking and, by implication, smokers.
Anyway, the e-cig lobby has been pretty vocal of late so they hardly need our help. When asked to comment, however, we'll happily offer our tuppence halfpenny.
Yesterday Scotland on Sunday reported that the British Medical Association has written to Celtic and Rangers urging them to reconsider their relationship with the e-cigarette company E-Lites and their policy of allowing e-cigs to be used inside their stadiums.
On Thursday afternoon the paper invited Forest to respond. I was told:
The BMA has a number of concerns about issues such as children being exposed to seeing smoking as a normal thing and undermining the restrictions on smoke-free places. They also have concerns about the limited regulation of the products at present and the impact of "passive vaping".
On Friday I sent this quote:
"The idea that e-cigarettes are a gateway to smoking is ridiculous. Overwhelmingly they are used by smokers who want to cut down or quit, or smokers who find them a useful alternative in places where they can't light up.
"The BMA's position defies logic. There's no evidence that e-cigarettes are harmful to anyone, including the vaper, so it seems perverse to stop people using or promoting them.
"If they were genuinely interested in public health the BMA would support and encourage the use of e-cigarettes. Instead they want to restrict them using the feeble excuse that some e-cigarettes look like the real thing.
"It may have escaped their notice but that's why smokers are comfortable using them and why clubs like Celtic and Rangers should be applauded for embracing them."
None of it was used although, to be fair, I may have missed the deadline. (Update: I'm told my quote was cut due to "lack of space".)
Instead there was a short comment from E-Lites director Charles Hamshaw-Thomas, an old friend of Forest.
Today, however, Brian Monteith (editor of Forest's Free Society website) has used his column in the Scotsman to attack the BMA's "self-serving politically correct agenda".
Although he is writing in a personal capacity, Brian's overall stance is pretty much in tune with Forest's, especially his final comment:
It is time those in public health – including the BMA – recognised that smoking will not go away, that the policies of prohibition are counterproductive and are only creating a new breed of rebels. Better then that they resort to harm reduction and with e-cigs save more lives than they ever will with their laws, their bans and their outrageous terrorising of smokers.
Amen to that.
Full article: The battle over e-cigarettes (Scotsman)
See also: Wanted, a consumer champion for e-cigarettes who is not anti-smoking, Will e-cigarettes take centre stage in 2013?, Why I hate some e-cigarette retailers, The arguments against e-cigarettes.
Reader Comments (10)
Message to the BMA...Iatrogenesis kills more people than obesity, alcohol and smoking put together. Physician heal thyself!
Thank goodness that we tobacco loving consumers who have no intention of quitting smoking or using an alternative still have an organisation that will stand up for our rights to consume and enjoy tobacco instead of shoving in our faces how E Cigs Save lives - which they don't if they do offer the best alternative for those who don't really want to quit smoking but do want to quit being bullied.
E cig smokers don't really need help from Forest, they have a whole assortment of sanctimonious friends from Amanda Sandford at ASH - who thinks e-cigs should be allowed to be used in pubs so "vapers" don't have to mix with smoker scum outside - "The last people they should be mixing with" says Sandford.
Smokers need help but the e-cig industry won't support our right to choose because they want us to choose to be vapers and hand our cash their way. They also depend on denormalisation of the tobacco consumer to promote their product.
As for "vapers" themselves, most only care about tobacco as something they can denigrate, and those who smoke it, as a means to save their own product of choice from the puritan vandals.
Until vapers start talking our language - and we ARE all smokers - then the two campaigns will never join forces but then they don't need us so why should they care?
I concur with almost all of what you say Simon and I fully support the rights both smokers and vapers. But...we should accept that kids who consider taking up smoking will also consider vaping. To them it would be easier to conceal and safer. Basically, the main marketing drive is rooted in the fact that e-cigs are a much healthier alternative. So, what's to stop kids experimenting? That's what they do. Had e-cigs been invented 45 years ago I would have tried one. They would have been irresistible - an instant nicotine hit with smell, no nausea, no dreadful health impact and (by today's standards) much cheaper more socially acceptable. Manna from heaven. And it was far, far easier to access real cigs in those days. Basically, everything e-cig makers promote.
I think that as more and more vaping is banned in public places, vapers will move closer to smokers. The smoking ban will be our unifying force. In my humble way, I am pointing this out.....
http://vapingpoint.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-smokingvaping-ban-what-is-actually.html
http://vapingpoint.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/the-smoking-ban-is-beginning-and-end.html
David, if everyone in the country took up ecigs, it wouldn't do much harm. It is purely cultural that nicotine is regarded as bad whereas caffeine is OK. They both have similar effects which, in the grand scheme of things, don't add up to much. Snus users don't have a lower life expectancy than non users.
Now then, david, do you think that your statement was consistent? Forty five years ago? Dreadful health impact? Yours must be a voice from the grave then.
I personally see e-cigs as plastic toys, which I wouldn't touch with a bargepole, but for anyone to ban them is not only ridiculous but surely against the law?
The smoking ban was brought in on the premise of second hand tobacco smoke being supposedly harmful to other people. What possible excuse can anyone have for proposing a ban (anywhere) on plastic tubes full of water vapour?
The truth is that these silly little toys look very similar to cigarettes, and as we all know, the very sight of a cigarette inflames the anti-smoker to the point of almost imploding.
I purposely take a cigarette out of the pack whilst still inside a restaurant or bar, along with my lighter and play around with it, while still talking just to aggravate any anti-smokers near to me - you can see their evil little faces - "is he smoking that?" they ask themselves, "is he about to light it?" I can see that this gets up their nose as much, if not more than the actual smell of smoking, and that is exactly why they don't want anyone bunging these little plastic tubes that resemble real cigarettes in their mouths - they just cannot stand the sight of them!
I say all you e-puffers out there - keep it up, but please don't set our 'real' cause on a backward path whilst doing so.
Suprising that Alex Salmond hasn't jumped on this band wagon. Imagine how much extra support for Scottish Independence would be drummed up by abolishing the smoking ban/at least allowing e cigarettes in pubs/clubs. It would
- Appeal to new voters (16/17 year olds- they love to defy rules)
- Take support from next biggest party, Labour (Fact-smoking as a % of population increases with poverty, i.e those more likely to vote labour)
- Boost pub/club trade, especially in promoting Glasgow & Edinburgh as places to go out.
- Curry favour with the Whisky trade.
Imagine the tourist advertising for a free Scotland "Come to Scotland, enjoy a dram a drag and deep fried Mars bar"
I agree Peter. Perhaps if e-cigs were e-pipes or e-cigars they wouldn't have anti-smokers in such a flap. After all snobbery and fear tend to focus on the humble cigarette above all else.
My own view is that it's because the cigarette has always been the favourite method of tobacco smoking in lower classes, where as the cigar and pipe are more middle and upper classes' choice and the British are very class conscious despite the surface view of us being a classless society. We never will be.
Vapers should be warned - as the ever perceptive and tolerant friend of smokers Liz knows - anti-smoker orgs like ASH will use vapers now for divide and conquer - but then they'll come for vapers and e-cigs with a passion once they've isolated them from us (for their own good of course)
If we're in it together then we unite, meet and discuss what language we use. I would suggest that E Cigs Save Lives is out - it's offensive to tobacco smokers and leaves the way open for e-cigs to be regulated as medicines - and mention of E-cigs as Toys is also out - as it gives ammo to antis to urge the Govt to "Think of the children."
Junican, an exaggeration, it was probably more like 40 years ago. My mother, an ex-smoker, was already an anti (on health grounds) when I was a teenager. She was certainly aware of what the antis were claiming in the 1960s. As far as she was concerned, when one of her relatives succumbed to LC in the late 60's, it was down to his smoking. At that time, I had no reason to disagree with her. Indeed, I didn't start until I was 18, but if e-cigs had been around I'm fairly certain I'd have tried one at a much younger age. Funny thing is, I don't think it would have bothered her. Unlike real cigs.