Morning Call asks 'Is it time to toughen up on e-cigarettes?'
Friday, February 28, 2014 at 12:35 Another day another interview on e-cigarettes.
This time I was woken up by a call asking me to go on Morning Call, the BBC Radio Scotland phone-in:
Sales of e-cigarettes have soared by 340 per cent over the past year leading to calls for greater restrictions on them … Charity ASH Scotland say e-cigarettes normalise smoking, and are calling for age restrictions and limits on advertising the products. Louise White asks: Is it time to toughen up on e-cigarettes?
I was on for 40 minutes but didn't say an awful lot, which wasn't a bad thing. It was far more interesting listening to callers, the majority of whom were smokers and/or vapers.
My direct opponent was a woman called Merissa (?) who was described as a "PhD researcher". She favoured the precautionary principle and was very articulate.
Nevertheless her opening comments were peppered with the word 'may'. E-cigs 'may' result in this, 'may' result in that.
Michael Matheson, minister for public health in Scotland, was also on. I got the feeling that his position on e-cigs is driven primarily by hatred of the tobacco industry, which is extremely short-sighted (in my view).
One or two callers were equally hostile to the companies and didn't want them advertising any products on television.
The caller I agreed with most was comedian Karen Dunbar who was vaping as she spoke. She made the strong case that nicotine is a recreational drug and should be treated no differently to caffeine.
Another caller, John, was an ex-smoker with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It's not sexy to have lung cancer, he said, and I don't know anyone who would disagree with that.
However this is not an argument against advertising e-cigarettes on television or anywhere else. There is no evidence that vaping leads to smoking, or causes lung cancer (or COPD).
I have never come across anyone who started smoking through vaping.
Indeed, every caller on Morning Call who said they vaped was either a smoker or ex-smoker.
Reader Comments (2)
I don't think there is any disease or illness exclusive to smokers including lung cancer.
Last year we had to watch my father in law die very slowly and in agony gasping for breath because he had lung disease - similar to COPD. He has never smoked in his life and never lived with smokers.
His kids didn't smoke until they were older and left home like my husband who began aged 31 just before he met me. My father-in-law's mother didn't smoke and his dad used to step outside to smoke. Before anti-smokerism, there was such a thing as etiquette and smokers never smoked in anyone's home or property if the owner didn't like smoking, as his wife didn't.
What could have caused my father in law's COPD? Was it hereditary? Was it caused by years of working on the roads in traffic? Was it just age related? I guess we'll never know because he wasn't a smoker, wasn't around smokers, so smoking couldn't be blamed. Therefore the cause was ignored.
That'd be Dr Marissa De Andrade of the world renowned School of Social Marketing at the University of Stirling. She is currently being "mentored" by Professor Gerard Hastings - http://rms.stir.ac.uk/converis-stirling/person/14035