Another 'health' group wants to ban e-cigs in public places
Tuesday, May 6, 2014 at 10:17 Another day, another story about e-cigarettes.
Actually there are several articles, including opinion pieces, but the one I'm focussing on concerns the Royal Environmental Health Institute for Scotland.
Speaking ahead of the organisation's annual conference in Edinburgh president Colin Wallace said:
"We fully back the decision to ban e-cigarettes from Commonwealth Games venues but it needs to go further."
Further? Yes, the REHI wants the ban extended to advertising near Glasgow 2014 venues.
The Herald asked Forest to respond and records my quote as follows:
Simon Clark of the smokers' group Forest said the government should resist the temptation to over-regulate the use and promotion of e-cigarettes saying there is no evidence they are harmful to the user or anyone else.
"Banning e-cigarettes in non-smoking environments makes no sense because the product is very different to tobacco. There's no combustion, no smoke, and no evidence that vaping encourages anyone to start smoking," he said.
"Nicotine can be addictive but on its own it's no more harmful than caffeine. Politicians need to regulate accordingly.
ASH Scotland is absent from reports of this story, which appears in the several Scottish newspapers, which is a pity. I would love to have read their response.
As I reported at the weekend, ASH Scotland's current position is curious. They oppose a ban on the use of e-cigarettes in public places yet support bans on e-cigarettes in, er, public places, including the Commonwealth Games.
According to chief executive Sheila Duffy "There's not enough evidence of harm at this stage to include them in the ban on smoking tobacco in enclosed public places."
Yet she supports prohibition "because the devices could undermine the smoking ban by causing confusion about whether a customer is puffing on a real cigarette".
See: ASH Scotland's Kafkaesque position on electronic cigarettes
Reader Comments (5)
Odd, isn't it, that these bullies never mention that smoking was allegedly banned inside to stop bar workers dropping dead every night after one whiff of a cig - which of course never happened.
Now it's all about "denormalisation" or deliberate stigmatisation and marginalisation of people who smoke - or people who look like they might be smoking even if they're not.
Disgusting. We knew we'd been conned and they were lying about the health effects of smoking on others. That's clearly the case or the "health" argument would be the one they'd use rather than "denormalisation."
That surprises me. I imagined the Royal Environmental Health Institute for Scotland being more science and chemistry based rather than a propaganda group.
An interesting example of how laws and regs create work for clipboard carriers and pen-pushers. Prior to the smoking ban smoking or vaping was not the REHI's concern. But since they were tasked with enforcing the bans, they're all over it and it has created thousands of extra jobs up and down the country to drain the economy and burden taxpayers. If you ever wondered why taxation is so eye-wateringly high when compared to the past, this illustrates it perfectly.
If they're not careful the the public will finally grasp that the primary reason for smoking bans is to alienate smokers, or anybody who looks like one.
The majority of the public I don't think could careless about people smoking in enclosed public spaces. The Mirror poll http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/should-smoking-banned-public-places-2015161 shows 68% prefer choice to a total indoor smoking ban
. This was brought in by a bunch of MPs in Westminster that clearly don't represent the views of their constituents. It's clearly proof the Uk isn't a democracy as the views of the majority are being and continue to be totally ignored.