I have been reading with open-mouthed astonishment the tweets by Prof John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health.
Following a series of foul-mouthed, abusive tweets towards vapers (most of which he later deleted), Ashton yesterday tweeted:
I very much regret my choice of language to describe some vapers on Saturday evening and any offence caused.I am taking a break from twitter
— John Ashton (@Johnrashton47) September 8, 2014At least he had the good grace to apologise.
Since then however the public health lobby has attempted to spin his behaviour in a rather different light.
The Times today has a report by health correspondent Chris Smyth who writes:
Public health chiefs have accused e-cigarette users of a campaign of online abuse, saying that junior scientists are being scared away from research by explicit attacks from "vapers" on Twitter.
It reminds me of the 2012 Guardian report, Pro-smoking activists threaten and harass health campaigners:.
I don't condone abuse or intimidation on social media or anywhere else (it's one of the things I hate about the Yes campaign in Scotland), but there's a pattern emerging here.
Anti-smoking activists regularly dish it out, accusing smokers (and now vapers) of all sorts, but they're quick to complain when those same people fight back.
The Times, like the Guardian, implies that the consumer – not the public health campaigner – is the villain. Prof Ashton has merely "retaliated".
Frankly he should know better but he's not alone. The attitude and language adopted by the likes of Simon Chapman and other anti-smoking activists has often amazed me.
Reading their self-regarding and often abusive tweets is a fantastic insight into the minds of people who appear to have little or no empathy with ordinary people, many of whom they damn as slaves to addiction.
As Chris Snowdon comments:
You have to wonder how many people in the public health racket have the same mentality but manage - as Ashton did until Saturday - to keep it to themselves.
See 'The dark soul of Prof John Ashton' (Velvet Glove Iron Fist).
I also recommend 'The public health mask slips' (Dick Puddlecote).
The Times' report is behind a paywall but the paper does at least note that:
Professor John Ashton is facing an official complaint after he retaliated, calling one vaper a "c***" and another an "onamist".
You couldn't make it up.
PS. Something else that made me laugh was an item on the Jeremy Vine Show (Radio 2), above.
It featured John Ashton and Clive 'Superhero' Bates, former director of ASH, now a pin-up for every hot-blooded vaper, male and female.
Ashton has rightly been lampooned for declaring that e-cigarettes can make you go blind (I'm sure I could hear Jeremy Vine sniggering) but I can't tell you how ironic it was to hear Clive Bates fighting it out with an anti-tobacco campaigner.
I remember having not dissimilar battles with Clive on radio and television. In those days of course he was more than happy to interrupt me and make outrageous claims about the risks of passive smoking.
Those and other allegations eventually led to the smoking ban and all manner of abusive accusations against smokers and the "threat" they allegedly posed non-smokers in pubs, bars and now, it seems, outdoor parks and beaches.
Meanwhile the World Health Organisation wants to ban vaping in all enclosed public places. Clive objects – because it's quite plainly wrong – but thanks to the smoking ban it's a small (and in some eyes logical) step to ban the use of e-cigarettes too.
Oh, the tangled web we weave.