It's the principle, stupid
Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 12:25 Is there anything more nauseous than listening to vapers calling for a ban on smoking in public places?
Earlier this week Juliette Tworsey (a vaper herself) described how vapers ruthlessly threw smokers under the bus in their desperate attempt to stop vaping being banned in bars and casinos in New Orleans.
Well, the gamble failed. Instead of joining forces with smokers and others opposed to excessive regulations, the e-cigarette community (including retailers) is now left to rue what happens if you side with tobacco control and thereby split what opposition there is to smoking bans.
Chances are that New Orleans City Council would have banned smoking and vaping anyway but working together smokers and vapers could have made far more noise.
Campaigning on the bigger issue (freedom of choice) might also have won over some non-smokers who don't give a toss about "harm reduction". Why would they? They don't smoke!
Instead self-interest took over and look what happened.
What some vapers don't seem to understand is the principle behind our opposition to smoking bans. The argument is not just about health, it's about politicians and tobacco control campaigners dictating beyond all reasonable measure how we should live our lives.
Unfortunately the vaping community's obsession with harm reduction (a perfectly honourable goal) has clouded their judgement and their choice of allies. They're quite happy to see smokers (which most of them once were) ostracised and excluded as long as they're given a free pass.
Well, it doesn't work like that. When governments worldwide began introducing comprehensive smoking bans it became clear that fairness was no longer part of the equation and appeals for moderation were falling on deaf ears.
As I (and others) keep saying, this is not about health, it's about control.
Meanwhile several people have questioned why we're fighting plain packaging. "You'll still be able to buy cigarettes so why does it matter?"
It matters because plain packaging represents the further denormalisation of smoking and, by association, smokers themselves.
It infantilises the consumer and creates an unhealthy precedent for similar policies in relation to sugary drinks and alcohol (for example).
To paraphrase David Hockney (who was talking about those ubiquitous 'No Smoking' signs), plain packaging represents the "uglification of England".
It also represents the staggering theft by the state of an entire industry's intellectual property. For that to happen in an allegedly free market, capitalist society is remarkable, yet it's happening here and now under our very noses.
The fact that it's being introduced by an allegedly Conservative prime minister makes it even more obscene.
When I commented on Twitter that the PM's decision had made me question whether to vote Conservative in May one person asked, "Is that really a defining issue for you in a General Election?"
Well, yes, as it happens because there's an important principle at stake. If a Tory government is going to abandon the values that I (as a lifelong Conservative voter) thought the party believed in, why should they get my vote now or in the future?
Like those myopic vapers in New Orleans, the PM seems to have abandoned principle for short-term gain. To say it sucks is an understatement.
Update: The following has just been tweeted. It's a letter to rabid anti-smoking campaigner Ruth Malone from a vaper. Worth reading:
@simonclark_ Those NO vapers are daft but pls don't tar all w/ same brush. This http://t.co/9LHIsGSK0i still the most read/shared on my blog
— Dan (@danmacdonald73) January 25, 2015
Reader Comments (11)
sadly, vapers are not at one with the view that they won't join the anti-smoker crusade because the majority see that as the only way to promote and save their own product of choice.
I wish they'd wake up. Maybe they will but I fear it won't be until we've been criminalised and there's no one left to fight for them.
Until their orgs like that vile NNA begin to stand squarely with us, then what vapers say is all mouth and no trousers.
You're still considering voting 'Conservative'?
Cameron promised to roll back the Nanny State in 2010. The Cons and its coalition Drips have been actively supporting the Nanny State. Bully State is more appropriate.
Spot on - nice post with which (as a VAPER) I agree completely. Time these things were pointed out loudly and clearly. Well done and thanks.
With all due respect, over and over again we disagree on one fundamental point. I don't believe that the bigger issue is 'freedom of choice'. It would be nice if it was, but most people don't see the freedom to choose both suicide (by smoking) and murder (by secondhand smoke) as a 'freedom' worth supporting. More likely, they support freedom of choice in principle, but see THIS 'freedom' as a deluded goal. For most people, even honourable principles are 'trumped' by what they believe are questions of health, life and death.
During the New Orleans hearings, Councilwoman Cantrell said 'smokers are the minority, why should they decide who lives or dies?' Another speaker said 'I was born and raised in New Orleans, I'm going to die in New Orleans, but I don't want to die from secondhand smoke'. The problem was not that they were disrespecting the principle of freedom of choice. The problem was (a) they were either lying, or deluded by liars; and (b) no one was saying so.
'Please support my freedom to kill myself and you' is not a compelling argument. 'You are being played for a sucker' is a compelling argument.
The bigger issue is not freedom of choice; it is that people in authority - people who command general respect and are not questioned or challenged - have dishonestly created a climate of fear and hatred in which reasonable pleas for 'freedom of choice' don't cut it.
You might say that no one is listening to this argument - but they're not listening to the other one, either. We might as well make the right argument, and keep on making it until someone does listen.
The vapers that "throw smokers under the bus" for their own gain are playing a fools game. Even if they were to keep vaping permitted in the face of smoking bans, the Antismokers would circle back and ban vaping too. This as you rightfully state is not about health, it is about social control. Tobacco Control exploits division to make its political gains (which ultimately are about gaining power not addressing health issues).
Tobacco control has exaggerated, manipulated and lied in order to ban tobacco so much that their claims are increasingly suspect to those who review the data. Unfortunately, few actually review the data and outcome of the studies supporting these poor policy choices.
A witch hunt against smokers is underway and some vapers think they can be saved by assisting the inquisitors. They are wrong, they forget the obvious: "United We Stand, Divided We Fall". It is time that smokers and papers stand united for freedom of choice.
This was the last straw for me, I will either vote UKIP regardless of whether I support anything they say, or for the first time I will not vote at all. I have had enough.
As a vaper (former 40 year smoker) I agree with Joe on this issue Simon. Somebody needs to take on the global TC industry for their constant lies and misinformation. The appeal to freedom is unlikely to take hold until the general public is convinced of the unreliability and abuse of trust coming from those in authority.
I'm a vaper and former smoker from Australia, I have seen the futility of trying to fight plain packaging in my own country, where there is simply no public support for the principle of "freedom of choice" when it comes to smoking.
The majority have been brainwashed by the lies of tobacco control zealots for so long that the battle has been lost. However their win is a pyrrhic one. Plain packaging has become a joke, it has failed to stop people smoking, you cannot stigmatise smokers any more than they already are, it has reached saturation point. There is little or no sympathy for tobacco companies from the general public, and they can fight their own battles.
Smokers are their own worst enemy in complying with all the nonsense anti-smoking laws over the years, thinking that if they did so that the tobacco control bullies would leave them alone, but this hasn't been the case.
Vapers are in the unenviable position of not being smokers, but of being treated the same way as smokers, and then having smokers treat them as if they are somehow traitors to a cause they no longer have a part in.
Me, personally I support the right of people to smoke or vape if they want to, I abhor the discrimination and demonisation of smokers, while the hypocrites fleece them by taxing them to the extent that the government is the largest beneficiary of tobacco dollars.
Currently there is a small business man in my home state that has now got a criminal conviction because he sold vapourisers that the court concluded looked like cigarettes, and now vapourisers are banned from sale, (nicotine vape juice is already banned from sale across the country), vapers and vape vendors all over the world are supporting his appeal against this decision financially, but have smokers? Nope no smokers support the freedom of choice for people who want the right to vape and buy vape products. It works both ways, if you want the support of vapers, then you need to support the principle of freedom of choice for vapers.
The tobacco control bullies are our common enemy, and I agree we should fight them together.
...but most people don't see the freedom to choose both suicide (by smoking) and murder (by secondhand smoke) as a 'freedom' worth supporting.
This is a very valid point. The whole juggernaut of the anti-smoking movement is predicated on that mistaken belief, and while that belief prevails, no argument for 'freedom of choice' is going to make any headway. Which is why the zealots are frantically trying to justify the inclusion of vaping in the 'smoking and SHS are killers' meme.
What amazes me is how they have managed to convince people that smoking and SHS are so deadly, when simple observation gives the lie to the whole concept. We all know people of my generation (the post-war 'baby boomers') who have either smoked all their lives, or if never smokers, who were brought up in a veritable fug of tobacco smoke (SHS) throughout childhood, adolescence and adulthood. This is the generation who are now poised to break all records for longevity. So how do people square that inescapable fact with the propaganda? How can they ignore what is staring them in the face?
But as Joe says, it is the lie that needs to be attacked. Until we can make people question the veracity of the plethora of outlandish statements issued by Tobacco Control, we are going nowhere. We need to start highlighting the sheer idiocy of some of the utterances of TC. Those statements need to be challenged, ridiculed, exposed and discarded as they appear, and a climate of disbelief, or at least scepticism, cultivated. Only when people start to look critically at what TC stands for will we be able to start reclaiming any measure of common sense about the subject.
This of course is easier said than done, given that the MSM is so partisan on this issue, and refuses to give any dissenting voices a platform, but I do think you should start moving in that direction, Simon. It will have to be a stealthy approach, but I feel it is the only way we will stand any chance of rolling back the ideological persecution of all things tobacco related.
Slowly slowly catchee monkey, as they say.
'no smokers support the freedom of choice for people who want the right to vape and buy vape products. It works both ways, if you want the support of vapers, then you need to support the principle of freedom of choice for vapers.'
Unquestionably, I support your right to vape as you support mine to smoke. I also support your right to vape anywhere. The problem is that I have no right to smoke in most public enclosed spaces and have seen no support of vape industry leaders (and precious little from vapers - you among the exceptions) for any campaign that supports a repeal or amendment of smoke free legislation. Even now, when vapers are to be lumped in with the rest of us. Most don't give a fig about smokers' rights and are only pee'd off now that the're being tarred with the same brush.
Another problem, of course, is that we have a very limited platform on which to present our case. Simon is regarded as nothing more than a tobacco industry stooge by antis and other non-industry aligned campaigners have virtually no resources to mount a serious challenge.
'no smokers support the freedom of choice for people who want the right to vape and buy vape products. It works both ways, if you want the support of vapers, then you need to support the principle of freedom of choice for vapers.'
The bigger problem is that some vapers - and all of their orgs - believe in choice for smokers but only if smokers choose to vape. Smokers support the right to vape if a smokers chooses to switch but we absolutely 100% do not support your right to abuse our product of choice to promote your own and win favours by taking tobacco control's line on smoking and smokers.
Vapers are for harm reduction but only if smokers vape. If not, they will not even for a minute think about promoting harm reduction for smokers who don't like vaping. Harm reduction is possible for smokers - smoke less, leave longer stubs, put two filters in one roll up -- etc etc - there are various ways.
Sadly, it seems to me, vapers believe in one form of harm reduction ,vaping, and to ensure tobacco control sees it from their point of view they are happy to keep attacking our choice to continue to smoke.
Get over yourselves.