Some interesting comments here, on Dick Puddlecote's blog and on Twitter in response to yesterday's post about the trailer for A Billion Lives, a documentary about vaping.

Carl Philips is someone I respect enormously because he strikes me as a genuinely independent, open-minded and pragmatic commentator and his analyses are invariably thoughtful and well worth reading.

Occasionally he gently scolds me for something I've written but here's what he had to say about the forthcoming film:

The title alone has made me wonder. It seems to imply that every one of the world's one billion smokers' lives would be improved - nay, saved!! - by vaping. Seems like rather a stretch, to say the least.

The whole "lives saved" concept is rather tenuous even apart from that. You could say the same thing about olives: About one billion people alive today have their lives saved!! - which means extended by some amount - by the existence of olives (because they are a healthier source of oil and calories than what they usually substitute for).

That seems about right to me. Nevertheless Dick Puddlecote made a spirited attempt to justify the "billion lives" reference and of course I'm never going to argue with DP (in public at least) so I suggest you pop over to his blog and decide for yourself (A Billion Lives, My Take).

What DP and I agree on is the fallacy of the claim, repeated in the trailer, that 165,000 "kids" die from passive smoking every year. Even Clive Bates, a leading advocate of e-cigs and a former director of ASH, is sceptical about that. (See his comment on DP's post.)

Again, I'm not in total agreement with Clive's response because having found the source of the claim he then declares, "The filmmakers can't really be blamed for relying on a statistic originally published in a prestigious medical journal like The Lancet."

Hmmm. If you're producing a film whose central thesis concerns the "lies" being perpetrated by the public health industry against e-cigarettes, it makes sense to double-check or treat with suspicion other statistics emanating from that source.

I'm surprised too that Clive considers The Lancet a beacon of probity – see The Lancet attacks UK health agency’s claim that e-cigarettes are 95% safer than tobacco.

As you can imagine many vapers and other advocates of e-cigarettes were furious when they read that. Can you imagine if someone had then said, "The media can't really be blamed for reporting an article originally published in a prestigious medical journal like The Lancet."

I'm not having a dig at Clive, btw. On several issues (including, it seems, the global impact of passive smoking) our views appear to be edging closer together. I doubt they'll ever converge but at least we're moving in the right direction (ie we can now have a drink together without arguing).

My point is the producers of A Billion Lives would be making a huge mistake if they accept, with questioning them, public health statistics about passive smoking (or smoking itself) while attacking the PH industry for its often negative attitude to e-cigarettes (especially in the States).

Meanwhile another commenter wrote:

The intent of the film isn't to attack smokers or their rights, it's to damage or destroy the withdrawal of choice being pursued by pharma, tobacco companies, PH, ideologists and greedy politicians. I think that's something that everyone here can agree on?

The intent may not be there but why say 165,000 children are dying of passive smoking each year unless you believe it or it suits the film's agenda? Hearing it from the mouth of the director himself is especially galling.

Repeating a tendentious statistic like that is hugely damaging to smokers and their rights because if it was true it would be used to justify even more anti-smoking regulations. The present smoking ban would seem trivial in comparison.

Anyway, I'm told that particular stat won't appear in the film so let's leave it there.

As for people's right to choose to use e-cigarettes without undue interference from the state, I'm already there. And so is Forest. But what about people's right to smoke?

I appreciate A Billion Lives is about vaping but I hope it recognises, even in passing, that choice applies not only to those who want to vape but also to those who choose to smoke and don't want to quit or switch to e-cigarettes.

Unfortunately, such is their enthusiasm for this 'miracle' smoking cessation aid, some ex-smoking vapers seem to forget that smokers (who pay a huge amount of tax on tobacco) have rights too.

Have they also forgotten the trope involving the little old lady who doesn't want to cross the street but is nevertheless helped across by a Samaritan-style passer-by:

'Helping Granny Across There Street'.

Sound familiar?

Finally I notice the debate about A Billion Lives has annoyed one or two people. Some have taken exception to the likes of DP and me querying the "165,000" statistic in case our comments undermine the 'real' purpose of the documentary.

Another dismissed the discussion as "boring" although, amusingly, instead of closing it down the remark provoked even more comments.

It strikes me that many activists live in a bubble and unless they hear exactly what they want to hear they stick their fingers in their ears and mumble, "Boring" or "Not interested". Their intolerance of alternative opinions and their sensitivity to even the mildest criticism or 'negative' remark ends up defining them – and not in a good way.

Thankfully there are others who are far more tolerant of contrary opinions and are willing to accept that the fight for a genuinely liberal society goes way beyond smoking or vaping but has to include both.

Liberals (in the truest sense) are a broad church and we're never going to agree on everything. We all have our likes and dislikes. What matters, as I've said many times before, is that we're united on the underlying principles of choice and personal responsibility.

Now, if only someone would make a film about that.