COP7 – a useful lesson in tobacco control (and the endgame is not tobacco)
Saturday, November 12, 2016 at 14:33 I love a well-crafted rant, hence my previous post. (H/T Faith Goldy of The Rebel TV.)
Even more interesting perhaps was this report by Goldy's colleague Lauren Southern who is also at the World Health Organisation's tobacco control convention (COP7) in India.
I don't agree with everything Lauren says. Like many people she seems to embrace the 'vape or die' mantra which is as tedious (and inaccurate) as its 'quit or die' cousin.
In fact it's a common fault among many 'libertarians'. In their enthusiasm for a non state-funded 'solution' to smoking they end up sounding just like tobacco control.
That said, Southern's report is impressive on several levels. In particular she asks simple questions and provokes some extremely revealing responses from a high level tobacco control campaigner.
Patricia Lambert is director of the International Legal Consortium at the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids in Washington DC.
The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids describes itself as a "leading force in the fight to reduce tobacco use and its deadly toll in the United States and around the world."
Responding to Southern's questions Lambert gave the following replies. My response to those replies is in italics:
"I am not an expert in cessation alternatives."
Why not? Surely that's part of your job? You should be knowledgeable at least.
"As I understand cessation, it is possible to quit without trading down to a less harmful product."
That's absolutely true but why would you ignore the potential of less harmful products to wean people off a product you say is so deadly? But thanks for confirming your contempt for the concept of choice and your ignorance of the pleasure principle.
"As a tobacco control advocate I can't see myself espousing another form of tobacco as a way of moving from one form of tobacco to another form of tobacco. It just doesn't make sense."
E-cigarettes aren't tobacco!!!! How can you be so ignorant?!
When Southern pointed this out Lambert corrected herself:
"Sorry, I've misspoke. It's nicotine. Why would I want to put nicotine into anybody's body?"
Why not? Where's the evidence that nicotine itself is harmful? And you're not putting nicotine into anyone's body – it's their choice. It has nothing to do with you.
Another panellist then added:
"We don't want to shift to a less harmful product. We want to shift to [a] product that doesn't have any harm."
In other words they want smokers to go cold turkey or use Big Pharma products that don't do "any harm". Allegedly.
What is clear from these answers is that one of the high priestesses of tobacco control is determined that if smokers quit tobacco they quit nicotine completely.
That, as I have repeated here until I am blue in the face, is the real endgame.
Southern summed it up thus:
"Like Patricia, the politicians and lobbyists speaking at this conference and forming legislation are not experts, they're bureaucrats toying with people's lives for their own self interests."
Personally I think we should be pretty wary of so-called experts as well but she's right about politicians and lobbyists.
Finally, I'd never heard of The Rebel TV until this week. I guess it qualifies as 'new media', a genre I'm a bit sceptical about.
I'm definitely old school when it comes to journalism and a lot of what passes for 'new media' strikes me as poorly written and executed. Much of it is one step up from student journalism, and that's being kind.
That said, it's probably no more biased than the mainstream media. They just have smaller budgets and that restriction is reflected in a lot of what appears online.
The Rebel TV doesn't hide its bias but Faith Goldy and Laura Southern strike me as proper journalists (if that doesn't sound too patronising).
They sense a story and they go for it.
They're persistent too.
There's a touch of infotainment about what they do but that's no bad thing. It means their reports will appeal to a wider audience.
Anyway, I'm just about done with COP7. I've enjoyed following it from afar.
Some people have been getting a trifle over-wrought and the reaction to rumours that a handful of delegations were reportedly seeking a global ban on e-cigarettes was hysterical in every sense.
Now it's over it's time to take a deep breath and ... keep calm.
Reader Comments (7)
Forgive my ignorance, but don't those patches, gum and inhalers so beloved of TC contain that evil stuff called Nicotine? I must be mistaken because they heavily promote one container of Nicotine but want to ban another which seems just a tad contradictory?
Good point. Perhaps she's thinking of drugs like Champix and Zyban. They come without any risks, don't they?
This conference has become a joke, when harm reduction strategies are available, cry for banning it. And then cry tobacco is killing millions. I'm lost for words.
The paranoid freakshow to satisfy their addiction to tobacco taxation has come to an end. I rather enjoyed the soap opera as well. In my defense, I grew up watching The Twilight Zone. So transparent in the sense that all is so predictable, but very amusing to see them try to cover up their true plumage. Amateur blooper night, great entertainment value, must do this more often. A billion people will not die from smoking, a billion lives will not be saved by vaping. I'm a much better nanny than you are. You are a terrible nanny. Very true, but who needs nannies in the first place, we're all adults, don't we? Some people found a new product to enjoy, others prefer to stick to the old. Both are going to be taxed the hell out of it and that's all there is to it. One thing however I became more aware of is how truly insignificant they all are. Tax me if you can, a privilege given much more to vapers then to smokers... hence the COP-FCTC hysteria.
"We don't want to shift to a less harmful product."
Who CARES what they want? The simple fact is that it's none of their business. Period.
I'm aware that this comment is off topic and a little childish but...
...She's a babe!
Sshhhh - don't tell Mrs Bucko :0) who is another beautiful blonde