Pro-vaping campaign claim leaves me speechless
Sunday, November 6, 2016 at 18:10 The Freedom Association has published a report suggesting that "87 per cent of UK councils are ignoring advice from Public Health England" on vaping.
It's a diligent piece of work. According to their website:
In the first report of its kind, The Freedom Association has asked every council in the UK what its policies are on staff using e-cigarettes.
Using freedom of information requests, all UK councils (district, county, unitary, metropolitan, London boroughs, and the City of London Corporation) were asked if their policies on vaping differed from those on smoking; if they allowed vaping in the workplace; and if e-cigarette users were required to vape in designated smoking shelters.
In total, 386 councils responded - a successful response rate of over 92.5 per cent.
The key findings, say The Freedom Association, are:
- 112 councils (29 per cent of those who responded) require vapers to use designated smoking areas in all or some circumstances, despite that fact that vapers are not smokers - indeed the vast majority of those who vape do so as a means of quitting combustible tobacco or to reduce the amount of tobacco they consume. Two included in the list required vapers to vape in close proximity to designated smoking areas.
- 335 councils (87 per cent of those who responded) have the same (or effectively the same) policy on vaping as they do on smoking.
- Just one council - the London Borough of Enfield - allows vaping indoors and actively encourages staff to vape instead of smoking combustible tobacco, in line with recommendations from Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians.
All very interesting. However press coverage of the report leads with the extraordinary claim that:
Nearly one in three local authorities could be breaking the law by making e-cigarette users vape alongside smokers, a report warns.
This remarkable suggestion features in all three newspaper reports that mention the study. (Well, those I have seen anyway.)
The headline in The People reads 'E-cig ban 'illegal', the Mirror headline is 'Illegal' vaping bans mean a third of councils could be breaking the law, while the Sunday Express report begins:
Nearly a third of councils could be on the wrong side of the law by insisting e-cigarette users "vape" alongside smokers, claims a study.
Breaking the law? Wrong side of the law? 'Illegal' vaping bans? What are they talking about?
Well, it seems The Freedom Association has gone to the oracle (aka Public Health England) and translated PHE's advice about vaping in the hope councils will interpret it as follows:
By not allowing any form of indoor vaping, by ensuring that vapers stand with smokers in designated smoking areas, or by insisting that vapers leave the grounds in order to vape, the majority of councils are not encouraging those members of staff who have voluntarily chosen to quit smoking through the use of e-cigarettes, to stay smokefree.
By insisting that vapers use designated smoking areas, they are not complying with smokefree law and policies.
Incredibly The Freedom Association seems to believe that any council that ignores this interpretation of PHE's advice is "breaking the law". Or perhaps they thought this was the best way to spin the story.
Curiously The Freedom Association hasn't posted its press release on its website, only the report, but the only way the Mirror, People and Sunday Express could have published almost identical stories is with the help of a press release that began:
Nearly one in three local authorities could be breaking the law by making e-cigarette users vape alongside smokers, a report warns.
This morning, on Twitter, the campaign group denied that its report throws smokers under a bus by implying that smoking outside is a threat to anyone else's health, but that is exactly the effect it achieves because it plays to those who believe that smoking, even outdoors, is a risk to non-smokers.
Also, it's not first time The Freedom Association's Freedom To Vape campaign has suggested the health of vapers could be at risk if they are forced to stand outside with smokers.
Back in August I wrote:
Last week, following the launch of a new "vapers' rights" campaign, it was suggested it was wrong to make vapers stand outside in the cold with smokers, breathing in their smoke.
I read that to mean it might be bad for their health even though there is no evidence that smoking outside is harmful to anyone other than the smoker - and even that should be qualified because millions of smokers live long and healthy lives regardless of their habit.
Well, that interpretation was wrong, apparently. What the author and campaign manager meant was that the smell of tobacco smoke is alluring and might tempt vapers back to smoking (which is a terrible thought, obviously).
See Tempted by the smoking of another (Taking Liberties).
Let me be clear. I am strongly opposed to workplace vaping bans, just as I am opposed to excessive restrictions on smoking in the workplace, and given the opportunity Forest will continue to lobby and speak out against such policies.
But the idea that "forcing" vapers outside with smokers is a danger to their health or undermines their efforts to remain "smokefree" (sic) is utter bilge.
As for the suggestion that by ignoring PHE advice councils (and presumably other employers) may be breaking the law, I am speechless.
First rule of campaigning – get your facts right and avoid scaremongering. Did The Freedom Association learn nothing from the EU referendum campaign?
Anyway, I've just seen a couple of tweets from a vaper supporting the spin:
(1) PHE's advice may not be law "but it does render those councils liable to legal action".
(2) "A fully switched vaper is a non-smoker with the same rights."
For the benefit of this numbskull it's worth pointing out, again, that there is no evidence that smoking in the open air poses a threat to anyone.
Two, even before the smoking ban was introduced there were only a handful of legal cases where plaintiffs sought damages for the effect of 'passive' smoking.
Of those cases that went to court (I think there were four or five in the UK) not one was settled in the plaintiff's favour. If I remember correctly they all failed for lack of evidence.
A number of plaintiffs did win out-of-court settlements. The assumption at the time was that the defendants chose not to go to court because they didn't want to risk a large legal bill, especially if the plaintiffs didn't have the money to pay costs in the event of the defendant winning.
I'm no lawyer but my guess is that the chances of a vaper taking a council to court and winning the right to vape in the workplace on these grounds is very small indeed.
If anyone wants to try, good luck!
We love how vapers are desperate to be seen as anything but smokers. Our work in #tobaccocontrol making smokers pariahs is a total success.
— TobaccoTactics UK (@TobaccoTacticss) November 6, 2016
Reader Comments (12)
And this is why I disagree that the propaganda war on vaping will expose the lies on smoking or the slander on shs.These people need to ensure smokers remain pariahs or they won't win their battle for acceptance.
We have never been in it together. Their crusade to convert smokers is not unlike the zealots in tobacco control who use fear mongering and division to isolate, exclude and encourage abuse of smokers.
The "Freedom" Association needs a name change. Hypocrites.
here are the benefits when you stop smoking. http://needtoquitsmoking.com/happens-quit-smoking/
I've been a 'vaping' advocate for a number of years, I was heavily involved with the formation of a number of initiatives but have become disillusioned with the stance that many pro-vaping groups have taken over the last couple of years. I'd like to give the reader some background information and how I think this situation has arrived.
Pre-2009, only a few people in this country even knew about electronic cigarettes. The devices were pretty poor and not a viable alternative to cigarettes without a desire to stop smoking. They could only be bought from websites except for the odd 'cig-a-like' that you could buy via mail order. This meant that like minded souls tended to thrash out the issues they faced and extolled the virtues of e-cigs on internet forums.
During 2009 the technology improved and so did the number of online vendors and subsequent talking places. In 2010, the Government recognised this emerging technology and the MHRA became involved and carried out a consultation. The internet forums were a talking shop between vendors and passionate consumers and together they started to formulate how to tackle the impending doom of e-cigs being 'medicinalised'.
Luckily, the MHRA did not carry out their consultations with rigour and the threat of medicinalisation passed. However it gave the vendors and the online vaping community a wake up call. A vendor association ECITA was formed and so was a short lived consumer association a year or so later (ECCA).
Up until this point, there was no involvement with public health and no real organisation above a few small businesses and users trying to do the right thing, which was ensure a decent recreational alternative was available for smokers who didn't want to smoke any more.
With the advent of the WHO FCTC (2013) and the EU becoming involved in trying to regulate the use of e-cigs, things started going pear shaped. 'Experts', ex Public Health figures and scientists were drafted in to help 'fight' possible injustices that ruling bodies may enact and that is when everything changed. It was no longer about choice, it became about 'Health' and business – and that is where smokers were abandoned.
A small group of advocates tried to re-dress the balance and bring choice back into the equation by setting up a Political party (Vapers in Power), but the two causes had irrevocably separated by then. ViP may have a voice with the smokers but the e-cig advocacy world has been assimilated into public health and business interests in my opinion.
My Labour Council banned it for all their staff and buildings for public use 18 months ago.
Is this a catch up?
Personally I smoke tobacco and will continue to do so as e-cigs make me cough.
Russell, well said: "...the e-cig advocacy world has been assimilated into public health "
Though I'd like to set the record straight on the history of e-cigs. I've heard (or rather, have seen in writing) more than once the historical record on e-cigs reflecting that it started as an invention as an alternative to traditional cigarettes. Maybe that seems like the truth to those who took up the sword to defend them at the moment Public Health began going after them in earnest, but it's not the beginning of its history. Before the e-cig community arose and all there were was smokers' rights people watching the e-cig invention unfold it was plainly noted that e-cigs were intended for use where traditional cigarettes had been banned. It had nothing to do with quitting and all to do with getting around smoking bans. Not to say that its morphing into a new phase (alternative to smoking at all) and the creation of a new body of interested parties isn't a legitimate evolution but let's get the facts straight.
And as for the exact discussion at hand... I heard this defense put into play three years ago at the same time the fight against the e-cig ban in NYC was taking place. Statewide, vaping advocates were making the argument then that a ban would "force them to stand with smokers and be exposed to secondhand smoke." No reading between the lines was necessary. The case made was plain as day.
Two things are clear, first the antismoking propaganda has been widely accepted even though it is largely based on fraud and lies. Second the vaping community implicitly and at times explicitly leverages this lies to gain acceptance of vaping at the cost of smokers and does not see that that strategy contains the seeds of their own persecution.
Public health (led by tobacco control) will ultimately seek to eradicate vaping just as it seeks to eradicate smoking. The manipulation of perception regarding the legality of vaping (and smoking outdoors) is clear evidence of tobacco control duplicity and propaganda.
Sadly the media is either complicit or incompetent since it does not check its facts before disseminating tobacco control lies.
Audrey: "Before the e-cig community arose....it was plainly noted that e-cigs were intended for use where traditional cigarettes had been banned. It had nothing to do with quitting and all to do with getting around smoking bans."
You've alluded to an area in which tobacco control nutters and vaping evangelists share a remarkable amount of common ground. The latter likes to insinuate that his reason for (and method of) vaping is obviously the correct one. The former insists that e-cigs can only be tolerable if thoroughly medicalized. Each is steadfast in his belief that vapor products should have one, and only one, "intended use."
The legal aspect boils down to a simple question? Are local authorities forcing non smokers (vapers) to the risk of second hand smoke as identified within the legal framework of the smokefree legislation. Within that legislation vaping is not lawfully deemed to be smoking. So for all legal intents and purposes a vaper is a non smoker. Subsequently if LA's treat vaping the same as smoking they are forcing the "non smoker" to the risks lawfully detailed within the smoke free legislation and the reason why the Smoke Free legislation was implemented in the first place - to seemingly protect non smokers. Employment law is complex and if any organisation has a smoking policy and allows smokers to smoke on their premises in designated areas they lawfully should not force a non smoker (vaper) to have to use the same designated area.
Roger, the Health Act 2006 was intended to protect non-smokers from the alleged dangers of 'secondhand' smoke in "enclosed public places". There was never any suggestion that smoking outside poses a risk to non-smokers so to suggest that the Act can now be called upon to "protect" non-smokers (including vapers) from people lighting up in the open air (even at close quarters) strikes me as wishful thinking. I don't doubt that someone will eventually bring such a case (someone always does) but that doesn't make it right.
To be clear, I am strongly opposed to workplace vaping bans, just as I am opposed to excessive restrictions on smoking in the workplace, but the idea that "forcing" vapers outside with the smokers is a danger to their health or undermines their efforts to remain "smokefree" (sic) is utter bilge (in my opinion).
,,,and in my opinion Simon.
Vapers are clearly playing up the scam on shs to win acceptance. Non smokers my arse.
"Vapers are clearly playing up the scam on shs to win acceptance."
I may be in the minority Pat, but we are not all like that. I did start out as a smokers' rights (armchair) activist after all.