"You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"
Wednesday, November 9, 2016 at 19:38 There's only one story in town today so let's get it over with.
Whatever happens in future I'm quietly pleased Hillary Clinton didn't win. (There, I've said it.)
So, where were we? Oh yes, the seventh session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).
As mentioned previously, this grandiose taxpayer-funded event is taking place in New Delhi this week.
There has been lots of excitement on Twitter but with the exception of one incident – the forced removal of 500 tobacco farmers who were protesting outside the conference venue – everything is much as expected.
For example there was the anticipated announcement that after the first day both the public and the media were to be excluded from the conference hall.
This was followed by the physical ejection of a journalist who ignored the ban and took a seat in the hall the next morning. If that sounds familiar it's because it was.
The very same thing happened at COP6 in Moscow. Same journalist too.
Personally I prefer it when journalists report the story rather than become the story. There's plenty to write about at COP7 without putting yourself centre stage.
Earlier today for example it was rumoured that India, Kenya, Thailand and Nigeria are calling for an amendment to the FCTC that would include a ban on e-cigarettes.
I genuinely don't think vapers in the UK have much to worry about but it's a talking point.
One of the most outspoken critics of the WHO's attitude to vaping is Clive Bates, the former director of ASH.
Clive has co-written an article that is well worth reading. Published yesterday, the headline is self-explanatory – Could changes to a global tobacco treaty harm health?.
It begins:
It's hard to believe that a global public health treaty dedicated to stopping smoking — and saving millions of lives in the process — could lead to more unnecessary disease and premature death. But that’s what may happen if the World Health Organization has its way.
Clive has six pieces of advice for delegates at the FCTC meeting in Delhi. You can read them here.
What the article doesn't mention, and I'm sorry to keep giving these history lessons, is that Clive helped devise the Convention on Tobacco Control.
Introduced in 2003, it was one of the last things he worked on before he left ASH.
Ironically, however, he couldn't disguise his frustration at the way the treaty was being watered down in the face of alleged tobacco company lobbying.
In October 2002 Clive wrote a scathing attack on government delegates – How bad does it have to be before it's worse than nothing? (CorpWatch).
A few months later, in January 2003, he couldn't contain himself:
"Cigarettes are the original weapons of mass destruction, with over five trillion of these biological and chemical devices released into society each year addicting and then killing one in two users and likely to cause a billion deaths in the 21st Century if no credible action is taken. The new text a feeble response to the world’s worst public health problem."
See ASH says new WHO tobacco treaty text is a ‘feeble response’ to the global tobacco epidemic (ASH).
I don't know if that outburst had any impact but few can argue that the current treaty is pretty robust on smoking and the tobacco companies.
In 2002/2003 tobacco control NGOs wanted "bans on tobacco advertising, a package of measures to tackle smuggling, new warning labels, bans on misleading branding, and a series of initiatives to 'globalise' the public health response to tobacco."
Today the tobacco companies are excluded from negotiations with signatories to the treaty, and both the public and the media are banned from attending the biannual Conference of the Parties.
In the intervening years the screw has been turned ever tighter on smokers as tobacco control continues its never-ending mission to look for the "next logical step".
In 2016 that includes secret discussions about e-cigarettes and threats of global prohibition. How predictable is that?
In short, Clive helped create a monster. How ironic then that earlier today he tweeted:#COP7FCTC now a vile circus. Trying to ban smoke-free ecigs with no evidence, consultation or ethics, and in secret. https://t.co/GOGJVmW83v
— Clive Bates (@Clive_Bates) November 9, 2016
I can only speculate on what today's Clive would say to his younger self but I'd like to think it would be something like:
"You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!"
Reader Comments (3)
The FCTC is a totalitarian monster. The hyperbole about cigarettes being the original weapons of mass destruction is outright propaganda used to persecute smokers. Abrogate the FCTC and end the persecution of smokes.
Sad that few fight this outright affront to liberty as we now see soda taxes, calls for banning sugar, and pleas for meat-free ays, Ironically the smog in Delhi has obscured with liberty and the likely causes of much of the illness blamed on smoking. Of course that willful blindness is aided by Pharma funding and the complicity of tobacco control pressure groups (like ASH).
Simon, regarding the Antismokers and Vaping, you've called it well on those who are now facing the same sort of lies and tricks that they used for so long against smokers: the birds have come home to roost. Vaping LOOKS like smoking, so it's simply unacceptable to a number of the subgroups of Antismokers ( See: http://www.sott.net/article/128768-Recognising+Anti-Smoking+Types ) and they simply won't tolerate it no matter what findings might come out about its health aspects.
The power of "The Greedy" has grown a lot in the past 15 years, but they're still only one part of the larger picture in the antismoking movement. For the most part, the only Antismokers who have give support to e-cigs are The Idealists, with some of The Ex-Smokers and The Innocents traveling along. The opposition of The Greedy can be paid off the way you always pay off mobsters -- with money: let them steal the same amount from Vapers that they've been allowed to steal from Smokers, and they'll quiet down a bit, at least in terms of anything that would truly destroy the industry and money-stream. Vapers will still have to deal with The Moralists as well as some of The Neurotics and other antismoking subgroups, but without The Greedy at the helm their opposition won't be effective.
I'd also like to add to your opening sentence about Clinton and Trump by inviting your readers to see my own take on it at:
https://assortedtopics.quora.com/Election-2016-The-Role-of-the-Antismokers
Our effect may not have been huge, but it was certainly strong enough to swing a few of the tight state races by the percent or two needed to give Trump those 270 electoral votes. For non-US folks, the electoral votes, apportioned in chunks from each state, can be see along with the popular vote tabulations at:
http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/president
OK! That's all from Philadelphia USA at the moment!
- MJM
Bates is backing ecigs because he recognises they are turning smokers into bigger pariahs and they can be used to force smokers to quit.
He is a bully and a hypocrite and anyone who supports him does not support issues of free choice or freedom
Ecigs, I am sure, are just a fad. The real future for smoking is heat not burn. The future for ecigs is as a quit method nothing more and cozying up to tobacco control and hanging on every word that Bates says just goes to show some vapers have no idea that tobacco control are simply giving them enough rope to hang ecigs on.
20 years from now people will laugh that ecigs could ever have been thought to be the future of smoking as heat not burn adopts vaping as a name and description for the new way of enjoying the centuries old and established culture of smoking.