Yesterday Deborah Arnott let slip that ASH want to extend the ban on smoking in cars carrying children to all private vehicles.

As someone commented on my post, it didn't take them long, did it?

Today Arnott confirmed that the endgame is not smoke free but vape and nicotine free too.

Invited by The Sun to contribute to a feature on e-cigarettes (Are e-cigs creating a new generation of smokers?), she said:

Vapers who just use the devices to cut down on smoking rather than quit need to know that while they continue to smoke, the health risks remain.

To fully reap the health benefits, smokers need to switch completely from smoking to vaping. And ultimately, if they can, stop vaping too.

As I've said many times, tobacco control is currently divided between those who want smokers to go cold turkey and quit all nicotine devices, and those who advocate ecigs as a stepping stone to quitting.

Despite their very public disagreements the long-term goal of both groups is, I believe, the same – a nicotine free world. Recreational use? Don't make me laugh. That's anathema to them.

With a handful of honourable exceptions (some members of Vapers In Power come to mind), many vapers are in denial. Incredibly they seem to believe that anti-smoking activists are allies and anyone who criticises their new found friends or casts doubt on their motives is a disruptive influence.

For the past few days I've been trying to understand why Carl Phillips is no longer working for the US-based Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association (CASAA).

Carl's departure, which I wrote about here, didn't make sense until he issued this startling clue. Yesterday, writing on his blog, he commented:

In a bit of good news for readers, I realized that I have several posts that I have conceived or that are even mostly drafted that I had been suppressing when CASAA published this blog (either due to the legal problems that might arise from CASAA’s nonprofit status for discussing partisan politics, or because of CASAA’s aversion to disagreeing with anyone who is pro-ecig). I will be trickling those out, though not at the pace I kept up in the CASAA days.

CASAA’s aversion to disagreeing with anyone who is pro-ecig. That's quite a revelation. Except it isn't because the very same phenomenon exists in the UK.

The New Nicotine Alliance and other advocates of e-cigarettes appear to have a similar aversion.

If you are 'pro-ecig' it doesn't matter if you are 'anti-tobacco' (as one leading advocate proudly declares on her Twitter profile).

It doesn't matter if you support smoking bans, display bans, plain packaging, punitive taxation and all the rest.

So what if the anti-tobacco policies you support make life a little less tolerable for millions of smokers?

Endorsement of anti-smoking junk science? That's irrelevant too.

Everything is forgiven and forgotten if you're an advocate of ecigs. Even bloggers and commentators I respect have bought into this.

Evidence of this new 'alliance' can be seen on social media. There is now a cosy community in which vaping activists and tobacco control campaigners 'like' one others' tweets and engage in what can only be described as virtual group hugs long into the night.

It's the most hideous yet hilarious love-in and Carl Phillips didn't play the game. Instead he chose to occasionally highlight the hypocrisy of those who complain about junk science in relation to vaping yet ignore their own part in the promotion of dodgy dossiers on smoking.

On other occasions he publicly supported those of us who have questioned the long-term goals of the pro-ecig tobacco controllers, and I'm led to believe this caused some consternation within CASAA.

Well, I have news for them, and for all those vaping activists who have leapt into bed with tobacco control.

The endgame – as confirmed by the CEO of ASH – is not a smoke free world. The ultimate goal is to stop people vaping too.

Tobacco control – the destination is the same, the only difference is the route.

Update: Audrey Silk, founder of the smokers' rights group NYC Clash, has added a comment to my previous post about Carl. She wrote:

Carl has always stood behind the principles of the matter to lead him. If everyone got behind the principles rather than narrow self-interests we'd have a formidable army with the stronger case, rather than factions that unfathomably feel exaggerations and distortions (both camps) and sacrificial lambs (sorry, that's pretty much vapers alone) that at best leaves us all treading water in the throes of the antis' tsunami.

Addressing smokers who unaccountably saw Carl as one of the enemy because of his THR work, she added:

To my own camp I will point out that even before e-cigs came on the scene, Carl was exposing the secondhand smoke science, so I've been quite perplexed and disturbed by any hostilities directed at him - especially any accusations over his loyalties or ulterior motives. It has always been clear to me that his loyalty is to principle and his motives are to advance the issue facts guided by it. He has never deviated from that.

Audrey is another member of the awkward squad who puts principle before self interest. We should treasure them.