VApril partner declares "war" on tobacco
Tuesday, April 3, 2018 at 12:04 As last Friday's post made clear, I wish VApril, the new pro-vaping campaign, well.
Fronted by Dr Christian Jessen – who seems refreshingly open and willing to engage with the tobacco companies ("what a good thing that the tobacco industry is supporting harm reduction") – the VApril campaign does seem to be primarily about choice and education.
From today, for example, smokers who want to quit are being encouraged to take the 3-step VApril Challenge:
1. Drop into a Vaping Masterclass (in cities across the UK)
2. Receive your free 6-page VApril guide
3. Be social (post thoughts, pics, videos on social media)
Who could possibly object to that? It's entirely voluntary, it offers practical help and advice to smokers who want to quit, and unlike Stoptober (the publicly-funded Public Health England campaign), the promotion of VApril has been largely free of the usual anti-smoking rhetoric.
This morning however one campaign partner adopted a more belligerent tone. Vapourized, the 'UK's largest e-cigarette and vaping retailer with over 100 stores nationwide', tweeted:
We are declaring the war on cigarettes.
— Vaporized (@vaporizeduk) April 2, 2018
We want to help you make the switch from smoking to vaping. Will you be joining us and thousands of other recruits on the path to being tobacco-free?#WarOnCigarettes #vapril #vaprilchallenge pic.twitter.com/qZCH8vlNYz
Declaring war? I thought the vaping industry had moved on from that type of tub-thumping nonsense.
Let's be clear, if you're fighting a 'war on smoking' you're also declaring 'war' on the millions of adults who enjoy smoking and don't want to quit.
As for being 'tobacco-free', does that include every tobacco product including reduced risk heated tobacco devices?
I wonder what the manufacturers of iQOS and Glo (who are also supporting VApril) think about that?
Anyway, the actions of one rogue partner won't stop me supporting VApril. But targeting thousands of potential customers with that sort of bellicose language is no way to win friends and influence people.
See also: Dr Christian Jessen is no VApril fool.
Reader Comments (6)
I would have preferred to think that the vaper campaign marginalised smokers without intent. Obviously I was wrong. This vapril is just another anti smoker hate campaign which intends to isolate smokers further.
The battle lines are now clear. Vapers are just cheerleaders for yet another anti smoker organisation. There is no choice as far as they are concerned. Vapril us clearly another campaign designed to bully, abuse, force or coerce smokers to quit.
I'm doing TAbril - another whole month to demonstrate that I love my tabs and I'm not quitting - especially on the say so of such sanctimonious arseh#+@s.
I've told Vaporized I won't ever be buying anything off them.
The antismoker 'divide and conquer' strategy at work again. It seems some vendors are interested in 'harm reduction' only as a means of gaining profit by increasing their market share. Smokers beware of these charlatans.
As with any group of ex-smokers there are the evangelical anti crowd amongst vapers. It saddens me greatly as life should be about choice, I chose to vape but do not hate smokers, HNB users, snus users etc. I also don't rate Vaporized very highly, I've never sent a new/novice vaper to them and that definitely won't happen now.
As always seems to happen certain companies are using campaigns to push their own agendas and are happy to leap onto whatever bandwagon they think gives them market advantage.
Oh God. Another bunch of happy-clappy, “be like us,” do-gooders claiming yet another month with a somewhat cheesy and un-clever play on the month’s name. We already endure the suitably-ghastly Sober October at the same time as Stoptober (making October potentially one of the most miserable months of the year), we’ve got that awful “Movember” moustache-growing month for raising Prostate Cancer awareness (thank goodness being a girlie exempts me from that one – what am I supposed to do? Not shave my underarms? Yuk!), then we’ve got dry January (at least that one doesn’t try a sad attempt at a play on words) – and now this. “Vapril.” I ask you. Vapril? Really? Is that the best they could come up with? Proof if ever there was that switching from smoking to vaping is highly damaging to one’s imagination and creativity. What’ll it be next? “March 10,000 steps in March” to encourage people to walk more? “No more Flabruary” to encourage people to lose weight? “Jogging June” to get us all pounding the pavements before breakfast every day for a month? “There’s only a ‘tea’ in August” to stop people from drinking all that caffeine-laden coffee? Pretty soon there won’t be a month left in the year when we’re not being somehow exhorted to give up something we enjoy and/or force ourselves to do something we don’t, all for the good of our ‘elf, doncha know?? Thank goodness there are only 12 months in the year – at least that limits the Puritans to only 12 things they claim a month for for their own personal little hobby-horses ...
As always seems to happen certain companies are using campaigns to push their own agendas and are happy to leap onto whatever bandwagon they think gives them market advantage.