Ahead of a busy month I am away next week and to keep myself entertained and informed I shall be reading this book, amongst others.
The author, Jacob Grier, is a freelance writer whose articles have appeared in Reason, the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, the Daily Beast and many other publications.
His latest piece, ‘The Vaping Crisis Is a Moral Panic Led by Anti-Smoking Crusaders’, can be summed up as follows:
The anti-smoking movement has a long history of exploiting dubious science for political gain. Today's moral panic about vaping has its roots in the decades-long campaign to delegitimize the use of nicotine in pursuit of total bans on public smoking.
Grier rightly focuses on the arguments surrounding passive smoking. He also highlights the fact that some of the leading alarmists about secondhand smoke are now at the forefront of the movement against vaping (in the US in particular).
What Grier and many other people overlook however is that many champions of e-cigarettes (as a quit smoking tool) are also passive smoking propagandists who successfully campaigned for public smoking bans.
The irony - which I have written about several times - is that many of today’s most prominent vaping advocates are the very people who sold us the myth that thousands of non-smokers were dying each year from ‘secondhand’ smoke.
This lie led not only to indoor smoking bans but the perceived ‘threat’ of passive smoking is now used to justify outdoor smoking bans as well.
What goes around comes around and it’s no surprise that the relentless fear-mongering about smoking and environmental tobacco smoke has created a situation in which vaping is going to be another casualty, regardless of the actual risk.
Despite this, many of the individuals responsible for exaggerating the risks of passive smoking (and, some would say, smoking itself) are now treated as heroes because of their advocacy of vaping.
Also overlooked is the fact that their endorsement of vaping is based not on e-cigarettes being a pleasurable recreational device in their own right, but because they see vaping as a weapon in the war on smoking.
I’m sorry, but I will never forgive or forget the role many of them played in getting smoking banned in every pub and club in the country, nor their constant attempts to denormalise smoking and stigmatise smokers to the point where you can’t even light up in the open air on some beaches, parks and hospital grounds without being shamed or threatened with prosecution.
It may be expedient to ally with such people but count me out. If you’re prepared to lie to achieve one aim, you’ll won’t hesitate to lie to achieve another. You may convince yourself it’s for the ‘greater good’ but that doesn’t make it right.
Anyway, do read Jacob Grier’s article and book. I don’t agree with everything he says. A quick glance at the book, for example, suggests he’s ambivalent about defending the use of cigarettes which, for me, is the issue that distinguishes real libertarians from hand-wringing middle class ‘liberals’.
Nor am I a fan of the argument that says restrictions on e-cigarettes will lead to smokers being ‘killed’. It’s similar to calling advocates of bans on flavoured e-cigarettes ‘murderers’, which I addressed here.
But decide for yourself. The Rediscovery of Tobacco: Smoking, Vaping, and the Creative Destruction of the Cigarette by Jacob Grier is available here.