In conversation with Mark Littlewood at the IEA last week I had a pop at vapers and vaping advocates who “throw smokers under the bus”.
In particular I raged about vapers who claim it’s unfair to ban vaping in the workplace because that will force them to stand outside with the smokers, breathing in all that terrible secondhand smoke (sic).
Anyway, H/T to Rob Lyons who was sent a press release today that includes the following claims plus a quote by Charles Bloom, owner of ‘vaping specialists’ Vapourcore:
The loss of productivity due to smoking, costs local businesses in England £8.4bn a year.
On top of this, smoking breaks cost businesses in local economies an extra annual £3.6bn.
The county whose businesses lose the most money from a lack of productivity due to smoking is Greater Manchester - £450m has been lost.
The county in which local businesses lose the least amount of money due to smoking-related issues is Dorset – the annual loss is £45m.
How did Vapourcore calculate the ‘annual potential wealth’ lost due to smoking? Why, they used ASH’s ‘Ready Reckoner’ tool. (Of course they did!)
According to Bloom:
“The risks of smoking have always been highlighted from a health point of view, but rarely from the perspective of business and opportunity.
“The numbers revealed in this study prove that smoking remains a countrywide issue. However, instead of redistributing wealth into the local economy and improving the experiences of consumers, companies are having to spend their excess on facilitating employees’ smoking habits.”
Laughably the poorly written press release ends with the following plea:
If you use this press release, please credit https://www.vapourcore.com with a clickable link.
How embarrassing. This isn’t a news story, it’s a marketing ploy. And a pathetic one at that.
More fool any journalist who falls for it.