Meet the new smokers' rights movement
Tuesday, November 9, 2021 at 11:20 What does the term 'smokers' rights' mean to you?
The right to choose to smoke a legal product without undue harassment or discrimination, perhaps?
Well think again.
The term has been adopted by a group that calls itself the Smokers' Rights Movement and is also using the URL smokersrights.org for its website.
According to the home page:
8 million deaths a year. 250 million more are seriously ill because of smoking. This is not a problem of bad habits — it’s a problem of bad products.
We elect governments to work for the common good. But on smoking, we have not held them accountable. And they’ve never delivered on their promises — yet they ban scientifically proven solutions.
It’s time to take matters into our own hands.
It’s time for a Smokers Rights Movement.
As defined by SRM 'smokers' rights' is no longer about the right to smoke but 'The Right To Live'.
On Sunday, ahead of the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP9) to the WHO FCTC (which started yesterday), they organised a protest in Geneva.
To be fair it was reasonably well executed although I could have done without protestors being dressed in black body bags ('Stop Killing Smokers', geddit?).
Other snappy slogans – printed and stuck on large pink balloons – included 'I Have Rights!', 'I'm Not The Problem!' and 'We Demand Healthier Products!'.
In addition handwritten placards included 'Smokers Don't Choose to Die – They Are Killed!'.
But enough of the exclamation marks and apocalytic declarations.
From photographs posted on social media I counted about 15 people, which was roughly the same number that took part in a similar 'protest' organised by the International Network of Nicotine Consumer Organisations (INNCO) in London yesterday.
At the Parliament Square event placards included the less pithy 'UK Please Stand Up For Harm Reduction At WHO FCTC COPs', 'The World Is Judging You FCTC COP Delegates' and 'Thank You UK For Your Compassion Towards People Who Use Nicotine'.
I'll leave you to judge which rally was more likely to cut through to governments and delegates at COP9 (which is being held online this year), but aesthetically the SRM protest in Geneva was head and shoulders above the rather drab INNCO event in London.
The combination of pink balloons and black body bags was certainly eye-catching.
(A not dissimilar stunt was carried out by vaping activists in Brussels in 2013 when hundreds of black balloons were released outside the European Parliament to signify 'lives lost' if e-cigarettes were banned.)
So who is behind the fledgling Smokers Rights Movement which first came to my attention a few weeks ago?
Well it would seem that it's the brainchild of the Prague-based Max Kosenko whose namesake is CEO of the Ritchy Group, 'a privately held global technology and innovation company in the electronic cigarettes and e-liquids industry' based in, er, Prague.
Are they one and the same? I think they must be.
No surprise then that the SRM website is pretty slick and corporate looking. (Love the t-shirts!)
How far such a 'Movement' can progress is hard to say but I will follow it with interest (and some scepticism).
In the meantime I note that, having joined Twitter in September, the SRM account currently has eleven followers.
Reader Comments (3)
Probably one of the cleverest spins of the anti-smoking movement was to make the “us” in “nothing about us without us” refers no longer to smokers but to ex-smokers. As it is well established those often turn anti-smoking. Therefore, smokers’ rights is no longer about the rights of smokers but about the health of (ex-) smokers and as such way to often smokers’ rights started to refer to the rights of anti-smokers.
This deliberate Orwellian confusion between civil rights and the human right to health does not make the discussion any easier. It is not very realistic in the long run to claim civil rights for yourselves, if you are not willing to accord those to others as well. On the other hand, if you demand civil restrictions on others, one must expect the same for oneself in the end. Talking about shooting yourselves in the foot.
From a health rights’ point of view the UK is leading the way, with a decline of smoking rates, prescribed medicinal vaping on the table… However, from a civil rights’ point of view it is doing rather poorly. In how many British hospitals one is allowed to vape in the waiting room or as in-patient in the recreational areas? In how many British bars and restaurants vaping is already prohibited?
In France the law states “vaping is prohibited in the workspace if multiple workstations are present (e.g. open plan offices) EXEPT all enclosed spaces that receive the public, which have to accommodate for vapers”; this not only covers the whole hospitality sector, but covers every hospital as well. However, even if vaping is quite popular in France, so remains smoking.
British and French vapers never were on the same page, hence the big difference in advocacy approach and in results. UK public health hijacked vaping at some point after the TPD2 and UK vaping advocates willingly jumped into bed with them. Now they want to take over the world and impose their point of view in their usual imperialistic way. So even in France who once was leader in defending the civil rights for e-smokers, things are shifting towards the medicinal approach.
Vaping is as much a human right to my health as my morning coffee is. Medicinal vaping is taking the oath of Hippocrates to its very limits: “do no harm and if in doubt do nothing”. As such many GP’s have a big problem in order to prescribe vaping as a cure for a non-existent disease called smoking.
Vaping advocates need to rethink what their primary goal and purpose is: to serve public health or to preserve their civil rights (and as such the civil rights of all others). The two seem to be completely incompatible, as the Covid “crisis” has demonstrated all too well. Public health is the preferred escape goat for hygienists to abolish civil rights for good.
They call themselves smokers when they want to bash smoking to win favour and privileges for vaping but then can't distance themselves enough from smoking and the the accusation that they are a "smoker" when that leads to exclusion of harrassment.
How many times have we heard them take pains to point out that they are vapers, not smokers, and vaping is not smoking?
Fight by all means and they should fight for what they want but they should not use our name in vain to get it.
They do not fight for smokers' rights they are fighting for the right to beat up smokers more and force them to quit because as vapers they don't like it.
Bloody hypocrites if you ask me. 🤮🤮🤮
Smokers, means cigars, cigarettes and pipes. Νothing more, nothing else. Vapers are not even smokers, just "vapers"... They must be stopped using smokers and smoking terms! I think that no further explanation must be done!!!