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.