Anniversary message

OK, this is extremely trivial and probably not worth writing about but I received an email yesterday that began:

The 10th anniversary of the E-Cigarette Summit UK takes place in 3 weeks’ time, on Friday 9th December.

Then, after listing the speakers, it concluded:

We hope you can join our 10th anniversary Summit, either at the Royal College of Physicians or virtually …

But wait, on the E-Cigarette Summit website it states:

The inaugural E-Cigarette Summit was held at the Royal Society, London, in November 2013 …

That’s what I thought because I was there and wrote about it here.

But if the inaugural event was in 2013 surely that makes next month’s event the tenth Summit and the ninth anniversary (of the first event)?

Correct me if I’m wrong.

More important, it’s worth noting that the closing keynote address at the 2022 E-Cigarette Summit is being given by Deborah Arnott of ASH who also addressed the first Summit in 2013.

On that occasion I noted that:

… the only really sour note of the day came from Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH, who tore into the tobacco companies with the help of selected quotes and an advertisement that were decades old.

It was fun however to watch her squabble with Clive Bates, her predecessor at ASH and now a leading advocate of e-cigs.

As soon as Clive finished his own presentation Deborah was on her feet pointing out that she, not he, was the current head of ASH. It's something she clearly feels prickly about.

I then added:

In contrast to her predecessor's ebullient performance there were times when Deborah seemed to be chewing on a wasp seasoned with lemon.

Her presentation included a tobacco advertisement featuring a good looking man and a beautiful woman. The man was holding a cigarette and the caption read, 'Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere'.

I'm not sure what response Deborah was hoping to get (a sharp intake of breath, perhaps, or shocked silence) but that line got one of the biggest laughs of the day.

Finally, I concluded:

If the E-Cigarette Summit was about the future someone really should have told Deborah. She and ASH are stuck in the past, fighting battles with the tobacco companies that are well past their sell-by date.

As for those pesky e-cigs, they are potentially highly addictive, she warned. Toxic too. And they could renormalise smoking.

She doesn't want to ban them but ASH want e-cigs advertised to smokers only. (How's that going to work?)

As it happens Clive is also speaking at next month’s event so I do hope they’ve overcome whatever differences they may have had.

The biggest change however is that in 2013 Deborah seemed a bit hesitant about e-cigarettes.

Now, nine years later, ASH is the go to resource for vaping statistics and even vaping advocacy (as a quit smoking tool), and Deborah is not just any old speaker, she’s giving the closing keynote speech which rather confirms what I wrote ahead of the ninth E-Cigarette Summit in 2021:

A very British coup - how public health took control of UK vaping advocacy.

Anyway, happy anniversary to the organisers but if I was them I’d keep the tenth anniversary celebrations on ice until next year when I might even be persuaded join them.

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

That's why I don't trust anyone pushing ecigs on smokers. If the anti smoker industry, which uses charity status as a front, now owns the market, and it's message, then why should we believe it after decades of abuse, discrimination, stigmatisation and exclusion?

In the real world, most people are worried about the casual promotion of vaping to today's youth, on the grounds that it isn't smoking, and many hate the smell as much as those who demand smoking bans everywhere hate the smell of smoke.

We are not allowed the like the smell of tobacco and yet we are forced to like the sweet sickly stench of vaping because politics demands it, and we are expected to ignore for the sake of political convenience the potential long term adverse health implications of vaping.

ASH is only supporting vaping now, despite potential future health problems, because it is a convenient tool to use to force smokers to quit for the political and ideological vision of a future world with no smokers in it.

As vapers keep saying, it is not about health which is why ASH does not care about the future harm it is promoting with its support for vaping because of its extremist fear and hatred of smoking and smokers. It's all about money and politics at the end of the day and ASH wants its slice of the cake.