Ban cigarettes to force smokers to vape? Good luck with that!
Saturday, May 14, 2022 at 12:45 Two very different smoking-related stories in the papers today.
A chain-smoking bomb disposal expert from the Isle of Man is risking life and limb in Ukraine by defusing and destroying thousands of shells, mines and booby traps. Staying calm is key, so to relax [Chris] Garrett said that he smokes 40 cigarettes a day. “I make sure that I get at least two coffees in before I go to work and don’t run out of cigarettes throughout the day. That’s how I roll,” he said.
I’m trying - without success - to imagine how that story might have been spun had Garrett quit smoking and was vaping instead.
Impossible, right?
Ditto the story of the Ukrainian man who disposed of an anti-tank mine while smoking a cigarette.
It does however lead me to the second story, in the Express, which is the latest in a series of media reports that will no doubt intensify as ministers continue to be lobbied ahead of the new Tobacco Control Plan:
Britain needs to lead the world by banning traditional cigarettes and get smokers to start vaping instead to save thousands of lives, a leading scientist has demanded.
Dr Nveed Chaudhary’s call for urgent action comes as Health Secretary Sajid Javid has a review of tobacco products expected to report soon with an aim of making the UK “smoke-free by 2030”.
Dr Chaudhary said: “Banning cigarettes tomorrow would force smokers to use e-cigarettes which will end up saving many, many lives.”
Forest’s response can be found at the very end of the report (scroll down and keep scrolling!):
The comments have infuriated the consumer group, Forest, which represents smokers. Simon Clark, director of Forest, said:
“You can’t bully or coerce smokers to switch to vaping. Smokers must be informed about reduced risk products but whether they switch from one legal product to another has to be their choice.
“Prohibition rarely works. Banning cigarettes will simply drive the sale of cigarettes underground creating a huge black market. The only people who will benefit are criminal gangs who will happily sell cigarettes to anyone including children.”
See ‘UK cigarette ban: Smokers could be forced to ditch habit and start vaping, scientist warns’ (Express)
Dr Chaudhary is chief scientific and regulatory officer at Broughton Group, ‘experts in science and regulation’.
Interestingly he has worked not only for the pharmaceutical industry but also, at various times, three tobacco companies - British American Tobacco, Philip Morris International and Imperial Brands.
Talking of PMI, there was an interesting article in the FT yesterday commenting on the company’s acquisition of Swedish Match, the ‘world leader in snus’.
The oral tobacco pouch may be outlawed in the UK and every EU member state except Sweden, but it is legal in America, ‘the biggest tobacco market after China’, hence the appeal of Swedish Match to PMI.
The good news, according to the FT, is that:
Even if its $16bn investment in Swedish Match disappoints, annual cigarette sales of 600bn provide decent insurance.
Touché.
See ‘Philip Morris has resolved big tobacco’s burning issue’ (Financial Times)
Reader Comments (5)
Simon, I can help you there
"A chain-smoking bomb disposal expert from the Isle of Man is risking life and limb in Ukraine by defusing and destroying thousands of shells, mines and booby traps. Staying calm is key, so to relax [Chris] Garrett said that he smokes 40 cigarettes a day."
I'm not surpised.
Smoking May Act as an Antidepressant Drug
“The study found that the brains of chronic smokers had neurochemical abnormalities in the locus coeruleus that can be produced by repeatedly treating laboratory animals with antidepressant drugs, he explained.
Specifically, long-term smoking appears to inhibit monoamine oxidase (or acts as an MAO inhibitor). Monoamine oxidase is the enzyme that metabolizes monoamines — such as norepinephrine, dopamine and serotonin, Klimek explained. The locus coeruleus produces norepinephrine.
Drugs that inhibit monoamines are antidepressants.
Nicotine, Ordway added, does have antidepressant qualities, but is not an MAO inhibitor.”
https://web.archive.org/web/20150403054211/http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/sci/1001/blsmoke1001.htm
Soldiers used to smoke in WW2 in the main.
It is well past time for anti-smokers to stop forcing smokers too quit. The relentless hectoring is offensive and denies freedom of choice and liberty.
The tobacco control lies and censorship of issues related to smoking in order to impose prohibition long-standing legal activity is an abuse of government power (especially when government funds are used to impose draconian bans and support illiberal pressure groups that maintain a patina of independence).
The move to impose smoking bans was based on outright lies and manipulated data and the tobacco control pressure groups suppressed all discussion of bother lies to ensure their preference was followed.
It is time to end public finding of this ruse (which ASH even described as a 'confidence game'.
"From the fraction containing the most potent MAO inhibitor, they isolated a chemical known as 2,3,6-trimethyl-1,4-naphthoquinone."
The British Doctors Study finally got there in the end
Tobacco smoking and the risk of Parkinson disease: A 65-year follow-up of 30,000 male British doctors
May 2020
"Conclusions: In contrast to previous suggestions, the present report demonstrates a causally protective effect of current smoking on the risk of PD, which may provide insights into the etiology of PD."
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32371450/
So not only an antidepressant in the smoke for the brave Chris Garrett, heaven protect him.
The obvious question is what have the Russian anti-smokers been doing so far.
Young Russians born this decade face complete smoking ban
10 January 2017
"Russian news site Izvestia says it has seen a policy document titled "concept for the state policy to counter tobacco consumption in the years 2017-2022 and beyond".
It says the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation confirmed the document is being widely shared across government.
"This goal is absolutely ideologically correct," Nikolai Gerasimenko, a member of the country's health committee said, according to The Times.
Anti-smoking campaigners have called for similar measures in other parts of the world in the past, but have never received government backing.
Smoking is already against the law in Russian workplaces, housing block stairwells, buses and commuter trains and within 15 metres of train stations and airports."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-38571174
Who didn't see that vaping would be used as a weapon to beat smokers with? Because vaping is now owned and promoted by the same bullies who have been pushing us around for decades, smokers are unlikely touch them with a bargepole.
That support however will be short lived because somewhere down the line as Government sees kids taking up the approved habit, vaping will be attacked too.
Vaping advocates who refuse to believe that kids are vaping because it has been promoted as a cool thing to do are in denial. Look around, plenty of them are at it. Despite what they say, no one knows the long term implications of vaping and a few more decades down the line as health related problems begin to show, Government might regret it's support for this trendy new habit in its zealous quest to cleanse the world of smokers.
Smokers, meanwhile, will be forced underground to an unregulated product which will cause more harm than regulated and controlled tobacco and many law abiding people will be criminalised simply because Government does not like the way they live their lives.
As for the smoker who diffused the bomb, well, anyone who thinks smoking is more deadly or dangerous than bombs or war clearly has a few screws loose.