Vaping industry forum’s headline sponsor wants ‘outright ban’ on smoking

In London tomorrow the UK Vaping Industry Association is hosting its annual forum and dinner.

The event, at the QEII Centre in Westminster, will be attended by more than 90 organisations, which is impressive.

I can’t help noticing though that the headline sponsor is VPZ, the UK’s largest e-cigarette and vaping retailer, which earlier this year used the peg of No Smoking Day to launch a campaign called ‘Ban Smoking For Good’.

Bizarrely the Edinburgh-based company joined forces with former England footballer Neil ‘Razor’ Ruddock to campaign for an ‘outright ban on smoking’ in Scotland.

I wrote about it here (No Smoking Day stunt or premature April Fool?), noting that:

If governments can ban combustible tobacco they can ban electronic cigarettes too. In fact, give politicians a taste for prohibition and they might just be tempted to ban several more consumer products that are deemed to be unhealthy.

Two days later I wrote a follow-up post that highlighted some of the tweets that had been posted in response to reports of the campaign ('Ban smoking for good’ campaign unites smokers and vapers in wave of revulsion):

Analysing these and other comments, together with the various ‘likes’ and retweets, suggests that VPZ has not only scored an own goal but has unwittingly unleashed a powerful coalition opposed to prohibition.

Whether the almost universal derision had any effect I don’t know (I always suspected the 'campaign' was a stunt that would have little longevity) but it went very quiet after that, despite VPZ inviting people to sign a petition to support their goal.

Now, I don’t claim to be the world’s greatest campaigner but I do know something about petitions having overseen several in my time, including a petition against plain packaging of tobacco that resulted in over 250,000 signatures being submitted to the Department of Health in response to a public consultation.

That number didn't happen overnight and it cost money. But it was also part of a broader, well-publicised campaign.

In the wake of No Smoking Day however I struggled to find any further promotion of the 'Ban Smoking For Good' campaign or the VPZ petition after it was posted on the Scottish Parliament website in April.

Click on it now and it reads:

PE1932: Ban smoking in Scotland and develop a strategy for vaping

Petition Summary
Calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to impose an outright ban on smoking and develop a transformative public health strategy for vaping.

Petitioner: Doug Mutter on behalf of VPZ
Status: Under consideration
Date published: 19 April 2022

A further link informs visitors that from May 17 ‘This petition is now under consideration by the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee’ which begs the obvious question, how many people actually signed it?

I mean, are we talking tens of thousands?

Not even close. The total number of people who signed VPZ’s ‘ban smoking for good’ petition was (cue drum roll) … 103.

That’s right, one hundred and three.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall when, on June 15:

The Committee agreed to close the petition under Rule 15.7 of Standing Orders on the basis that the Scottish Government is not currently considering an outright ban on smoking in favour of vaping. 

Meanwhile the ‘Ban Smoking For Good’ campaign appears to have been abandoned for good which is a pity because I would love to have gone head-to-head with ‘Razor’ Ruddock in a public debate.

Joking aside, I'm indebted to VPZ because the b or p-word is something we really need to address in relation to smoking.

That's why, at the Conservative party conference next month, Forest is hosting a fringe event entitled 'Politics and Prohibition – Should Smoking Be Banned For Good?'.

Panelists include Lord Moylan, Chris Snowdon and Baroness (aka Claire) Fox. In fact, although the title was inspired by VPZ, it was Claire who inspired the idea for the event when she addressed the House of Lords in March and told peers:

I would actually really appreciate a dose of honesty in this House which is that if those people who are so hostile to smoking a legal product believe that it is the killer that they allege then call for smoking to be made illegal and get done with it.

At the moment tobacco companies are legal companies and the distaste with which people talk about them, as though they should be abolished, would be better and more heartfelt if you actually argued that tobacco should be illegal. Then we’d have a different debate.

That debate will begin in Birmingham on Monday October 3. Watch this space.

Update:

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

The debate would be more positive if the question was posed
differently such as "Do you agree smokers have a right to smoke?" ( We are, after all legitimate consumers, all be it without the same consumer rights afforded to others who consume risky products like alcohol.)

By asking "should smoking be banned for good" suggests to me that the prospect has already been accepted and it is just a question of time before it happens. It also pushes forth the anti smoker narrative.

Why not ask "Is prohibition a bad thing?" - or maybe even "are we sure vaping is safe long-term and should we really encourage it?". (Tongue-in-cheek here btw).

Perhaps I am being over sensitive but I don't accept that asking if smoking should be banned for good is a valid question because it legitimises the smoke haters who want to see the criminalisation of smokers. Smokers smoke. One cannot exist without the other. Making smoking illegal makes law abiding consumers criminals.

[Luc Van Daele]

@Pat : that's an old trick, talking about an abstract concept (smoking) instead of people (smokers) makes it a lot easier on the concience. "Should all smokers be turned into criminals overnight?" is indeed a more accurate representation of the problem and it also implies "should vapers be considered as former criminals?" A lot of vapers depicture themselves already as ex-cons, but complain about all the stigma that comes with their self inflicted criminal reccord.