Wales to ban E-cigarettes?
Dear Professor Mark Drakeford,
For your information, ‘smoking in public’ has never been made unacceptable – what you mean is, ‘smoking indoors in public spaces’.
Smokers have continued to smoke in public, more ‘in public’ than they have ever been. They are now hugely visible in every doorway, sheltering from the unchanging climate in Wales – force nine gales and constant downpours. There they are on view as an entertaining spectacle to a generation of children going to and fro school.
And you are concerned that those children will be led into the evil ways of ‘smoking’ by adults using e-cigarettes – sitting inside premises, like public houses, out of view of the children? Nobody would choose to use an e-cigarette out in the open.
As the Minister in charge of public health in Wales, are you not more concerned at the snail-like pace those children are taking past the miserable bands of gale lashed smokers? Snail-like because they are hugely obese, and their fat little legs are chaffing as they wheeze their way between Mum’s mobility scooter and the school gates.
As the Minister in charge of public health in Wales, are you not more concerned that your children face a wait of 26 weeks or more to have their non-smoking related asthma seen in a clinic?
Even in strictly Muslim countries, they do not try to ban alcohol free beer on the grounds that it might ‘normalise conventional beer drinking’.
Congratulations though – you have wrought a change of mind amongst millions of smokers – we were of the opinion that there was nothing Deborah Arnott would not wish to ban, and we were under the impression that ‘evidence’ was of no interest to her. We were wrong on both counts.
“There is growing evidence that they are effective in helping smokers quit and this is to be welcomed.
We’re pleased that the Welsh government is consulting on whether to ban their use in enclosed public places as it is important to take account of the evidence before going ahead.”
- JuliaM
April 2, 2014 at 2:03 pm -
“Even in strictly Muslim countries, they do not try to ban alcohol free beer on the grounds that it might ‘normalise conventional beer drinking’.”
As I’ve just had to tell someone on Twitter making the same point about ginger beer, please don’t give the morons ideas..!
- Duncan Disorderly
April 2, 2014 at 4:18 pm -
I note the difference in policy between, for example, needle exchanges for injecting drug users, and e-cigs. Harm reduction is a fine idea for heroin addicts, but smokers must quit or die from knackered lungs. No quarter must be given in the war against anything tobacco-ey. If a non-smoker puffs on an e-cig and likes it, that is too big a price to pay.
The vast majority of the health problems associated with smoking do not come from the nicotine, but rather the other rubbish in the tobacco. ASH seem to think e-cigs are a good idea:
http://ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_715.pdf - Ho Hum
April 2, 2014 at 7:04 pm -
So, is British phlegm a good thing or not? I spit my last breath at their authoritarianism
- Carol42
April 2, 2014 at 7:42 pm -
What’s the difference between an e cig with nicotine and a big pharma produced inhalator containing nicotine? Nothing except the little battery producing water vapour, you can bet if pharma had brought them out there would have been none of this. Why can’t they just leave us alone.
- woodsy42
April 2, 2014 at 8:38 pm -
Presumably because e-cigs are a cheap, simple and essentially non-corporate product, there is no money there for big pharma. So you must use the approved inhalers and patches to ensure that the corporate sponsors of our governing elite get their (lions) share of the profits.
- woodsy42
- RAB
April 3, 2014 at 12:58 am -
Nobody would choose to use an e-cigarette out in the open.
I’m afraid I’ve met one. I was staying in an hotel in Euston at the end of Jan, and popped out to the street for a proper fag, when huddled in the doorway was this bloke puffing on an e fag. We got talking, as we death seekers do, and I said that I have one of those that I have been using quite happily up in my room, but fancied a real one, why did you bother to come down here on the street? Turned out that he had become so conditioned to smoking outside now, that he did it automatically! Even where using an e cig indoors is perfectly legal.
It is nothing to do with Health of course, and everything to do with puritan bansturbator control. We Welsh have a history of this sort of thing unfortunately. When I was a child the welsh Counties used to vote periodically to be Wet or Dry on a Sunday, which meant allowing the pubs to open or not. Most counties, in my youth, were dry.
- Single Acts of Tyranny
April 3, 2014 at 2:36 am -
See this is why I left Wales. Just children looking to be bossed around by wise government overlords.
And this one is called Mark. I wouldn’t employ him to run a McDonalds franchise let alone public health (what ever that means)
- enarhem
April 3, 2014 at 3:31 am -
RAB, thank goodness when I was a teenager Pembrokeshire was wet on Sundays. Being a youngster (and therefore ignorant of the law), I perhaps didn’t know if it was wet or dryin that county at that time. However the town where I lived had several pubs that allowed us local youngsters in to have a couple of pints on a Sunday. Totally justified, in my mind, by the fact that we used to listen to beautiful hymns sung by the elders- on occasion we would join in the song. Brings tears to my eyes thinking about it.
- jerichau
April 3, 2014 at 9:38 am -
As far as I can see, there’s no push toward banning nicotine inhalers, gum, sprays, lozenges, patches or strips… in fact I’m pretty sure the anti-smoking Nazis would have no objection to us injecting nicotine directly into our eyeballs with hypodermics. This isn’t about health, or smoking prevention or child protection… it’s about “Winning”. We cannot be allowed to win. There’s no difference between me vaping and Joe Bloggs using a Nicotine mist spray… but what he does doesn’t LOOK like smoking, so it doesn’t look like he’s getting one over on the anti smokers… and that’s the issue. The anti-smoking campaign see vaping as a “Dodge” to circumvent their victory. We are robbing them of their tiny triumph… the fact that we are all in less real danger because of that is of no interest to them whatsoever. it LOOKS like we beat them… therefore it must be banned. It’s pure meanness of spirit. Like bullying toddlers taking all the toys away, they simply must ensure that they feel morally victorious. The public consumption of nicotine has to be banned in places where they go to publicly consume alcohol and caffeine. The hypocrisy is so thick, you could cut it with a knife…
- Moor Larkin
April 3, 2014 at 10:21 am -
Where does all this leave the Welsh Muslim fags issue?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iMbCaBhV7K8/Tb2MsLDLHvI/AAAAAAAAA4o/eqEyiVd9HVs/s1600/IMG_2020.JPG - Talwin
April 4, 2014 at 8:26 am -
Seeing the professor pontificating on the TV lunchtime news (he’s also a minimum price alcohol wallah), it immediately occurred to me that if he really is concerned about health issues, he could do much worse than pay some attention to his own diet and apparent weight problem. (I say that in a caring way, you understand.)
- Ms Mildred
April 4, 2014 at 10:24 am -
As a non smoker I do not know what is an ‘ecig’. All I know is that lots of friends and relatives have died or become disabled by smoking related illnesses. I do not not resent smokers. I do not fancy smokers coughs or womens deep voices and stained hair and faces from lifelong smoking. My OH used to smoke a pipe and stink the house out and stain the paintwork. Otherwise I think he looked very nineteen fifties until far into the seventies! Cigarette butts gather outside these sheltering doorways. Cigarette packets terrify me, I dare not look at them. I just puzzle myself why us humans have to come be so habituated to so many harmful ways. In youth, when one is young and freshly minted seems the odd time to pick up noxious habits of all kinds. When one is old and crabbed would be a better excuse by far! Who sees a pipe smoker these days? By the way…..Viva Tarbuck!
- woohoo02
April 5, 2014 at 10:57 am -
It must be a scandal in Wales the amount of money Big Pharma is making from smoking cessation, while waiting at the chemist the other week, a person just after blowing into a CO monitor walked out with about £45 worth of different “Stop Smoking ” aids. All these must have been for free to the person, as he appeared to be on a quit program.
No wonder that the NHS in Wales is unable to treat “Proper” patients.
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