Category: Uncategorized

There’s an interesting development in the UK today: the Welsh Government has announced that it will ban vaping in public places and work places where smoking is banned (for reference population of Wales is 3m, UK is 64m).  But that’s not the interesting development. Continue reading “Wales vaping ban: silver lining may be larger than cloud”

The European Union directive governing e-cigarette regulation is a catalogue of poorly designed, disproportionate and discriminatory measures that will achieve nothing useful but do a great deal of harm. Let’s review the main issues: Continue reading “What is wrong with the Tobacco Products Directive for vapour products?”

The BBC, Guardian, Telegraph and others report on a new study, Associations between e-cigarette access and smoking and drinking behaviours in teenagers,  that “showed one in five had tried or bought e-cigarettes“.  The researchers put out a forthright press release and concluded e-cigarettes were the “alcopops of the nicotine world” and need tougher controls. Nice soundbite, but have the researchers, journal editors, peer reviewers and journalists really interpreted this survey correctly?

I think this study is being widely misunderstood or spun …It may actually may be showing something that is a good news.  Let’s examine four things that must be considered when assessing the implications of this survey – then some expert reaction and consumer reaction: Continue reading “Alarmist survey on teenage vaping misses the point – reaction”

I provided some comments on the draft British Standards PAS 54115, Manufacture, importation, testing, and labelling of vaping products (closing 30 Nov).  A PAS is an industry-led Publicly Available Standard, brokered but not imposed by the British Standards Institute, and designed to quickly set norms in an industry.  I’m broadly pretty positive about this, not least as it could give a basis for more rational regulation if the EU directive Article 20 is annulled in court, which it should be.  However, I think the current draft PAS leans towards costly overkill in some areas – we need to keep the likely risks in proportion and remember the damaging and distorting effects of subjecting these products to greater testing burdens than cigarettes.  There are many worthwhile proposals, but the excesses have been my focus in comments.

What I hope this does is open a conversation – that would be the one that was never had while the EU directive was being drafted.
Continue reading “Comments on draft BSI standard for vaping products”

I know some people find the attack on vapers and vaping by elements of the public health establishment stressful and anxiety-inducing. I’m one of them, and I’m not even a vaper or smoker, whose health and wellbeing may in part be determined by what these people say and do. I think it is so stressful because the interaction has many of the traits associated with bullying.  

Continue reading “Bullying traits and public health values compared”

Updated 26/10. The new NHS Five Year view was published this week*.  There was much wailing about an £8 billion ‘black hole’ in the finances, and stirring exhortation about ‘Getting Serious on Prevention‘.  The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, declared he “wants a smoke-free Britain”.

Not serious to the point of recognising that 700,000 ex-smokers are vapers, and that this massive prevention effect has happened without public spending and without the public health and medical establishments doing anything (other than trying to obstruct it).  If they were truly radical, the leadership of the NHS would recognise this consumer based strategy for its enormous potential and get to work on making it happen rather than sabotage it. Oddly, the doctors’ trade union, the BMA, has taken one of the most hostile lines on vaping.  Is that a mistake? Or could there be money involved? Continue reading “Doctors, smoking and money”

On 7 October 2014, the Framework Convention Alliance, the largest alliance of NGOs that attend and lobby in the WHO FCTC meetings, published its COP-6 policy brief on ENDS (e-cigarettes).  Its policy briefing sets out a position that reflects a careful navigation through the middle ground between the pro- and anti- harm reduction factions in that alliance, while basically not saying too much that is wrong or likely to cause harm. It is a real achievement that they reached agreement at all, given how polarising this issue is within that community.  The paper is a positive contribution to the negotiations and important corrective to the stance taken by WHO. Some more thoughts: Continue reading “Review of the FCA COP-6 position on e-cigarettes”