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Monday 30 December 2013

My thoughts on the Debate in the House of Commons on Plain Packaging - and what was NOT said - ping back on Vapers

Debate in the House of Commons On Standardised packaging 3rd September 2013

(to Column 27WH )

Let me show you some of the things that were said and you will see that MP's regurgitate SOS - and some of it is really questionable! They repeat what they have been told. They are not thinking independently at all.....

Bob Blackman - The appalling truth is that half of all lifetime smokers will die from illness caused by their addiction.  Have you heard that before?

Alex Cunningham -  In my local authority area of Stockton, more than 250 people die prematurely every year from smoking-related diseases. We have a lung cancer rate of 67.1 per 100,000 people, which is a staggering 40% higher than the national average. Why I would ask - seriously - why are your smokers dying  40% higher than national average?

One more time (he says) Tobacco is the only consumer product that, if used as instructed, kills half of its long-term users.

Dr Julian Huppert -  One story that used to be told was that if someone smokes, they are less likely to get Alzheimer’s disease. That is absolutely true, as has been said—but the main reason is that they are quite likely to die before they get Alzheimer’s disease.  I ask, does he know there huge medical trials ongoing using nicotine patches for Alzheimer's?

Jim Shannon -  One hundred thousand people will die of lung cancer this year  He knows?

Oh not again! Half of those go on to become regular smokers, who will die as a result of their habit, despite anti-smoking advertising campaigns,

Dianne Abbott -  If they consume tobacco in the way manufacturers indicate, half of lifelong smokers will die—no ifs, no buts And again!

Oh FFS! Tobacco is the only legal substance for which, if consumed as indicated, half of consumers will die.

 Aaaaaarrrrrgh! We know that half of lifetime smokers will die from smoking, that it remains the largest preventable cause of cancer, that it causes one in four deaths from cancer and eight in 10 deaths from lung cancer,

On the Consultation in which I took part -

Sir Gerald Howorth -  Friend rightly said, the Government consulted extensively. (on plan packaging) Some 665,000 people responded to that consultation, of whom 64% opposed what he is advocating.

Reply from Bob Blackman  - It was not a referendum or a vote; it was a consultation. It is the power of the arguments that matters in a consultation, rather than necessarily the volume, particularly when the arguments are organised by a lobby such as Philip Morris (my underline). Hey, I've not received my cheque yet.

And later - Peer-reviewed studies, summarised in the systematic review of evidence cited in the Department of Health’s consultation document, have found that standard packaging, compared with branded cigarettes, is less attractive to young people, improves the effectiveness of health warnings, reduces mistaken beliefs that some brands are safer than others and is, therefore, likely to reduce smoking uptake among children and young people Do these studies exist? And peer reviewed means reviewed by chums to me.

Annette Brooke -  The case has been well made that clever packaging seduces children into smoking, but how will standardised packaging impact on the rational adult person’s choice to smoke?

Paul Burstow  (part reply) -  In its systematic review of evidence, published as part of its consultation, the Department of Health gathered absolutely clear and strong evidence of the impact of standardised packaging on reducing smoking. Er - which consultation was that? Is that the peer reviewed studies?

Anna Soubry We know that 8 million people in this country continue to smoke and that the overwhelming majority of them want to stop. It is an admission of some weakness within us, which I think is the power of nicotine. It is often said that nicotine is more addictive even than heroin.  I figured that 13 000000 people smoke in the UK - 20% of 64 000000 +- I have the old fashioned idea that if people don't want to smoke, they just stop - zap - because they want to. I have seen it myself on many occasions. Just zap - if you really WANT to stop smoking, you do.

One of the great benefits of the legislation that was introduced by the previous Administration—I pay full credit to them for introducing that ban on smoking in open places (my underline)—was that it made smoking less socially acceptable. But there was no ban in open spaces. I think a slip of the tongue? Anna Soubry is now Minister/Secretary? of Defence of course.

But she at least, like one or two others, felt it was right to wait to see the evidence FOR plain packaging from Ireland and Australia.

Children were mentioned 54 times, young people 103 times as a reason to introduce plain packaging

MP's are well brainwashed into the new and fashionable Prohibitionist culture. But they do not represent ME.

What was NOT said -  

Cigarettes are already invisible behind shutters in shops, a law that has cost a fortune to implement. Some soul MP said that 100 000 young people had been stopped from smoking as a result of this, and I ask, how does anyone KNOW this?

It was not said that the medical porn on "Plain Packaging"/Standard packaging showing grotesque images and written nocebos are a violent attack by the state on the minds of the young - not a soul mentioned brain rape of the children and young people. Adults were only mentioned once.

I have banged on about the obscenity of instilling ideas of sickness and death INTO the minds of all who see the images and words on "plain packs". It will be manifest in the physical body. We really really should wait to see what happens in Australia. Smoking should kill people quicker. 

And electronic cigarettes were never mentioned as a way to reduce the harm of smoking or even smoking itself.  The idea of plain packaging is obsolete. Electronic cigarettes in all their glory should be the way forward. 

The fact that I can see the ANTZ dogma in the language used by MP's in this debate, and the above summary is only what I had time to shred, makes it clear to me that it is the Anti Smoking Movement, Smokefree Britain, CRUK, ASH, MHRA and the grip they have in promoting their ideology everywhere, is what needs disassembling. Smoking-modern via vaping, is already eroding the habit of smoking cigarettes. They have real friend in us! But they don't actually want friends - they need someone to secure their future through - they need work - they need someone to persecute. And that's US!

Poke them in the eye Vapoteurs! Vape on. Spread the word and fight for smokers too. Every action against smokers, pings back on us. THEY are not our enemy. They are the enemy of our enemies and thus they are our friends.




Sunday 22 December 2013

Season's Greetings Vapoteurs - Strength for 2014 - may we find vaping heaven

I am not a high profile activist, nether do I have zillions of followers, influence or clout. I have views that, in my blogs, probably jar with those of main stream vapers. I am aware I am seditious as I am writing my ideas and suspect that people might not want to hear my views at all, but it keeps me healthy! I have always been a misfit. At meetings, I am a nightmare and I have been unemployable for most of my life, because I always know better than the boss. So I have had to be an entrepreneur - a loner - and a rebel. The over-view is always easier to see than nit-picky details for lazy people. I am a lazy person.

I enjoy feeling passionate. It makes me feel alive. Yet my adamantcy and strong speech is a persona that covers a serene core. I know that in the great cycles of time, all is well and all will be well. I used to have a blog called Peacepoint but I took it down because it was full of complaints, gripes and moans - not at all peaceful - and transferred it to my blog Life on an Alien Planet. I really DO feel I live on an Alien Planet sometimes. Everyone ELSE! is the Alien.

Often Life on an Alien Planet is about vaping too.

Most of my life is about vaping - enjoying it  usually - it is the uppermost thing in my mind since I first started. My husband deserves a medal for putting up with it. Thank you husband.

Thank you all who read my blog(s), who have communicated with me in many different ways. I wish you endurance in our struggles to keep vaping out of the hands of the insane and hope all changes to our lives are for the better. 2014 is going to be an interesting year. I don't know about you, but I want my vaping heaven back!
 
I uploaded my Christmassy video to You Tube - Vaping for the over sixties channel that many under sixties watch. I get letters from new vapers - many letters, telling me I have inspired them. I find that gratifying seeing the whole channel was a complete accident. Most of my viewers are from Canada and the USA. They like my "English accent" - !  The channel is about my own journey with vaping. I try not to be political. But now and again I am. 

My Chrismassy video was really to alert those vapers who follow my channel still living in vaper-heaven, that all is not well. I have tried to put useful links under the video so people can research if they wish, and, of course it has a UK bias.

BE ACTIVE! Useful Links for the United Kingdom
JOIN - http://worldvaping.org/
READ - http://www.clivebates.com/
LEARN - http://wiki.planetofthevapes.co.uk/wi...
WATCH - http://www.vapourtrails.tv/
FORUMS - http://ukvapers.org/
AND http://www.planetofthevapes.co.uk/
AND (USA) http://vapersplace.com/

Namaste

Best wishes to all!

Saturday 21 December 2013

A history lesson for vapers Part Three - the Resistance

In the Reformation, new ideas about The Church (Science nowadays) and The King (The Corporations and his courtiers) were spread via the brand new invention of the Printing Press which made books available to common people. Once only the educated could read books. So us lot had to catch up. People who could read, read to people who couldn't. And we learned to read! Books were not simply accepted as nice, but considered really dangerous things. The idea that "The pen is mightier than the sword" was well known from antiquity. Ideas trump violence. To stop ideas spreading, books were burned - even in the 1930's this happened. And recently to humiliate an errant scientist, his book was burned with words.

In the Reformation, preaching (talking about) and publishing about the corruption in The Church was the trigger that changed people's minds and set them free from the ruling ideas of the day. Out of this change came Science. In the beginning it was a tool to use to check that our thinking was correct. It was a way to explore facts and test them. Science supported common sense and did away with myth and legend. Science says that it is better than Religion because it can change its Dogma and Creed if proved wrong. And real science can.

But The Church of Science nowadays, especially epidemiological science offered to us by the flunkies in Public Health and Governments, owing allegiance to The King Corporations, is not real. It's constructed to manipulate society for the benefit of themselves. Our new printing press is the Internet. It is the way ideas are spread faster than a twinkling of an eye. Embedded in the Internet are whole communities of people who question and challenge the way things are. One day, these groups will Reform The Church and The King, just as it happened so long ago.

With RESISTANCE we can change the ideas of society. Society has been groomed to believe that Second Hand Smoke is a killer of people and that because smokers breathe it out they can be treated as non-persons deprived of their right to speak out. There aren't even ghettos provided for smokers. This BASIC IDEA that you can purposefully marginalise a group of people for what they do which does not make them violent or injure anyone but themselves, by spreading the idea that the Church of Science incorrectly put about for the benefit of The King and his courtiers, is the main idea to expose.

I say that because the prevailing mood in Society is that Smoking is Bad. Vaping must be Bad because its just Smoking. Smoking needs to be re-instated as something that people do for pleasure. Smoking is normal in many people's lives. Not everyone wants to stop smoking - that they do is a myth. That half of all Smokers die from their Smoking is another myth. Smoking is an adult occupation and children should be allowed to see adults smoking otherwise it becomes secret and terribly terribly alluring.

So the Church of Science Creed of Smokers and Smoking needs to be challenged and exposed like the selling of indulgences was during the Reformation. RESISTANCE is demanding the TRUTH for smokers also so that society may realise how it has been duped into self righteous discrimination akin to the very worst in history. This could happen to us - and already is - as "Nicotine Addicts".

Vaping is modern smoking that is less harmful. The Church of Science has been very active to keep The King and courtiers in power. It knows the best way to twist society into attitudes against Vaping because it has done it all before towards Smokers. RESISTANCE is the same. Every dodgy article in the Media needs reporting to the Press Agency. Every ridiculous publication by Public Health needs a complaint to the Government.

RESISTANCE has already started - join up please!

Welcome to The World Vaping Organisation
WVO MANIFESTO

We are a non-profit organisation. We are here to become the muscle of vaping worldwide. We are here to defend against dubious politicians, rogue scientists, controlled media, bias public organisations, and anybody else who hides behind them. Our approach will be swift and powerful, with a team of scientists as advisors, a small army of white collar solicitors as executors, and a monstrous PR agency to spread our word.

NON VIOLENT RESISTANCE is entirely possible for us vapers. Remember we have been lumped in with smokers in the Smoking Ban just like all people who disagreed with The Church were called "Protestants" during the Reformation despite them being different from each other. Vapers and smokers are in the societal mind as ONE.

Besides defending ourselves with words, we could organise meet ups outside important buildings via social media. Vapers Flashmobs UK There is one planned outside BBC Broadcasting in your area at 11:00am on January 11th 2014. This is soliciting Press Coverage for vaping.

We could start now  by deciding that in 2014, we will actively do SOMETHING to expose the corruption of The Church of Science and The King and courtiers in their ruling of us. We need to verbalise our displeasure about vaping legislation, vaping/smoking bans, lobby groups and share our personal experience that vaping is us still smoking, but in a safer fashion. We need to do this not to each other, but to the real people that surround us, our friends, our neighbours, our MP's our MEP's, our doctor, our dentist, our shop keeper, our womens' groups. our golf club, our Councillors, our sports clubs, our hairdresser, everywhere, anywhere. When someone says "When are you going to give that up?" don't let the smoker in you crumble - remember we were a smoker first and that smoking is a normal occupation for us. We are going to say proudly "I'm not going to give it up." THAT is RESISTANCE.

We can NOT slag off smokers and smoking. If we do this we are strengthening the perception that has been dripped into the societal mind that Smoking is evil and we are collaborating with our own enemy!

Thoreau was dead right when he pointed out that to fight for our issues whilst not correcting the issues that brought us to that point, is neither moral nor admirable.

Thoreau's 1848 essay  "The only political duty of a man is to correct any injustice he directly causes and to deny his cooperation to other injustice.">> "If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself.... ... If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too"

Friday 20 December 2013

A history lesson for vapers Part Two - the Reformation begins

In the 1500's The Church (Catholic) was mighty powerful and wealthy. What The Church said in their Dogma and Creed was what was true and unarguable. Anyone questioning The Church was a Heretic. The Church did nasty things to Heretics. To make Heretics recant (go back on their words) they were tortured, ex-communicated and even burnt at the stake. All Kings belonged to The Church. In yesterday's lesson, you remember the old greedy sod Henry V111 dissolved the Monasteries in England and stole all their goodies. Well, his roving eye for the ladies caused great arguments with The Church who said he couldn't get married as he was actually already married. So he DIY'd by leaving it and making his own Church(The Church of England). People were questioning what The Church taught all over Europe. They wanted it changed and Reformed from all its corruption.

One could equate The Church with the overriding belief system of the day. Nowadays, The Church is Science. Today, we are controlled in every way by Science and Scientific Evidence. Any Science Heretic is as swiftly punished as they were before the Reformation. Science is as corrupt as The Church ever was. It can be used to engineer people to do things with Evidence that is twisted, slewed, cherry picked or manipulated to "prove" that certain ideologies are right.The Kings (Corporations remember) use Science a lot. They manipulate their fawning courtiers (Governments and their workers) to produce repressive laws that favour THEM. 

We are going to have a Reformation of Science. Already people are speaking out against the false results dished up by Science and its corrupt Peer Review system (aka Reviews for Chums). See Bad Science. Science is as brutal as The Church ever was in its control of people. The smoking ban ideology that has collapsed the economy and caused misery to millions in the UK has been built on a lie produced by Science - see Forbes

And Science is being particularly exposed for the false god it is when laws like the ecig ban in New York - in PARKS! ffs! are passed. Real Science is a thinking tool. The Church of Science is a tool (like a gun) of force.

How our new Church is being used by The King Corporations with their subservient Governmental side kicks to Dissolve the Ancient Pleasure of smoking in its new form of vaping, has been very interesting to watch. It is so insane that it forces thinking people to question The Church of Science in every way. The Reformation is on its way! And we must help it. How? Well, that is the topic of my next post on RESISTANCE.

Thursday 19 December 2013

A history lesson for vapers Part One - The dissolution is upon us

Monks living in their Monasteries in the 1500's in England, the most powerful land owners of all, could not get their heads round the unbelievable threat that the King (Henry V111 of the many wives fame) was a greedy old sod and would simply, by law, take all their Monasteries away from them. It was SO unimaginable that when the King's armies galloped up to do the filthy deed of burning, plundering and pillaging, the monks were still painting and decorating (so to speak) as if nothing untoward was occurring.

The greedy sods of today, just as powerful as any King, are the big Corporations who wish to plunder e cigs. Their courtiers are the arse creeping do-gooders of Public Health, as bowing, scraping and obsequious as any courtiers of any Kingdom. Electronic cigarette users are still painting and decorating like the Monks of old, as they delight in the discovery of this wonderful thing we call vaping. It's so good, so health bringing, so life changing, it is impossible to imagine anyone destroying it. It is unimaginable that anything untoward can happen to us.

Where I live, the ruins of the once exquisite monasteries plundered during the Dissolution lie all around. When you see them, you wonder how the people of England could just let it happen. To destroy such magnificent buildings was a terrible crime against future generations. In the face of such power and brutality, ordinary human hearts become discouraged. No one resisted.

The dissolution of vaping as we know it is upon us. We can see what the greedy King desires to do against us. We must not while away our days simply praising vaping and calling others to vaping prayers. We have a duty to protect vaping for the future generations of humans who wish to "smoke" as safely as technically possible.We must not be discouraged by the brutality of The King.

The King is a greedy sod. Yet some of his citizens are awake and aware! If you wish to catch up with what The King plans, please watch "The day after tomorrow". And take heart - the best is at the end - in the third "half" as Dave Dorn calls it.

Wednesday 18 December 2013

Coming in from the cold but feeling warm

I have been missing, dealing with scary heart attack and stroke stuff,  but I really am here. I've been reading, watching and thinking.

I have been wondering who reads the tweets in Twitterbombs? I can't imagine it's anyone at the European Parliament. Do you think they are even aware?  I know if you use @LindaMcAvanMEP in a Tweet SHE never sees it! So, unhappily, I'm wondering what actual difference it is making. Are we kidding ourselves? I might be wrong, as I often am, but the Twittering and Tweeting seems like displaced activity from all of us who are totally frustrated and do it because it feels better than feeling impotent. It is mighty therapeutic, yes?

I know MY MP simply trogs out Party Template Letters about smoking/vaping when I have written and I have, as yet, not come eyeball to eyeball with him about vaping. I saw him pounding up the cobbles on our town late night opening, but I think he was late, it was raining, and he would have been right pissed off with me if I'd flashed my device at him in the street. I have commanded his attention so many times already, I think he probably dreads bumping into me anywhere at all. And a Template Letter is his only defence. I am a better writer than speaker and in print he's recieved a few ear bashings.

My MEP is Chris Davis. He did make an effort for us vapers - but he failed in my opinion. Today's news is depressing frankly. The most depressing thing about it is how ignorant and foolish our rulers are: how, in actual fact, they are as petty, silly, self important, influenced by peer pressure and social engineering as everyone else.

I am not voting for my MP or my MEP

I'm voting for THIS GUY! 


Tuesday 3 December 2013

The Good, the Bad and the Not Bad! Vapourlites review

This is the longest video I have made in a good while. My opinion of Vapourlites , a little winner at the end after the bad beginning.This is only MY opinion, with apologies and thanks to Vapourlites.


Friday 29 November 2013

HURRY,HURRY,HURRY Vapoteurs! Links to share on my behalf- pleeeese!

HURRY HURRY HURRY!

Please  read Clive Bates They just don’t get it – Commission proposal for the regulation of e-cigarettes

Then sign,

This petition that is going to be presented at the EU next week by Chris Davies MEP


The meeting of the vile villains of democracy happens on Tuesday 3rd December....They are conniving to virtually close down vaping as we know it. (see Dave Dorn video below)

I am very tied up right now with no time to myself.  My husband had a TIA (a little stroke) and we are backwards and forwards to hospital. 

So please share these links - EVERYWHERE.  I have no time to!

Link to Clive Bates blog -  http://www.clivebates.com/?p=1655

Link to The EU petition  - https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/The_European_Parliament_Save_electronic_cigarettes_from_excessive_EU_regulation/?dINxHfb

Link to Dave Dorn Video - http://youtu.be/w7vu_RruMtE

Relying on others to do what I would normally do.

And thank you!


Monday 25 November 2013

Vapoteurs - big evil requires big action - and start prayers too. Or "every little helps" said the old lady who pee'd on the cabbage patch!

Please read Clive Bates summing up of what is happening NOW in the EU

This is happening in discussion now and into early December.....

The main troubling features include:
  • Allows only single-use cartridges.  No refillable units or tanks will be permitted.
  • Allows only flavours already approved for use in NRT.
  • Limits nicotine density to 20mg/ml maximum with no justification
  • Limits nicotine content of any container to just 10mg/unit – this is extremely low and arbitrary (see new paper
  • Allows only devices that “deliver nicotine doses consistently and uniformly” – an unnecessary, severe and limiting technical challenge
  • Bans all advertising in press or printed publications (except trade), on radio, TV and other audiovisual services and the internet (through “information society services“)
  • Bans e-cigarette sponsorships that have cross border impact (e.g. anything that might be shown on TV)
  • Applies onerous and unnecessary warning, labelling and leaflet requirements that may be impractical
  • Bans cross border distance sales (internet etc)
  • Requires manufacturers to track so-called ‘adverse effects’ even though nicotine is widely used and understood
  • Requires the submission of  large quantities of seemingly irrelevant technical and commercial data
  • Asserts (against the evidence) that e-cigarettes “simulate smoking behaviour and are increasingly used and marketed to young people and non-smokers”.
It basically looks like is this - (72% of us use "Second Generation"devices...)
(Thank you Miles Dolphin on Twitter)

If you are a vaper of sound mind and body and you live in the EU, please scroll down Clive Bates page to see what he suggests we do - and do it.

If you are exhausted from the fight, are weak and old like I feel today, it is time to pray. We need an Act of God in the face of such corruption. I refuse to believe that anyone involved with these discussions on legislating our lives, can be so very, very blind to the effect of their actions, unless they are being richly rewarded by unseen evil powers.

Saturday 23 November 2013

The "greeness" of vaping - more uncomfortable thoughts

I remember when I saw the Vype disposable being tested by Dave Dorn on Vapour Trails TV a few months ago, feeling horrified that they could be produced and marketed in such a resource depleting package. I remember the one Dave used on the show lasted hardly half-an-hour. I should imagine billions of Vype disposables will be sold and end up as trash, packaging and all. At least the Vype re-chargeable would last a little longer - but AGAIN, something that really annoys me is there is only ONE battery supplied! What is wrong with these people? ONE battery in any "starter" pack product is simply not on. One battery only lasts a wee while, leaving the user in the dwang completely. But that's beside the point.

I'm talking about the "greeness" of vaping and the Vype just makes the point that tobacco companies getting a real foothold in the marketplace and producing stuff like the Vype could eventually use a lot of Earth resources. If e-cigarettes are medicalised it will do the same. I am presuming that it will be lookalikees that Pharmaceuticals will produce by the billions.

I am saying all this because e-cigarettes are stunningly successful as a consumer product and the answer to safe smoking. I am presuming that they are the future, because I believe they are.

Going along on my chain of thought of Earth resource gobbling devices, would be 2nd generation devices - an ego with a tank.  These last longer and are not so quickly disposable as the above - but take more energy in battery charging. We would dispose of less tanks than cartomisers/cartridges I would imagine.

Further along, and getting "greener" would be 4th and 5th generation devices - mods, rebuildables in tanks - maybe glass tanks. All this is less disposable and more re-useable.  A solar charger would be a great addition to save on electricity and to use in power outages - I like the idea, but it would be totally useless where I live as we rarely see the sun!

I'm not the only one who has been thinking about us lot (vapers) wasting resources.

I am interested to see what's on its way with technological innovation occurring almost daily in the e-cigarette industry.

This innovation, of course, can only happen if they - WHO? - leave it alone.

If everything get frozen in time by legislation that offers smokers stuff like the Vype - or it's duller cousins, the e-cigarettes that will be churned out by Pharmaceuticals -  1st generation stuff using the old technology that, honestly, is NOT satisfying in the long run, then we are really in for trouble.

I see that we will be persecuted for normalising smoking firstly, and then for not being "green". How do we defend ourselves on those charges?  Uncomfortable thought? Yes!

Friday 22 November 2013

Smoking is "greener" than vaping. What do YOU think? Comments welcome!

For quite a while, I have been wondering about how "green" vaping is. If it becomes the new "smoking", we will be using billions of tonnes of Lithium and all the chemicals used in it's production. We are already raping and pillaging our Earth. This morning I have three devices running - one is an Ego 1100mAh lithium battery. In a few months I will put it in my battery re-cycling bottle and take it to Aldi's battery collection depot. What will happen to it then I wonder?

I have three plastic tanks at work containing three different flavours. When they fail, I will toss them in the trash with all the other plastic I discard.

Now, for a while, I have been kidding myself that my mods are "greener" because they are like torches - and who would think a torch is not "green". But they have large lithium batteries in them, re- chargeable admittedly. One day, they will also go into my battery collecting bottle.

So I don't think vaping is "green".

Imagine millions of us worldwide trashing batteries and adding to our already terrifying plastic pollution. The mind boggles!

Really "green" is smoking a cigarette! Tobacco grows and replenishes itself, My little home rollies disappeared into a tiny pile of sterile ash and the filters degraded in one season under bushes where I had flicked them whilst gardening.

Yup, vaping is not "green", but personally, I am not switching back to smoking. There is nothing I can do when I am forced to buy something packed in huge unnecessary packaging, or use my mobile phone, or my lithium computer battery, or drive my car. I just block out my thoughts that I am also one of the consumers that drive our Earth-pillage.I don't now how to solve the problem.I am the problem.

But today I am thinking smoking might harm our species less in the long run. Smoking is "greener" than vaping. What do YOU think? Comments welcome!

Thursday 21 November 2013

Please sign the save ecigs letter - pleeeese - pleeeese - I've been a naughty girl!! Please share this post to the UK .

When I wrote "Why I won't sign the save ecigs letter" post -  I thought it might be read by my one or two followers. Instead, it was read by hundreds. I watched the viewings roll up with horror. So I wrote another, to explain more and pose a better letter, and that was read less (unfortunately).

Last night Dave Dorn said in his show on Vapour Trails TV  "please sign the save ecigs letter - don't read what it says, as some of it is in terms that those to whom it is written speak - ignore that - just sign!"  (or he said something along those lines.)

Now, he is really right -  and actually the letter cannot be changed now because so many have already signed it. That letter is written in stone. And that letter is the one going to be delivered soon.

So I beg you, pleeeese sign the save e cigs letter - it's what we've got now - there is no other - scroll down on this page  HERE and sign it for all the vapers who have already signed it (and for me too!)

I've been a naughty girl to put you off. I never realised I was so influential!

(And I hope the next letter is better!)


Monday 18 November 2013

Why I wont sign the Save ecigs letter Mark 11 and how I might

There was a huge uptake on my innocent blog about the personal reason I wouldn't sign the Save e cigs letter. It was suggested I send the people/person who set it up MY letter. I don't know who this is - and I do hope I have hurt no feelings. Basically, as I said, the letter is great! If it were not upsetting just in small part to dual users and smokers (who might be considering vaping) I would promote it with all my heart and mind. Whoever wrote it did so with the most noble intentions.

Because my blog Why I won't sign went out so far, I need to publicly explain why I'm so uneasy about vaping, us vapers and smokers as a whole.

This is how I think the Save ecigs letter should read. This is only my opinion. I think this way, it comes across much stronger and without the tearjerker emotion - the appeal of the "cheeeldren" and Second Hand Smoke that Tobacco Control has always used to turn society one against the other, father against son, children against parents, mothers against their children, teachers against parents, all of society against the smoker in a most personally ugly way. Everyone becomes righteous by the power invested in them by Tobacco Control.

But we need to remember who Tobacco Control is and how devious they have been in their mission. Trying to placate them is not the way - no need to mention the "cheeldren" or imply SHS. They are going to keep shooting at us (vapers) on only one issue. Electronic cigarettes are a substitute for smoking. They normalise smoking.

This is mine from a recent blog - "Vapers are sitting on the fence, dangling their toes on the side of anti-tobacco. We really need to wake up to the truth of their world drive to eradicate smoking in every way possible, by any means. If we are not aware of their nefariousness in doing so, we will be taken by surprise/are taken by surprise when vapers are simply considered smokers. In that capacity we will be invisible, discounted and politically disemboweled.

I'm not holding my breath that we will be considered any differently than smokers and vaping will become simply NRT."


Many, many times before, I have pointed out that Tobacco Control has lied to us all about SHS. They have used it as a weapon themselves and weaponised society too. They intend to make the world a tobacco free planet, so that nobody smokes.

Our weakest point is that vaping is a kind of smoking. We cannot avoid this accusation - it is the weapon that will be used against us because any kind of smoking-like-habit is not what Tobacco Control desire.

In affirming that smokers have the right to smoke without persecution or our negative judgement, we strengthen our position that vaping fulfills us because it is our kind of "smoking" and we should have that choice too, just like smokers are legally entitled to smoke if they choose.

I feel very strongly that the habit of smoking, whether it is tobacco or vaping, is the "right" that needs defending by us all. Smokers should not put down vapers and vapers should not put down smoking. I wish there was some way we could unite. We need to be working together somehow - but how exactly, escapes me. The only idea I have is that both vapers and smokers should demand a review of the insane smoking bans that have come about by Tobacco Control ideology at the expense of good sense. We need to repeat over and over to ourselves, as we click our red shoes together like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz that "Smoking is normal".


So here is the letter I would sign because it is true. 


Jane Ellison MP
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health
Department of Health,
Richmond House,
79 Whitehall, London,
London SW1A 2NS

Dear Minister,

Revision of the Tobacco Products Directive

For 1.5 million people in the UK and 12 million people throughout the EU, e-cigarettes have and continue to provide a viable alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes.  They have enabled smokers to leave smoking behind, either on a full or part-time basis.

However, we are genuinely concerned about proposals to amend the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) that could see e-cigarettes only being allowed on the market if they are authorised pursuant to Directive 2001/83/EC (the Medicinal Products Directive).

As you will be aware, a cross party majority of MEPs from across the European Parliament, including UK Conservative and Liberal Democrat MEPs, recently voted against the medicinal regulation of e-cigarettes.  Whilst we are obviously delighted by the result, we know that this vote is only one part of a wider process.

As far as we are aware, it is still the policy of the Department for Health to support the medicinal regulation of electronic cigarettes.  We clearly hope that the Department of Health will listen to the wishes of the democratically elected European Parliament and not the wishes of the unelected and unaccountable MHRA.

We hope that the UK Government will join with their colleagues in the European Parliament in rejecting the medicinal regulation of e-cigarettes.  France and others have already made their reservations clear so the UK would not be alone.

Why is this important?

It is vital that you understand that e-cigarettes are not a medicinal product; users do not see themselves as ill or in treatment. They are adults who have made an informed decision.

Thousands of smokers every year try and fail numerous times to quit using conventional nicotine replacement therapies (NRT).  This is unsurprising as NRTs are proven to have up to a 95 per cent failure rate.  We know first-hand how depressing this is.  However by switching to e-cigarettes, to date, 1.5 million smokers have cut down the amount of tobacco cigarettes they smoke or stopped completely.  This is something that should be celebrated and encouraged, not a cause for concern.

E-cigarettes are though not some form of more effective nicotine replacement therapy they are completely different.  E-cigarettes are an alternative to smoking.  Users must be allowed the freedom to find the correct device and nicotine level that suits their needs, there is no one size fits all e-cigarette, there is no one flavour that suits everyone, there has to be flexibility, there has to be innovation.  These are the very reasons why the e-cigarette is proving so popular.  Medicinal regulation by its very nature will take all this away.  Medical regulation will control and quantify dosage, control and quantify administration, control and quantify the device.  Medicines have to be monitored by medical practitioners, there can be no room for individuality, for finding the right flavour, strength, and device, plus medical regulations cast the shadow of shame and disease on people who are not ill.  It pours more shame on people castigated for a habit.  Ultimately, medicines regulation, as the MHRA has made clear on several occasions, will lead to a ban of all currently available e-cigarettes.  We urge you to look at the difference between what medicines are, and what a recreational device is – look beyond the entrenched view that just because it moves people away from smoking it must be a therapy.

E-cigarettes are simply an alternative to smoking, they deliver clean nicotine – without the tar, carbon monoxide, and volatile hot gases of cigarettes – and as a way of taking nicotine they are pretty near harmless to health.  

E-cigarettes are safe.  By contrast tobacco cigarettes according to your department’s own figures kill 700,000 people each and every year throughout the EU and policy makers are not proposing to ban them.  

We urge you to support the proportionate and robust consumer regulation of e-cigarettes that won the support of MEPs from across the political spectrum on the 8th of October.

The law of unintended consequence in this situation, if you continue to support medicinal regulation, will be to see thousands and thousands of e-cigarette users going back to smoking tobacco cigarettes.  As a Health Minister you may not like to read this, but it is the truth, and you and your colleagues in the Department of Health need to be aware of this.  If you vote for medicinal regulation in trilogue more people will smoke and you will be promoting smoking.

Yours sincerely

Sunday 17 November 2013

Why I won't sign the save ecigs letter

Here follows the save ecigs letter which people/vapers/smapers/smokers might sign in greater numbers if it wasn't so offensive. The sections I have highlighted in bold, give me the total creeps. It is offensive to smokers and dual users. It is Tobacco Control codswallop, and for that reason I will not sign this letter. I am simply sharing the reason I am not signing this - its my own sensibility that is offended because I am a smoker that vapes, not a vaper that doesn't want to smoke out of guilt, shame, or social manipulation. Vapers have an Achilles heel in that, to Tobacco Control, vaping is seen as normalising smoking. See....Thoughts on Tobacco Control and the enemies of vaping and saving vaping - please ACT!

Otherwise, I think this letter is great! I wish I could sign it! 

Jane Ellison MP
Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Public Health
Department of Health,
Richmond House,
79 Whitehall, London,
London SW1A 2NS

Dear Minister,

Revision of the Tobacco Products Directive

For 1.5 million people in the UK and 12 million people throughout the EU, e-cigarettes have and continue to provide a viable alternative to smoking tobacco cigarettes.  They have enabled smokers to leave smoking behind, either on a full or part-time basis.

However, we are genuinely concerned about proposals to amend the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) that could see e-cigarettes only being allowed on the market if they are authorised pursuant to Directive 2001/83/EC (the Medicinal Products Directive).

As you will be aware, a cross party majority of MEPs from across the European Parliament, including UK Conservative and Liberal Democrat MEPs, recently voted against the medicinal regulation of e-cigarettes.  Whilst we are obviously delighted by the result, we know that this vote is only one part of a wider process.

As far as we are aware, it is still the policy of the Department for Health to support the medicinal regulation of electronic cigarettes.  We clearly hope that the Department of Health will listen to the wishes of the democratically elected European Parliament and not the wishes of the unelected and unaccountable MHRA.

We hope that the UK Government will join with their colleagues in the European Parliament in rejecting the medicinal regulation of e-cigarettes.  France and others have already made their reservations clear so the UK would not be alone.

Why is this important?

We the undersigned are not just e-cigarette users; we are also the friends and family of some of the UK’s 1.5 million e-cigarette users.  We are the forgotten people in the debate surrounding the revision of the TPD.  

When someone smokes those close to them are also affected.  Consequently, when a smoker switches to e-cigarettes their friends and family benefit too.

As the friends and families of e-cigarette users, we lived with the daily consequences of close contact with our loved ones when they smoked.  For some of us, we even nursed our loved ones and cared for them as they died prematurely of smoking related illnesses.  E-cigarettes have therefore been a revelation, not just for those that use them but also for a far wider group of people.

It is vital that you understand that e-cigarettes are not a medicinal product; users do not see themselves as ill or in treatment. They are adults who have made an informed decision.

Thousands of smokers every year try and fail numerous times to quit using conventional nicotine replacement therapies (NRT).  This is unsurprising as NRTs are proven to have up to a 95 per cent failure rate.  We know first-hand how depressing this is.  However by switching to e-cigarettes, to date, 1.5 million smokers have cut down the amount of tobacco cigarettes they smoke or stopped completely.  This is something that should be celebrated and encouraged, not a cause for concern.

E-cigarettes are though not some form of more effective nicotine replacement therapy they are completely different.  E-cigarettes are an alternative to smoking.  Users must be allowed the freedom to find the correct device and nicotine level that suits their needs, there is no one size fits all e-cigarette, there is no one flavour that suits everyone, there has to be flexibility, there has to be innovation.  These are the very reasons why the e-cigarette is proving so popular.  Medicinal regulation by its very nature will take all this away.  Medical regulation will control and quantify dosage, control and quantify administration, control and quantify the device.  Medicines have to be monitored by medical practitioners, there can be no room for individuality, for finding the right flavour, strength, and device, plus medical regulations cast the shadow of shame and disease on people who are not ill.  It pours more shame on people castigated for a habit.  Ultimately, medicines regulation, as the MHRA has made clear on several occasions, will lead to a ban of all currently available e-cigarettes.  We urge you to look at the difference between what medicines are, and what a recreational device is – look beyond the entrenched view that just because it moves people away from smoking it must be a therapy.

E-cigarettes are simply an alternative to smoking, they deliver clean nicotine – without the tar, carbon monoxide, and volatile hot gases of cigarettes – and as a way of taking nicotine they are pretty near harmless to health.  

E-cigarettes are safe.  By contrast tobacco cigarettes according to your department’s own figures kill 700,000 people each and every year throughout the EU and policy makers are not proposing to ban them.  

We urge you to support the proportionate and robust consumer regulation of e-cigarettes that won the support of MEPs from across the political spectrum on the 8th of October.

The law of unintended consequence in this situation, if you continue to support medicinal regulation, will be to see thousands and thousands of e-cigarette users going back to smoking tobacco cigarettes and consequently dying prematurely.  As a Health Minister you may not like to read this, but it is the truth, and you and your colleagues in the Department of Health need to be aware of this.  If you vote for medicinal regulation in trilogue more people will smoke and more people will die.

Not just for the sake of 1.5 million electronic cigarette users, but for the sake, also, of their friends and family we urge you to do the right thing.  

Yours sincerely

Saturday 16 November 2013

Thoughts on Tobacco Control and the enemies of vaping and saving vaping - please ACT!

You might like to read this thread on Planet of the Vapes to understand that there is STILL work to do if we want to protect our hobby of vaping.

When I think about the whole smoking/vaping thing I remember the very first time I heard of the lung disease and smoking link. I was a teenager and my mother took me to the hospital to visit "Aunty" Kit who had been a smoker all her life and was busy dying because she had smoked. No one in our family smoked or drank or had sex. My upbringing was what you would think of as repressed. I'm not sure if I was dragged off to see "Aunty" Kit, to make a point. But the smoking = lung disease was simply acknowledged - and that was before the Doctor's Study. People already knew.

(Report 2004) Three years ago on the BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs, Doll said he had formulated a strategy towards health education: "Find out what the tobacco industry supports and don't do it, and find out what they object to and do it." He told the presenter Sue Lawley something that came as a surprise to those who knew him well. He said the effect of someone lighting up a cigarette in his presence "is so small that it doesn't worry me", a comment which some interpreted as a denial of the impact of passive smoking. In fact, he had just published a study from 12 European countries suggesting the opposite: it was estimated that non-smokers exposed to second-hand smoke are between 20% and 30% more likely to develop lung cancer. In other words, the damage first detected by a young doctor 55 years ago has turned out to be far worse than anyone imagined.

Since "Aunty" Kit died Tobacco Control has become an enormously profitable industry, not selling anything, but funded by the very same people they have come to persecute. What a most brilliant business model! Furthermore, they have used nocebo subliminals on Tobacco products since the Seventies to kill smokers and those in the vacinity (SHS) quicker. In other words, the damage first detected by a young doctor 55 years ago has turned out to be far worse than anyone imagined.

It is interesting that Doll himself noted that smoking seemed to do more damage in the 1990's than in the 1950's. 

It is my voice crying in the wilderness that this is the fault of Tobacco Control interference by changing the mix in tobacco, and placing warnings on packsTobacco Control is a lethal industry. It has a powerful ally - the Pharmaceutical industry and they work in tandem most profitably in self evolving. 

It is Tobacco Control that is now the enemy of vapers. They were allowed to twist, lie, manipulate and further their own future in a world, had it been left alone, would have figured out why "Aunty" Kit died through experience and education and by word of mouth. Smoking would not be as dangerous as it is now and Joe public, despite Big Tobacco, would have put two and two together all by himself.

Currently we have a strange situation of vapers - especially the younger ones, unaware of how they have been socially engineered in their thoughts and behaviour, by Tobacco Control, becoming unhappy when it comes out against them. 

Tobacco Control is a lethal foe. It must have cost us billions and billions over the years to do what it has done. It has been far more expensive than the cost to us of smokers dying from smoking! Smokers anyway pay their own expenses and subsidise our National Health. And billions from there is funnelled off to the pharmaceuticals for NRT - a useless treatment - so Tobacco Control has been a money vampire second to none!

This monster has turned its attention on vaping. It's a powerful enemy. Medicalising vaping? Well of course! It's logically profitable. Demonising vaping as smoking (which must be denormalised) - of course! Makes sense - yes? Vaping is smoking. Tobacco Control needs to secure its future.

Vaping might have saved my "Aunty" Kit. Electronic cigarettes are the only thing that might eventually reduce tobacco smoking. But Tobacco Control bangs on about the danger of vaping "normalising" smoking. It was only they who pushed to de-normalise it by social engineering, to interfere with the tobacco mix, to drip poison into our minds about nicotine. to profit from it. For a quarter of the population, smoking IS normal.  Smokers are not stupid. They are trying vaping. Some of them, like me, prefer it.  

Vaping is both the Tobacco Industry's nemesis and it's future. They are not stupid either. 

"Find out what the tobacco industry supports and don't do it, and find out what they object to and do it." said Doll in 2004. 

The world has changed - vaping is a safer smoking. Tobacco Control has cost the world trillions financially. No matter how vicious they have been, how many twististics they have produced, smoking cigarettes is still normal. 

I think it is how they are behaving towards electronic cigarettes, that will finally expose the depth of their corruption and duplicity and show them up to be the really stupid ones!

To all us smokers and vapers, who deal with the guilt and shame induced in us on purpose by Tobacco Control, you have no idea how vengeful they are. Vaping is smoking to them. If you want to save vaping, ACT. Become political.  Write to them  or better still, visit your MP or MEP. Take your devices with you - show them, talk about them, share!

Please. 

Well that's just what I was thinking, anyway....










Monday 11 November 2013

How to use the new YouTube now it's been tamed by Google+

Recently - last week actually, Google+ and YouTube eventually sprung the trap.

Google+ is a requirement to do anything at all on YouTube. It's an attempt to tame the wild west on the Internet.

I have always loved YouTube.
 

Statistics about YouTube

Viewership

  • More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
  • Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube – that's almost an hour for every person on Earth, and 50% more than last year
  • 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
  • 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the US
  • YouTube is localised in 56 countries and across 61 languages
  • According to Nielsen, YouTube reaches more US adults aged 18-34 than any cable network
  • Millions of subscriptions happen each day, and the number of people subscribing has more than doubled since last year

YouTube Partner Programme

  • Created in 2007, we now have more than a million creators from over 30 countries around the world earning money from their YouTube videos
  • Thousands of channels are making six figures a year

Monetisation

  • Thousands of advertisers are using TrueView in-stream and 75% of our in-stream ads are now skippable
  • We have more than a million advertisers using Google ad platforms, the majority of which are small businesses

Mobile and Devices

  • Mobile makes up more than 25% of YouTube's global watch time, more than one billion views a day
  • YouTube is available on hundreds of millions of devices

Content ID

  • Content ID scans over 250 years of video every day
  • More than 4,000 partners use Content ID, including major US network broadcasters, movie studios and record labels
  • We have more than 15 million reference files in our Content ID database; it's among the most comprehensive in the world
  • Content ID has generated hundreds of millions of dollars for partners
  • More than 120 million videos have been claimed by Content ID 
  • ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Thats lots and lots and LOTS of Google+!

It took me a few days to get my own channel working properly after the shit hit the fan, The day YouTube died. People will be absolutely confused - specially us oldies. So I just uploaded a video for anyone to watch, on how to deal with the new YouTube.

Friday 8 November 2013

The day YouTube died

Hosts of YouTube channels have had the "reply" facilities removed from comments on their channel.  What to do? I hope Google will deal with this CHOP CHOP! It puts me off Google, which I have loved and promoted since they began, but Google+ is really a mess and now YouTube too. Come on - wake up Google - you cannot FORCE everyone to have a Google+ account. YouTube is a complete mess - I now have TWO Google+ accounts and my followers are on the one that is NOT linked to my YouTube vapingpoint page! How daft is that?

I am now on Google+ as vapingpointLiz with 300+ in my circles AND vapingpoint with 0 everything 0 posts, 0 followers - and a vapingpoint YouTube channel with 700+ followers with whom I can't communicate!

Am I mad? You bet!

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Let me depress you today - battery safety video

I seem to be going through a really negative phase in my vaping career. I think my original ecstasy  has been replaced by a fear that this delightful hobby of mine, that has given me such hours of pleasure, will be attacked from without. I feel vaping is being threatened by the accumulating anti tobacco efforts lining up ammunition against us. I have a negative presentiment of our future and I am watching carefully.

I have written regularly just lately of how, whether we like it or not, we are intertwined with smoking and smokers. The first blog I ever wrote about that idea worried me, in case I offended my vaping friends. But I have to get it out. I am not optimistic of our future. My blogs are not designed to pull you down and my intention is not to depress. My intention is to WARN. We can't sit back in our vaping heaven.

We need a battle plan - but what? What more than writing to our local MP's?  Should we also request a review of the smoking bans? Vaping is being banned everywhere as it is perceived as normalising smoking. Perhaps smoking is what needs defending then? The Press don't help. Just like smokers are only represented negatively, we might not avoid that happening to us too. Explosions make good headlines and good excuses for banning electronic cigarettes. Cigarettes don't explode.

 I read e cigarette explosion and watch videos like this I think "Oh no! More stuff they can hold against us! 

So today I made a video on charging batteries safely. I hope I look cheerful. Please share your own safety tips in comments in the name of education so we can share them on. Thanks for reading my blog!

Tuesday 5 November 2013

Invisible, discounted and politically disembowled.

I just read Rise of the fake brands and shortly after Cancer Council slams big tobacco on report -

Quote "THE Cancer Council has slammed a report backed by big tobacco showing that illegal trade in the addictive substance has increased since plain packaging laws were introduced. The KPMG report, commissioned by British American Tobacco Australia, Philip Morris International and Imperial Tobacco Australia, says tobacco smugglers are costing taxpayers more than $1 billion a year. It says the illegal tobacco market now comprises 13.3 per cent of total domestic tobacco consumption. Australia’s world-first plain packaging laws came into effect in December 2012, removing all logos, colour and design from cigarette packets. Cancer Council Australia says the report is part of big tobacco’s push to unwind those laws. “The tobacco industry would do anything to stop plain packaging, especially after recent Australian research showed the plain packs were a turn-off to smokers,” the council’s director of advocacy, Paul Grogan, says in a statement."

The study was funded by Big Tobacco and therefor CANNOT be true.

Yesterday I wrote a blog Smokers have the right to be heard as a spin off of of Simon Clarke's blog asking for our ideas on smoker's rights HERE.

Some responders felt Tobacco Companies should have done more to support smokers as their persecution has unfolded.

It seems to me that both smokers and tobacco companies have the right to be heard. But both have been so completely muzzled that anything they say is simply discounted as having no worth, no weight and no truth.

Vapers are sitting on the fence, dangling their toes on the side of anti-tobacco. We really need to wake up to the truth of their world drive to eradicate smoking in every way possible, by any means. If we are not aware of their nefariousness in doing so, we will be taken by surprise/are taken by surprise when vapers are simply considered smokers. In that capacity we will be invisible, discounted and politically disemboweled.

I'm not holding my breath that we will be considered any differently than smokers and vaping will become simply NRT.

Monday 4 November 2013

Smokers have the right to be heard

 Simon Clark is asking for our ideas HERE.

I am not a smoker, I'm a vaper. I'm a smoker at heart. But if ever we are disempowered as smokers have been, we will need the same rights,

This was my (edited) answer to "Do Smokers have Rights?"

I think smokers have as much right to smoke as Bell ringers have a right to ring bells, as Sportspeople have the right to play sport and, Bell ringers and Sportspeople are treated without judgement by the medical profession which they have paid for with their taxes, when they have been (self) injured. I broke a finger Bell ringing. The hospital classified it as a "sports injury" and gave me a surprising statistic of how many people they treat regularly for rope burns and broken digits, JUST from Bell ringing!  All sports are expensive to our NHS yet personally inflicted. What society views as a "good" lifestyle costs in hip replacements, knee replacements, and foot trouble in later life. Dancers and musicians suffer equally. Many end up with serious health problems from a self inflicted lifestyle. A good number die. Yet they have rights.

Quote (ASH) - "Prior to the implementation of the smokefree law, it was estimated that exposure to secondhand smoke in the workplace caused around 617 premature deaths in the UK each year.

How they worked out this figure must have been magical rather than scientific! For 617 (guesstimate?) deaths from SHS - itself debatable, a quarter of the entire British population have been excommunicated from society, even in places where their SHS can do no harm.

Smokers use a legal product to perform a legal lifestyle.

They do have rights.

They have the right to protest their excommunication from society that has been orchestrated by self righteous people who have used every means  possible and millions of pounds to do it.

They have the right to explain that SHS was an excuse to turn society away from their habit.

They have the right to explain that they are NOT a dying breed (pun intended) but that cancer rates, asthma, allergies and other "smoking related" illnesses are increasing, not falling, despite their excommunication.

They have the right to explain that their habit and self harming has been over exaggerated by the self righteous and that medical porn displayed on their product packs are criminal nocebos performed against them.

The biggest right they have, is the right to free speech. Smokers have a right to be heard. They are never represented fairly in the media They are yelled down on TV, and like the inquisition, they are only allowed to speak when they recant.

Smokers have a right to be heard.


Sunday 3 November 2013

Smokers' rights and tobacco control on BBC Breakfast - oh yes? - well no actually - smokers got muzzled again - vapers beware

Having been pre-warned by this blog from Christopher Snowdon,


 I watched.

All I saw, was some shrieking blonde yelling everyone down with all the old anti smoking drivel we hear over and over again. There was hardly a moment for proper discussion about anything sensible. No time for smokers allowed. The shrieking blonde turns out to be Andrea Crossfield Director of Tobacco Free Futures. I live in the Northwest and I've never heard of her! The interviewer should have put her in place - but of course he didn't. 

To me she's one to avoid. I'm sure she'd have loads to say about elecronic cigarettes and nothing good about them either. God help us. We'd have to remember to shout louder, be ruder and more overwhelming than her.

She has to keep her job going though - and she has SO MUCH to do.

As usual smokers got well muzzled! It's not inconceivable that some day, it will happen to us too.


Saturday 2 November 2013

The brilliance of science - ah yes - brilliant. “Certainly not” to “Absolutely yes”

I just read this and I wondered to what purpose this study is in anyway useful. Most of the authors have doctorates.

 

The Predictive Value of Smoking Expectancy and the Heritability of its Accuracy

 

“Do you think you’ll smoke in a year’s time?”, with answer categories ranging from “Certainly not” to “Absolutely yes” on a 5-point scale. To determine the predictive value of smoking expectancy, analyses were performed in smokers, former smokers, and never-smokers separately. Data of 2,987 adolescents and 4,911 adult twins were analyzed to estimate heritability. A dichotomous variable reflected the ability to predict future smoking status (“correct”/“incorrect”). 

 

Results: Smoking expectancy significantly predicted future smoking status in former smokers and never-smokers.


But smokers are not mentioned? It continues puzzlingly -


"The ability to accurately predict future smoking status was explained by additive genetic factors for 59% in adolescents and 27% in adults, with the remainder being explained by unique environmental factors. 

 

Conclusions: A single question on smoking expectancy helps predict future smoking status. Variation in how well subjects predict their future smoking behaviour is influenced by genetic factors, especially during adolescence. 


Well, BIG DEAL! I wonder how much this study cost - and what WORTH does it have? Or am I missing the point of it?

If asked “Do you think you’ll vape in a year’s time?”, with answer categories ranging from “Certainly not” to “Absolutely yes”, I would answer “Absolutely yes” which would pretty accurately predict my future vaping status - how clever to actually work that out scientifically! But that is NOT what they were working out - they were working out smoking future status in former smokers and never-smokers. And especially adolescents - smoking behaviour is influenced by genetic factors, especially during adolescence. What "genetic factors" might those be? It doesn't say. And Im not subscribing to find out!

Don't you think science is amazing? Answer - “Certainly not” to “Absolutely yes”. What do you think?