Dangerous days - do-gooders for vaping are up against their own selves

In the old days society had charities that did good for the people. We had real charities, that collected money for their mission from the people themselves, or were assisted by religious organizations or wealthy sponsors. That was before Governments became Corporations, and before citizens paid "income" tax. Things were pretty chaotic. Roads were bad. Schooling was a privilege. Being well-fed, warm, clean and dry in your home was for people who had money. TB, venereal disease, child mortality was common. Life was hard. People smoked cigarettes and tobacco that was not adulterated by Big Tobacco or tobacco hating do-gooders. Public Health was not about smoking, it was about the really important stuff - public health.

Life was hard right up to the 1950's when ordinary people were able to afford indoor sanitation, plumbing, and machines to help them in their homes. Smoking became fashionable due to huge propaganda from Big Tobacco that it was "elegant" (for women) "manly" (for men) and "good for the nerves". Big Tobacco had been assisted by Edward Bernays, the same chap that advised Anti-tobacco on how to attack and marginalise smokers, to deconstruct the success of Big Tobacco.   

"The symbiotic relationship between cigarettes and PR goes back even further than the 1950s, to the early 20th century when both were fledgling industries, and the tobacco companies used PR's psychological marketing skills to first 'hook' women and then children to their drug.

Edward Bernays, Ivy Lee and John Hill today are legends within the PR profession. Bernays in particular is often referred to as the "father of PR." All three worked on PR for tobacco, pioneering techniques that today remain the PR industry's stock in trade: third party advocacy, subliminal message reinforcement, junk science, phony front groups, advocacy advertising, and buying favorable news reporting with advertising dollars.

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Thanks to Bernays and other early pioneers of public relations, cigarettes built a marketing juggernaut upon an unshakeable identification with sex, youth, vitality and freedom. The work for the tobacco industry, in turn, earned PR widespread credibility and launched the rise of today's multi-billion dollar public relations industry.

 http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/How_Tobacco_and_PR_Grew_Up_Together

The Anti Tobacco Industry, has now grown more powerful and profitable than Big Tobacco. It is a "Charity" of the new variety, that is, in many of its sections, funded by our "income" tax and Big Pharma. And they have used all the Bernays techniques to push the most degrading and vicious marketing to control and persecute smokers as a group. The PR they have used at first was against Big Tobacco. But it morphed into an attempt to stop people smoking by sheer force and shame.  Smoking was marketed as not "elegant" (for women), nor "manly" (for men) and not "good for the nerves" but fatal to health. Society began to be educated about smoking, and this was a good thing. Many people stopped smoking. At THAT point The Anti Tobacco Industry should have stopped their activities. But some people still smoked.

Enter the marketing tool of "emotion" - fear - the smoke you are inhaling is not only harming you, but also everyone around you. This idea was the most malignant marketing tool yet. The Anti Tobacco Industry had found their best weapon to use against individual smokers - not against Big Tobacco! The "science" they offered for Second Hand Smoke is wobbly to say the least.

The Anti Tobacco Industry at this point, in my mind, became a disgusting, evil thing. Quite as evil in their marketing spin as their opposing industry, Big Tobacco, ever was.

Second Hand Smoke and children has been the weapon used to force legislation against smokers. Smokers were forced outside even though children were not pub regulars, or workers. The idea was pushed onto Governments worldwide.The world is swathed in bans against smokers smoking. People with mental health problems, prisoners, pensioners, have all suffered, and the "science" offered us in the UK as to how children's health has improved since the bans is fishy.

I really do think that in the early days, Tobacco Control was a legitimate movement. I am no admirer of Big Tobacco. They should certainly have been forced out of advertising, but Tobacco Control should have demanded safer cigarettes made with proper tobacco and safe papers. But they never did that - they turned their attention to individual people. They shamed them, turned others against them, divided society to make smokers despised. Trouble is, they have become peddlers of misery.

Like Big Tobacco, they meddle with "facts". As a vaper, I can watch them doing it about vaping. I have come to despise anyone who regurgitates the dogmas and creed pushed by Tobacco Control. The tobacco ban in Britain should be re-designed. We live at a time where technology could give smokers the dignity of a safe place to smoke. The Tobacco Control Industry should be deconstructed. They should receive no more funding from any governments. They are simply parasitic. Their work is done. We have a substitute for smoking invented by smokers to lessen the harm done to us by smoking.

But, now, we have "friendly" Tobacco Control employees and scientists who are fighting our cause because vaping could be used for "harm reduction".

How do we consider them? Friends? Foes? I think they are facing themselves and they might not be aware of the deep corruption that exists within their own groups. They are Tobacco Control after all and we should be cautious of them. Not one of them would stand up for smokers I don't think. Vapers will simply be classed as smokers by WHO and the Tobacco Control Directive will come into force despite them. All the viciousness that they themselves have practised towards smokers, will apply to vapers too.

Public Health should not be the servant of Prohibitionists offering them dodgy science to persecute a minority.The vapers' "friends" are the same do-gooders that have been active in making smokers lives miserable rather than transforming the product with their power. MAYBE they can actually DO some good now as they meet together in Europe to discuss nicotine which they themselves have maligned.

I really do hope so. MAYBE there is some sanity somewhere?