My last vaping video

Script

Thoughts on vaping

I started a video channel in 2011. I called it ‘Vaping for the over sixties’. Now I am in my seventies. Maybe I've just got old and crabby, but I am not going to make any more videos or write about vaping anymore. Firstly, there are wonderful videos on the internet about vaping and vaping products - or at the moment there are. The  disappointment in me is that videos by vapers promoting vaping might be shut down as the cage of hate about vaping constricts us and freedom of speech is closed down by those who control us.

So right now in June 2018, in England, we are free to spread the word that vaping is a good thing. In the UK, there seems to be a saner attitude to vaping. It is allowed by our controllers. You can buy devices freely and vaping is sanctioned as a helpful thing for smokers to “quit “ smoking.

But I have not used vaping to quit smoking, though, of course, I HAVE.  I smoked for fifty years. As the regulations against smoking seeped into society and smokers became the persecuted minority, I vowed I would NEVER give it up. The word “quit" is a word put about by Tobacco Control to give the idea that  stopping smoking is a flippant thing that anyone can do, like it is a simple thing. I don't believe that.

People smoke for reasons other than  simply being hooked on nicotine. It has always been nicotine that has been blamed yet, with the advent of vaping, a lot of ideas should have been jettisoned about nicotine. Nicotine was the  bad boy in smoking that, we were told, addicted us, and killed us.

Tobacco Control, lied to themselves and the world by demonizing nicotine. There are still people who think that nicotine causes cancer. And that  IT is what enslaves us to smoking.

From my own experiences as an enslaved smoker, it is something else in burning tobacco, some combination of chemicals that my body topped up with every time I smoked a cigarette. As a vaper, now, I never get the frantic meltdown if I do not vape, that used to overcome me without a cigarette. There is some other factor in inhaled tobacco that creates the craving.

I vape about three mls of e liquid a day. I mix my own. The  amount of nicotine is at strengths between 1.1 and .6 percent. It doesn't  seem to matter what strength of nicotine it is but flavour is important to me. I used to often vape pure vegetable glycerine without nicotine or favouring. It is pleasantly sweet. But currently I only have aqueous vegetable glycerine which is bland, uninteresting and tasteless.

I switched to vaping as a SUBSTITUTE for smoking. It was never my intention to, as they say, ‘quit’. Smoking is deeply rooted in my psyche. And I believe it is rooted that way many people. Smoking is a comfort for me. A way to fill a hole. A pleasurable  activity, meaningful. It is the marker of peak experiences, deep lows, celebrations, triumphs, a friend that accompanies me through my life. My best friend. How thoughtless it is for someone to tell me I must simply ‘quit’.

It is more realistic to consider the idea that many people, for whatever psychological reason, who smoke, do not simply quit, but abandon a friend. The depression that such people feel, the emptiness, the loneliness, the heavy hearts are because they are suffering grief. I could never face the grief.

So vaping, for me, was the substitution of one friend for another. I have been such a happy vaper.

I achieved what  Tobacco Control wanted. I stopped smoking.

But now, I see some kind of insanity in the world that has grown up around vaping. In some countries it is illegal. Even possessing vaping paraphernalia can get you in prison. Don't think this is some primitive, backward society somewhere remote. It is happening in so called civilised countries. In some, nicotine is illegal. Nicotine!

Instead of the welcoming of a technology that could truly make people give up their best friends and discover a new friend, we have prohibition, false science, scare stories, and persecution. Those responsible are the same Tobacco Control that are on a mission to make the whole world smoke free and destroy the Tobacco Industry.

They are using the same tactics about vaping. In the UK, we already have restrictions on the size of our tanks, the strength of our e liquid and, the most frustrating thing of all, the tiny tiny 10ml bottles in which we have to buy e liquid. This for a disabled person, drives me nuts. Also, we now are producing and discarding millions of little bottles!

But, at least, in the UK, vaping is not illegal.

Since I have been vaping, vapers themselves have changed. The absolute joy and comradie of discovering vaping has evaporated.

There is my kind of vaper, the kind that still thinks of themselves as a smoker who now vapes, that has switched friends so to speak, and then there is the other kind of vaper who is a bitter anti smoker.

Anti smoking vapers are not doing any good. They simply alienate smokers. They regurgitate the anti smoking dogma that has poisoned them. They quit from fear and compliance.

I don't care if people smoke or vape. Smokers have had enough persecution. They  must be the most discriminated group on earth in the West. There has been no consideration shown to smokers in the UK, though, some European countries have not been so terminally infected by anti smoking lobby groups. For me, watching how Tobacco Control has promoted themselves worldwide, frightens me. It is totalitarian at its clearest. It means, to me, that any ideology using the same tactics could gradually remove our right to be free.

The strongest tool that Tobacco Control used, by design, planned at their conference when they were first forming and on purpose, was that they could claim second hand smoke was affecting others, and that smokers were not only killing themselves, but everyone else too. They used that to drive their ideology.

As of now, how dangerous second hand smoke is, has not been proved. Couples in which one partner smokes and the other doesn't have been studied over lifetimes without producing any proof of fatal dangers.

This is important in considering how Tobacco Control is infecting the minds of society to also demonize vaping. What is our vapour doing to others? How frightened can they make society of US?

So, as I become more satisfied with devices we vapers can buy, they are getting better and better, I get more alarmed by how, this wonderful friend I have, is being demonized by anti smokers. To me, it is tragic how vaping has not been accepted for the pleasure it gives millions. Or, in my own experience, the ability to switch this devoted smoker, ME, to a substitute friend, to quit, to enthuse me to actually make videos for seven years, to write blogs, defend  and talk about vaping. If vaping did that to me, it can change millions of people. And of course, it has!

Unwittingly, my humble video channel 'Vaping for the over sixties', has encouraged hundreds of people to stop smoking. I know, because they write to me. I thank everyone for watching my videos which I am going to leave up as HISTORICAL. I will leave it all here till YouTube removes me for so called ‘promoting vaping’.

Younger people than me need to go on fighting the fight. A lot of you don't remember the bad old days where people were free in an old fashioned world full of smokers. You cannot know the imagination, creativity, optimism of writers, artists, movie makers and society in general in those days. It seems to have disappeared now. A pall of depression has fallen over us. Society is being altered, dumbed, manicured. It has become a topiary where every stray shoot is being snipped off so that everyone conforms to the design of the controllers.

Everyone in the West is complaining their rights are violated by this, that or the other thing. Suicide rates have risen. The obsession with lifestyle has overtaken the spontaneity of enjoying a life.

No one smokes behind the shed in school any more. Or uses smoking as a rite of passage. They use much more dangerous stuff. Children are ashamed of their parents for smoking, drinking or being fat. School makes them so by telling children how dangerous to life smoking, drinking, and eating is. Their parents are killing themselves. How frightening that must feel about someone you love.

There are parents agonising about the behaviours of their children too. We are obsessed with vice but smoking is the greatest evil of all.

I wonder sometimes, in this time of war - the war on smoking, drugs, drink, food, thought, hate, men, bullying, and the many other wars of the modern age how the world would have been for young people had there been no wars, how life would be in a society where lobby groups were not allowed to partake in government, where drugs were legal and medically controlled, where the rite of passage was a cigarette, or sex was a thing you did rather than simply watched. And where people were free to NOT take offence.

It is politically incorrect to speak about many things that were once openly discussed, and, in the UK, in the twenty years I have lived here, the people i know have become more reticent, more tight lipped and more fearful of simply being themselves. We are being mentally sanitised in the West. Newspeak is the new speak. We have entered George Orwell's 1984.

I ask young people listening to me, to investigate how the world has changed since the times we were free from excessive regulation. How, gradually, you are being muzzled, manipulated and brainwashed. Us oldies will not be here much longer. We have revealed a stunning truth that despite eating all wrong, smoking and drinking all wrong, being disciplined all wrong, being groped, flirted with, raped even, in a society run by men, we survived. We even flourished.

We are the longest living generation of all time.

Everyone nowadays has a better standard of living, better medical technology, better choices in food, clothing, and most material things than we had. And most people can read and write.

With all the wrong ways we were treated that in these times would be considered shocking, and all the wrong behaviours we practised in our lifestyle that are frowned on now, my generation developed true grit, produced wonderful music, comedy, literature, poetry, science and ideas that changed the world. And we did it in a smoking world.

Be aware of the danger of a world full of those promoting their own ideologies in the name of HEALTH or HAPPINESS. They are getting governments to legislate your every action.

Be sceptical of anything that regulates your thoughts. Be sceptical of so called science. Investigate the funding, the bias, the motive of the scientist doing the science. Believe nothing just because you are told to.

Health follows happiness. And happiness can develop when you are free.

If you smoke, smoke without guilt. Many smokers do NOT die from smoking. If you vape, vape without guilt. We are the big experiment that is worth it. Do not let the tight lipped disapprovers get you down. And to both smokers, vapers and those who are interested in liberty, resist totalitarianism of any kind.

If you haven't, read, (or watch the films) the book George Orwell's  1984.

Thank you for vaping with me. I wish you joy.

I am giving up

I am thinking of terminating my online presence. I'm giving up, bowing out.

Since 2011, I have promoted vaping - it is a wonderful thing in my life. An accidental substitute for smoking which delighted and surprised me.

The 2013 EU Tobacco Control Directive spoiled it for me - I wrote lots and protested like everyone else.

We "saved smoker's lives". That made me feel uncomfortable.

How did vapers save people's lives?  It was called 'harm reduction'.

Since then, we have had to save our own lives from the malicious activities of Tobacco Control by pleading 'harm reduction'. That made me feel uncomfortable.

I have done a lot of thinking about the things that make me feel uncomfortable.

I will not criticise smoking and smokers by offering them 'harm reduction'.They are grown up people for god's sake. I don't mind if they smoke, or not.

The nub of the whole problem, is not vapers vaping, nor smokers smoking.

The nub of the problem is Tobacco Control. The nub of the problem is a "Smoke free World" - "The Endgame". And the constant meddling in the private and public lives of people. It is the template for more meddling - obesity, alcohol, lifestyle, for plain packaging on alcohol, tax hikes and general persecution of the population.

I see something totalitarian in Tobacco Control - it's a new 'form' I don't recognise. There is something sinister about the effort to engineer society, to prapagandise, brainwash, to turn people against each other, to deconstruct society and reconstruct it in a new 'cleansed' form.

But other things are happening around me that have a similar sinister 'form'. I think they are linked.

I think we have a new Western culture developing - or rather being purposefully directed by the philosophy that has infected academia, our elite and our governments.

I am talking about the creeping oppression I perceive around me, as the few are 'freed' at the expense of others and a new 'normal' is set in place - by force.

In my lifetime, there has been a huge change in society. Wrongs righted, standards of living improved, equality for women, acceptance of homosexuality, political rights for black people and medical advancements. But, as we were living through these freedoms, new regulations were imposed on us 'for our own good'.

I have lived in the UK for twenty years. There have been major changes here in that time - major.

We are being influenced by a philosophy deliberately promoted to breakdown the old ways and introduce new ways of thinking and control behaviour.

There are sinister influences afoot, breaking down our culture to produce a weakened, divided people. We are in the middle of a social revolution. It is being set up all over the world. Its flagship and model is Tobacco Control. The way it has promoted prohibition is the pattern on which other repression can be affixed.

Is this uncomfortable alteration in society, 'evolution' of our thought as we become more sophisticated? A natural process?  The development of a caring and responsible culture? Is it enlightenment?

No, I don't think so. It is being developed on purpose. It's a political manipulation..

I mentioned my thoughts on Frank Davis blog post Disintegration.

Is it this thing suggested below....?

Nisakiman replied - I quote (with permission)

Basically, the Frankfurt School believed that as long as an individual had the belief – or even the hope of belief – that his divine gift of reason could solve the problems facing society, then that society would never reach the state of hopelessness and alienation that they considered necessary to provoke socialist revolution. Their task, therefore, was as swiftly as possible to undermine the Judaeo-Christian legacy. To do this they called for the most negative destructive criticism possible of every sphere of life which would be designed to de-stabilize society and bring down what they saw as the ‘oppressive’ order. Their policies, they hoped, would spread like a virus—‘continuing the work of the Western Marxists by other means’ as one of their members noted.

To further the advance of their ‘quiet’ cultural revolution – but giving us no ideas about their plans for the future – the School recommended (among other things):

1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity.
6. The promotion of excessive drinking
7. Emptying of churches
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9. Dependency on the state or state benefits
10. Control and dumbing down of media
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family

One of the main ideas of the Frankfurt School was to exploit Freud’s idea of ‘pansexualism’ – the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women. To further their aims they would:

• attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children.
• abolish differences in the education of boys and girls
• abolish all forms of male dominance – hence the presence of women in the armed forces
• declare women to be an ‘oppressed class’ and men as ‘oppressors’
Munzenberg summed up the Frankfurt School’s long-term operation thus: ‘We will make the West so corrupt that it stinks.’

The School believed there were two types of revolution: (a) political and (b) cultural. Cultural revolution demolishes from within. ‘Modern forms of subjection are marked by mildness’. They saw it as a long-term project and kept their sights clearly focused on the family, education, media, sex and popular culture.

http://www.whale.to/c/frankfurt_school1.html  (end quote)

Or is that just conspiracy theory? the same ideas but blamed on conspiracy theory, that is increasingly becoming a 'respectable' idea by thinking people about this historic change in our culture.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankfurt_School#Cultural_Marxism_conspiracy_theory

Or is it rather? a new social science -  

Cultural Marxism sees culture as a main cause for many different kinds of inequalities:

• Race (Whites/non-Whites)
• Culture (Western/non-Western)
• Family (nuclear family/non-nuclear family)
• Religion (Christianity/atheism and religious minorities)
• Gender (men/women)
• Sexual orientation (heterosexual/LGBT)

Cultural Marxism places great emphasis on analysing, controlling, and changing the popular culture, the popular discourse, the mass media, and the language itself. Seeing culture as often having more or less subconscious influences on people which create and sustain inequalities, Cultural Marxists themselves often try to remove these inequalities by more or less subtle manipulation and censorship of culture. Link

You decide what this thing is that is changing our world, which old people see, but which young people are not aware of. Anti Conservatism? or Conspiracy? or Philosophy? or Totalitarianism?

However you view what is happening in our world, it is new and inexorable.

Common sense and wisdom have been silenced. We are ruled by small groups lobbying for their rights/ideologies at the expense of the rights/freedoms of others, sanctioned by our elite.

I got completely depressed on reading Clive Bates new post  - a perfect example of a totalitarian industry at work-

Letter to the Foundation for a Smoke Free World about money, governance, conflicts and Philip Morris International

I cannot fight such a thing by complaining about Tobacco Control. It is a tiny aspect of a huge problem that we should all be aware of. A problem of new 'industries' employing people to corral other people and cleanse society on a massive scale. Controlling the people by legislation is called totalitarianism, whether you are controlling thought by regulation, hate crime, immigration, abortion, alcohol, food, behaviour, health, or habits.

It is wrong.

Ubuntu, my friends.Thank you to those who have followed me.

Updated Vaping in the UK - leading the way....

I have updated this post today 1st November 2017

Vaping is not included in the Smokefree legislation in the UK.

That means, vapers may vape where smoking is prohibited.

This is a very important concept.

It means a no smoking sign does NOT mean no vaping. And a no vaping sign affixed near to a no smoking sign means the placement of it is in ignorance of the advisement of Public Authorities.

England has led the way in many things, historically. It has influenced attitudes of other countries, politically and morally and introduced new ideas. (Top ten Inventions)

I am hoping it will do it again. As far as getting a grip on the "problem" of vaping and vapers, it MUST be leading the way. Australia seems to be in the dark ages, and the USA, might soon be if they cannot realise how amazing vaping is and how it can be used to improve the lives of many.

But dark forces are still out to misinform the public about vaping. Link I am hoping that the acceptance in our UK parliament of vaping and vapers, will eventually muzzle the fear mongers. And spread the idea that vaping is a good thing to the rest of the world.

Here are some highlights (below) of the debate in Parliament that took place yesterday here in the UK.

It pleased the vaping half of me - and also the smoker part of me. In fact recently, I have decided that modern smokers are very lucky to have vaping as a tool when smoking is forbidden. That was not available to me when I was persecuted all those years for smoking.

And the new advice that vaping not be included in smoking bans, is VERY good.

It gives, even the most hardened smoker, a way out and leaves them with some dignity.

It would have made me, the smoker, far less bitter!

May the United Kingdom lead the way again.

Here's a good debate (highlights of) that occurred in Parliament, in the Commons, in October 2017

The video below is the debate in Parliament on 1st November 2017

We ARE EVOLVING!

Tobacco Company e cigarettes - to vape or not to vape?

I have recently reviewed an e cigarette made by Fontem, a subsidiary of Imperial tobacco. I have no problem with Tobacco Companies entering the e cigarette market for these reasons.

1. As a business, it would be foolish not to. We should expect it, not howl in opposition to the very same Group that we happily bought our cigarettes from during all our years of smoking.
2. In my experience vaping is a substitute for smoking - it's the 'new' smoking - it's the way to take smoking into the future. Big Tobacco already have the cigarette market, so offering e cigarettes at point of cigarette sales is logical.
3. Those who have been introduced to vaping by buying a Big Tobacco point of sale vaping device at a cigarette counter, might investigate other products on sale elsewhere once the vaping ice is broken. In fact I'd expect it. Big Tobacco products 'break the ice' into vaping.
4.  Big Tobacco has been very slow to get on top of vaping - to offer anything truly pleasing to smokers. As large lumberous companies, they cannot possibly offer the products that come and go at mercurial speed that Vape Shops and specialist places do. 
5. I see hobbyist vapers that cloud, sub ohm, build coils etc, as a subset of the group called 'vapers' in the world. I see the more humble devices to be the real backbone of vaping. Those are the ones we use at work, out shopping and travelling with. THAT'S vaping.

So I get to the place where I have to admit that most people switching from smoking to vaping, need to be steered away from using high wattage, low nic, 'specialist' devices. To my mind they are expensive. They are expensive in extra e liquid, battery power and possibly health wise. I say this because I don't know how injurious it is to my lungs to inhale such huge amounts of vapour, especially flavour in vast quantities. 

So I prefer to talk about the humble, the 'out of date' beginners stuff because I have the gut feeling the future of vaping is the solid, safe stuff. I include in that box mods and variable wattage devices, improved tanks and methods of inhalation.

I would consider 1st generation devices - the little pokey cigalike - obsolete! But even they have their place.Big Tobacco seemed to offer smokers those first, or devices with pods or pre-filled cartridges in an attempt to keep vapers in a buying loop. That was an error! Smokers aren't stupid. But BAT now offer quite decent box mods and respectable utilitarian devices and tanks. 

Big Tobacco is waking up. What do we do about that?

They could use their power to wipe out the small businesses as seems to be occuring in the USA , but my guess is that as they stumble forward into the vaping market, lots will be happening under their wings in small business versatility.

I think Big Tobacco will provide the solid, utilitarian vaping products for smokers well into the future.

A smaller company than BAT (British American Tobacco) that I supported for 50 years by smoking Rothmans and rolling my own, is Imperial Tobacco. Their subsidiary is Fontem, the makers of the Blu Pro.

I liked the Blu Pro when I reviewed it two or three years ago. It has improved. I still like it. It is what I would call a good, solid, no fuss, inexpensive utilitarian device that will provide smokers with a pleasing experience.

I reviewed six new flavours. But there are many Here 

I believe Blu are coming out with something new - a new device. Maybe it's a box mod? Who knows?

If they ask me, I'll review that too.

Big Tobacco is hated by so many vapers, and I don't know why. Tobacco Control is our real enemy.

I do not hate Big Tobacco and blame them for making me smoke, nor blame Big Alcohol for turning me into an alcoholic, or Big Food for making me fat. I think the dishonesty about smoking from Big Tobacco has just about been equalled by Tobacco Control about the harms of of SHS and now, of vaping.

Reduced nicotine cigarettes and other insanities

Here is a picture from an article by an idiot in the New York Times

Taking the Addiction Out of Smoking

This picture is supposed to show how taking the nicotine out of cigarettes will help smokers smoke LESS. (fourth image)

I kid you not!

So I am going to suggest this picture should be reversed to show what happens when you take the nicotine out of cigarettes.

Lets call the images one, two, three, four.

Number four image is the face with the least smoke around it. To my mind and from my own personal experience, image four is a picture of a person who smokes GOOD STRONG CIGARETTES!

Number one image is the smoker who has been forced by insane meddling to reduce nicotine, to smoke a product that is harming them. They are smoking more - MORE. They are obliterated by smoke.

Cigarettes with nonaddictive nicotine levels would be radically different from what used to be known as “low tar” or “light” cigarettes, marketing gimmicks now barred by law. Those cigarettes were advertised as delivering less nicotine and tar into the lungs, even though there was no actual reduction.

No - there WAS a reduction in the experience of the consumer buying the product. They were terrible things! People smoked more.

Under the F.D.A. proposal, nicotine in cigarettes would be set at a level so low that smokers would not be able to extract enough to create or sustain addiction. Cigarette makers today keep the nicotine at between 1 and 2 percent by weight, having found this to be the Goldilocks optimum, neither too harsh nor too mild. Reducing this percentage by a factor of 10 would make it very difficult for cigarettes to become addictive. Reducing it even further would make addiction virtually impossible. Kids might start smoking, but they wouldn’t have trouble quitting.

Really? What a load of bollocks!  Nicotine has already been reduced - cigarettes today are not like they used to be before they were meddled with.

The beauty of the Tobacco Control Act signed by President Barack Obama in 2009 is that while the F.D.A. is barred from requiring the removal of allnicotine from cigarettes, or from banning cigarettes altogether, the agency can set a maximum nicotine level in the interest of public health. So though the tobacco industry cannot be forced to reduce nicotine to zero, it could be required to cut the level by, say, 99 percent.

The BEAUTY? Beauty?

Come on.

If the industry is serious about what it claims to want, maybe cigarette makers should sit down with the F.D.A. and hammer out a plan to end this catastrophic and entirely preventable epidemic.

This catastrophic and entirely preventable epidemic has been made worse by Tobacco Control interfering with the product. Give smokers proper cigarettes made with proper NATURAL tobacco as it once used to be. It should have been required that cigarettes be manufactured to high standards, with the best ingredients.  THAT'S what you should have done. 

Remember all our hard work in Brussels?

I have never heard of the group

Corporate Europe Observatory

They expose corporate lobbying at the European Union. That's a good thing, yes?

In their leader, they say 

'Brussels is at the centre of EU decision-making and as such attracts thousands of lobbyists promoting the interests of big business. In this section you can find basic information about this corporate lobbying and how it affects you as a citizen.'

That's a good thing, yes?

So, I did a bit of surfing around on their site looking for 'Smokefree', ASH and other lobby groups.

Well, they don't seem to be lobby groups - just NGO's.

I see my protest blogging started in 2012 with posts called

Who the fuck are these people? and Getting to know WHO! and A bunch of ignorant, backward, bigoted loonies

By 2013, us vapers and smokers were working hard - HARD! 

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

Our guts were pouring out in the end. Some of us just collapsed under the strain. Other stubborn ones carried on. They are still at it! I thank them all for fighting so hard - the vapoteurs united! Every single small action by a ton of ordinary folk led to a tsunami of citizens  across the European Union trying to change our future as the death knell sounded for US by decree from World Rulers - Tobacco Control.

Would you like to know what was thought about us in the European Union?

I quote -

Paul Murphy MEP explained that in the Parliament, MEPs “are subjected to a lot of astroturf campaigning in the sense that it is manufactured. We get emails from so-called ordinary constituents about electronic cigarettes. But they are really detailed about the Directive.”

‘Astroturf’ is the name given to seemingly grass roots campaigns, that have actually been established, encouraged and sometimes funded by companies and corporate lobby groups interested in their success. One MEP assistant told CEO: “They have organised online, created electronic cigarette forums. They’re quite an aggressive lobby”. Another said: “We get a lot of abuse on Twitter about calling for more legislation on electronic cigarettes.”

Totally Wicked, another UK electronic cigarette firm, sent every MEP an e-cigarette. One MEP commented incredulously that “They are sending addictive drugs to MEPs. It is quite incredible”. Jutta Haug MEP from the S&D said she had been “strongly lobbied by electronic cigarette users”. The rapporteur on the Tobacco Products Directive, Linda McAvan MEP, has also said that “There is a very aggressive attitude.”

>>>

Conclusions

The tobacco lobby – and e-cigarette industry – has been intensifying its lobbying offensive towards the European Parliament. Their tactics and strategies have included frequent calls, emails and invitations for drinks and meals; the distribution to MEPs of product samples; turning up to MEP offices without prior arrangements; putting pressure on MEPs to table amendments that are in their interests; orchestrating email and social media campaigns; and, indirect lobbying through small retailers, anti-counterfeiting firms and farmers’ groups. All of this should be seen in the context of the UN FCTC – which prohibits contacts between public health policy-makers and the tobacco industry unless strictly necessary to regulate it, and then only under complete public transparency.
The bulk of our research, including contacts with MEPs, has indicated that:

• Many MEPs, their assistants and advisers have described an intense or even 'aggressive' lobby from tobacco industry representatives, particularly in regards to high numbers of telephone calls, emails and requests for meetings. Others seem to be less targeted, and note public health NGOs, although far fewer in number and resources, also have a prominent lobby presence.

• It is apparent that the tobacco lobby knows who to target to achieve the best results (for its interests), in particular targeting MEPs that they see as more receptive to their arguments as well as those on opinion giving – rather than the lead committee on the Tobacco Products Directive – committees.

• The electronic cigarette industry has in recent months represented a particularly vociferous lobby, notably using social media campaigns, ‘astro turfing’ tactics as well as the distribution of free samples.

• Only some political groupings, as well as certain individual MEPs – notably including the rapporteur on the Directive - are publicly disclosing meetings and contacts with tobacco industry representatives. There is not yet a consistent implementation of the UN FCTC rules on contacts with tobacco lobbyists by the European Parliament. There have even – very worryingly – been signals from the Parliament that suggest they do not consider the FCTC to be legally binding on them and consequently see no need for a consistent approach to transparency around tobacco contacts.

• There is evidence that industry-sourced amendments have made their way more or less word-for-word into the amendments proposed by some MEPs. Two MEPs in particular appear to have largely copy-pasted from the documents showing amendments in the industry's favour – and contrary to the strengthening of public health policy.

With a key European Parliament ENVI committee vote on new tobacco legislation taking place later this week, this report is a curtain-raiser on the scale and intensity of tobacco industry lobbying that has been going on in the Parliament in recent months. The tobacco industry has a long record of manipulation and disinformation, which has - uniquely - resulted in international law intended to minimise interactions between the tobacco industry and public-health policy makers. The lobby battle around the EU's new Tobacco Products Directive however shows considerable activity from traditional tobacco lobbyists as well as e-cigarette companies, resulting in numerous contacts between policy-makers and the tobacco industry, many of which are subject to little or no transparency. The concerns expressed by many MEPs about the apparent tobacco industry amendments tabled via their Parliamentary colleagues, indicates that the tobacco lobby is having significant success where it should not even be having significant access.

For every vaper/smoker/non-vaper/non-smoker/friends/families that personally sacrificed their time, their money, their relationships, the 'astroturfers' all, that fought in this campaign, I salute you!

Tobacco Industry? My foot!

In actual fact the 'astroturfers' you ignored - millions of us - yes millions - were just ordinary people like me.

Lobbyists all fired up ahead of key vote

Why should smokers defend vapers?

I recently published a post called Why should vapers defend smokers. a lot of people have read it.

But today, I want to ask why smokers should defend vapers.

There has been such bad blood between vapers and smokers with vapers resorting to all the Tobacco Control language like 'the filthy habit of smoking' 'stinkies' (for cigarettes) and repeating Tobacco Control catch phrases and dodgy science about smoking. Even 'vaping saves lives' can be seen as a judgment on smokers.

Smokers see vapers as trampling all over THEM whilst trying to get approval at cost to the already persecuted smoker.

The treatment and complete disregard for smokers has been abominable. My rage was ignited when, as a smoker, on a training course, I was 'allowed' to smoke in a 1910 urinal, uncleaned from that time, stinking of old pee that encrusted the walls and floor - an unused 'room' at the end of the building that was 'the smoking room'. This was way back when businesses were required to provide smoking rooms. I was a dignified woman, being trained to manage other dignified women, and we had to cower in an unclean urinal, trying not to heave or touch anything. The company for whom I actually worked had provided us with a perfectly good smoking room, so the complete disrespect was a stark, offensive thing to me.

There were many, many offensive things done to me as a smoker. I have not forgotten.

But I shall tell you of this experience which branded on my mind that Tobacco Control was the most evil thing and very dangerous in its ideology. I had flown back from Paris. (where there was a charming open air garden in the middle of the airport where smokers could smoke) to Manchester airport. The smokers on the plane, me included, that were travelling up to Cumbria, made a beeline for the station - the OPEN AIR station, to enjoy a cigarette. There were new 'NO SMOKING' signs everywhere. No smoking on an open air station? So we lit up. Within minutes there were airport staff on the platform with squeegy bottles of water spraying those of us who refused to put our cigarettes out. People were shocked. We were being physically attacked in our own country by insane 'enforcers'. We were attacked by our own countrymen.

So you will see that inciting the citizens of a country to attack their own countrymen for an ideology, is not far off dangerous stuff that can spin out of control to much deeper, evil actions.

Smokers in the UK may be attacked in any way, by law, by taxes, by exclusion, by insults, by vilification by anyone, anywhere, however they wish. It is approved of by the state.

There is only one word for such state approved violence in a country - unacceptable!

That is what vapers need to get their heads around. Stop buying into an evil system. Don't do it yourselves!

But

Smokers - look sharp - the arrival of vaping technology that every passing week is making vaping as pleasurable as smoking, is a wonderful thing for all smokers. Vapers might have insulted you in their efforts for survival, and I'm sorry for that. But suddenly it looks as if vaping will be 'normalised' for the first time in any Western Country. Vapers may vape at work. 

Smokers could take some time to consider that supporting vapers in their efforts for fairness towards themselves, could be very good for smokers too. Despite the dreadfully unethical actions that you have endured, the fact that there IS a substitute for smoking is a wonderful thing. It's not smoking as you really like to use tobacco, but it's a way to comfort and (even) give you pleasure.

And the best thing I like about vaping EVERYWHERE, which I do on purpose because it gives me such joy, is saying in my mind "Fuck you Tobacco Control, Go stuff yourselves!".