Bolton Local Authority Ban ‘Smoking’ Ecigs

“Smoking e-cigarettes banned by Bolton Council and Royal Bolton Hospital”

shouts the headline in today’s Bolton News.

“PEOPLE using electronic cigarettes have been banned from “lighting up” inside council or hospital property.

The “no smoking” policy by Bolton Council and the Royal Bolton Hospital means people will be asked to leave premises if they use e-cigarettes.

Both have confirmed they treat e-cigarettes the same as normal, tobacco cigarettes — meaning smokers have to go outside if they want their nicotine kick.

The controversial battery-powered devices do not contain tobacco, and instead use a heating element which vaporises a liquid solution which can have different flavours.”

Clearly, the local authority and the hospital have lost their marbles since they are banning NOT smoking under rules which ban smoking. Here is the excuse:

“A council spokesman said they have a no-smoking policy across all council buildings, which extends to e-cigarettes.

He added: “We currently treat e-cigarettes the same as normal cigarettes and will continue to do so until there is proven and empirical evidence of the safety of these devices.”

Precisely what right the council has to demand such assurances is beyond me, and why the council should have the right to ban them for this reason is also beyond me. But we have seen again and again how ‘science’ is being degraded far beyond what we thought possible. NOT smoking has been banned because there is insufficient evidence that NOT smoking is not harmful. Yes, according to the spokesperson’s reasoning, NOT smoking could be harmful, and he wants proof that NOT smoking is not harmful before he will permit NOT using tobacco.

Then we move on to the inevitable ‘straw man’ argument  (I didn’t quite understand the ‘straw man’ allusion until someone explained. It is an argument which, in effect, changes the subject. The following is a perfect example):

Heather Edwards, spokesman for the Royal Bolton, confirmed it had the same policy on the guidance of public health experts.

A public health spokesman said: “While it is likely that e-cigarettes are considerably less damaging to health than smoking tobacco, they cannot currently be recommended as part of the clinical management for smoking cessation. “This is because they are unregulated and there is insufficient evidence as to whether they are safe, effective or made to a consistent standard of quality.”

See the straw man? We are talking about a ban on NOT smoking. What the hell does ‘clinical management of smoking cessation’ have to do with it? ‘Clinical management’ is the ‘straw man’.  In reality, when people decide for themselves by using ecigs, ‘clinical management’ is irrelevant.

———-

I wonder if that phrase, ‘clinical management of smoking cessation’, is the key to the whole effort to effectively ban ecigs? When you think about it, ‘clinical management’ is making a lot of people a lot of money. It is not just big pharma and tobacco control top dogs. It is also all the ‘actors’ in between as well. EVERYONE involved is making money out of ‘clinical management’. The whole thing is a massive scam.

But, to make things worse, this scam is almost entirely destructive. The scam of SHS danger has emptied pubs. This afternoon, herself and I and two daughters went to the pub for a little celebration. We went into the pub part and not the restaurant part. In the main room of the pub was a large party of family members having a birthday party. The birthday person was a child of about three years old. There were several other kids there also.  Why are young children being allowed to be exposed in public to the drinking of alcohol? It’s disgusting!! They might get the impression that it is normal to drink alcohol! Its disgusting!! But that is an aside, I suppose, and yet it exposes the ’emasculation’ of the pub industry. They now rely upon birthday parties for children to survive – in the actual pub!

What other damage has been done? We have the evidence of many people that they have also stopped going out much at all, and have stopped buying new clothes, and such. What is the point? We can see the closed and empty pubs, but we cannot see the loss of business from people not buying stuff. Nor can we see the effects of people going on trips abroad to buy their fags, or home-growing, or white van man. There is obviously the increase in smuggling, which has required an increase in border force personnel. It must have done. Ten years ago, I might have brought back from holiday a couple of sleeves of fags. Now I bring back thirty sleeves. I cannot be the only one. I am not smuggling, but thousands of people, non smokers themselves, must be taking advantage. To control this sort of activity, loads of manpower must be required. We must be aware that this manpower is entirely COST. Even if they interrupt supplies, there is nothing gained in savings, since the confiscated goods have to be destroyed – which is itself a further, unproductive cost.

So the full cost of tobacco control in all its forms is hidden. No one knows what they are.

Odd, is it not, that the justification for banning ecig use in council properties and the Bolton hospital is that it is a good thing NOT to stop people smoking. I can see it now. A person who does not know about the ban, and is a dual user, sits in a hospital cafe and pulls out his ecig. Someone says, “You cannot use that in here. It is banned” He replies, “Really? OK” He then exits said cafe and goes outside and has a real fag, even if he has to cadge the fag off someone else. Thus, he realises that giving up smoking is a fools game because the health authorities want him to continue to smoke tobacco. That is what they have said in Bolton. “WE FORBID YOU NOT TO SMOKE”

========

About the last post, re YouGov – blow me down with a feather, I have received a third copy of that survey. Again, I have said that:

a) I smoke every day.

b) I use an ecig.

c) I have no intention of stopping smoking.

Clearly, I am an incorrigible, dual user. If enough people complete the survey in the same way, then tobacco control will be thrust into a complete paradox. Or on the horns of a dilemma, if you like. The more that they discourage ecigs, the more that I shall smoke. The more that I use ecigs, the less control they have.

=======

Smokers were unable to organise, but even if they had been able to do so, they were on a hiding to nothing since the were described and displayed as ‘disgusting, filthy, stinking’. Ecig users have no such baggage. In fact, as I have said before, they hold the ‘high moral ground’. They have stopped smoking tobacco. TC are trying to dislodge them from the ‘high moral ground’ by moving the goalposts from smoke to nicotine/and or safety in a physical sense. Safety? How much more likely is it that a fag end will start a fire than that an ecig battery will explode? There cannot be an exact answer since there has been no research, but Zealots continue to complain, via proxies, that ecigs explode and are dangerous for that reason. And yet, to the best of my knowledge, the Health and Safety Executive have not complained at all.

=======

Whatever. It just so happens that my local councillor is chairman of the health committee.  LOL! Tomorrow, I shall write to him (a proper letter, and not an email) and point out the numbskull logic of his spokesperson. The trouble is that I firmly believe that he is ‘a plant’. That is, that he stood for election pretending to be a conservative when, in fact, he was a anti-smoking zealot. I suspect that there are a number of MPs who are the same. I have no doubt that they were supported in their applications to be a candidate for election by ASH ET AL. And, I have no doubt that these people were put up as representatives of various parties – s0me as conservative, some as labour and some as liberal. I doubt that any were put up as UKIP. I have no doubt, for example, that Williams MP was put up as representative of the liberal party, but was in fact a representative of the Monster Raving Loony anti-smoking party.

We have Monster Raving Loony party members, masquerading as conservatives and such, in our local authority. That is evidenced by their intention to ban NON smoking.