Glasgow demo against the medical nicotine scam

[kate]

Please attend this demo if you can get to Glasgow on 15 June. This conference is an outrageous waste of money to promote the medical nicotine industry ... while essential NHS services are being cut back.

www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=121514057879420

Peaceful Demonstration against Smoking Cessation Conference

'The UK National Smoking Cessation Conference is the world's largest gathering of stop smoking practitioners, policy makers and researchers.

...

All patient groups are covered, including pregnant smokers, young people, those with mental health problems, in secure environments, and hard to reach groups. Treatment modalities are also comprehensively addressed with presentations describing the state of the art on new medications, forthcoming treatments (like the nicotine vaccine), as well as researchers and practitioners presenting the latest on optimising existing treatments that are known to be effective, such as Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT), with results of work looking at combining products and ‘pre-loading’ prior to quitting.

Although smoking cessation is the main focus of the conference, tobacco control measures such as smoke free public places and harm reduction are also discussed, particularly in relation to how they impact on services helping people to stop smoking.'

In other words – the SMOKING CESSATION INDUSTRY holds its annual conference on this day. Nearly 500 highly paid health service personnel will spend up to two days sharing ideas on extending the smoking cessation market.

Conference programme www.uknscc.org/2010_UKNSCC/programme.html

WHY DOES THIS ACTIVITY GET PUBLIC SUBSIDY WHEN FRONTLINE HEALTH SERVICES ARE ON THE LINE?

DEMONSTRATE PEACEFULLY OUTSIDE THE RADISSON HOTEL, ARGYLE STREET, GLASGOW G2 8DL during the closing hours of the conference on 15 June


Tuesday, 15 June 2010 at 16:00

Radisson Hotel, 301 Argyle St, Glasgow

[Chrissie]

kate, I so hope our lovely Scottish friends will be able to attend this demo.

[kate]

I hope so too Chrissie.


Here are some action points that folks might be able to help with.
ukvapers.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=75&d=1274796005

Please remember that we're victims of the cessation scam as much as smokers, they want to steal our nicotine to make it look like they're good at their jobs. It's important that this expensive industry, which is probably no more effective than unaided cessation, is held to account.

[Chrissie]

Some of their ideas are totally crazy, aren't they Kate? For instance :

"paying expectant mothers a weekly allowance ‘to give up smoking’. "

Er can they really prove for certain that someone has given up before handing out the payment to them? Or can they prove that the pregnant woman really did used to smoke?

[kate]

I know, it is strange. It seems to be a move to turn people into dependants of the state so we can be controlled and pushed around and they can justify their jobs. The cost is loss of self-determination and distorted ideas about what should motivate people to look after themselves.

There's a scheme in the US now to pay drug users to be sterilised ... very strange.

Sorry, I think that link in my last post might not work, the details are here instead - vapersnetwork.org/node/45

[Lilac]

Possibly i could make it....

James, would you be interested in going? as driving in Glasgow isn't my strong point.....lol

i'll read more about it later.....

[kate]

That would be great Lilac, some vaper representatives would really help.

I'd be grateful if anybody intending to go would either check in at the Facebook group or let me know. If there's not a lot of people going I think the organiser might cancel rather than risk looking like there's not much support.

While I'm here, off topic but will do .... Please write to Cleggy www.libdems.org.uk/contact.aspx

Tell him what you think of the smoking ban (should it be properly reviewed and based on air quality evidence for eg). Plus, please tell him that the Misuse of Drugs Act should be reviewed - prohibition doesn't work, costs a fortune and is bad for health. Recreational drugs (including nicotine) should be regulated appropriately according to level of risk. You might also consider asking for a Drugs Agency to be set up so that recreational drugs don't get sidetracked into the medical system and grabbed by the pharmaceutical industry.

[jimmybat]

it is a possibility
James

[kate]

If anyone can attend that would be great. Let me know if you're sure so I can tell the organiser.

Here are some more ways to help: vapersnetwork.org/sites/default/files/CONFERENCE%20ACTION%20POINTS%20cf%20edit.doc

[kate]

This is a very good article that spells out the issues and don't forget, the reason our nicotine is under threat is to give pharm companies a monopoly for the smoke cessation scam:

Peaceful Protest Expected At 2010 UK Smoking Cessation Conference

A demonstration is being staged by Freedom to Choose (Scotland) at the 2010 UK Smoking Cessation Conference taking place on 14 and 15 June in Glasgow.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PRLog (Press Release) – Jun 10, 2010 – The conference’s delegate list stands at 559, including smoking cessation advisers and consultants, and representatives from Action on Smoking & Health (ASH), ASH Scotland, and from pharmaceutical companies.

Tax-payers’ money will fund most of the attendees from throughout the UK, who will discuss ‘new indications for NRT, medication compliance, marketing and supporting tobacco control activity, and the impact of illicit tobacco’.(1) The bulk of the conference programme concerns smoking cessation treatments/programmes and smoking restrictions; illicit tobacco is dealt with twice.

The Scottish Government spends £11m annually on direct smoking cessation, yet its targets appear startlingly unambitious: ‘… to support, through smoking cessation services, 8 per cent of your smoking population in successfully quitting (at 1 month post quit) over the period 2008/9 to 2010/11’.(2)

‘This conference is a publicly funded opportunity for improving market conditions for smoking cessation treatments, most of which have a very limited success rate,’ says spokesman Michael Davidson. ‘Smoking cessation programmes are little more than a revolving door, designed to transfer smokers from the tobacco market to a reliance on nicotine lozenges and patches.’

A success rate of a mere 8% demonstrates that the true aim of the smoking cessation industry is not that people give up smoking entirely, but that they take up smoking cessation support. Both the public and private sector elements of the health service have high stakes in this market in terms of jobs and sales of treatments.

Foiled efforts to persuade smokers to take up smoking cessation services via the NHS are relentless. In 2007, ASH – a major player in the smoking cessation movement – was obliged to apologise to Allen Carr’s Easyway Organisation for suggesting its success rate of 53 per cent was a made-up figure; ASH also paid the Allen Carr organisation’s legal fees.(3) Yet both the NHS and ASH still promote only medical interventions manufactured by pharmaceutical companies, combined with NHS support.(4)

‘At a time when public spending cuts are inevitable it is complete madness to spend money on treatments that are known to have a low rate of success when better alternatives are available,’ continues Michael Davidson. ‘It is hard to escape the conclusion that promoting smoking cessation products is a much higher priority than concern to help smokers to stop smoking. Eleven million pounds may not be a large share of the health budget. But the money is public funding, and it is being used ineffectively and inappropriately.’

Conflicts of interest are an obvious issue. The conference has been organised by Exchange Supplies, a company normally concerned with hard drug abuse issues. The conference director holds a patent application for a nicotine delivery device, tendered in the name of Exchange Supplies.(5) Members of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies, represented among the conference speakers, also hold personal financial interests in smoking cessation research.(6)

The participants at this conference have everything to gain from promoting smoke-free environments and increasing restrictions on smokers. This has extreme ramifications in institutions such as mental health settings and prisons where people are effectively forced to take treatments that they have not needed in the past.

The demonstration will take place outside the Radisson Hotel, Argyll Street, Glasgow, between 12 and 4pm (the closing hours of the conference) on Tuesday 15 June.

www.prlog.org/10729120-peaceful-protest-expected-at-2010-uk-smoking-cessation-conference.html