I was thinking after watching VTTV that we have to build up support at a local level and change thinking on the ground so it travels up.
I was really struggling with how I could "justify" a letter to my local paper that would appeal on a local level other than the fact I'm a local who no one actually really cares about
After a lot of thinking, juice and coffee consumption and most helpfully and importantly beard stroking (always helps me think!) I came up with an "angle" to shamelessly promote e-cigs at a local level because people care about stuff that affects them not me.
It is a local issue!
From smokers dying and being ill straining the health resources in that area to businesses losing trade to vapers (pubs) and losing time to smoke breaks and illness amongst staff and finally the litter of fag butts on the pavement outside every business door around skirting the edge of every gutter - smoking effects everyone in a community in one way or another.
So I knocked up this letter to send to my local - hopefully they'll print it or at least be prompted to think about vaping.
This may be slightly “out of the box” or “Blue-sky” thinking but please bear with me.
I’ve been giving a bit of thought recently to smoking and how it affects the lives of families and the facilities of the local community.
There’s little doubt that smoking has a detrimental effect on a community, from illness and pre-mature death, increased costs to local businesses through smoking breaks and illness, strain on the local already cash strapped health services and litter on our streets making the city look a bit like an ash tray.
First off I’m a libertarian and I believe in people’s rights to do whatever they want as long as it doesn’t affect others detrimentally so I wouldn’t consider “persecuting” smokers more than they already are, after-all they are consenting adults and freely welcome to live their lives as they see fit without my interference so I am thinking of a carrot rather than stick approach to the problem.
To clarify I was also a smoker of over 20 a day for 27 years but I have been a non-smoker for seven months although I still use Nicotine every day.
I switched to e-cigarettes and became a non-smoker within a couple of days of first trying them due to the combination of becoming a father for the first time, my rapidly approaching 40th birthday, going on the first of my five yearly health MOTs at my doctors and the constant nagging thought that if I could smoke without all the premature death and illness involved at the end of it I would snatch at the opportunity with both hands!
I had and still have no intention of giving up nicotine so the NHS wasn’t an option but I found once I started vaping (the term used by e-cig uses instead of smoking) my health improved dramatically and I had none of the other downsides associated with tobacco smoking and to top it all vaping is so much cheaper than smoking it was to coin a phrase a “no brainer!”
At the moment the EU is trying to restrict availability of E-cigs under the licensed medicines banner using some very dubious pseudo-science#1 and even more dubious (in some cases almost crackpot) theories#2 on e-cigs. I suspect this is either through ignorance or to save their vested interests in Pharmacy and tobacco and control the biggest thing in nicotine use since tobacco leaves first started being cured and smoked!
The end result of switching tobacco persecution to electronic cigarettes will limit the opportunity and potential for millions of EU smokers to switch to a safer alternative#3 and will ensure millions more tobacco related deaths and illness across the EU for decades to come.
As there is a safer alternative to smoking tobacco already available in e-cigarettes and Bristol is known as a forward thinking city would it be an idea for Bristol to promote itself as a vapour friendly city and try to encourage or at least promote the idea of a tobacco free city that doesn’t use persecution or mindless brainwashing, If Bristol stands up and is the first city in the EU to say it supports e-cig users and will try to encourage people to swap from tobacco smoke to vapour it would put Bristol on the map to be the world leader in supporting tobacco harm reduction and also claim responsibility in helping to save the millions of lives over the coming years that harm reduction has the potential to save#4.
Bristol would also receive huge benefits from a health service that isn’t having to spend a large portion of its annual budget on tobacco related illnesses, Bristol businesses would be better off with less time lost through smokers going out for cigarette breaks and smoking related illness, Bristol pubs would attract smokers back to their establishments where they aren’t forced out into the wilderness of the smoking area there would be less unsightly and unsanitary littering “fag butts” on our streets and finally Bristol would have less passive smoking in its shared social and business areas.
It would take a fundamental change in thinking from businesses, pubs and retail outlets to allowing staff and customers alike to use e-cigs on their premises whilst still maintaining the (quite correct in my view) ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces.
But Bristol could do it!
By becoming e-cig friendly, Bristol could become a virtually tobacco free city in a way that doesn’t anger the majority of smokers like current thinking does.
The vaping community are campaigning in the EU to effect change in legislation#5 to promote tobacco harm reduction and it would be a massive vote of confidence if there was more support at a local level from the community.
A vision of a tobacco free future isn’t so “Blue sky” as it was a decade ago, there is now the means to offer a safer alternative it just needs people who are willing to accept and embrace an alternative rather than the “Quit or die” approach that has failed so miserably so far.
It all starts with an idea and some support and Bristol can become the model, forward thinking city its reputation espouses.
#1. Some truth about e-cigarette regulation and the ‘appalling’ F-grade presentation of the WHO
www.clivebates.com/?p=1240#2. Yet another ‘damning’ article, written by the World Harm Organisation, was published today and yet again they have singularly failed to demonstrate any understanding – or even ability to read!
www.ecita.org.uk/blog/index.php/sorry-who/#3. 10 reasons not to regulate e-cigarettes as medicines
www.clivebates.com/?p=1252#4. “…if all the smokers in Britain stopped smoking cigarettes and started smoking e-cigs we would save 5 million deaths …. a massive potential public health prize …”
Professor John Britton, Leader of Tobacco Advisory Group, Royal College of Physicians
#5. See Twitter: #swof and #euecigban as well as
ecigssavelives.co.uk/ ,
www.ecita.org.uk/ ,
www.clivebates.com/ and the petition at
epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51572Community forums:
allaboute-cigarettes.proboards.com/ukvapers.org/
