smoking stalled

[Toby iVapour]

Also note this article from Clive Bates -
Is tobacco control the new Big Tobacco?
https://clivebates.com/is-tobacco-control-the-new-big-tobacco/

How should we understand the widespread hostility to tobacco harm reduction in the mainstream tobacco control community and much of the public health community?

I don’t think we can ignore it any more… the symmetries and parallels with the worst excesses of “Big Tobacco” of the 1970s are now obvious to those willing to look. The methods, ethics and consequences are all too similar and becoming increasingly common.

However…
There is one big difference … no one ever trusted Big Tobacco. Tobacco control advocates approach the public with an endowment of trust. The abuse of trust makes the mainstream of tobacco control worse than Big Tobacco ever was.

 

[Toby iVapour]

Or what about those that have been unjustly accused of having been falsely accused of being funded by Big Tobacco -
https://filtermag.org/australia-vaping-policy/
Colin Mendelsohn comments on these aspects that have helped contribute to his decision for retirement -

Personal Experiences: The Cost of Advocacy
My evidence-based advocacy and the efforts of others are undermined with smears, insults and harassment.
I have repeatedly faced false accusations of being funded by Big Tobacco, including in national print media and on national radio.
Attempts have been made to block my teaching, media articles and presentations. For example, an invitation to speak on vaping at a leading Sydney Hospital was withdrawn after a false claim by a respiratory specialist that I “was funded by a tobacco company,” despite this being comprehensively denied.

Anti-vaping advocates have twice made complaints about my advocacy to the health regulatory body (Health Care Complaints Commission), both of which were dismissed.

Opponents attempted to have my peer-reviewed paper on vaping retracted from a leading medical journal on the basis of a purported conflict of interest. The journal supported the retraction even after the alleged conflict was explained as false. It was only after I engaged a lawyer and spent thousands on a legal challenge that the matter was resolved and the article retained.

A recent television program on vaping claimed that I was “a friend of Big Tobacco” and implied that I was acting for them. I also had to engage a lawyer to challenge this attack on my integrity.

These and other cowardly incidents, and the persistent denial of the science, have caused me intense aggravation and frustration. My support for tobacco harm reduction is undiminished. But I have had enough.

 

[Toby iVapour]

This article goes into more detail about the workings of accusations of links to the tobacco industry, highlighting the case of Norwegian sociologist Karl Erik Lund -
Defamation of a tobacco scientist
https://www.mryvape.com/uncategorized/defamation-of-a-tobacco-scientist/
.. and it all relates back to Bloomberg...

Bloomberg-funded activists are writing the rules of the battle: When Lund was alleged to have “industry connections,” his immediate reaction was to protest his innocence by saying he had never accepted industry money. That’s understandable. But he was playing the game by the rules set by Tobacco Tactics.
Harm reduction advocate Clive Bates explains:
“Either one can (a) argue that a speaker meets the “purity test” set by the organizers or the activists lobbying them, or (b) one can argue that the purity test is the problem. The danger of emphasizing the former is that it tends to legitimize the idea of purity testing. Our recent experience is that those who use this tactic become emboldened and expand the scope of their purity tests to an absurd degree, as we can see here. The latter approach has more integrity, in my opinion, but is a longer and more difficult argument. I think any argument based on the first should definitely reference the second.”

“This is a typical Tobacco Tactics group ploy: multiple names are thrown together in a loosely connected way to suggest guilt by association and imply links to the industry, even when there are none,” says Gerry Stimson, a British academic and longtime advocate. long ago damage reduction. “It’s ideological purity gone mad.”

(note that Gerry Stimson was one of the names mentioned in one of those Times articles)

And as I have already mentioned/linked to in other examples -

It is striking, however, that so much attention is paid to conflicts with the tobacco industry and so little to the conflicts that arise when advocates, academics, so-called public interest groups, and journalists are funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, with its hardline opposition to safer alternatives to nicotine.

 

[Toby iVapour]

it’s interesting that the times are choosing to publish reports on these organisations just right now. this stuff has been out there for a while and discussed here before also. the timing obvs suits their agenda somehow.

Just noticed another article in the Times from a couple of days ago, an opinion piece, which shows why they have published these reports in the form of a campaign to support their apparent agenda -
The Times view on vaping: Smoke and Mirrors
https://archive.ph/yvfd6

It is vital that policy-makers remain alert to the tobacco industry’s attempt to downplay the harms of vaping and the furtive ways in which it tries to influence health policy. The phased ban on the sale of cigarettes announced by Rishi Sunak this year was a wise move, and may prove to be one of the present government’s most enduring legacies. Similar bold action should be taken to curb the spread of vaping. It is a practice that must not be allowed to scar another generation.

 

[zouzounaki]

Not sure exactly what you mean by that, but notice that none of the articles linked in this thread show or mention funding going the other way in the form of anti-vaping campaigns -

Essentially there is a war of propaganda going on out there...
.. but I happen to believe in the pro-vaping propaganda...

what i mean is that big fag’s agenda isn’t entirely clear. it’s not beyond reasonable for one to suspect that their fake campaign organisations were created explicitly to discredit, and now is a good time for them for it to start coming out in the mainstream.

 

[vapesmarter]

what i mean is that big fag’s agenda isn’t entirely clear. it’s not beyond reasonable for one to suspect that their fake campaign organisations were created explicitly to discredit, and now is a good time for them for it to start coming out in the mainstream.

this situation is a very complex one i would not of believed 10 years ago vaping was any threat to anyone it was some internet people fiddling with wire and a battery and some homebrew nic back then, a decade on the lion is pretty much out the cage vaping is mainstream its everywhere no longer seen in some eyes as a quit smoking for a better life more lifestyle choice

years ago i remember in a lecture about whether would cancer be cured and the tutor said "no" with a grin and a sigh when we asked why he said several reasons the first cancer being a horrible illness also meant money "to be sick depending on how sick? is it sick enough or is it widespread death" I didn't grasp this "sick enough" It was also hugely complex, imagine if a cure was found the companies peddling the treatments for cancer the salesmen, executives have homes mortgages, and nice car set up for life then this cure comes on the market what do they do plus the charities the money the scientists billions of dollars all gone because a cure for cancer is found. That is the problem with cigarettes we don't need them we have a product that's more diverse and safer and when used properly you can quit a 20-year habit I did and millions like me can you imagine the loss in money plus the young people those kids that big tobacco want to hook on something that will keep the money rolling in are now using something that won't lead them to use tobacco.

I will see my accountant in the new year it's a weird conversation he speaks about product and market and profits whilst I speak about passion and customer service it gets pretty heated at times

 

[zouzounaki]

this situation is a very complex one i would not of believed 10 years ago vaping was any threat to anyone it was some internet people fiddling with wire and a battery and some homebrew nic back then, a decade on the lion is pretty much out the cage vaping is mainstream its everywhere no longer seen in some eyes as a quit smoking for a better life more lifestyle choice

years ago i remember in a lecture about whether would cancer be cured and the tutor said "no" with a grin and a sigh when we asked why he said several reasons the first cancer being a horrible illness also meant money "to be sick depending on how sick? is it sick enough or is it widespread death" I didn't grasp this "sick enough" It was also hugely complex, imagine if a cure was found the companies peddling the treatments for cancer the salesmen, executives have homes mortgages, and nice car set up for life then this cure comes on the market what do they do plus the charities the money the scientists billions of dollars all gone because a cure for cancer is found. That is the problem with cigarettes we don't need them we have a product that's more diverse and safer and when used properly you can quit a 20-year habit I did and millions like me can you imagine the loss in money plus the young people those kids that big tobacco want to hook on something that will keep the money rolling in are now using something that won't lead them to use tobacco.

I will see my accountant in the new year it's a weird conversation he speaks about product and market and profits whilst I speak about passion and customer service it gets pretty heated at times

yes, the world is fucked up. the accumulation of money is permitted to take precedence over everything else.

 

[Toby iVapour]

what i mean is that big fag’s agenda isn’t entirely clear. it’s not beyond reasonable for one to suspect that their fake campaign organisations were created explicitly to discredit, and now is a good time for them for it to start coming out in the mainstream.

What do you mean by "fake" and/or what makes you think they are "fake"?
Just because there's some apparent funding/links to Big Tobacco doesn't necessarily make them "fake" or have bad intentions...
(e.g. the World Vapers’ Alliance does some good advocacy)

And I doubt any of the organisations mentioned in the Times were actually created by Big Tobacco...

 

[zouzounaki]

What do you mean by "fake" and/or what makes you think they are "fake"?
Just because there's some apparent funding/links to Big Tobacco doesn't necessarily make them "fake" or have bad intentions...
(e.g. the World Vapers’ Alliance does some good advocacy)

And I doubt any of the organisations mentioned in the Times were actually created by Big Tobacco...

by “fake” i mean something that’s deliberately created to make it look as though it is something different to what it actually is. that’s why people have been calling them “astroturf”. ie fake grass.


https://vaping360.com/vape-news/112512/astroturf-vaping-group-exposed-for-the-second-time/

“
London-based BAT “played a central and hands-on role in orchestrating, directing, and funding” WVA, working with consulting and public relations firm Red Flag and right/libertarian think tank the Consumer Choice Center. Anonymous sources told Daily Beast reporter Roger Sollenberger that BAT “ran the show” and spent “millions” on the WVA effort.

Facebook and other social media ads were directly approved by BAT’s global head of campaigns, but employees and contractors at the affiliated firms were only allowed to contact BAT by phone to avoid a paper trail. They were discouraged from even mentioning BAT in emails about the WVA.”

 

[Toby iVapour]

https://vaping360.com/vape-news/112512/astroturf-vapig-group-exposed-for-the-second-time/

Thanks, interesting...

The Consumer Choice Center denies that most of the Daily Beast’s claims are true. In a Jan. 9 response to the story, CCC’s Fred Roeder writes, “The suggestion that any donor ‘ran the show’, or directed any of our activities is completely and demonstrably false. We’ve never met, or even heard of, the individual named in the article [apparently referring to the BAT head of campaigns], and neither he nor anyone else outside of CCC exercises any direction of our activities.” Roeder does acknowledge that CCC accepts donations from BAT.

That's the kinda impression I get (if true)...