Time for smokers and vapers to unite?

[Mark]

Interesting article. I don't agree with all of it, and he has some less than favourable comments about Clive Bates, but his views could 'spark' debate.


http://www.thefreesociety.org/Artic...ers-and-smokers-to-unite#.Uwuq_-lZ7Wg.twitter

 

[vaporsizer]

The only thing i really don't get is why he would think vapers don't like smokers. Most of my friends smoke.. I have zero issues with smokers, i was one.... I'm with them...I vape.

 

[Mark]

The only thing i really don't get is why he would think vapers don't like smokers. Most of my friends smoke.. I have zero issues with smokers, i was one.... I'm with them...I vape.

Completely agree. From the start of my Vaping journey I always considered myself a smoker in that without ecigs I'd be smoking. Plus I've a life long view that we should be able to do with our bodies what we will. Informed choice of course but other than that no one else's bloody business. The demonisation of smokers is all but complete. I don't smoke now. So what ? I celebrate my own decision but I defend the smokers right to smoke too. And in terms of demonisation we know by now that the heat is coming, has come our way

 

[Motorheaded]

Quote - Denormalisation is next then stigmatisation and then marginalisation. Smokers can already recognise the signs if vapers can’t. We’ve lived it these past 40 years. They’ve faced merely a couple at most –and there is a very long way to go yet.

Does this condescending prick think we were born today, with an ego-t in each hand?
I'd hazard a guess that 99.9% of vapers know what it is like to be a smoker.

 

[vaporsizer]

It brings everything round full circle again. We want to either vape or smoke responsibly, not harm anyone else with it & we don't need Mary Poppins to decide for us. Our choice & those who sneer at us are worse than the lot of us put together because at least we know what we are doing.

 

[Mark]

Quote - Denormalisation is next then stigmatisation and then marginalisation. Smokers can already recognise the signs if vapers can’t. We’ve lived it these past 40 years. They’ve faced merely a couple at most –and there is a very long way to go yet.

Does this condescending prick think we were born today, with an ego-t in each hand?
I'd hazard a guess that 99.9% of vapers know what it is like to be a smoker.

An excellent point. I was a smoker for the best part of four decades. He forgets that the overwhelmingly huge majority of Vapers were smokers too.

 

[B1mble]

I'd restate that as there are a statistically insignificant number of vapers who weren't smokers first.

 

[Motorheaded]

An excellent point. I was a smoker for the best part of four decades. He forgets that the overwhelmingly huge majority of Vapers were smokers too.

I think it is why we get so shirty now and then.
You tell me I can't smoke in your pub/cafe etc. Well I'm back, and this harms noone!

"Well we still see you as inferior and that makes us feel better than you, therefore better about ourselves. So FucK off outside with the other morally corrupt and mentally weak! But don't talk to them, because some bloke on the internet says you're not on the same side.
Thank you for your custom. Have a nice day you bastard!"

 

[Midnight]

My friend smokes. A lot. She smokes in the car when we go out. I sit outside cafes with her because she smokes. I could go back to smoking tomorrow (I very much doubt it though) and I would be a smoker again. I've just gone 6 months smoke-free but I smoked for about 30 years.

 

[Mark]

On the other hand we were all smokers. And in a sense we are fighting a similar battle. The freedom to do what we want. We do face the same stigmatism from certain quarters in the ANTZ. I think the health message that we Vapers often use to defend ecigs and the repeating of evidence for the harm caused by smoking that we state, rightly we may say, distinguishing that risk of harm from that of ecigs, is seen by smokers rights groups to be unhelpful from their point of view. I'm talking to someone with another view on FB and he suggests Vapers are the condescending *****s constantly distancing themselves from tobacco and talking about 'stinkies' and 'smelly smokers'. I kind of get his point but also feel it's all a bit inevitable. Maybe I'm wrong . I may have to think a bit on this one.