Banned On The Run
These are the global events of note this week.
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by Dave Cross
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“We don’t yet know whether e-cigarettes will prove to be a gateway to the use of conventional cigarettes and illicit drugs, but that’s certainly a possibility,” they said. The “scientists” appeared oblivious that you could supplant illicit drugs with cuddly toys or hot chocolate and it would still make as much sense – much like the following stories.
Councilwomen Latoya Cantrell and Susan Guidry presented New Orleans council with a 25-page anti-smoking ordinance. In a triumph of copy pasting, they have collected incoherent statements from various anti-smoking organisations in an effort to ban all indoor smoking and most outdoor smoking too.
Proposals are that smoking is banned within 25 feet of any window or door of any regulated establishment, any publicly-owned property, any bus or streetcar stop – in fact, banned within 25 feet of anywhere. The ordinance also seeks to include vaping in the same context as smoking and ban that too despite the striking differences and benefits offered by the former.
Owen Courrèges, a New Orleans attorney, said in response: “Even if we elect to ban smoking in casinos and bars, it makes sense to allow smokers to go outside. It makes sense to exempt cigar bars and hookah lounges. And it makes sense to ignore e-cigs entirely because the best evidence indicates they’re harmless. But what’s on the table now isn’t reasoned policy; it’s a fanatical manifesto. It has “crippling doubt” written all over it, and that’s why it needs to be rejected.”
From this Monday, vaping is to be banned everywhere in Ontario where smoking is banned under legislation also seeking to outlaw flavoured tobacco products and menthol cigarettes.
Doctor Scott Wooder, ex-president of the Ontario Medical Association said: “Every day, I see people in my office who are seriously ill or who are dying because of smoking. Flavoured tobacco products are aimed squarely at children and teenagers. Ontario’s doctors welcome this legislation."
The Canadian Convenience Stores Association believes statistics were used improperly while developing the menthol-ban proposal, diverting attention from the real culprit behind youth smoking: inexpensive and easily obtained contraband tobacco.
Public health advocates have trotted out the tired old lies about vaping normalising smoking and being targeted at children. Mark Holland, executive director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario added: “This legislation will protect our children and youth from the deadly effects of tobacco use.”
But this week’s prize for most angry and ill-informed person goes to South Africa’s Health Minister, Aaron Motsoaledi.
“If it were up to me, I would outright ban electronic cigarettes and I will fight for it,” he told the Mail & Guardian. “If there is one industry I don’t sympathise with at all it’s the tobacco industry, for the simple reason there is nothing they have contributed to humanity except great damage,” Aaron said.
Referring to the recent increased taxes on cigarettes and limitations on places to smoke, he added: “The tobacco industry sidestepped this and came up with the electronic cigarette. And now they are saying they fall outside the ambit of tobacco regulation because they are not tobacco. We are not going to be fooled.
They are the absolute enemy of the health system. For instance, we will never get rid of tuberculosis as long as smoking is there. So why mustn’t we throw any punches back?”
South Africa currently regulates e-cigarettes as medicines, limiting sale to pharmacies, but this is not enforced in practise. Contrast this with the good news from Germany that a federal court has ruled e-liquid is not a medicinal product.
At least Arizona ought to receive praise for its honesty, the Legislature’s budget analysts have been busy with their calculators and worked out that if vaping products are taxed at the same rate as cigarettes they could rake an extra $6 million a year into the budget. They pointed out that the Legislature could choose a higher rate of tax and raise a whopping $13.5 million. Why? It could be that they care for people; it might be that they have unearthed some vital data regarding the efficacy of e-cigs but it’s probably because Arizona has a $1 billion fiscal deficit.
It’s good to know all of these legislators are informed and acting in the best interests of people’s health.
Photo Credit:
Top Photo credit: cabreraluengo.com via photopin cc
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
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Trading Standards Welcomes Clarity
The Chartered Trading Standards Institute says it welcomes the “clarity and action from government to tackle youth vaping” with the plan to ban disposable vapes and related announcements
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UKVIA Writes To Sunak
The UKVIA has sent a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to 'express profound dismay and disappointment' that the government has decided to proceed with a ban on disposable vapes
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ASH UK’s Coordinated Comment
Action on Smoking and Health has coordinated a series of responses to the Governments proposals to include interested parties
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The Fed and IBVTA Reactions
The Federation of Independent Retailers and the Independent British Vape Trade Association have been providing reaction to the Government’s ban plan
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