NHS reduces Forest to Ash
It’s not often these two groups agree on things, when they do you know something is going wrong.
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by Dave Cross
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It is being claimed that Scottish health boards have been given the freedom to use their own judgement. This appears to be far from the case.
"Our directors of public health across the health boards in Scotland have issued some advice to us which basically states that until we have more evidence available to us around their use and their impact, they should be treated like any other nicotine product and they should not be used in the grounds," said Julie White, the chief operating officer for Dumfries and Galloway.
Questions are obviously raised why vaping is not being given parity with traditional nicotine replacement products if electronic cigarettes are indeed to be treated like other nicotine products. It seems as though this is one more instance of ‘it looks like smoke, therefore it must be smoke’.
The suspicion of poor decision making is confirmed when Julie goes on to cite a potential gateway effect: “In addition e-cigarettes mimic the habit and look of smoking and therefore provide negative role modelling for young people.”
The move to ban vaping has drawn harsh comment from both anti-smoking and pro-smoking groups.
Representing Forest, Simon Clark said: “Many smokers use e-cigs to cut down or quit tobacco so it seems perverse to prohibit their use. Banning them is counter-productive because if both products are prohibited there will be no incentive to switch to e-cigarettes. Smokers will simply carry on smoking, ban or no ban.”
Meanwhile ASH’s Sheila Duffy added: “E-cigarette policies should not be so restrictive that they discourage smokers from trying an alternative that might help them to move away from tobacco. Hospitals might also choose to draw a distinction between devices, which look like cigarettes and some new vaping devices, which look nothing like a traditional tobacco cigarette and so don't lead to confusion with smoking.”
Perversely, the action being taken by NHS boards directly conflicts the advice being given by the National Centre for Smoking Cessation & Training, guidelines for practice and the advice of Professor Robert West (a specialist in smoking and harm reduction). Hiding smokers off site, banning them and not providing support and sound advice will only encourage patients to remain with their smoking habit.
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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