EU Smoking (& European Regulation) Kills - Times Article

[low_tar_neil]

Smoking (and European regulation) kills | The Times

Very good stuff, paywalled though

 

[FourWinds]

That does look good. I guess it will be in the paper version sometime this week.

 

[Anjaffm]

Oh yum! great find! Matt Ridley rocks anyway!

 

[SleeZy]

Smoking (and European regulation) kills | The Times

Very good stuff, paywalled though

Damnit, they speak about sweden and then i can't read the whole article because "want to read the rest? subscribe blabla"
:-( Anyone mind copying the text?

 

[Anjaffm]

I cannot access, but it looks as if Matt Ridley is referring to this document:

Press release: 105,000 Smokers Will Be Killed Every Year By TPD Ban On E-Cigarettes

The planned EU ban on higher strength e-cigarettes used by 2.5 million Europeans will increase tobacco smoking and lead to 105,000 extra deaths every year according to the respected economics consultancy, London Economics. The report shows that 210,000 fewer smokers a year will successfully quit smoking as a result of the ban with 9.6 million extra tobacco cigarettes being smoked every day

And you may wish to watch Matt Ridley's blog. Here is another great thing that he wrote about vaping:

Don't treat e-cigarettes as medicines; glamorise them

 

[SleeZy]

I cannot access, but it looks as if Matt Ridley is referring to this document:

Press release: 105,000 Smokers Will Be Killed Every Year By TPD Ban On E-Cigarettes

And you may wish to watch Matt Ridley's blog. Here is another great thing that he wrote about vaping:

Don't treat e-cigarettes as medicines; glamorise them

Press release: 105,000 Smokers Will Be Killed Every Year By TPD Ban On E-Cigarettes


That's worth a FB share, hopefully many ppl will read it.

 

[low_tar_neil]

Ridley normally posts the articles on his blog after they've been published, so wait a few days and it will appear!

 

[Anjaffm]

Just found on Twitter: here is a great letter to the editor of The Times on that article - by a medical oncologist:
http://i.imgur.com/9EWkqwL.png

 

[Jay-dub]

So, does there appear to be a backlash to such reactionary measures?

 

[Anjaffm]

Here is the full text - from Matt Ridley's blog:

Smoking (and European regulation) kills
Published on Tuesday, March 04, 2014, updated Tuesday, March 04, 2014
E-cigarettes deserve encouragement as a lesser evil

Is this the end of smoking? Not if the bureaucrats can help it.

In raising the unknown (but small) risks of e-cigarettes, the public health establishment is missing the point. What counts is harm reduction, not perfect utopian safety. Don’t let the best be the enemy of the good, said Voltaire. The ban on strong e-cigarettes, the ones preferred by those trying to quit smoking, could prevent the saving of 105,000 European lives a year, according to modelling by London Economics.

A great article indeed. Matt Ridley totally gets it!
Why can't all politicians be like that?

Yeah.... I know... I have a dream....

 

[FourWinds]

Here is the full text - from Matt Ridley's blog:

Smoking (and European regulation) kills
Published on Tuesday, March 04, 2014, updated Tuesday, March 04, 2014
E-cigarettes deserve encouragement as a lesser evil





A great article indeed. Matt Ridley totally gets it!
Why can't all politicians be like that?

Yeah.... I know... I have a dream....

Well I don't know. Perhaps it's because I'm a user, but it still feels just a little weak to me. Mat' Ridley (5th Viscount Ridley, DL, FRSL, FMedSci) is a guy who, I think, 'knows his .... from his elbow,' that's clear. I still feel politics afoot however, and a reluctance to denounce or expose (depending on ones appraisal of motive) what's going on.

It's one or the other isn't it:

1) They hate tobacco smoking so much that any thing that looks like smoking must be suppressed, even if it cost lives, and we must all shut our eyes to the scientific evidence and forego those millions of lives if it means that smoking, or 1000 x safer e-smoking, continues to be vilified.

The Other) They are in the 'pay' of the pharmaceutical companies, and are working for them to suppress a direct opponent for their own gain.

So what does Mat' think, and when might he say what he thinks?

 

[molimelight]

Who would be the US equivalent to Matt Ridley, Bill Nye? Maybe we should prod him to take some time from debating creationists and publish a similar article in the NY Times!

 

[Anjaffm]

@FourWinds:

Well, Matt is not a vaper. So I doubt that he has read as much information on vaping and on the public health industry as we have.
Given that he has not read through all the information that we have read through, he is quite insightful.

Of course, WE know that the truth is as follows:
(let me quote you, with my own comments / additions in bold)

.....

1.
They are in the 'pay' of the pharmaceutical companies, and are working for them to suppress a direct opponent for their own gain.

2. They (say that they) hate tobacco smoking so much that any thing that looks like smoking must be suppressed, even if it cost lives (which they, of course, deny. Quit or die. To them, there is no alternative. So, if lives are lost, those people just did not quit. So they deserve to die)

.......

- The reason being, of course, that - see 1. - they are in the pay of the pharmaceutical industry. The entire public health industry is. So is the MHRA. That is why they are so intent on crushing any competition to their generous paymasters.

Edit:
As to the MHRA and Big Pharma, see here, for example:

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...curious-mhra-comment-subsequent-deletion.html

 

[molimelight]

I don't think we can underestimate the threat felt by the pharmaceutical industry to the prospect of a low cost non-prescription answer to smoking harm reduction. I don't know if it's just me noticing it more since I started vaping, or if it's actually occurring and is measurable, but it seems as if Chantix has doubled their ad rate in the last three months or so. It seems as if I see a commercial for it every time I turn on the television! And more and more Big Tobacco is hedging their bets by investing in E-Cigs. Below is a quote from the abstract of an article published in 2009 in the Harm Reduction Journal. that addresses the fallacy of the all or nothing approach to quitting tobacco use, and it's cynical use by the anti tobacco voices:

"Few smokers realize that there is a third choice: non-combustion nicotine sources, such as smokeless tobacco, electronic cigarettes, or pharmaceutical nicotine, which eliminate almost all the risk while still allowing consumption of nicotine. Widespread dissemination of misleading health claims is used to prevent smokers from learning about this lifesaving option, and to discourage opinion leaders from telling smokers the truth. One common misleading claim is a risk-risk comparison that has not before been quantified: A smoker who would have eventually quit nicotine entirely, but learns the truth about low-risk alternatives, might switch to an alternative instead of quitting entirely, and thus might suffer a net increase in health risk. While this has mathematical face validity, a simple calculation of the trade off -- switching to lifelong low-risk nicotine use versus continuing to smoke until quitting -- shows that such net health costs are extremely unlikely and of trivial maximum magnitude. In particular, for the average smoker, smoking for just one more month before quitting causes greater health risk than switching to a low-risk nicotine source and never quitting it." (emphasis mine)

HRJ | Full text | Debunking the claim that abstinence is usually healthier for smokers than switching to a low-risk alternative, and other observations about anti-tobacco-harm-reduction arguments

 

[SleeZy]

I don't think we can underestimate the threat felt by the pharmaceutical industry to the prospect of a low cost non-prescription answer to smoking harm reduction. I don't know if it's just me noticing it more since I started vaping, or if it's actually occurring and is measurable, but it seems as if Chantix has doubled their ad rate in the last three months or so. It seems as if I see a commercial for it every time I turn on the television! And more and more Big Tobacco is hedging their bets by investing in E-Cigs. Below is a quote from the abstract of an article published in 2009 in the Harm Reduction Journal. that addresses the fallacy of the all or nothing approach to quitting tobacco use, and it's cynical use by the anti tobacco voices:

"Few smokers realize that there is a third choice: non-combustion nicotine sources, such as smokeless tobacco, electronic cigarettes, or pharmaceutical nicotine, which eliminate almost all the risk while still allowing consumption of nicotine. Widespread dissemination of misleading health claims is used to prevent smokers from learning about this lifesaving option, and to discourage opinion leaders from telling smokers the truth. One common misleading claim is a risk-risk comparison that has not before been quantified: A smoker who would have eventually quit nicotine entirely, but learns the truth about low-risk alternatives, might switch to an alternative instead of quitting entirely, and thus might suffer a net increase in health risk. While this has mathematical face validity, a simple calculation of the trade off -- switching to lifelong low-risk nicotine use versus continuing to smoke until quitting -- shows that such net health costs are extremely unlikely and of trivial maximum magnitude. In particular, for the average smoker, smoking for just one more month before quitting causes greater health risk than switching to a low-risk nicotine source and never quitting it." (emphasis mine)

HRJ | Full text | Debunking the claim that abstinence is usually healthier for smokers than switching to a low-risk alternative, and other observations about anti-tobacco-harm-reduction arguments

Chantix is so much of a bigger treat than e-ciggs ever will be...
I mean just look at all the downsides of it, and the some of ppl i know went so i'll on them that they got depressed within 1 month of use, so they got back to smoking instead.

And there’s the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby incompetent people are too incompetent to see incompetence. An EU official with a lower second-class degree from the University of Malta so badly mangled the results of 15 scientists on harm reduction by e-cigarettes that they all wrote to correct him.

I love this quote, it's so damn true!

 

[molimelight]

Chantix is so much of a bigger treat than e-ciggs ever will be...
I mean just look at all the downsides of it, and the some of ppl i know went so i'll on them that they got depressed within 1 month of use, so they got back to smoking instead.

I'm always amazed at the new meds that come on the market after they've tested them on one poor rat and they list all of the side effects. Small things, like lymphoma, tuberculosis, etc. Oh, and you may just wake up one day and kill yourself. But you won't be smoking anymore

I love this quote, it's so damn true!

Yea, I immediately went and looked that one up. I work for a large state bureaucracy and the Dunning-Kruger effect explains a lot! From the Wikipedia article on it:

"The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude."

Of course, understanding it's genesis doesn't alleviate the pain of living with the stupid decisions the higher ups make on a daily basis, but at least I understand it now!

 

[FourWinds]

@FourWinds:

Well, Matt is not a vaper. So I doubt that he has read as much information on vaping and on the public health industry as we have.
Given that he has not read through all the information that we have read through, he is quite insightful.

Of course, WE know that the truth is as follows:
(let me quote you, with my own comments / additions in bold)

.....

1.
They are in the 'pay' of the pharmaceutical companies, and are working for them to suppress a direct opponent for their own gain.

2. They (say that they) hate tobacco smoking so much that any thing that looks like smoking must be suppressed, even if it cost lives (which they, of course, deny. Quit or die. To them, there is no alternative. So, if lives are lost, those people just did not quit. So they deserve to die)

.......

- The reason being, of course, that - see 1. - they are in the pay of the pharmaceutical industry. The entire public health industry is. So is the MHRA. That is why they are so intent on crushing any competition to their generous paymasters.

Edit:
As to the MHRA and Big Pharma, see here, for example:

http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...curious-mhra-comment-subsequent-deletion.html

Mate, I promise that I didn't copy your comments I guess, that all the things we are reading is making our brains resolve to the same conclusions, to the point that we even express them in near identical ways.

I'm not sure that it's all about the money; I think some of them are so full of the 'pious crusade' that they no longer have the ability to function correctly when it comes to anything that 'looks' like smoking.

 

[Anjaffm]

I'm not sure that it's all about the money; I think some of them are so full of the 'pious crusade' that they no longer have the ability to function correctly when it comes to anything that 'looks' like smoking.

Well, I agree.

"Some of them" - yes. The ones who are very low down on the echelons of power. The ones who are simply looking for somebody to hate. Somebody whom they can feel superior to. Somebody who they think is "lower" than their own pitiful selves. - The same kind of people who would have joined the KKK. So they can look down on some people.

However, those in the upper echelons - they know precisely what they are doing. And why. Those in the upper echelons, they do it for the money. For the power. And they use those pitiful little haters as their tools.

Think of it like the witch hunts of the Middle Ages. You do not really believe that those on the upper echelons actually believed in "witches"? Far from it. They wanted the power, the feeling of omnipotence - and the money. Because the lands and possessions of those burned for "witchcraft" and "heresy" fell to the church. Right into the hands of those who persecuted those "witches" and "heretics" in the first place.

Money talks. And those little haters are nothing but willing little tools. Makes them feel powerful for a while. And they are much too .. unintelligent... to realize how they are being used.

.......
I was watching Vapor Trails the other day. And one lady who works in public health - as a kind of nurse, at the lower level, at the level of those who actually work with people, who actually help people who come in to the practice - she was quoted as saying "all the bollocks comes from higher up".