Monday 28 April 2014

A surprising U-turn...

From The Metro:

Smokers are turning to e-cigarettes in their droves, new research suggests.

More than 2million adults now regularly use the tobacco-free devices – three times as many as in 2012.

And despite fears that e-cigarettes are a route into smoking real tobacco, only one per cent of non-smokers polled by YouGov and Ash have tried 'vaping'.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash, said:

"It is important to control advertising of e-cigarettes to make sure children and non-smokers are not being targeted.

"But there is no evidence from our research that e-cigarettes are acting as a gateway into smoking."


It was only her and her ilk who ever made such a ludicrous assumption in the first place - see Dick Puddlecote et al, and even if it were true, then so what? - but it's heartening that she finally backtracked.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Arnott is no friend of the sound-minded, but this is a welcome step in the right direction. The war on e-cigs by 'health groups' (lolz) will actually kill people if it's successful. With the legislative/regulatory agenda set entirely by self-serving pressure groups like ASH and the BMA (because the rest of us are stooges of Big Tobacco, obv) it needs people with the ear of the politicians to have a go at talking sense. If ASH are going to put their ideological hatred of people enjoying Nicotine aside for the greater good, then it's a good thing.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Still don't trust her, but perhaps she is a rare public health lobbyist who knows a losing cause when they see one. ;)

Mark Wadsworth said...

TTG, agreed.

DP, no, I don't trust her either, she'll just continue her weird battle on other more winnable fronts (like smoking in cars, plain packaging etc).