You heal the sick and stop meddling in the lifestyle choices of healthy adults?
Doctors have called for a ban on using e-cigarettes in public places saying they should be treated in the same way as smoking.
Er, no, they aren’t smoking so why should they be treated in the same way as smoking?
Ah…
E-cigarettes were developed as a way around the smoking ban because although they deliver nicotine they do not contain tobacco or give off smoke.
There is no burning leaf involved. They produce vapour, therefore they are not smoking. And I am all for anything that undermines a state sponsored ban, frankly.
But doctors said nontheless, they should be treated the same way and the use of them in public places banned.
So, even though they do not produce any smoke and therefore, do not create the same risk as burning tobacco leaves, they should be banned. Because? Oh, yeah, it will undermine the denormalising of smoking. But, you see, smoking should never have been denormalised in the first place because it is not up to the state or its parasitical hangers-on to denormalise anything. What people do with their bodies is their concern and no one else’s. And, please, no “cost to the NHS” cockwaffle. There is no cost to the NHS. Smokers pay a premium in tax far in excess of anything they might take back in the form of smoking related illness.
The BMA warned that the products were being targeted at children with flavours like bubblegum and peach candy.
Ah, yes, the old “think of the children” canard so beloved of the charlatan. There is no evidence whatsoever that this product is being aimed at children – despite the somewhat desperate, evidence-free anecdotes pushed forward in the story. None, nada, zilch. This claim is a lie.
Using e-cigarettes in public, known as ‘vaping’, should be banned to ensure it does not ‘normalise’ the appearance of smoking for children and the vapour contains unknown chemicals which may have harmful effects, it was said.
And there we have the crux of it. It has bugger all to do with health (in which case, it has nothing to do with doctors) – but we knew that already – and everything to do with maintaining the ban and punishing those naughty people who have dared to defy the mountebanks in the health lobby. And those unknown chemicals. What unknown chemicals? Nicotine, water, and some flavourings also found in food colourings and asthma inhalers. As I said, charlatans and mountebanks who will use any lie or scare tactic when faced with a real challenge to their authority.
Of course, this has nothing whatsoever to do with doctors anyway. A doctor’s role is to heal the sick. It is not to tell us how to live our lives – unless we are a patient who is suffering from a specific condition that can be helped by making lifestyle changes. But that is between the individual and his GP – it is not something the BMA should be poking about in.
So, in a couple of words, the BMA can fuck off!
Hear, hear.