Today sees the publication of a new IEA report I've written titled Free Market Solutions in Health: The Case of Nicotine. In it, I look at the issues around e-cigarettes, snus and the nicotine wars. In particular, I discuss the ways in which over-regulation and prohibition are harmful to health.
In light of the European Parliament voting to regulate 'nicotine-containing products' as medicines yesterday, these questions are more pertinent than ever.
Read more and download the report for free here.
Here’s a UK council signing up to the neo-eugenics antismoking program:
ReplyDeleteSalford City Council has become the first local
authority to commit to a tobacco free future.
The council has signed up to the Local Government Declaration on
Tobacco Control, pledging to reduce the number of smokers in the city
and tackle health inequalities.
http://www.localgov.co.uk/index.cfm?method=news.detail&id=110415
Actually, I don't see any real contradiction between the complete eradication of tobacco agenda and the harm reduction agenda.
ReplyDeleteEradication advocates plead for a complete eradication by 2025 or something like that.
Snus and e-cigarette, as you mention (p.28), do not appeal to non-smokers.
So it seems to me that the best way to eradicate tobacco use would be to get current smokers to switch to e-cigs and snus now, which will make cigarettes disappear if nobody wants to smoke them anymore. Then they can go on with their eradication program even more easily.
Not that I personnaly want that to happen, but my point is that snus and e-cig could in theory be viewed as a useful tool by the prohibitionists.
So maybe they really just want to sell patches.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteUnsurprisingly, Salford Council is dominated by Labour who hold over 85% of its seats. I wonder how many public health industry zealots do not vote Labour? I suppose the answer depends a little on whether or not there is a more socialist alternative on offer when individuals cast their votes.
ReplyDeleteIt might be pointed out that, by denying the efficacy of 'cutting down' on smoking by any means possible is a denial of the Zealots 'Holy Bible', being the Doll 'Doctors Study'. In that study, Doll found that the heaviest smokers died most prematurely, the moderate smokers less so and the light smokers even less so, to the point where they were not much dissimilar to non-smokers. Thus, according to their own bible, any means of cutting down on smoking is beneficial, unless PROVEN, here and now, to be dangerous. Thus, there is no sense in declaring ecigs to be medicines since it is not possible to do so - they are not. They cannot be declared to be so if they are not, regardless of what the EU declares. The EU can declare that the moon is made of green cheese until it is blue in the face, but the moon is NOT made of green cheese. Therefore, any regulation of cheese on the moon is simply nonsense and primitive.
ReplyDeleteThe report is a very clear and succinct statement of the issues, written with admirable restraint and bringing a lot of important points such as the changing nature of 'public health' into focus.
ReplyDelete