The government’s great triumph on smoking: it left e-cigarettes alone

[5150sick]

https://health.spectator.co.uk/the-governments-great-triumph-on-smoking-it-left-e-cigarettes-alone/


"What’s going on? Deborah Arnott of the anti-smoking quango Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) attributed the fall in smoking, in part, to the government’s ban on ‘glitzy tobacco packaging’. She means plain packaging. Ms Arnott has spent the last five years of her life furiously lobbying for this silly piece of virtue signalling so it is no surprise that it is at the forefront of her mind, but the smoking prevalence figures were collected in 2015, whereas plain packaging was only introduced in May 2016, and hardly anybody has seen a plain pack yet because retailers are still selling old stock. Doubtless ASH are already thinking of ways to put lipstick on this pig of a policy, but they could at least wait for it to come into effect before they start making their ridiculous claims.

What Arnott cannot quite bring herself to say is that it is the e-cigarette, not big government interference, that has been the game-changer. As Public Health England has acknowledged, e-cigarettes are the most popular stop-smoking aid. Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but vaping is a much better explanation for the sudden downturn in smoking rates than brown cigarette packs that no one has seen."

I really like when journalists like Christopher Snowdon not only do the necessary research to find out the truth but also have the balls to call a spade a spade - 5150

 

[Rossum]

If I were still a smoker, plain packaging would not bother or deter me, and if it did, I'd simply buy a nice cigarette case or two.

 

[JuicyLucy]

If I were still a smoker, plain packaging would not bother or deter me, and if it did, I'd simply buy a nice cigarette case or two.

I know, it's like this moron group of doctors who recently petitioned Obama to outlaw menthol cigarettes, because menthol is popular with African-American smokers.

I'll go out on a limb and predict that if menthol is outlawed, ZERO menthol smokers will quit smoking, regardless of race.

I smoked menthols for the majority of the 37 years I smoked and if menthols went off the market, I doubt I'd of had a problem making the switch to non-menthol, even if I did bitch about it for days on end.

No way I'd of just quit.

 

[Rossum]

I know, it's like this moron group of doctors who recently petitioned Obama to outlaw menthol cigarettes, because menthol is popular with African-American smokers.

I'll go out on a limb and predict that if menthol is outlawed, ZERO menthol smokers will quit smoking, regardless of race.

I smoked menthols for the majority of the 37 years I smoked and if menthols went off the market, I doubt I'd of had a problem making the switch to non-menthol, even if I did bitch about it for days on end.

No way I'd of just quit.

Yep, I smoked menthol cigs for more than half my smoking career and pretty much despised non-menthol cigs. Then I quit for a while using the patch. IIRC, that lasted a week or two before I allowed myself to cheat with a despised non-menthol cig here and there. Needless to say, it didn't take long for me to get used to non-menthols, when I then smoked for another 15 years or so.