Vapers! Appeasement doesn't work and here's the evidence

H/T to Twitter (and Tom Gleeson aka @Rathmacan) for bringing this to my attention.

A discussion paper published on April 28 by the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation asks, 'Should e-cigarette use be included in indoor smoking bans?'

It is of course increasingly common for vaping to be prohibited in places where smoking is banned and some countries have even gone so far as to legislate on the issue.

The UK isn't one of them (yet) so I read the paper with interest. It sets out the arguments for allowing vaping in public places, and not allowing it.

The authors cite just two reasons for permitting vaping:

First, allowing vaping in indoor public places may encourage smokers to switch to vaping, by making it relatively more attractive ...

Second, allowing vaping in indoor public places where smoking is not permitted could minimize any discomfort that e-cigarette users may experience from nicotine withdrawal when being in such settings. However, evidence suggests that this discomfort is fairly modest.

In other words, in the authors' opinion this argument isn't very strong and can probably be dismissed.

In contrast they provide no fewer than five arguments for banning vaping in public places. I'll sum them up as follows:

• At a distance, smoking and vaping may look similar to some people.
• Close exposure to vaping among people who have recently quit smoking or vaping might trigger them to relapse to smoking.
• Passive exposure to e-cigarette vapour might lead to adverse health effects.
• Regardless of the potential health risks, some people find second-hand aerosols from nearby vaping to be a nuisance, since the e-cigarettes can include strong flavours and leave pungent odours.
• Exemptions that permit vaping in some indoor smoke-free settings (eg certain workplaces, restaurants or pubs) but not others, may risk generating confusion ... so ban vaping everywhere.

Having addressed the issues, for and against, the authors don't mince their words:

Considering the above arguments collectively, we believe that, from a public health perspective, central and local governments should adopt regulations that effectively determine that all designated indoor smoke-free areas are also vape-free areas.

But that's not why I'm highlighting this paper. There's another more pertinent reason.

Justifying the claim that "some people find second-hand aerosols from nearby vaping to be a nuisance" the authors add:

While such nuisance concerns do not appear to have been quantified in surveys, we note that the 2016 vaper-friendly Global Forum on Nicotine conference, actually banned participants from vaping in certain indoor areas due to the nuisance that aerosol clouds caused.

Klaxon alert!!!!

Readers may recall that in May last year, while considering going to GFN16, I chanced upon their vaping policy:

GFN is a vaper friendly conference, actively encouraging participation by consumers and advocates. For various reasons this year we have had to introduce a vaping policy, which we hope will accommodate everyone's needs. The main reasons for this are:

- that some non-vaping delegates last year felt that they were 'trapped' with the vapour, which they found unpleasant and distracting, particularly in the plenary and parallel sessions where there are a lot of people packed into a relatively small space;

- that the Polish government are pushing for indoor usage restrictions - there may be regulators present and we would like them to leave with a positive view of vaping and vapers, and indeed of the conference;

- that since last year the majority of experienced vapers have switched to high powered devices and sub-ohming, which is fine for vape meets but not so good in the conference venue where it tends to create a rather disconcerting fog bank for those who are not used to it.

At the time I commented:

How on earth are vapers going to argue that vaping should be allowed in pubs and other indoor public places when a conference organised and attended by advocates of e-cigarettes voluntarily imposes its own prohibitive policies because of the "rather disconcerting fog bank for those who are not used to it"?

I'm sure the organisers are doing their best to be socially responsible but by imposing this policy on delegates the implication is that vapers cannot be trusted to be discreet and considerate without a formal "policy".

See Vaper-friendly conference restricts and even prohibits vaping to appease "non-vaping delegates".

Within a year a paper on the WHO website is not only recommending that "designated indoor smoke-free areas are also vape-free areas", it actually cites the policy introduced by the "vaper-friendly Global Forum on Nicotine conference" as evidence to support its conclusion.

Doh!

When will people ever learn? Appeasement doesn't work. As Tom Gleeson commented on Twitter, "Give an inch and they use it against you!" Absolutely right.

To repeat: one of the reasons conference organisers gave for the policy was, "There may be regulators present and we would like them to leave with a positive view of vaping and vapers."

How did that go? Well, shortly after GFN16 the Polish government introduced a law banning vaping everywhere that smoking is banned.

It would have been more positive, surely, for regulators to see how little inconvenience there is to anyone when people are quietly stealth vaping indoors.

I searched long and hard to find the vaping policy for GFN17 but couldn't find it anywhere. I wonder why?

I know, there probably wasn't one because since GFN16 the Polish state has intervened and imposed its own vaping policy – on GFN and the entire country.

And it all happened without a whimper. (Did any speaker at GFN condemn the new anti-vaping restrictions? Did they?)

Meanwhile on my Twitter timeline there is a series of tweets from one of the co-founders of GFN urging his followers to watch "some brilliant #GFN17 videos". "If you were there," he adds, "relive it. If not there, see what you missed!"

I don't doubt there were some excellent presentations. But I wouldn't be quite so triumphant because here's the rub. By relenting to pressure from what I believe was a single delegate and appeasing their complaint, the vaping policy adopted by the Global Forum on Nicotine has now been cited as a reason to ban vaping in enclosed public places.

You couldn't make it up.

PS. It has been alleged that it was Deborah Arnott, CEO of ASH, who complained about delegates vaping. I understand it was someone else so, on this occasion, give Deborah some slack.

Btw, it's been mentioned many times in the past week that smoking bans are welcomed by smokers who want to quit, and even by some who don't.

The WHO's discussion paper 'Should e-cigarette use be included in indoor smoking bans?' uses the same argument in relation to vapers:

Evidence suggests that many smokers support smoke-free areas, because this helps encourage them to quit. It seems plausible that this reasoning would also apply to e-cigarette users, who wish to either constrain the level of their vaping or to quit vaping and may therefore favour indoor areas being vape-free.

With a few honorable exceptions, vaping advocates have been remarkably quiet this past week while tobacco control has been celebrating the tenth anniversary of the smoking ban.

I've no doubt many think the ban is irrelevant, ancient history, doesn't affect them etc.

Then there's the public health campaigners who support e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool. Without doubt every single one of them is an enthusiastic supporter of the smoking ban and every piece of anti-smoking legislation that followed in the subsequent decade.

The problem is, once you've kick started a tsunami of laws on lifestyle issues it's very difficult to put the regulation genie back in the box, as pro-vaping public health activists are now discovering.

Likewise, once you willingly submit to a voluntary vaping ban at your own "vaper-friendly" conference, you give your opponents all the ammunition they need.

Well done, GFN!

PPS. Just to be clear, the vaping policy at the Forest Freedom Dinner last week was:

Vaping allowed everywhere, even in the restaurant during dinner because we knew our vaping guests would act responsibly and with consideration for others.

Unless the law is changed our policy will remain the same. Vaping allowed!