How the EU would rather smokers died than quit

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Perhaps we need to ask why the EU wants to ban the most effective means of tobacco harm reduction. Take snus, for example, this is the result of their widespread use in Sweden:

But consider this: Sweden has the EU's lowest rate of male smoking and consequently the lowest rate of lung cancer and emphysema. The health risks of snus are non existent – perhaps explaining why Sweden also has some of the lowest oral and oesophagal cancer rates in the world.

The EU already ban snus everywhere but Sweden. And now they want to ban e-cigarettes - presumably because they're not made by Pfizer and don't seem to make people kill themselves:

Pfizer make the anti-smoking drug varenicline, marketed in the US as Chantix and Champix in the EU. Endorsed by Action on Smoking and Health, it is associated with mood changes, depression and over 200 suicides. Pfizer are now subject to a class action from victim’s families and there is strong evidence that they suppressed these findings before the Food and Drug Administration licensed it.

There is no evidence at all the e-cigarettes harm anyone - not the user, not the person sat alongside, no-one. Yet the EU proposes to stop them - presumably because they're not made by big pharmaceuticals companies.

It seems that the EU, the anti-smoking lobby and 'Big Pharma' would rather smokers die than let them have access to proven means of reducing harm from smoking. And would rather ban e-cigs than fund studies to confirm that they are effective in reducing harm and in encouraging cessation.

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A reminder how the Tobacco Control Industry is killing people...

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Most smokers want to give up smoking. But most of those who want to give up fail to do so. Yet the Tobacco Control Industry - ASH and its associates in any number of local NHS "smoke free" bodies - persist in denying the value of harm reduction strategies and insist on abstinence or nothing.

And this approach means that people are dying unnecessarily - here's the facts (well American facts):

i) There are approximately 46 million tobacco smokers in the United States.
ii) While three-quarters say they want to quit smoking, and about one-third try to quit each year, fewer than 10% succeed.
iii) The FDA-approved smoking cessation aids simply do not work: They improve quit rates only minimally, if at all, therefore …
iv) About 450,000 American tobacco nicotine addicts die prematurely each year from smoking-related causes.

You see, while it is the nicotine that we get addicted to, it isn't the nicotine that kills us. It's the smoke.  Which means that if we remove the smoke, we reduce the harm and save lives.

We see tobacco control people wanting to ban e-cigarettes - despite their proven effectiveness as a smoking cessation aid. And to ban smokeless tobacco products like snus despite the almost complete absence of any evidence indicating harm.

As the author who pointed out the facts above observes:

Despite the demonstrated benefits of harm reduction, and the lack of efficacy of the approved pharmaceutical products (such as patches, gum, and medications), public health spokespersons, governmental and private, adhere to the mantra, “there is no safe tobacco product.”

While inexcusable, their rationales for such unscientific policies understandably derive from deep-seated mistrust of tobacco companies and their phony promotion of ostensibly “reduced risk” products like “light” or filter-tip cigarettes.

But this “won’t be fooled again” policy — ignoring the fate of the millions of addicted smokers — enforces an abstinence only, “quit or die” approach.

But rather than grasping the opportunities presented by a harm reduction approach to tobacco control, the New Puritan fundamentalists focus instead on ineffective, unproven controls such as plain packaging.

And as a result people who might not have died are dying.

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When will journalists start looking at the evidence?

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Every now and then a ray of hope breaks through the dour, New Puritan gloom. For a fleeting moment I feel a little progress towards freedom is made, I read something that makes me think the masters are listening to ordinary people. Sometimes I even hope that people will take note of some real evidence before launching into another promotional story for the Church of Public Health.

And then I read this in my local newspaper:

Mouth cancer patients spoke out yesterday to warn others of the dangers of smoking and using smokeless tobacco.

All well and good except for one small thing – much available evidence suggests there is no strong link between the use of smokeless tobacco and oral cancers. OK, I hear you say, was the journalist aware of this? She was because I had provided her with this:

Snus (Swedish soft snuff) use was independently associated with increased risk of pancreatic cancer (relative risk for ever-users of snus 2.0; 95% CI 1.2-3.3, compared with never-users of any tobacco), but was unrelated to incidence of oral (0.8, 95% CI 0.4-1.7) and lung cancer (0.8, 0.5-1.3).

Yet the opportunity to present an informative, balanced report on mouth cancer was spurned in favour of yet another “tobacco is evil” presentation courtesy of the Church of Public Health.

I shall continue to provide information setting out real evidence rather than the emotive pseudo-evidence from the “health chiefs” – one day my local paper might just take some notice.

I live in hope.

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