According to the ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) Newsletter of 27 September 2023, ‘The “vapes are 95 per cent safer than cigarettes” message has backfired.’ Indeed it has, as I pointed out in 2017. But first, a digression. ASH is misnamed. Smoking and health are incompatible. The one action they could take to improve the health of [...]

Why do some people, known as smokers, repeatedly every day inhale poisonous tobacco fumes – and continue doing so for years, decades, or even the rest of their lives? The short answer is because they find themselves unable to stop. Now let’s look at why they start this abnormal and potentially lethal behaviour. The simple reason is because [...]

Courtesy of that august organ, ASH Daily News, on 5 June 2023 we learn that the UK government is in a bind. On the one hand, ‘Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, this week announced measures to reduce vaping among teenagers’, and on the other hand, ‘Health officials believe that vapes can be a useful tool to help smokers [...]

Cancer is a serious problem and a tragedy for those suffering from it and for their loved ones. Many cases are due to smoking which has rightly been called the biggest single preventable cause of death and disease. Therefore, it is pertinent to ask, what should the government do about it? I am getting tired of repeatedly pointing [...]

I have written previously about the cock-eyed plan of bribing pregnant smokers to cease poisoning themselves with tobacco fumes. Now Mr Neil O’Brien, MP, the UK Minister for Primary Care and Public Health, has announced the latest wheeze to try and cut smoking rates. On the gov.uk website (11 April 2023) this what, with all due modesty, he [...]

This is the question posed by one Michael Burke. He has a doctorate in education and is a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist, no less. But I was set wondering what he actually knows about smoking when I came upon what he says as the Program Director of the highly esteemed Mayo Clinic Nicotine Dependence Center. As usual, I’ll [...]

In a story attributed to George Bernard Shaw, he asked a lady at dinner one night if she would go to bed with him for £1,000. The lady agreed. Then Shaw asked her if she would go to bed with him for £1. The lady became indignant and asked, ‘What do you think I am?’ Shaw replied, ‘We [...]

Professor Sir Chris Whitty, the UK government’s Chief Medical Adviser, lays it on thick. At a recent symposium on medical ethics, after reminding us that ‘Smoking is an appalling way to die, it kills people in multiple ways,’ he is reported as saying that ‘getting smoking down to zero and destroying the cigarette industry should be an aim [...]

If you’re a pack-a-day smoker, how many lungfuls of poisonous tobacco fumes will you inhale in a day, a month, or a year? Assuming one cigarette is consumed in ten puffs, the numbers are 200, 6 000, and 73 000, respectively. This dreadful situation raises the question: what can be done to help smokers cease and desist from [...]

To help smokers in London stick to a New Year’s resolution to stop smoking, a campaign was announced towards the end of December 2020. It was called, appropriately enough, ‘Stop Smoking London’, though it’s not clear what’s so special about London in this regard as opposed to the rest of the country. Alas, the campaign is yet another [...]

Vaping – the activity whereby you repeatedly inhale a nicotine-laced aerosol – is big business. And as one would expect, there’s an online publication that promotes the interests of the vaping industry, Vaping Post. In a recent edition I came across the headline, ‘Asia-Pacific Groups Create Petition Urging WHO to End Lies About Vaping.’ Well, there’s a challenge! [...]

The WHO, bless their cotton socks, in December 2020 launched a ‘year-long global campaign for World No Tobacco Day 2021, “Commit to Quit”, and as part of this splendid effort we're informed that ‘The campaign will support at least 100 million people as they try to give up tobacco.’ Come now, Dr Symonds, surely this is not going [...]

Juul Labs is the nice scientific-sounding name of the company that makes the nicotine poison delivery device with the catchy name of Juul. It’s especially popular with school kids. Now hold on a minute, Dr Symonds! Nicotine a poison? Everyone knows it’s no more harmful than coffee! Anyway, it’s such fun to suck nicotine-laden vapour into your lungs [...]