When you think of charities, what usually occurs to you next? That they are, no doubt, deserving, and the fact that they all want money. For example, the Tibet Relief Fund, Yorkshire Cat Rescue, or the National Trust – all worthwhile charities in need of funding from the philanthropic public.

Now, let us take the so-called New Nicotine Alliance (NNA), (not to be confused with the Anti-Nicotine Alliance), an organisation that somehow slipped under the radar of the UK Charities Commission and of which someone has said ‘there could be few more-deserving causes.’ Well, I can think of plenty of more-deserving causes: the Tibet Relief Fund, Yorkshire Cat Rescue, and the National Trust for a start.

But who has so characterised NNA? It’s one George Gay who interviewed Ms Sarah Jakes, the Chairlady of NNA, for Tobacco Reporter (1 July 2018), which seems to be a trade journal of the tobacco industry.

Mr Gay acknowledges that ‘tobacco is such a breathtakingly serious cause of death and disease,’ but what does he say next? He delivers a panegyric on Ms Jakes whose accomplishments, we are told, include her vulgar explanation to the regulators of e-cigarettes that the purpose of the activities of NNA is ‘to stop you f*****g it all up.’

These words were delivered in a speech at the E-Cigarette Summit held by the Royal Society, no less, in November 2017, which we shall now examine in a little more detail.

The speech provides the answer to the question of why Ms Jakes is so passionate about her favourite way of continuing in the thrall of nicotine addiction, or one might better say, why she is in a panic over the prospect of it being regulated out of existence.

Although she admits vaping is something she loves, but what is loveable about it is not exactly clear, she continues with more vulgarity:  ‘The phrase “just b****r off and leave us alone” screams through my head on a regular basis.’

Then she adds, ‘The freedom to choose what we want to do with our own bodies is vitally important to us,’ but does she have the freedom to choose not to continue to put nicotine into her body?

No doubt, if Ms Jakes could go back to the time when she started smoking – she admits to having been a smoker for thirty-five years – if she could have foreseen the future at that moment, surely she would never have started. But now, if she really had a choice either to continue vaping or to be free of the need or desire to use nicotine in any form, what would she do, if she were honest with herself?

Her speech continues with self-delusion:

Get a better understanding of what motivates people to smoke and to vape (here’s a hint: it’s not all, or evenly mostly, about addiction).

And paranoia:

The public hates smokers, and now it hates vapers – not because they believe the vapour is harmful, but because to them vapers are just those awful smokers getting around the rules. They’re vaping where they shouldn’t be and they’re not even getting horrible diseases to punish them for their bad habits.

And special pleading:

Many consumers would question why a new generation of nicotine users is even a problem…the world doesn’t seem to have a problem with new uptake of similar stimulants such as caffeine.

We want to enjoy a nice chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc without thinking about breast cancer…and we want public health messaging to stop sucking the enjoyment out of everything that for us, makes life a little less dull.

And getting enraged:

No doubt the tobacco industry is deserving of its reputation, but fighting their lies with your own lies leaves only consumers as collateral damage. Don’t for one minute think you are doing smokers any favours if you lie about the safer alternatives just because the tobacco industry sells them.

And defiance:

So if you must fight the tobacco industry, fight them with truth. Make sure that their customers know that a safer alternative is available and where their customers go they will have to follow.

Poor Ms Sarah Jakes.

Does she not know the joys, when going out of her home, of checking just for her purse, keys, and phone instead of checking for her purse, keys, phone – and vaporiser?! Or, together with the three first-mentioned items, she has to make sure she takes ‘an array of reduced-harm products such as a Zyn tobacco-free 6mg nicotine oral pouch product’, because otherwise she will be in a panic if she finds herself in a public place where neither smoking nor vaping are allowed! (These impedimenta are mentioned as being carried at all times by Ms Jakes in Mr Gay’s piece.)

If Ms Jakes should read this post, I hereby extend an invitation to her to be cured of her need to put nicotine into her body all day. To help her achieve this happy state I should be delighted to demonstrate how the Symonds Method works just as well for vapers as for smokers.

But will she take me up on this offer? Somehow I doubt it.

Text © Gabriel Symonds