It is estimated that one billion people will die from tobacco smoking related illnesses this century.

The British and Australian governments were at the forefront of the fight against AIDS last century and used harm reduction as a very effective strategy.  Both countries continue to have one of the lowest AIDS infection rates in the world.  Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) falls squarely into the harm minimisation category.  Patches, gums, and e-cigarettes provide exponentially safer pathways to nicotine than combusting tobacco.  There are 4000 chemicals in one cigarette.  60+ carcinogens.

The Royal College of Physicians earlier this month published their 192 page paper - Nicotine without smoke: Tobacco harm reduction.which concludes with the recommendation that "..in the interests of public health it is important to promote the use of e-cigarettes, NRT and other non-tobacco nicotine products as widely as possible as a substitute for smoking in the UK"

So why would the Victorian government say today that cigarette bans and laws will apply to vaping?

Vaping has been established to be at least 95% safer than smoking.  Nicotine itself is toxic (in high concentrations, like many things) but it is not addictive without being delivered with the additional chemicals in cigarettes. 

I have a stake in this 'game'.  I recently purchased a vaping device in an effort to quit smoking cigarettes for my health and the health of those around me.  After 23 years, nothing I'd previously tried had had any real effect.  Smoking to me was an all day affair and I'd easily go through 10-15 grams of rollable tobacco per day. 

Eight days later and I'm down to two cigarettes a day.  By this time next week a expect to be at least a couple of days into being smoke free.

After this legislation comes into place, fewer people will consider choosing a smoke free alternative.  Vapers will be mandated to congregate with smokers and their second hand smoke, lessening their chances of staying smoke free. 

I'd like to believe a thoughtful discussion could be had on the topic of tobacco harm minimisation.  What do you think?

 

I'm  quite cynical on cigarettes and the Government.

I have read in many places that if they banned cigarettes the money they save in cigarette related health issues and money spent on anti smoking campaigns would more than compensate for the taxes collected on tobacco. I think the Government would prefer to collect and spend the tax money.

Thanks for the post nutbean.  I'm not sure about savings being greater than revenue.  In 2014 the Federal government collected over 14 billion 8.82 billion in tobacco revenues.  I'll find the link and update this post but completely agree that the Government would prefer to collect and spend the revenue.

Edit: Figure was wrong, updated.  http://www.budget.gov.au/2014-15/content/fbo/downloads/FBO-2014-15-Consolidated.pdf

Regarding savings vs revenue: 

"A key argument used to justify a scattergun approach to finding ways to reduce smoking in this country is that the health costs of not doing so far outweigh the taxation returns from smoking. But the government's own architect of plain packaging laws, Professor Simon Chapman, shot that idea down back in 1997 when he wrote in The Australia and New Zealand Journal of Public Health that the annual revenue from tobacco taxation amply covers the costs of treating and palliating diseases caused by tobacco.

That is hardly likely to have changed, given that since then smoking rates have come down, reducing health consequences, and taxes on remaining cigarette consumption have increased substantially, lifting the per capita coverage of taxes on consumption."

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/where-theres-smoke/story-e6frezz0-1226426102112

There are a hell of a lot less smokers now than 5 years ago.

In my inner circle most people smoked than not, now it is opposite.

 

If times get real tough, smoking will make a comeback.

Someone asked me if I smoke after sex and I replied that I have never looked.....

25 minutes ago, nutbean said:

Someone asked me if I smoke after sex and I replied that I have never looked.....like having sex in my life

wondered what the dots were for nut so i finished it off for you 

Someone asked me if I smoke after sex and I replied that I have never looked.....like having sex in my life or the afterlife....

 

( edited for accuracy)

 

i'm not sure the world could survive another billion people

we need a solution to all the useless eaters

On 12 August 2016 at 5:48 PM, daisycutter said:

i'm not sure the world could survive another billion people

we need a solution to all the useless eaters

War, plague or famine Dc?

9 hours ago, Biffen said:

War, plague or famine Dc?

am i allowed multiple choices, biffo?

On 8/3/2016 at 3:08 PM, nutbean said:

 I think the Government would prefer to collect and spend the tax money.

'Tony Abbott – in one of those “unguarded moments” while in Opposition – made the following comment in relation to the then Government’s tax hikes:

“It would only be raising $5 billion dollars or so if people are to continue to smoke, so let’s not listen to this palaver about health. This is all about revenue, it’s all about tax, it’s all about a government that can’t control its spending – that’s why it hits you in the hip pocket.”'

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/an-australian-senator-has-just-thanked-smokers-for-their-8-billion-staggering-generosity-to-the-economy-2014-10

Todays SMH:

How have we got it so wrong on e-cigarettes

It's time to change laws that criminalise people for using nicotine in a less harmful form.

 

'This month, the New Zealand government agreed in principle to allowing the sale of nicotine e-cigarettes as a consumer product. Evidence for the safety and effectiveness of nicotine e-cigarettes for helping smokers quit is now compelling and Australia should make similar changes.'

'The rationale of tobacco harm reduction is to provide smokers with an alternative way of getting the nicotine to which they are addicted without the smoke that causes almost all of the adverse health effects of smoking. Switching to an e-cigarette can effectively satisfy the smoker's need for nicotine as well as providing "a smoking experience" which many smokers miss after quitting and which often leads to relapse.'

'There is a general scientific consensus that the long-term health risks to vapers is "unlikely to exceed 5 per cent of the harm from smoking". On the other hand, two out of three smokers will die prematurely from a smoking-related disease if they continue to smoke.'

I have a real bug up my ass regarding smokers at work.

Every one of them to a man, thinks that they have a "right" to extra time after each break for the purpose of smoking, while the rest of us go about our jobs. Some even plan their daily activities around allowing time for their extra smoke breaks. For that reason alone, I would love to see the sale banned completely.

It's beyond doubt that its more a revenue issue than a health issue. No government is prepared to wait out the huge drop in revenue, before the undoubted health benefits are realised.

I walk past the huddled mass every morning, and cringe at the thought that many many years ago, I was one of them. The most inconsiderate people I come across everywhere I travel, are smokers.................  (followed by Japanese)

1 hour ago, faultydet said:

I have a real bug up my ass regarding smokers at work.

Every one of them to a man, thinks that they have a "right" to extra time after each break for the purpose of smoking, while the rest of us go about our jobs. Some even plan their daily activities around allowing time for their extra smoke breaks. .

Agree in general.  Though I'd add that perfectly-acceptable-caffeine-addicts do a similar thing.

1 hour ago, Trisul said:

Agree in general.  Though I'd add that perfectly-acceptable-caffeine-addicts do a similar thing.

not forgetting all those extended lunches reps and managers seem to find so necessary........then there are all the people spending hours a day on social media, reading demonland or watching porn

i don't think smokers have any monopoly on time wasting

1 hour ago, daisycutter said:

not forgetting all those extended lunches reps and managers seem to find so necessary........then there are all the people spending hours a day on social media, reading demonland or watching porn

i don't think smokers have any monopoly on time wasting

Maybe they are caffeine addicted porn addicts where you are, but where I am, they have zero internet, and are transported in buses to and from breaks. It is strictly the smokers who are the chain draggers. Its been that way in every single place I have worked for the past 20 years. The government even publishes its own figures to show the time wasted by smokers. Its massive.

Who claimed smokers have a monopoly?

why would you not know that most smokers are also heavy coffee drInkers? 

You smoke?

 

1 hour ago, faultydet said:

Maybe they are caffeine addicted porn addicts where you are, but where I am, they have zero internet, and are transported in buses to and from breaks. It is strictly the smokers who are the chain draggers. Its been that way in every single place I have worked for the past 20 years. The government even publishes its own figures to show the time wasted by smokers. Its massive.

Who claimed smokers have a monopoly?

why would you not know that most smokers are also heavy coffee drInkers? 

You smoke?

 

my workplace experiences differed from yours

i did smoke and take smoke breaks (when smoking at your desk was banned) but i also averaged 15 hours un-paid overtime a week, so i figured the company was miles ahead 

additionally the time was not necessarily all waste as my job required a lot of thinking and mental planning which didn't stop during smoke breaks

of course, YMMV, but everything is not always all that it seems

8 hours ago, daisycutter said:

my workplace experiences differed from yours

i did smoke and take smoke breaks (when smoking at your desk was banned) but i also averaged 15 hours un-paid overtime a week, so i figured the company was miles ahead 

additionally the time was not necessarily all waste as my job required a lot of thinking and mental planning which didn't stop during smoke breaks

of course, YMMV, but everything is not always all that it seems

That's the thing daisy. It's where the smokers mindset justifies the time wasting. Most work places have people would also do the unpaid overtime, but without the extra breaks to bung a durry into their lungs. I was the same when I smoked. Its [censored].

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/health/e-cigarette-vape-njoy-bankruptcy.html?_r=0

But mounting evidence suggests vaping is far less dangerous than smoking, a fact that is rarely pointed out to the American public. Britain, a country with about the same share of smokers, has come to the opposite conclusion from the United States. This year, a prestigious doctors’ organization told the public that e-cigarettes were 95 percent less harmful than cigarettes. British health officials are encouraging smokers to switch.

The American approach “is the same as asking, ‘What are the relative risks of jumping out a fourth story window versus taking the stairs?’” said David Sweanor, a lawyer with the Center for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at the University of Ottawa. “These guys are saying: ‘Look, these stairs, people could slip, they could get mugged. We just don’t know yet.’”

That e-cigarettes are less harmful is a message American smokers rarely hear, partly because American regulation prevents it. 

On 8/16/2016 at 5:11 PM, faultydet said:

I have a real bug up my ass regarding smokers at work.

Every one of them to a man, thinks that they have a "right" to extra time after each break for the purpose of smoking, while the rest of us go about our jobs. Some even plan their daily activities around allowing time for their extra smoke breaks. For that reason alone, I would love to see the sale banned completely.

It's beyond doubt that its more a revenue issue than a health issue. No government is prepared to wait out the huge drop in revenue, before the undoubted health benefits are realised.

I walk past the huddled mass every morning, and cringe at the thought that many many years ago, I was one of them. The most inconsiderate people I come across everywhere I travel, are smokers.................  (followed by Japanese)

My squeeze ( if i use the term girlfriend it makes me seem 18 years old, and if I use the word partner it sounds like we are in a law firm...but i digress)..my squeeze was an admin manager for a removalist company - she came up with a novel idea. She wanted to give non smokers 2 or 3 hours off every month on a friday afternoon to reward non smoking but also to compensate for the time that non smokers didn't take off. 

The backlash ( and the fact that 3 out of the 4 top management smoked) made it a non starter.

 

I live in Oakleigh and next July they are banning smoking outside in Eaton Mall which is choc o bloc full of Greek restaurants and every morning full of old greek morning having a greek coffee and a dart. It will be interesting to see what the backlash is. I, for one, am delighted. I like to eat outside but don't like people smoking around me when i am eating. 

I rarely visit this board, and even less often leave a comment, but i can add some personal experience here.

I used to love smoking.... like REALLY love it. If i had 2 heads i could have done 2 at a time. Couldnt wait to get out of bed of a morning and curse how slow the kettle boiled for my coffee as it was delaying my first [censored] of the day. I was a flabby 95kg and so unfit i got puffed just getting dressed for work.

All good until i had a heart attack while having said brekky [censored], just over 6 years ago. I remember lying in intensive care in the Shepp Hospital, no family or friends with me, feeling a bit sorry for myself. I looked at all the stuff hanging out of my arm and stuck to my chest and thinking "I guess i just quit smoking then"

Got ugly scars on my Chest, arm and leg from the bypass surgery.

Now if i have some spare time i go for a 50-60 km bike ride on the pushy.

These days, the only people who smoke are d1ckheads. Just like i was.