Prime Time tonight

naughtysmurf

They are doing a piece on e-cigs tonight

georgia010

Thank goodness for the guy who was formerly head of ASH Uk - otherwise it would be a very negative, one-sided piece, all pushing ulterior motives. Why should e-cigs only be acceptable as part of smoking cessation - there is no smoking involved. I wish the lookalikes would disappear from the scene.

Tigger

8 ciggs is as bad as 20
we don't know whats in them
people will start smoking as vaping as a gateway
its about health not reguratiolary barriers

morans

i don't vape i quit smoking years ago but its clear that a clean nicotine delivery system is better than burning leaves if you want to ingest nicotine

Tigger

georgia010 wrote: »

Thank goodness for the guy who was formerly head of ASH Uk - otherwise it would be a very negative, one-sided piece, all pushing ulterior motives. Why should e-cigs only be acceptable as part of smoking cessation - there is no smoking involved. I wish the lookalikes would disappear from the scene.

while he made sense i think he works for big tobacco now

georgia010

"All we do is done with an eye to something else." (Aristotle)

I don't mind if Big Tobacco gets involved in the alternative, as long as the alternative is available in a way that supports the consumer. What I fear is that reactionary forces will cause the healthier alternative to be restricted/denied, while cigarettes remain legally on sale. Oh, the irony.

georgia010

"All we do is done with an eye to something else." (Aristotle)

I don't mind if Big Tobacco gets involved in the alternative, as long as the alternative is available in a way that supports the consumer. What I fear is that reactionary forces will cause the healthier alternative to be restricted/denied, while cigarettes remain legally on sale. Oh, the irony.

naughtysmurf

Is David McCullagh a vaper lol, thought he asked the right questions, if I was a neutral I would have thought the two in the studio were clueless & their arguments weak

A positive was that the arguments for, were simple & made well, in previous programmes this wasn't always the case

Would agree that the lookalike e-cigs are a negative for vapers, they look too similar to a cigarette which isn't a help

jakdublin

Tigger wrote: »

while he made sense i think he works for big tobacco now

Don't think so. He wrote an open letter to WHO last year in which he made a public declaration saying he had no connections to the tobacco industry. He'd be very foolish to do so if he had. Thought he made those other two 'experts' look a bit silly. It seems they - along with most of the medical and lot of the political professions - just can't get their heads around the fact that vaping isn't a smoking cessation method, it's simply a much healthier alternative to smoking.

Finglas Incubus

I thought the piece was ill-conceived. The panel discussion smacked of 'down with that sort of thing' and 'careful now' - the attitudes were a bit too old-school Irish for my liking.

The PSI guy is looking after his own interests and the commercial interests of his members. To an extent, I agree with his point about the lack of scientific research but there is some out of there and he didn't make any reference to it.

The head of ASH Ireland was quite naive I felt, she didn't seem to have anything positive to say about vaping in the context NRT or quitting tobacco. I can't understand why they couldn't get someone in Ireland on the pro argument side, while the UK guy made some great points, it just seemed a bit one sided.

I tried all forms of commercial NRT and failed to quit in each case. I quit tobacco 5 months ago due to vaping and I feel great because of it and subsequently have no interest in going anywhere near tobacco now. Its a pity that experiences like my own (and I'm sure others here) were not explored, they could have got a vaper in to discuss their experience to provide a bit of balance.

Disappointing.

naughtysmurf

Finglas Incubus wrote: »

The PSI guy is looking after his own interests and the commercial interests of his members. To an extent, I agree with his point about the lack of scientific research but there is some out of there and he didn't make any reference to it.

I tried all forms of commercial NRT and failed to quit in each case. I quit tobacco 5 months ago due to vaping and I feel great because of it and subsequently have no interest in going anywhere near tobacco now. Its a pity that experiences like my own (and I'm sure others here) were not explored, they could have got a vaper in to discuss their experience to provide a bit of balance.

I agree with you there, my experiences with NRT were exactly the same but there are other issues like muscle memory & the whole phycological aspect that the usual forms of NRT cant address

Probably needed an articulate vaper on the panel

tommy2bad

Tigger wrote: »

while he made sense i think he works for big tobacco now

Presumably your referring to Clive Bates. So thats an no, he dose not work for big tobacco. http://www.clivebates.com/?page_id=209
Mostly he works on climate and environment.

tommy2bad

naughtysmurf wrote: »

I agree with you there, my experiences with NRT were exactly the same but there are other issues like muscle memory & the whole phycological aspect that the usual forms of NRT cant address

Probably needed an articulate vaper on the panel

I would have been articulate on that panels but it would have been articulate swearing. :mad:

The filmed intro gave the editorial view point - anti ecig. Even to the extent of lieing. Witness the reference to EU regulation then cutting to someone saying that we need to keep these out of the hands of kids. Implying that age restriction was part of the regs. In fact it's the one thing that the commission removed from the regs. You couldn't make it up.

As to why they didn't have someone Irish on the pro ecig side? Their's no one other than users, no 'expert' in Ireland is in favor of ecigs, they all fear rocking the boat or their not as expert as they claim, one or the other.
Public health are convinced that quitting smoking means quitting nicotine, we saw this last night quit clearly. Anything else was a half measure.

With both the current industry interests and the health community calling for medicalization, I fear we have an uphill battle to keep vaping as a general good or at least a tobacco product.
Both classification as medical or tobacco have their down sides, medical regs the most disadvantages as it will lead to a de-facto ban on all but disposable cigalikes. Tobacco classification will lead to public use bans, display bans and probably duty and excise. It will leave the market to big tobacco ironical, and serve to protect their core product for longer.

While the presenter did try to tease out the vested interest of the pharmacy lobbying and seemed to understand what Clive was saying, the fact remains that the pharma lobby and the health lobby have more weight with government than advocates from user groups.

I think we need to keep the pressure on out TD's and get some going on the media , though they will always give a voice to the other side (balance don't you know) we need an Irish voice as clear and calm as Clive was last night. I don't see one and doubt their is one.

Going Forward

Pointless poorly researched show segment.

tommy2bad

Going Forward wrote: »

Pointless poorly researched show segment.

I don't think the research was that bad tbh, it was more the editorial view point that was off. They did find Clive Bates and he's not exactly a household name outside of ecig circles.
It's not Primetimes fault that the other guests were on one hand, a vested interest from the pharmacy union and on the other, a clueless PR person form a charity.

Going Forward

tommy2bad wrote: »

I don't think the research was that bad tbh, it was more the editorial view point that was off. They did find Clive Bates and he's not exactly a household name outside of ecig circles.
It's not Primetimes fault that the other guests were on one hand, a vested interest from the pharmacy union and on the other, a clueless PR person form a charity.

The resesrchers could be expected to have had an Irish person who vapes or sells ecigs on the panel instead of a person speaking from the UK!

Surely they could have tracked down a trader here somewhere? Bates did ok but was at a disadvantage not being in the same studio.

tommy2bad

Going Forward wrote: »

The resesrchers could be expected to have had an Irish person who vapes or sells ecigs on the panel instead of a person speaking from the UK!

Surely they could have tracked down a trader here somewhere? Bates did ok but was at a disadvantage not being in the same studio.

Yeah, I agree it was bad that no Irish person could be found to represent the pro ecig side. I think RTE were caught by the need to balance the issue by having a professional against professionals. They did well with their choice, the shame is that they had to go abroad to find someone with credentials who would meet the balance criteria.
As much as a vaper or vendor would have been able to fight the corner they would not be seen by the neutral viewer as having any credence other than personal testimony.
As I understand it rte did film quite long interviews with both Sabrina and Cassandra but cut them down to fit the intro piece.

Thecageyone

When you give up cig's, and try vaping, once ... you get a cough, don't you know!?

Yeah, what a load of poo-poo.

As soon as I heard the word "gateway" I wanted to turn off.

DubTony

Going Forward wrote: »

The resesrchers could be expected to have had an Irish person who vapes or sells ecigs on the panel instead of a person speaking from the UK!

Surely they could have tracked down a trader here somewhere? Bates did ok but was at a disadvantage not being in the same studio.

The did track down a trader. They interviewed Sabrina McGonigle in her house. Obviously they just used the "we sell ecigs" and the "look at us blowing vapour" bits of whatever interview they did there. I can't imagine they didn't ask Sabrina about her own personal use. 25 years ago I witnessed an RTE Today Tonight interview recorded in somebody's house that was full on Q&A for 2 hours, yet barely filled 5 minutes of the show. It turned out to be a hatchet job which was in no way apparent during the interview. Obviously Sabrina didn't give them any ammo to use.

Clive Bates is a seasoned pro when it comes to interviews and put his points across very well. Interesting cut by the director, to the panel smiling and sniggering at what he was saying (which really showed just how clueless they both are). The agenda of the show was definitely negative despite the broad range of questions asked.