Department of Health’s new Tobacco Control Plan “Towards a smoke-free generation” offers up something that nobody previously thought possible, a way to unite people on either side of the Brexit debate. In one short, swift sentence, the government stated that leaving the European Union will open up an opportunity for harm reduction and the reversal of restrictions placed on vape manufacturers and vendors.
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We did it people, it’s official – we made vaping sexy. Those with little else to do and extraordinary memories will recall that we demanded everybody make a special effort. Well you did, even if you didn’t know it. You, Auntie Gladys, Barry Onions from the bookies, you all did it. You sexy beasts, you.
Are you new to vaping? Do you know somebody who has just started using electronic cigarettes? Like a good Dad, we want you to sit on a knee so we can talk to you about sex. No, err, not that – batteries. We want to talk about battery safety. Definitely not anything to do with sex.
In the 70s, if you were lucky, MI5 would mark you out to be something of a wrong’un and make a folder with your name on the top, with Letraset or a Dymo label maker. Men in hats would hang out near lampposts, black cars would speed off the second you approached them, and Alexei Sayle’s parents would pop round for dinner parties. That’s how people kept tabs on you in the 70s – unless you’d put a Blue Peter time capsule (all about you) in the back garden.
Following on from last week’s article, it’s clear from the bulging sack the postman showed us that thousands of you agree with our plan to push for TPD III. TPD II is so riven with problems that a brand new approach appears to be the only way forward.
It was the summer of ’69, but I didn’t know anybody with a porch. “Oh, and when you held my hand – I knew that it was now or never,” sang Bryan Adams. Someone was holding my hand, it was the ambulance lady, and blood was cascading down my face. David Somebodyorother was in too much of a hurry to get out to play, Thatcher hadn’t got her act together, and my face was shoved into a crate of milk bottles.
We were there, and it just goes to show the bias in the media that you know nothing about it. We were there with the Beckhams, the Foos and the Biffy Sheeran. They all lied, it wasn’t Corby crowds – they were there for Stealthvape and we have the pictures to prove it. Yes, we were definitely at Glastonbury. Honest.
The Tobacco Products Directive is like explaining the rules of cricket: The TPD is not the TPD, the old TPD was the TPD before it became the TPD 1. The TPD that isn’t the TPD is actually the TPD 2 because the TPD 1 came and went. Like a band’s difficult second album, TPD1 was rewritten and managed to include more scientific inaccuracies than the film 2012.
Here it comes, the absolute end of the beginning. Here it comes, the Tobacco Products Directive. What was once spoken about, campaigned against and caused at least one petition a week to be drawn up faded from public debate. In fact, it’s been so long since many have openly discussed it that a sizeable number of people are totally ignorant about it and what it might mean to them.
First it was the truth. Once held up to be the ultimate in any discussion or debate, the truth has been swiftly sidelined for anything that pretends to be entertaining, frightening or awesome. Want to hear the truth about our road network? No, no you don’t. You want to see a motorbike carrying seven people and a bucket of blancmange being hit by a biplane full of penguins. And there’s the other new paradigm: while peace and love were once hailed as aspirational goals, now it’s all about hitting someone in the face with a bat.
