The Royal Adelaide Show in Australia is a huge annual agricultural event combined with a fair. People flock to Adelaide to partake in all things Massey and Ferguson. The very last thing these folks want are vapers walking around forcing children into smoking and killing the livestock with their hi-tech cancer sticks.
So it’s a massive thank you to Michelle Hocking, the show’s general manager. “We wanted to keep the smoking policy consistent and to send a positive message to children it was decided that e-cigarettes would be treated the same as cigarettes; it’s about the concept of smoking as well as smoking,” she said. It is great news for kangaroo owners as, by the same logic, they will now be able to enter them into the Best Sheep Of Show competition in future shows.
Australia, a country that has effectively banned vaping, is considering even tougher regulations for electronic cigarettes – a government dedicated to eradicating these supposed evil weapons of moral corruption.
“The World Health Organization recommends a precautionary approach to e-cigarette use in order to minimise potential health risks to both users and bystanders,” added Hocking while displaying a bizarre knowledge of such matters for a farming show organiser.
But how can the moral crusaders achieve victory when the legions of Satan are ranking up against them?
In Wales, the right-minded Labour government is facing malicious attacks from the Welsh Lib-Dems. Amazingly, they claim the Welsh government’s proposal to ban vaping from all public places “flies in the face” of recent reports and scientific evidence. Following the release of the Royal Society for Public Health malevolent report calling for electronic cigarettes to be advocated by all NHS quit centres, Lib-Dem Kirsty Williams said: “The evidence is stacking up against Labour's e-cigs ban. They claim the ban is in the interest of public health, yet a respected public health organisation has now said their use should be encouraged to help people quit smoking.” Has she no shame?
Fortunately sanity returned when a Welsh Government spokesperson was quoted as saying: “We are concerned the use of e-cigarettes may act as a gateway to and re-normalise smoking, especially for a generation who have grown up in a largely smoke-free society. We are not alone in our concerns - the World Health Organisation and other international bodies have called for greater regulation of e-cigarettes and 40 other countries have already taken similar steps.”
Whatever would we do without the World Health Organisation? How would people know what to be afraid of?
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous vape companies to develop content for their websites.
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