Fresh

For over three thousand days through the blistering heat of summer and biting-cold winter nights, the citizens of Troy had somehow, held-out.

In an act of strategic genius, under the cover of darkness, the Greeks packed up their their tents, the blacksmiths doused their fires, the baker stopped baking bread and the carpenters packed up their tools… 

… their work was done.  

They left and headed for the ship in the bay, waiting to take them home.

The Greek’s ten year siege of Troy was over.

As dawn broke, gone were the tents, the officers and soldiers. Their retinue, gone. All that was left was a giant wooden horse. 

At a council-of-war meeting, the elders decided the Greeks had given up and it was their offering of peace.

The giant, fortress gates that had been shut for ten years, were prised open. The horse was dragged under the sweeping arch of the city walls and left in the square for the exhausted citizenry to celebrate and admire.

That night as the war-weary population lay sleeping, thankful for their security, a trap door in the belly of the giant horse quietly opened. Thirty of the best Greek warriors slid down ropes and opened the city gates.

The Greeks, who under the cover of night, had turned their ship around, entered the city of Troy and destroyed it…

… so goes the story in the Aeneid of Virgil, a Latin epic poem from the time of Augustus.

It’s a story that still resonates today. 

It has given us the ‘Trojan’… the innocent email that conceals code that when opened instantly infects our computer and every other computer we are connected with, with malware.

It is also repeating itself in part of our public’s health.

As smoking declined, following the smoke-free legislation introduced by the Blair government in 2007, cigarette company’s revenues were under siege.

They respond with their version of the Trojan horse.

Pretty new products that looked inviting. They came with the perfume of innocence, no ashtray required, no stubs to grind into the pavement. Slim, elegant, sophisticated.  

Welcome to vaping. 

• British American Tobacco, the largest tobacco company in Europe, launched Vype and is investing heavily in vaping.
• Philip Morris International, the world’s largest tobacco company by market value, has invested $10.5 billion in “smoke-free” products, including heated tobacco systems and sponsored music and sports festivals to target youth.
• R.J. Reynolds Vapour Company, a subsidiary of Reynolds America, owns the popular brand VUSE. Altria, formerly Phillip Morris, owns MarkTen and bought a minority stake in US e-cigarette manufacturer JUUL Labs.
• Imperial Tobacco, owns Blu, which was the market leader for most of 2013 and 2014. 
• Japan Tobacco International, owns brands including Benson & Hedges, Camel, and Amber Leaf is increasing its investment in e-cigarettes. 

They came to the market and stood, like the Trojan horse at sunrise. 

Eager to frame it as an innocent alternative to smoking, we pulled the vapes and flavours through the doors and into our systems.

• In 2021, 3.6 million people in GB were using e-cigarettes, with the highest rates of use among people aged 35–44.
• By 2022, nearly 9% of 11–18 year olds vaped, up from 4% the previous year.
• Females born between 1996 and 2008 reported higher rates of past-30-day disposable e-cigarette use than males
• More than half (54.2%) of current e-cigarette users between ages 15-36 reported they wanted to quit vaping and one-third reported a past-year quit-vaping attempt…

… a Trojan horse that has created a whole new world of problems of its own.

Professor Sanjay Agrawal, the Royal College of Physicians’ special adviser on tobacco, said: 

‘… smoking prevalence among adults, [is] now at its lowest level since records began… the rise in e-cigarette use, particularly among young people and those who have never smoked, requires urgent action… it is essential that their use doesn’t create new public health risks, particularly among children.’

Anyone who has followed a vaping-pest along a street and become enveloped in their cloud of exhaust, knows what I mean.

E-cigarettes contain acrolein, a herbicide primarily used to kill weeds. It can cause acute lung injury and COPD and may cause asthma and lung cancer.

Streeting says he will ban vaping near schools, in hospital grounds and in playgrounds.

As usual, he is wrong.  

If he knew his public health history he would learn from Blair. 

He didn’t ‘ban’ anything. 

Blair made some places ‘smoke-free’. Including ingeniously, the workplace.

‘Ban’ and ‘free’ are two different narratives that human behaviour responds to, differently.

Empty Street’ needs to get smarter and make the streets near schools smoke-free and similar legislation would help NHS managers with compliance.

The US Food and Drug administration has not found any e-cigarette to be safe and effective in helping people who use tobacco products to quit.

Vaping is the Trojan-road to tobacco; a damned nuisance, stinks like a nightclub’s armpit and if it’s so valuable in cessation, put them on prescription and for the rest of us… KOFF…

… keep our fresh-air, fresh.

News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.