Friday 9 May 2014

The New Flat Earthers

Commenting on the incredible incompetence of the Western Australian government in banning e-cigs, shyster of the week is Roger Magnusson, Professor of Health Law and Governance at the University of Sydney.
Professor Magnusson says it’s breathlessly naïve to assume e-cigarettes will function only or mainly as stop-smoking devices.
“US research suggests these products are a gateway to smoking as often as a gateway from smoking,” he says.
“If they are such a great quit smoking device, they might nevertheless be made available to smokers on prescription. That would give smokers an alternative option, while minimising the creation of a new market for recreational nicotine that may well lead to smoking addiction for many of those new initiates, a great many of whom will be adolescents and young people.
Yes, it's the zombie gateway theory yet again, uttered with absolute certainty despite having been thoroughly debunked on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the US, official statistics showed that youth smoking fell as vaping rose, while another study concluded that "it didn't seem as though [e-cigs] really proved to be a gateway to anything". Meanwhile, back in Blighty anti-smoking fake charity ASH reported last month that "significantly, usage among non-smokers remains negligible" and "there is no evidence from our research that e-cigarettes are acting as a gateway into smoking".

Pretty conclusive, huh?

For Magnusson - and others like him who cling to their dull-witted imagination rather than real life evidence - to invoke "US research" while burbling such nonsense is comparable to someone pointing to the existence of orbiting satellites as proof that the Earth is flat.

He is either so laughably ignorant of facts surrounding e-cigs that he shouldn't really be approached for a quote, or else he's a monumental liar. You decide.


4 comments:

JonathanBagley said...

Why does he think a habit costing at little as £3 a week will lead to habit with virtually the same effect costing £50 a week and which is banned indoors? I'd like to know.

Lisabelle said...

Something interesting has been posted, that seems to prove your point, Dick Puddlecote and it's actually based on scientific facts. .. http://bit.ly/1jpQQrF Karl Fagerstrom ....."Karl Fagerstrom is one of the founding fathers of research on nicotine dependence. There has been much discussion in social media, quoting Karl, about whether nicotine by itself is addictive. So I asked him if he would be kind enough to set the record straight on this views. This is what he wrote, with some minor input from me. I think he hits the nail right on the head...."

Dick_Puddlecote said...

It came to him in a dream along with monkeys playing baseball and a bus made of cheese.

truckerlyn said...

"He is either so laughably ignorant of facts surrounding e-cigs that he shouldn't really be approached for a quote, or else he's a monumental liar. You decide."


In all probability, he is both!