Clipped, but published.

The reason I am blogging this is not for the same reason as the BMJ letter entry. This time, my letter has been published in the Lancet, albeit abridged. That is why I wanted to put up the complete text that I sent. The shorter, published, version can be found here.

I should say that the editing was not done without my input and they were very patient and helpful.

----

What a peculiar situation I find myself in. At the end of 2012, not long after starting vaping after 23yrs of smoking, I realised that things were being grossly misunderstood about what ecigs could offer to smokers. Very naively I, and others, thought we could explain to politicians & Public Health where they were going wrong with what the TPD was trying to achieve. Within months, we learnt what 'AstroTurf' meant, as an Irish MEP informed the press that this is what we were. Why? Because we knew too much.

I was shocked! It seemed so obvious that we were normal people trying to dispel fears & misconceptions with experience & knowledge. Things have gotten significantly worse since then. We have struggled to get the ear of the very people who are advising Government, WHO & the public. We have been insulted or ignored, often both, and in a shockingly aggressive way. And why? I genuinely could not say. We are not an organised group, we are not funded, we act as individuals but have the same cause. The sense of frustration is palpable among us & I for one am horrified by the accusations of being shills & stooges. We are told our accounts are not real, our stories are fake. No matter how polite or constructive we are, some of the most influential & media savvy in PH will instantly bemoan the 'trolling' they are having to endure, which closes doors to people we have never even spoken to. 

When finally we had enough of the bullying & untruths from articles written behind paywalls, public comments about us & at us on social media, we complain to an authority about the extreme behaviour we experienced on Twitter. We are informed of the complaints procedure & told to wait 30 days for a resolution. Then we watch while elements of Public Health stepped up what feels like a campaign to humiliate us further in blaming us for the behaviour of their peers. More articles, more opinion pieces appear. Somehow, we deserved the insults, we bought it upon ourselves. We are unreasonable & silly for expecting to have a say in what's happening with our lives. Decisions are being made about us, but definitely without us.

To finally see the Faculty of Public Health support their president John Ashton, before conclusion of the investigation, without even being asked to further explain our experience is disgusting. It would appear most of you are not even aware of what happened. I ask you all to reflect deeply on who it is you represent, who you are charged with protecting.  Well it's me, and millions of others like me, yet you insulted & ignored me, then when I complained you blamed me.

UPDATE - Thanks to four particularly vocal Anti E-cig Activists responding to my letter, I have written a second letter, here. 

The Right To Reply: or not, as it happens.

Below are responses written to the tenacious, indefatigable even, Martin McKee who has penned yet another scathing, sneering and downright offensive attack on those that have the bare faced cheek to disagree with him. How irritating it must be to know that there are folk that keep pointing out that what you spout to the media is complete and utter nonsense. Seemingly he has nothing better to d....what was that? Ebola you say?

I fail to understand why journals like the BMJ are giving space to unsubstantiated accusations on members of the public. It is also infuriating beyond WORDS to see the sycophants on Twitter, blindly retweeting McKee's article without question of its validity.  

Anyway, these have been submitted to the BMJ in the correct manner, and only appear here as the journal in question has seen fit to disallow these comments about not being allowed to.. Uh.. Comment...so.. yeah.. 

Submitted by me on 9/10/14

Almost a year to the day[1], here I am writing to defend myself and other honest vapers from the same inflammatory outpourings from the same people. What has been learned in that time by those in the very elite of Public Health? Sadly, it appears to be nothing. For the second day in a row, we are subjected to yet another unsubstantiated and unwarranted attack. These continuous and relentless accusations emanating from the upper echelons of those charged with the protection of our health, ceased to be a curiosity a long time ago. We have tried, relentlessly yes, to talk to and deal with the very people who proclaim to all that will listen that we are either Trolls (the definition[2] of which does not actually apply here) or paid industry stooges (be that Tobacco or E-cig). Now we have the added definitions of ‘extreme libertarians’ or ‘deeply troubled individuals’.

Let me be clear. I am not a paid stooge for ANY industry nor am I a Troll. I say this also for the people that I speak to on a daily basis. I would not even call myself a libertarian let alone an extreme one, though I fail to see why that would be an issue; indeed Mckee rather eloquently made the case for them himself.  Am I a troubled individual? Well, yes actually, but certainly not in the ‘unhinged’ manner which Martin implies. I am troubled by the fact that no matter what we do, what we say, we are totally unable to defend against these accusations and still they persist. In fact, given how often we have tried to refute them, I consider them now to be nothing more than lies, constructed in order to make e-cig advocates so very toxic that we are as likely to be spoken to as a tobacco industry member. I am troubled because far from this idea that the use of the ‘block’ button being as a RESULT of contact we have made, it has often been used BEFORE we have been able to say a word. In fact, the author of this smear piece has been un-contactable for more than a year.  As have some of the people I expect to see respond to this article. Yet somehow we are deemed to still be attacking them (challenging their opinion or asking questions), to such a degree that it warrants repeated opinion pieces being published, often behind paywalls so that we are unable to see.

I am troubled as this feels like we are being bullied by people who are untouchable and unreachable yet have absolute authority and the assumed respect of their peers, the media and the public. What are we, unpaid volunteer advocates or lay vapers, supposed to do in the face of this adversity[3]? If there is indeed proof of astroturfing, then I strongly and passionately request that this be made public immediately as we would be as concerned and upset (if not more) as Martin McKee and his ilk are. As yet, despite repeated requests for this evidence, we have seen nothing.

This debacle is serving only to muddy the waters, delay sensible regulation and, worse, create fear and uncertainty in smokers who would otherwise have chosen harm reduction as their route out of tobacco. In truth, the last of these things is the one that should cause the most consternation in anyone who is genuinely interested in the health and wellbeing of smokers. The greatest irony being that the entire movement is in danger of being handed to the tobacco industry through the fear of their involvement in, what appears to be, the least effective part of the market. In the long run, the attention being paid to unjustified scrutiny of us e-cig users, unsupported theories of gateways and gross lack of understanding of the role of flavours, will make cannon fodder of smokers in your war against the tobacco industry. A war we want no part of. Whilst you gaze at your navels contemplating hypothetical fears, millions of smokers have made the decision themselves to choose harm reduction. 

The big question is; how many didn’t as a result of this relentless scaremongering?

---

[1] Full response to the first McKee BMJ article 27.9.13 http://oxle.com/topic.asp?tid=6459

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)

[3] Further reading on why Vapers are angry http://www.theindefatigablefrog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/the-indefatigable-frog-or-why-this-wont.html

Submitted by Sarah Jakes on the 8/10/14

This is the second article [1] I have read today in which McKee attempts to conflate the e-cigarette industry, libertarian bloggers and angry e-cigarette consumers (vapers) in an attempt to paint the latter group as an astroturf organisation in the pay of either big tobacco or big vapour, which of course to his mind are one and the same thing. Is it any wonder that people who do not have the luxury of being published in prestigious journals such as this get even more angry when being maligned in one?

Either McKee does not understand the public he purports to protect or his comments are disingenuous in the extreme. I know that McKee has read Clive Bates' blog article entitled 'Memo to public health grandees: vaping, vapers and you' [2] which attracted 111 positive comments from consumers and is the most read and shared article on the Counterfactual site. I personally asked McKee to read that article because Bates has absolutely nailed the thoughts and feelings of vapers on the head, as is evident from the comments. My request to McKee to read it was a genuine attempt to create some understanding between our two sides. He confirmed that he'd read it, but the message appears to have fallen on deaf ears. 

McKee is completely entrenched and out of touch. He is of course free to disagree with Bates' article, but cannot deny the fact that it has the widespread support of the very people who are its subject. McKee has himself researched a member of the public and indeed uncovered the shocking fact that one Twitter user (who uses his own name and very colourful language) is a freelance writer who sometimes gets paid to write positive articles about e-cigarettes. If he'd researched further he may also have found that this is common knowledge, as is the fact that the person is a British ex soldier with several tours of duty under his belt, which probably explains the liberal use of creative profanities. One, sometimes foul mouthed, squaddie with a genuinely held belief that public health will kill people doth not an astroturf lobby make.

There appears to be a concerted effort by some in public health to deliberately make false associations between a genuine grass roots consumer campaign and organisations with commercial interests, the more malign the better. This of course serves two purposes, firstly, it undermines the voice and views of the public by instilling  the false belief that their views are paid for rather than their own. Secondly, it allows those in public health who are apparently unable to control their own behaviour to keep their jobs due to "mitigating circumstances" - those circumstances presumably being that they were baited into calling members of the public "c**ts" and "onanists" by industry shills with agendas [3]. 

One thing is for sure - if McKee and others continue to provoke vapers with false accusations whilst failing to engage with them on the issues which are important to them, the relationship between the two sides is only going to get worse, and PH will only have themselves to blame. If your job is public health and you find that the public are angry with you then you really should be asking yourself a question - and here's a clue - it's not "who is paying them".

[1] Martin McKee - Peering through the Smokescreen http://pmj.bmj.com/content/early/2014/10/07/postgradmedj-2014-133029.extract

[2] Clive Bates - The Counterfactual - 'Memo to public health grandees: vaping, vapers and you' http://www.clivebates.com/?p=2391

[3] The Times - E-Cigarette debate Heats up in online War of Words http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/science/article4200758.ece

Statement from the Faculty of Public Health (now removed from the site):  "The Board has registered its strong disapproval of Professor Ashton’s comments, whilst noting the mitigating circumstances. The Board also agreed that Professor Ashton should continue in his role as President and has given clear direction on the necessary steps to support his return"

Just for fun

I happened to notice that it is World Poetry Day today, so thought I would join in & penned this little ditty.

Dear Public Health, I know you are listening
We are trying to help but your attitude's blistering.
There are good ones among you,
Not even that scarce,
It's time you embraced us,
Not feed us to bears.

The bears are Big T and Big Pharma too,
Your own ideology aligns with the WHO.
But we are your charges,
For us you must care,
Our health should come first,
It's one thing we share.

We are not addicts nor are we trolls,
But this story rolls on oh it rolls & it rolls.
We promise to be reasonable,
Do you promise too?
There's a lot to be gained here,
And too much to lose.

So smoker or vaper we are using our voice,
What we ask for is simple, what we ask for is choice.
Harm reduction is obvious,
When you open your eyes.
Take a breath & dive in,
And stop with the lies.

The Indefatigable Frog, or Why this won't stop us!

So this is becoming a bit of a theme and I am going to take that theme and look at it again from another angle. Clive has written fantastically on why Public Health need to address how they view the public. Jo has addressed the difference between us banding together and Public Health banding together and I am going to address just why us vapers have tinkered with miffed, passed through irked, sailed right over gobsmacked and are now firmly settled in Furious. I want to take this back to before we were vapers though, perhaps to give a little more insight.

I will use myself an as example, cos I know all my own details and that makes it a bit easier.

I started smoking when I was 12. I already knew it was bad and was used to hearing my nan nag my dad about him stopping. I also grew up with my dad not being able to smoke in the house. So by 12, I was well aware that smoking is bad enough that you are not allowed to do it around other people. Of course, I still started smoking. I smoked until I was a little over 34. So that is 22 years by the numbers. I am going to round it up to 23 cos it makes this simpler.

I am 36 now. This means, that for 2/3rds of my life, I was a ‘dirty smoker’. Something that society was at pains to remind me about on a daily basis, with my freedom to smoke being restricted more and more. I am sure I was not the only smoker to feel utterly sickened to read news articles condemning adoptive parents for smoking, that they should be prevented from giving love and security to a vulnerable child, all because they enjoyed a cigarette. As a parent, this strikes a bit of fear into you. Will they condemn parents that smoke? Will they one day say my children should be taken away from me cos I go into the garden to have a ciggy?

But it was nastier than that. They ran adverts about horrible tobacco guzzling parents, so that all of society could hate me a little bit more, as the adverts on the tellybox had told them what an appalling mother I was.

The public at large already sneered at me, customers at my workplace would comment on my habit, tell me it would ruin my skin, age me or how it made me look ugly. Really personal stuff, and insulting too. I did not know these people, who were they to tell me that I was ugly because I smoked? I wish I were kidding, but I used to get these comments with relative frequency. If they could think of nothing particularly personal, they would settle with ‘Bad for you, that’ as though somehow I must just have missed the adverts, posters, flyers, billboards, comments etc and was happily thinking I was replacing one of my 5 a day with some tobacco leaves. So I was stupid, too.

To recap – I was stupid, ugly, will  be ugly, a bad mother and society thought I stank.

Then when the smoking ban came into affect, by which time I had switched to rollies, I would stand at work and roll myself a ciggy before going outside for a break. I remember catching a woman looking at me as I fashioned a perfectly cylindrical tube of ‘I am going outside so you lot can stop clicking your damn fingers at me for service’ to see such a look of disgust on her face that it really took me back for a moment. I had never had a stranger look at me like that before. Pure unadulterated loathing for me rolling a ciggie. I probably could have chopped out a line of coke, or rolled up my sleeve to tap for a vein and not been looked at like I was just then.

Post the 2007 ban, things just got worse in terms of how ppl treated me. The adverts got more aggressive, the second hand smoke messages got more aggressive. So now rather than just being ugly, smelly, stupid and a bad parent I was also dangerous.

If you are not a vaper or smoker and are reading this, imagine for just one second, what that must be like? To spend 2/3rds of your life being treated like this, looked at in this way. Remember that poor woman who ignited her oxygen tube with a lighter? Seek it out – look at the comments and see what the public thinks of smokers. The vitriol and hatred is something to behold. A poor woman made a horrible mistake whilst still under the effects of a general anaesthetic and what did the public say? She deserved it. Why? 

Because she was a smoker.

For the record, I think they were wrong! I think to demonise a group of people so determinedly as they did with smokers is inhuman and immoral.  However, there is no escaping the fact that when I took up vaping instead, I thought I had freed myself from that. I do not look for people to accept me, I do not and did not want to be confirmed as a human again, but I did think that would stop.

Well it hasn’t and frankly, it has gotten worse. 

So, ask youselves. Why am I angry? Why are many vapers angry?

We have tried to talk to you. We have written to you, we have emailed you and we have tweeted you. You have largely ignored us. You have written articles that hide behind paywalls discrediting us with accusations and thinly veiled but loaded reminders of ‘What The Tobacco Industry Did To Us’, that you have ‘Seen All This Before’. You told us our stories are not true. You go to the public and you tell them that we are to be feared just as we were as smokers. That we have not achieved anything, by moving the goalposts: Is the endgame tobacco free, or nicotine free? You use your media presence to say things that evidence has not shown and common sense denies. And what can we do about it?

Nothing.

 We cannot answer, we cannot explain to you why a custard flavoured e-liquid is so important to us. Why we have faith in what we are trying to advocate because WE were the very smokers you had not got a chance of getting to Quit. When we use one of the only mediums we have available to us to contact you, you block us without deigning to answer, then profess to your peers that you are being attacked, by ecig zealots or tobacco stooges. You use your credibility to convince others that you are right. Afterall, we are just addicts. Have you the first CLUE how insanely insulting this is? This is not our job, we do it because we want to keep this movement going. We do this for FREE, for NOTHING. No one pays us. YOU on the other hand are paid. You are paid to look after our health. 

Understand, this is NOT related to any one individual, this has happened for as long as I have been doing this and  before, it is not new but has worsened. And what can we do? 

Nothing.

We do not have funding. We do not have the ear of the media. We do not have letters after our names. We do not have influence. We do not have swathes of respecting public and academics. We are normal as normal can be. But we do have something! We have experience and knowledge and understanding of what it is to be a smoker then a vaper. We can see first hand why this is working and what will stop it, dead in its tracks. We are trying to warn you that the direction of travel you are choosing is going to cause untold damage to people’s lives, but you will not listen.

And why do we do this? It is not to save our arses! The loudest and most active of us will continue to vape no matter what you do. We can be self-sufficient, that is something you cannot prevent. We do this because there are hundreds of millions of smokers across the planet who face being denied the opportunity that we had. That is not acceptable. That is not OK, not in any world, at any moment in space or time. We are not out to convert people, just to stop you from scaring them off of a new and safer habit that may well save their life, at the very least, improve it if they choose!

Is that a bad thing? No, and it is something YOU should be doing too.

But be clear, those of you that are doing this to us, there are others amongst you are are looking at you askance. 

So why are we angry? We did what you want, just not how you wanted us to, or BECAUSE you wanted us to, and you still persist with the demonisation. Except, this time, you are lying about us personally.

Dear FPH - Just a quick word about John Ashton.

Unless it escaped your notice or perhaps you have not grasped just how batshit crazy Mr Ashton went this weekend, these blogs (Dick, Jo, Random Vaper and VapeMeStoopid) have the screenshots you need to see. This behaviour was NOT based on our beloved Fergus (or anyone) exercising his expansive knowledge of colourful & creative insults (which he didn't!) or anyone being abusive. This snowballed after a few of us asked reasonable and polite questions. Actually, one question got me blocked. Others didn't even have the luxury of ONE question. Thinking about it, I have no idea if I was blocked BEFORE all of this, none of us do!

Anyhow, hopefully you have seen the pics of the tweets and understand the true absurdity of the situation. I know others have done this too, but here is my personal letter of complaint to the Faculty of Public Health.

--------

Dear,

This is not a letter I take any pleasure in writing but I feel that, in the circumstances, there is no other option. Please accept the following as a formal complaint against the President of The Faculty of Public Health, Professor John Ashton, under section 4 of your complaints procedure, as a result of inappropriate behaviour on social media. As such I would like confirmation of receipt of this complaint and confirmation that it has been forwarded to the registrar.

I am a Vaper, e-cigarette user if you will, of almost two years. I and many others have made sure that we have kept abreast of all developments in this area in that time period. I am a genuine person who is not in the pay of industry of any description.  I would call myself an advocate, but be clear that I am an unpaid one. In the course of trying to get the voice of the vaper heard and considered by those in public health, tobacco control, the media and those in politics, I (and many others) have been subjected to many accusations and insults. We have been shut out and discounted for many reasons. We have observed and listened to many experts in the field of Public Health talk in the media about things that we know not to be true and yet we have not be able to redress the balance with what we see as the truth and what the data refutes.

This was never more apparent than Professor John Ashton’s behaviour  this week, having appeared three times in the media with unsupported claims and misrepresentations of data.

As members of the public, we do not have the ability to comment on these assertions. We are not able to talk with Mr Ashton via anything other than social media.

However, when approached on Twitter (initially reasonably) myself and others found ourselves blocked with no answers given to our questions.  A brick wall was very quickly built and from behind it, with no way of us being able to respond or defend ourselves, Mr Ashton began to hurl abuse.  Vapers who had not been involved in trying to communicate with him whatsoever, found themselves being told they were addicts and slaves to this addiction. From their perspective, this came entirely out of the blue as it appears Mr Ashton had trawled through their timelines in order to find a tweet he could then insult them from.  This one I find to be most disturbing, please note that the tweet he attacked is dated 20/08/2014.

For a man in a position of authority and power to deem it appropriate to seek out and attack a member of the public for doing something a) completely legal and b) is reducing their harm in place of smoked tobacco, beggars belief. It is unfathomable to imagine that Mr Ashton is able to view harm reduction for smokers with anything even approaching objectivity. To this end, it is entirely inappropriate for him to be in a position of authority that will have lasting effects on the future of e-cigarette usage in the UK. It is bad enough that, as advocates, we have been shut out and ignored but to then be called cunts, onanists, ‘lads behind the bikesheds’, addicts, tobacco industry shills (Indeed shills for ANY industry) is beyond the pale.

If these are the thoughts that sit behind decision making and position taking on e-cigarettes then it is clear that Professor John Ashton and the Faculty of Public Health are not fit to be involved in the discussion.  As such these personal attacks have to be apologised for and Mr Ashton must have no further part in the wider discussion on the place of harm reduction for smokers in society. This is a volatile situation and involves the lives of many millions of people. To allow yourselves to be a part of the movement that seeks to restrict access to what may be life saving technology, based on the personal ideologies, prejudices and ill informed opinions of one man calls into question the role of Public Health in its entirety. 

I look forward to your response,

Lorien Jollye

------------

I removed this paragraph being as it is best we don't get drawn into the details of misrepresentation of data, it avoids them using it to distract from the situation. I am putting in here cos I need to get it off my chest.

"This was never more apparent than Professor John Ashton’s behaviour  this week, having appeared three times in the media with unsupported claims and misrepresentations of data. No example is clearer than his willingness to espouse the validity of the most recent data on E-cig use in US youth, from the CDC.  One would hope that Mr Ashton had done more than read the conclusion/press release and seen that the data within the study does not support the resulting media frenzy. It is of great concern that a man in Mr Ashton’s position would not read a study before taking to the airwaves in order strike fear into the hearts of every parent in the UK. This alone is questionable behaviour. Further to this, to willingly overlook and underplay statistics from both ASH and Professor Robert Wests ‘smoking toolkit’ in order to push, what can only be called an agenda,  the ‘Gateway to tobacco’ theory and that ‘self respecting’ adults would not use sweet flavours."

I find this entire situation both hilarious and terrifying. Whether or not the man was drunk when he embarked upon this bonkers and vicious campaign, is irrelevant. Alcohol does not create, it amplifies. The mask slipped and my god it was covering something breathtakingly ugly. This HAS to be addressed as people like John Ashton have NO right to be involved in this when he holds the people affected in such absolute contempt.

It really is never ending, isn't it.

The Little Movement

I have been wringing my hands about the fact I have not written a blog for what seems like an age. Every time I think 'Well THAT is a blog waiting to happen' life kinda gets in the way and I just do not get round to doing it. Then something else happens that infuriates or inspires me and the last thing gets forgotten. I can assure you that in my head, there have been several ground breaking, breath taking, heart rending blogs that will never see the light of day. Mainly because I have forgotten them.

So instead of all that lost brilliance with which I would have blinded you all, I will tell you a story and it starts with my job, which if you didn't know, is waitressing. Not glamourous and to be honest, in the height of summer in a 400 year old building with no ventilation, frankly sweaty!

I started this particular job in 2011. 2012 was when I saw my first 'proper' vapouriser, in the hands of my bosses. She had a dinky ego thing with a carto on top and he a bloody great tank of some sort (I still do not know what it was). I had only seen cigalikes up till that point and was not the least bit interested. I was a roll-ups smoker so I had no association with a plastic cigarette whatsoever. These fancy shiny funky tank thingies were something else though. And they had all these lush flavours like caramel and cinnamon and stuff. I remember going home to enthuse to my hubby about these bonkers things I had seen, he looked at me like possibly I ought not to have driven myself home cos clearly I had drunk too much after work and was talking nonsense.

My interest was piqued though, so I sat at the PC and sought out the site my boss had told me about. Scared myself shitless and thought I would look again at some other point. I did, still had not got a clue what I was looking at, what the hell a boge cartomiser was or why I would want to punch one or what a coil was and why they came in 1.8ohms and 2.4ohms and WHAT THE HELL?!?! AM I BACK IN SCHOOL?!

If you have read my first blog you will know what eventually forced me to bite the bullet. If you haven't, then read it cos I am not going to explain again now. The Why, is here, the How is another matter. I sat staring at page after page of 'stuff', occasionally exclaiming to my husband 'What the hell is this? What does it do? Do we need one? Two?  I am going to do this!  I swear I am not leaving this seat until I have.  FFS WHAT IS 18MG AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Ok, I'll just make a coffee and look again. YES I KNOW IT IS 1 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING THANK YOU VERY MUCH!'.

Eventually I signed up to the forum for that vendor. Introduced myself and asked for help. And I got it, I got so much of it I felt a bit like crying. I was a fish out of water and I was stepping into what was clearly an established community, and they embraced me! I mean, I asked every moronic question you have ever heard. I even posted exactly what was in my basket to ask if it was right. All the things we have seen countless others do on our respective forums. They helped me. Supported me. Patiently explained what everything meant.

I ordered all the kit and knew that when it arrived I would be back on there asking what to do next. I felt safe doing that. I knew there would be friendly answers, 'how's it going's. I felt no pressure whatsoever and a group of strangers helped cement the idea in my mind that I was going to enjoy this! I was actually looking FORWARD to it. I have a lot to thank that forum for and although it is still going it is not very political so probably not reading this, but if any one of you are, please have my thanks and pass them on to those still active.

So why is this relevant? About a week ago someone who is not a vaper, but is an ardent supporter with basic knowledge, asked for help to buy a kit for a smoking friend. Among the ensuing emails between a small group of us, it came up just how confusing this can all be to the new person jumping in. Or, in this case, the person buying a vapouriser on behalf of someone else.

So I logged into that first forum tonight (just before writing that last paragraph) and revisited my first few posts. I almost do not recognise the person writing (apart from the stupid sense of humour which I seem to have lost along the way). My attitude towards myself as a smoker. What I wanted from vaping. That 'vapers tongue' that hits in the first few weeks that mean you can't taste anything. What can happen when you start on a VG blend. I remembered all the support as written above, but reading through it all, it was SO much more.

I have learnt a lot about myself and my habit in the past 21 months as I am sure we all have, whatever the length of our journey. However, I had forgotten what it was LIKE to be that person, first putting their toe into the water, how bewildered I was. I had forgotten JUST how fundamental that support was in my success. I was a fairly typical smoker for whom all the organised, sterilised support systems were never going to work. Irregardless of how good they were and we know there are good ones out there! I was not and am not exceptional, I was normal. There are millions like me.

Jump to this weekend at Vapefest and I am reminded again of what this community is. A beautiful soul of a man (@bobtherandom) sat at a picnic bench, whilst it tried to rain on us, with a butane powered soldering iron trying to fix my Evic.

Another friend (@twigolet) offering me the spare bed in her room to save me camping on my own, so I could go to the event. Why? Because that is what this community can do, it is what it does.

It is not just what happens online in forums and on Twitter or Facebook, it is every snatched conversation on the street or at work when a smoker asks a question and someone has an answer.

Vaping is a movement, millions of people who aren't even really aware of what they are a part of, but when called upon for help, they will give it. Not for anything in return, but cos they want to share and they understand. Despite the title (another PKD reference) there is nothing little about it.

THIS is what makes us all remarkable. Incredible even. I will link to three of my first threads for you to read, especially read the stories in the 2nd thread ( Shiny, Benefits, Weird.). Don't forget that this is how many of us started and many are now joining in the same way. Don't forget the help you might have needed at the very beginning and that each of us are essentially On Call for that moment when someone needs support. We shouldn't preach, we are not out to convert. This is not a religion and we are not zealots.

In amongst all the political wrangling, the blind ideological arguments we find ourselves fighting against, the anger, frustration and upset all this causes, don't forget to feel proud about what we are a part of.

When Jean-Francois Etter said 'You cannot stop a tsunami with a law', he was right.

The community is what drives that.

Thank you xx

Authors Note

The author in this case is not me, it's Philip K Dick. It was written about drug use & when I read this at 12 or 13 years old it had a profound impact on me. I'm not saying it mirrors what's going on, but I can't help but feel there are some similarities. Take from it what you will.

A SCANNER DARKLY

Author's Note

This has been a novel about some people who were punished entirely too much for what they did. They wanted to have a good time, but they were like children playing in the street; they could see one after another of them being killed -- run over, maimed, destroyed -- but they continued to play anyhow. We really all were very happy for a while, sitting around not toiling but just bullshitting and playing, but it was for such a terrible brief time, and then the punishment was beyond belief: even when we could see it, we could not believe it. For example, while I was writing this I learned that the person on whom the character Jerry Fabin is based killed himself. My friend on whom I based the character Ernie Luckman died before I began the novel. For a while I myself was one of these children playing in the street; I was, like the rest of them, trying to play instead of being grown up, and I was punished. I am on the list below, which is a list of those to whom this novel is dedicated, and what became of each.

Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error in judgment. When a bunch of people begin to do it, it is a social error, a life-style. In this particular life-style the motto is "Be happy now because tomorrow you are dying," but the dying begins almost at once, and the happiness is a memory. It is, then, only a speeding up, an intensifying, of the ordinary human existence. It is not different from your life-style, it is only faster. It all takes place in days or weeks or months instead of years. "Take the cash and let the credit go," as Villon said in 1460. But that is a mistake if the cash is a penny and the credit a whole lifetime.

There is no moral in this novel; it is not bourgeois; it does not say they were wrong to play when they should have toiled; it just tells what the consequences were. In Greek drama they were beginning, as a society, to discover science, which means causal law. Here in this novel there is Nemesis: not fate, because anyone of us could have chosen to stop playing in the street, but, as I narrate from the deepest part of my life and heart, a dreadful Nemesis for those who kept on playing. I myself, I am not a character in this novel; I am the novel. So, though, was our entire nation at this time. This novel is about more people than I knew personally. Some we all read about in the newspapers. It was, this sitting around with our buddies and bullshitting while making tape recordings, the bad decision of the decade, the sixties, both in and out of the establishment. And nature cracked down on us. We were forced to stop by things dreadful.

If there was any "sin," it was that these people wanted to keep on having a good time forever, and were punished for that, but, as I say, I feel that, if so, the punishment was far too great, and I prefer to think of it only in a Greek or morally neutral way, as mere science, as deterministic impartial cause-and-effect. I loved them all.

Here is the list, to whom I dedicate my love:

To Gaylene - deceased
To Ray - deceased
To Francy - permanent psychosis
To Kathy - permanent brain damage
To Jim - deceased
To Val - massive permanent brain damage
To Nancy - permanent psychosis
To Joanne - permanent brain damage
To Maren - deceased
To Nick - deceased
To Terry - deceased
To Dennis - deceased
To Phil - permanent pancreatic damage
To Sue - permanent vascular damage
To Jerri - permanent psychosis and vascular
damage
...and so forth.

In Memoriam.

These were comrades whom I had; there are no better. They remain in my mind, and the enemy will never be forgiven. The "enemy" was their mistake in playing. Let them all play again, in some other way, and let them be happy.