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Clive Bates Profile picture
Clive Bates
@Clive_Bates
What's right thing to do? Been with IBM, Greenpeace, ASH, Cabinet Office, Environment Agency, UN in Sudan, Welsh Government, DECC and now my own Counterfactual.
Apr 16 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
There are 4 main problems with the smoking & vaping policy.

1. Extending age of majority indefinitely into adult life creates practical and in-principle problems - a novel age-stratified and invasive relationship between adult citizen and state. 2. The smoking policy *only* applies to adults as we already ban sales to under-18s. But this group (born after 2008) will hardly smoke anyway - they are moving to much-safer vapes, pouches. The health problem is the existing stock of poor middle-aged smokers. It misses them.
May 13, 2023 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Tobacco control livelihoods, careers, grants, conferences, personal prestige: none of it exists without harm. If nicotine in its smokefree forms is a nearly-benign recreational stimulant, then there is no point to them. It would be like “coffee control” - not a thing. /1 of 10 It follows that safer forms of nicotine represent a threat to the complex of interests that nominally exists to control harm. They are incentivised to seek harm and exaggerate what they find. It’s mostly not conscious; more of a survival reflex. But they are deeply conflicted. /2
Sep 30, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Here is the youth vaping trend that you will not see presented by @FDAtobacco & @CDCTobaccoFree. The 'youth vaping epidemic', whatever it was, is basically over. Meanwhile it still forms the foundational rationale for FDA's destruction of the vaping industry. 1/6 In their defence, FDA/CDC state: "... estimates from the 2021 NYTS should not be compared with previous NYTS survey waves that were primarily conducted on school campuses."

Sorry, I've done that and you will have to decide what is the most likely reason for the trend. 2/6
Jun 25, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
The best approach would be to make cigarettes obsolete in practice (and with the implicit consent of users) through vastly-safer non-combustible technologies for nicotine use. Banning things that people want doesn’t make them disappear, it creates an illicit supply chain. 1/12 We have bans on many kinds of drugs, but I don’t think these are a conspicuous success (see war on drugs). With nicotine, we have a relatively innocuous drug most commonly delivered via a highly toxic delivery system, inhalation of products of combustion of tobacco - smoking. 2/
Jan 16, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I'm working on my response now. NL State Secretary of Health @PaulBlokhuis doesn't realise it, but he is acting as a "useful idiot" for the cigarette trade. By trying to ban vape flavours he is protecting the market for cigarettes, promoting crime and harming Dutch citizens. Most frequent adolescent vapers are current or former smokers, so he would probably be harming teenagers too. At age 15/16 there are >6 times more daily smokers compared to daily vapers. Blokhuis is blundering around intervening in these behaviours with no idea what he is doing.
Sep 6, 2020 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
1/12 @FDATobacco has failed as a regulator for vaping products. Given most products are similar, @FDATobacco FDA could have set up a standardised form. It could even have populated it with what is already known (a lot) and spared millions of hours of work and repetitive waste. 2/ FDA could have provided guidance on what would meet the public health standard without having to prove it in every case. In order to have consistency between assessors, between products and over time, FDA must have its own standardising guidance. It could have published that.
Jul 31, 2020 • 14 tweets • 7 min read
1/12 So "prohibition does work" says the editor of the research journal 'Tobacco Control' @MaloneRuth

Really? Where to start?

A thread. /2 Firstly, the comparison with heroin is truly absurd. Heroin is highly disruptive or intrusive for many (not all) users and demand is low.

Unlike alcohol or many illicit drugs, nicotine does not lead to overdose, intoxication, violence, accidents, job loss or family breakdown.
Oct 12, 2019 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
This is known as 'salience bias' @NYSMom4Kiddos. The danger is believing teens *you* know, from your neighbourhood, from your social class, are representative of *all* teens. Actual data show 2018 high school smoking rate of 13.9% (cf. vaping 20.8%).
cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/6…
1/7 Given smoking is much more dangerous (>20x), the continuing use of combustible tobacco is the dominant problem. If you harm-weighted nicotine use, the smoking problem would be 13x more serious than the vaping problem. And it is why in public health we should focus on smoking.
2/7
Jun 19, 2018 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Unacceptable on what ethical basis? @fdatobacco surely recognises the reality-based world of youth doing risky things, whatever FDA wants? When kids who would otherwise have smoked take to #vaping instead, there is a clear public health benefit. Preventing that causes harm. 1/7 There is something disturbing about this argument, beyond the obvious indifference to the health and wellbeing of young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds. It’s an attempt to simplify the world by declaring a moral posture rather than deal with the world as it is. 2/7
Jun 2, 2018 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
So @DrTedros and @WHO make bold assertions about using a #SodaTax to tackle noncommunicable diseases. Now they should provide evidence. Allow me to assist > thread 1/10 2. How much do "sugary drinks contribute to the global rise of noncommunicable diseases"? What is their share of calories in the diet? (Not much). What is the relationship between calorie intake and bodyweight? (Not simple). Between bodyweight and NCD burden? (Not what you think)
May 12, 2018 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
More on the slow death of a dream. Telegraph #Brexit briefing is softening up the faithful for the inevitable permanent fudge, hinting at another five years in the customs union (and, necessarily, in the single market). This ‘interim period’ would, in practice, never end. 1/10 So the resolution of the Cabinet squabble over future customs arrangements is, “customs partnership and *then* #maxfac” so the government can do what it does best: avoid making the choice. 2/10