h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well what about Efags being prescribed on the NHS? Have you ever heard the like? I'm probably giving this more credence than it deserves, but surely anyone spending whatever on cigarettes to feed their nicotine addiction can afford to get themselves one of those idiotic vapes or whatever they're called. According to today's report they're 95% safer than fags. So there you are smokers, the information is there, surely then it's a matter of individual responsibility. What I know is that whenever the NHS starts handing out free drugs it gets abused, people will be selling the electronic things to get fags, that's certainly what happened with methadone in fact that killed more people than heroin when people started injecting it, that's why they only prescribe the oral liquid now and supervise people taking it. If doctors can't say no to people demanding antibiotics that they don't need how will they stop them demanding addictive drugs like nicotine? Can you get the patches on prescription? If so they should stop it, and the gum, madness!

I'd happily sell my house and all its contents to help fund e-cig addicts.

"Well what about Efags being prescribed on the NHS?"

I doubt the success of that measure.
the fake cig. just emulate the real one, no nicotine, but the habit remains, and if you keep the habit, sooner or later you´ll fall again for the real one.
In any case, ecigs, are them inocuous? those artificial flavours...

Maybe the success seeked is for the corporation that will sell NHS the stuff.

The oil used in E-cigs can, and usually do, contain nicotine.

But I thought the big health hazard in smoking was the tar and other carcinogens in the smoke? I'm an ex-smoker so don't have a dog in this fight but it looks to an outsider like those wanting them banned are just doing so because e-cigs are somehow cheating.

I have no problem with e-cigs. They have no demonstrable harmful effects on bystanders AFAIK whereas they are by far and away the most successful method developed yet in helping smokers quit. Why people want them banned is just bizarre.

There's two main cases for banning e-cigs that actually hold up to cursory inspection...

The first is that in busy pubs/clubs/bars/busses/etc, it's hard at a distance to tell whether some of them are in fact e-cigs, or whether they're real-cigs. So a lot of places just thought "**** it" and banned the lot rather than wasting time and risking good old English embarrassment with checking on them.

The second reason, which is also the main one, is that they're not currently tested and licensed. I could start manufacturing them tomorrow and selling them on with no need to have the product checked for health risks. They do actually "pose" a serious risk to health, it's an unproven risk because they've not been tested, but there is the risk there.

They're definitely less foul. I'm also a former smoker. I'm not necessarily in favor of draconian anti-smoking laws, but I don't enjoy the smell of smoke, or worse, the smell of stale smoke. People vaping in my presence don't make me need to hang my jacket outside my home to let it air out.

Here's a relevant news article.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/aug/19/public-health-england-e-cigarettes-safer-than-smoking?CMP=share_btn_tw

and i suppose and could one day be dispensed with a licensed medicine. mixed in with the oil..be handy for asthma and COPD sufferers who where smokers


Also could be used for the smoking of "not oregano oil" better than mixing it with tobacco..

I think the early e-cigs were made to look like cigarettes, but nobody could mistake the current glass and steel contraptions for a Benson & Hedges so the "look a bit like fags" argument is a bit of a red herring.

As to the risk - how can something that hasn't been tested and therefore is an unproven risk be said to pose a serious enough risk that it justifies banning? You may as well ban bananas because they're yellow and look jolly dangerous.

By all means test them and if it transpires that inhaling fruit flavoured water vapour poses a significant clear and present danger to public health, then ban them.

If people want to vape it's up to them but the NHS has much more to do than feed the habit of nicotine addicts.

Actually, e-smoke nicotine vaporizers are modeled to look like the pipes used to smoke crack cocaine.

Now all they need is a little Egyptian tana leaf* to smoke in them and they'll be all set.

Pity the tana leaf went extinct in classical times on account of overharvesting in the wild and failure to successfully introduce it into cultivation.

Gone forever, the way of Mediteranean asafoetida**.

I personally think e-smokers are disgusting.




*A member of the myrtle family rich in nicotine and coca.

The only remaining specimens have been found in grave goods with royal Egyptian mummies.

**A cooking spice with a flavor and aroma similar to garlic.

It's not so much the vapour that's untested smartarse, but the devices themselves. And there have been incidents of them exploding or over heating and setting fire to things.

Pity Vaughn Bode isn't around any more to do a satiric treatment, "Dr. Electric and His Electrical Hashpipe".

Still, I suppose R. Crumb might do something comparable.

Asafoetida.

Also known in French as Merde du Diable because it stinks.

PP.

Now this is what has been judged to be the best joke at the Edinburgh fringe! I'm hoping my sides won't completely split, it must be the way they tell them! http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-34039927 What was the worst? I dread to think.

I remember quite some time ago, there was a similar contest on the interwebs searching for the funniest jokes in the UK. The funniest joke as determined by English voters was the following.

What's brown and sticky?


A stick.




You know what we don't have here? A perfectly straight faced smiley. :-|


I believe the top joke in Scotland told the tail of a father and son who frequented a pub regularly, but failed to show up for some weeks. When the son finally returned, alone, the bartender is urged by the other patrons to ask about his father. They young man, Hamish was his name I'm sure, confirmed their fears that his father had indeed died, "Peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming in terror like all of his passengers."

*tale

So no Tim Vine this year?

The definition of a gentleman, someone who knows how to play the bagpipes but doesn't, should get the prize for longevity.