I assume being a hospital there will be hand sanitiser next to the button? If not, why not? It's a hospital.
There needs to be a full public inquiry into who didn't think to put the sanitiser next to the button.
Publicly owned open spaces in Wales now feature a Red Button that panic-stricken citizens can smack in fury when they spot a vaper on the premises. The button triggers an anonymous pre-recorded PA announcement – read out by a child. The system, which has been introduced at four hospitals, is designed to curb smoking. But this …
.... black button bilinguilly labelled in 2 distinct shades of jet black on a bicolour black panel, with 2 different colour black leds which light up in 2 distinctive jet blacks to indicate that you've .... and we would need 2 distinctively different black hand sanitisers nearby, labelled ....
El reg - we need 2 different jet black flame icons ....
NURSE! My black pills! Make sure they're the right colour ....
huge billowing clouds of vapour out of vehicles during rush-hours...
Or not. Saw a bloke in a van the other day who exhaled with the windows nearly closed (driver's was open a couple of inches I think). The whole cab filled with a cloud and it was a good three or four seconds before his face was clearly visible again, during which time I assume he'd have been able to see about as much of the road ahead as I could of him. Fortunately the traffic, although moving, was slow.
I've also seen vapers fumbling with the awkward, large things while driving. Haven't people been pulled over for eating bananas or drinking coffee while driving? It's somewhat similar.
Haven't people been pulled over for eating bananas or drinking coffee while driving? It's somewhat similar.
Here in Queensland, in theory you could be. Even taking a swig of water out of a water bottle is technically "drink driving", just not "driving under the influence of alcohol".
It is however, rarely enforced. The police usually have more pressing matters to attend to.
I've no problem with people vaping as such, where I have a minor issue is when its done indoors at busy event. The plume of smoke / vape appears and its a royal PITA to find them and see if its a e-cig (or whatever kind) or a real cig.
We took the same route as many pubs, its another hassle for the staff to deal with, so easier to ask people to go outside, and be stopped allowing vaping indoors at our events (beer festivals). And on more than on occasion one slightly sozzled person has seen the "smoke", and then started to light up a real cig thinking its OK.
"Then don't kiss me when I'm vaping because that it is the only way it will happen. (vapour dissipates immediately)"
You only think it does because you are desensitized to the smell. The reality is that they are a huge improvement over regular cigarettes (less smell, doesn't seem to get into clothing as much, not as much effect on breath). Even at 10m It still stinks and it still causes me enough breathing troubles that I reach for my inhalator).
Wrong, the vapour turns invisible but it doesn't dissipate/disappear, it lingers just as long as the harmful fumes from burnt tobacco linger.
To me it is akin to walking near someone who has poured an entire bottle of aftershave over themselves, who really knows what harm all those aerosol compounds can cause, only time will tell.
>Wrong, the vapour turns invisible but it doesn't dissipate/disappear, it lingers just as long as the harmful fumes from burnt tobacco linger.
Nope - the particles are larger and heavier and fall quite quickly to the floor. The bulk of vape post coil is water - even before it's heated - eg when you leave the top off a bottle much of the content evaporates within a couple of days at room temperature..
This is going to be abused like hell for a few weeks, and then quietly withdrawn.
I doubt it. This is in Wales, England's backward, public sector theme park. As an effective single party state this can only have happened with the approval of The Party, and its health service placepeople, so a more likely outcome is to see the red button spread like a rash over all those things The Party hates. So bubs clubs and bars will have a red button to tell you to have fruit smoothie, rather than a beer. McDonald's will be legally compelled to have a "put the burger down, step away from the burger slowly" button......et al
I'd like to know how you can anonymously press a rather visible button in a specific location.
Even if you add a randomised delay to playing the message it's going to be rather visible. Besides, that button looks like it's one drop of superglue away from being decommissioned.
If you really want to address smoking related issues you would be better off starting with reserved smoking areas on train stations like their have in Germany. As train and bus stations are the last vestige of Public Transport where smoking is possible it has actually become simply impossible to get any clean air in their vicinity.
If they wanted to be reasonable, they could just have a bus shelter in the car park for smokers. Most people would use it.
If the alternative is to walk hundreds of yards, away the protection from wind of the building, people will just carry on smoking where they like.
Can't smoke in a bus shelter, it's an area that is covered so is under the anti-smoking law. So having a bus shelter there means you have to stand outside it to have a puff. Most NHS areas now are totally smoke free, you're not allowed to smoke anywhere on the premises, even in the car park, you have to leave the site to have a smoke.
The real reason they are going after vapers? It detracts from the fact that the Welsh are the UK's biggest binge drinkers (yes, even more than Scotland), so rather than tackle the issue of the Welsh being a nation of drunks (disclaimer to prevent "omfg, you racist" remarks : I'm Welsh) they put down vaping as a health hazard rather than focus on the real health issue in Wales, alcohol.
"Can't smoke in a bus shelter, it's an area that is covered so is under the anti-smoking law. So having a bus shelter there means you have to stand outside it to have a puff."
Unless the Welsh have a different law to the English and Scots (entirely possible), the law defining an enclosed space is a permanent structure with a roof and at least three walls.
"Most NHS areas now are totally smoke free, you're not allowed to smoke anywhere on the premises, even in the car park, you have to leave the site to have a smoke."
A local hospital had signs up at the entrances to the grounds stating that the no smoking area extended 5 metres around the entrance. Some people decided to get together and have a "smoke-a-thon" on the pavement near the entrance. When some guy in a uniform came out and pointed to the sign, they quite rightly pointed out that they were in a public space, not on NHS property.. I'm not sure if the signs are still there.
Steady on old chap. This is not known for certain. What is known is that it is very much less harmful than smoking. But it is probably naive to assume it is benign. For the record, I am a former smoker who has much to thank vaping for and is very pleased to be living in England.
The Horizon program showed that there were particulates in the air (which isn't a shock, as they had a pair of cloud chasers dripping in there; literally the worst case scenario for generating vapour) but they very tellingly stopped short of stating that it was harmful.
Because it's almost guaranteed not to be based on the known materials science, and there is no evidence that it is when it's tested for. That is to say, there is evidence of it's effects, and harm isn't evident in the research.
VG and PG have a long, long history of animal inhalation testing going back over sixty years that shows zero notable negative effects that can be attributed to the vapourised liquids (they were chosen as the bases/bulk for a reason - the only side effect seemed to be the animals putting on some weight as they metabolised the vapour through their lungs), and in any other case, especially outdoors, even if there were a risk (from flavourings etc), it'd be so dilute that it'd be of no biological effect, as direct biological effect at levels that propose a risk to human health in users of the devices has yet to be proven in any meaningful way. The few good studies done on vaping in enclosed spaces (that is, actually using an enclosed space, with a vape device - not just using ecig residue on a petri dish) show much the same; the biological effect (never mind toxicological) just isn't there.
It's also worth remembering that second hand smoke contains physical, solid particles that lodge in the lung, as a product of combustion, as happens with any smoke; the vapour from e-cigs is liquid based, which means it doesn't behave in the same way, and so doesn't have the same risk profiles (much lower, as it liquifies on contact rather than lodging in place and causing damage). Otherwise, you'd not want to spend too long in the shower or the bath, or out in the rain.
There's a lot of very, very bad science out there at the moment surrounding e-cigs (the horizon program was lacking that, which surprised me - there's plenty of headline grabbing shite out there) and without being embedded in it or having a history in epidemiology or biological research, it's difficult to tell what's good and what's bad.
The latest one is a study that shows a potential gateway effect from vaping to smoking. This, however, can be happily ignored as population level studies show that this just isn't happening - yet it still gets reported as a thing that's happening despite the overwhelming evidence that the exact opposite is happening.
IE, it's not impossible that someone who vapes may go on to smoke if they like the sensation. However, actual data in the real world shows us that >98% of users are smokers, and that transferrance of smoking naive vapers to regular vaping is a tiny, tiny minority, and never smokers who vape, and then go on to smoke are like unicorns; rare and probably a bit 'special'.
Just because it has 'research' pinned to it, doesn't mean it's actually good research. If you meta-analyse what colour people report the sky to be, chances are you can make it appear that a 'statistically significant proportion of subjects may believe the sky is red'.
There's a lot of people calling the sky red lately in the public health world...
On the subject of this button, I find it interesting that people are saying the NHS are skint, yet apparently the issue of smokers (or vapers) around hospitals is important enough to blow half a years wages for a nurse on. Because you just know this won't have cost £500 to install. It's the NHS after all...
Steven R