New Zealand tobacco control zealots, Quit, responded to the news that a respected researcher had deemed e-cigs perfectly safe, with the type of dreary and irrational reaction that we have come to expect from their limp, risk-terrified, and doom-laden colleagues worldwide.
"The strength of e-cigarettes is that they provide nicotine without the thousands of damaging chemicals found in cigarettes and tobacco, which is certainly a good thing," said a spokesman.
"Our concern is that, at face value, they appear to reinforce the behaviour of having a cigarette. It's reinforcing the wrong habit and potentially without addressing the addiction.
"We need to de-normalise smoking and e-cigarettes seem to role-model the wrong behaviour."
In New Zealand, e-cigs have been deemed harmful to no-one, are no threat to Quit's aspiration of living for a thousand years, don't make them have to wash their clothes more than once a month and don't force them to wash their hair like everyone else.
In short, there is absolutely nothing which could possibly make it any of Quit's business to intervene, but intervene they still do.
You see, it's still a bit like smoking ... and they just hate the fact that anyone is doing something that they don't personally like. Especially if they enjoy it.
Instead of lecturing governments, these bodies should be on a couch explaining their thoughts to a shrink. They need help.
