The insidious re-normalisation of smoking

The NHS has long since been smoke free, banning smoking on-site for patients and staff alike back when I was a nursing student. Of course this is ignored pretty much universally by patients and visitors, and every time you enter a major hospital it is usually through a cloud of tobacco smoke whilst the poor nurses must change out of their uniform and leave the hospital site in their rest break. It was with great surprise then, whilst sipping my morning coffee recently and trying to recover from the hacking smokers cough acquired entering the building, that I noticed a patient nearby sat merrily smoking away.

I was incredulous. Outraged. I stared open mouthed, and, being British, said absolutely nothing. Fortunately, I realised before I could release an almighty tut that she wasn’t smoking at all. She was doing something entirely different; she was ‘vaping’.