More nonsense

1 News reports:

Published in Social Science & Medicine, the study found nearly 30% of the country’s vape stores are within 400 metres of a school and 71% are within 800 metres.

Author and Canterbury University public health expert Matt Hobbs said: “I have been surprised by just how many vape stores are near schools and to see the magnitude of difference between numbers of vape stores in the most deprived and least deprived communities.

The public health activists do this all the time to try and make something mundane appear shocking.

They measure 800 metres as the crow flies, so it might actually be 1.2 kms away walking or further.

But more importantly 800 metres radius is a huge amount. It is 200 hectares. So any building within a 200 hectare space from a school is included. That’s almost 500 acres.

There are 2,500 schools in NZ so if none of them were within 800 metres of each other, these 800 metre radius circles would total 500,000 hectares.

I showed here what a 1km radius around every school looks like in Wellington.

I suspect over 70% of the population live within 800 metres of a school. So portraying this as something sinister is silly.