Tobacco plain packs – a protection against the “Silent Salesman”
This morning I was pleased to help launch Europe’s first major campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of glitzy tobacco packaging to children. The Coalition Government will shortly launch its consultation exercise on whether to follow the example of Australia and introduce the plain packaging of cigarettes.
The roof top events space of Bristol’s new M-Shed Museum was the setting for a one day conference of public health professionals from across England. I pointed out to delegates that downstairs in the Bristol at Work gallery was the only place where you could now find a cigarette vending machine, donated by lmperial Tobacco. These machines, which provided easy access to cigarettes, could be found in almost every pub in England until last October. Since last October they’ve been consigned to history.
The next step on the way to comprehensive tobacco control will come in April with the ban on the open display of cigarettes at tobacco kiosks in supermarkets. So when you’re buying your Easter eggs, lottery tickets or just visiting customer services you will not be able to see the rows of branded tobacco products.
But once the pack of fags has been bought people will still be exposed to the subtle marketing techniques of the cigarette companies. Tobacco plain packs will offer protection against the antics of the “Silent Salesmen” of Imperial, Phillip Morris and the other multi-nationals who own the still all too familiar brands. Over the last decade in Britain and around the world all the other marketing and advertising avenues have been blocked – the design of the cigarette packet is the only tool left to the companies to push their brands and together recruit a new generation of young smokers.
The primary aim of the campaign to introduce plain packs of cigarettes will be to protect children and young people from the subtle marketing techniques of the brand owners. They’ve become adept at designing packs that might appeal to teenage girls, for instance boxes in the shape of lipstick tubes. Boys may be tempted by the sliding compartments of boxes that look like smart phones or I-Pods. Names like “vogue” or “sobranie cocktail” where the cigarettes as well as the packs are given an upmarket look might appeal to those who fall for products that are “reassuringly expensive”, to borrow a phrase from another branded product.
Plain packs would be the same size, same colour, same font for the product name and nothing else other than the health warning. The Silent Salesman would not just be mute, he’d look very dull and lonely.
Those of us who support plain packs being introduced in Britain do so in order to prevent the cigarette companies from recruiting new addicts. Hardly anyone takes up smoking as an adult. Most of the new customers for the industry are teens. As one expert put it this morning, “smoking is a paediatric epidemic driven by the marketing of the tobacco industry.”
I’m proud that Smoke Free South West is spearheading this awareness raising campaign and that it was launched in my constituency. You can find out more by looking at http://www.plainpacksprotect.co.uk/ and signing up for updates. The campaign is being supported by a wide coalition of health bodies, including Cancer Research UK , the British Heart Foundation and the Royal College of Physicians. The All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, which I chair, will building support in Parliament for the campaign. Further impediments to the antics of big tobacco’s army of silent salesmen will help stop another generation of people becoming trapped into the addiction of this most terrible product.
Note – people in this topic might also want to read https://stephenwilliamsmp.wordpress.com/2011/03/09/tobacco-control-why-im-proud-of-the-coalition-government/ and https://stephenwilliamsmp.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/protecting-children-from-smoke-in-cars/
UPDATE 13 March 2012 – I have written to the Govt to ensure that review of “red tape” regulation does not compromise tobacco control http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-pm-his-prosmoking-aide-and-a-dirty-war-over-cigarette-packaging-7563261.html
Trackbacks
- Plain garbage | A Pipe and a Keyboard
- Les Bonner » Blog Archive » Stephen Williams MP leads calls for plain packaging for tobacco products
- Stephen Williams leads calls for plain packaging for tobacco products « Steve Beasant
- Of brick walls and heads. | underdogs bite upwards
- Memo to Professor Simon Chapman on plain packaging | LifestyleReviews
Stephen Williams' Blog 
Your research is flawed. My three siblings took up smoking as adults…And, so did my daughter…
Good one Lynda! I know some people who have played Russina roulette several times and never died. Anyone who reckons its dangerous doesn’t know hat they are talking about.
I think generational lifelong smokers know far more than smokerphobics who base knowledge on hate and nothing more. You are not a scientist neither do you smoke. You are a social engineer who wants to world in your own image.
She is talking about the ‘attraction’ of plain packaging to the ‘cheeeldren’ or didn’t you read the piece properly? i.e. they didn’t take up smoking as children. They were adults who decided for themselves, an alien concept to your like, I appreciate. Sheesh!
Some of your comments on here really do question your ability to comprehend or analyse.
“I know some people who have played Russian roulette several times and never died.” Simon Chapman.
Yes, you are right, smoking is just like playing Russian roulette. When I got captured by the VC in Nam, my guards offered me the choice of playing Russian roulette or smoking cigarettes. I rather sensibly, I am sure you would agree, chose cigarettes. Apparently, decades later, after I died they could not quite work out whether my age related cryptogenic disease that caused my demise was in fact related to the cigarettes or not. No such problem with Russian roulette.
It’s a good job that film “The Deer Hunter” did not feature death by cigarette smoking because I don’t think audiences would be able to wait long enough
for the climax, after all us modern smokers enjoy a fantastic life expectancy. All the more time to enjoy smoking and boozing with. Although, I could possibly add another ten years to my life by giving up sex and becoming a eunuch but hey, give it enough time and Stephen may make that choice for me, seeing as it the job of politicians to prolong peoples lives whether they want it or not.
Indeed smoking may be dangerous simon, but Let’s look at some raw figures, before anti-tobacco statisticians have ‘adjusted ‘ them for ‘clarity’!
In the last 50 years or so, smoking prevalence has reduced by roughly half in the USA BUT Lung cancer has increased 31% in EIGHT recent years;
Lung and Bronchus cancers in USA
NEW Cases;
2000: – 164,100
2008: – 215,020
(ref. American Cancer Society – these figures have since been removed from the ACS website)
US population increased by 8% over the same period.
Quote; “The majority of lung cancer diagnoses in the United States now are either in people who never smoked or in people who have quit,” (Dr. Bruce Johnson of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute Boston) – Nov 2010.
Taking this a bit further;
Male smoking rate;
USA; around 25% (or less)
China; around 60%
All cancers male (age adjusted);
USA – 407 per 100,000
China – 205 per 100,000
(Pfizer 2008)
Note the USA has less than HALF the male smoking rate of China, BUT nearly DOUBLE the cancer rate!
or how about this, even more, stark contrast;
Indonesia; Male smoking rate, @ nearly 70% with an all cancer incidence rate @ only 95 per 100,000 !
ie. Less than ONE QUARTER the cancer rate in USA (407 per 100,000). USA smoking rates are ONE THIRD that of Indonesia! (Pfizer facts: The Burden of Cancer in Asia – 2008)
(Bear in mind that life expectancy in Indonesia is less than USA, suggesting that cancers are in fact age related rather than smoking related)
I will let the reader use their own powers of rational deduction to interpret these facts and work out the implications. I think it is worth pointing out however that tobacco related ‘science’ has been corrupted by money, vested interest and political ideology over many decades, culminating in Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco CONTROL, signed by many countries in 2003/4, where any scientists should be left in no doubt about what will happen to them if they dare to produce anything that contradicts the current anti-tobacco consensus science.
ps. Simon Chapman, are you really anti-tobacco’s top ‘expert’ in Australia – the best they can produce?
SORRY ALL – mr chapman is talking about sample data vs actual data…
He is being sarcastic about the sample of 3 people taking up smoking in adulthood as a rule that mr williams’ research is unfounded.
He is mocking lynda by saying he knows lots of people who have survived russian roulette and therefore makes the logical (from the sample of the people he knows) / illogical (in practice) that russian roulette is safe.
@lyndaphillips2
yes because your siblings and kids = every child between 14-17 years old in the world.
NOTIFY THE PRESS.
Get your head out of your ass please.
Do you really have no more pressing matters than this?
Is this a hot topic among your constituents? Are they concerned about it?
I’m guessing that things like public transport, closure of the runway at Filton, regeneration of stokes critters, or even the Costa Coffee shop at the voting of my road are bigger issues.
This is important. Smoking compared in europe compared to au/usa/nz is disgusting.
ban smoking in parks/beaches/5 yards from buildings.
anything that stops 14-17 year olds from smoking is a GOOD thing. do you really think the tobacco companies have public health in mind or profits? lol
Wow, next you’ll be telling us about the ‘success’ of NRT (98%+ failure over twelve months – governments own figure)
Correct me if I am wrong but do not heroin, ecstasy crack and cannabis come in plain packets, does not seem to stop them making it attractive to people. The forbidden fruit becomes sweeter.
The main reason for this post is that in 2009 the following academic institutions researched smokers attitudes to hard hitting health warnings and by implication due to the coverage of a packet, plain packaging. The net result was surprising, it encouraged smokers to want to smoke more:
New York University, Department of Psychology, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, United States
b University of Basel, Department of Psychology, Missionsstrasse 60/62, CH-4055 Basel, Switzerland
c University of Würzburg, Lehrstuhl für Psychologie II, Röntgenring 10, D-97070 Würzburg, Germany
The results were surprising due to the psychological condition know as “Terror Managment,” from Ernest Becker who argues that “.. all human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death.” Here is a summary from Jerry Fink and the 3rd quote is from the paper.
“A 2010 New York University study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (46,1) found that the anxiety evoked from the graphic images on cigarette packages could actually cause an increase in smoking…”
“…cigarette package images may cause people who already smoke to smoke more, as cigarette smoking is closely linked to one’s sense of self. Adolescents and young adults are particularly prone to coping in this manner. When presented with the threat of mortality, teens and young adults who already smoke may become more entrenched in their smoking habits in an attempt to bolster their fragile and developing sense of self.”
” Results suggest that to the degree that smoking is a source of self-esteem, later attitudes towards smoking become more positive if the warning message is mortality-salient. On the contrary, if the warning is terrifying but not mortality-salient and relates to the source of self-esteem, smoking attitudes become more negative with higher smoking-based self-esteem.”
http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=doc&id=43740&cn=1310
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109002285
Dave, if illicit drugs were advertised, beautifully packaged & cheap as chips perhaps they might sell a whole lot more, no? And if the study that excites you above was anything but nonsense, I wonder why all the tobacco companies don’t climb over themselves to ensure that pack warnings are as terrible as possible? “anxiety evoked from the graphic images on cigarette packages could actually cause an increase in smoking…” — I’m sure the companies would be very upset to learn this. You should get onto them mate.
Simon, drugs are very often branded for precisely the reasons that cigarette packets are branded, it’s to give consumers more confidence
that they are getting what they pay for, quality and assurance of a reliable supplier. The other great thing about drugs is that due
to their legal status they are not covered in anti-drug pornography the way cigarettes are covered in anti-smoking pornography. No chance of anti-drug campaigners being able to share pretty pictures of dead people on power point presentations at their anti-drug conventions.
Simon, I have done some preliminary research and will be blogging about it later on today. It appears that drug consumption in the UK among school children 12+ to early 20s is higher than tobacco consumption or is at least on a par. It seems the elicit trade’s plain packaging is no hindrance. Here is a taster.
“In 2006, 17% of pupils reported taking drugs in the last year, a fall from 19% in 2005”
“For 15 year olds, 52% reported ever being offered cannabis with 18% having ever been offered cocaine and ecstasy.”
Click to access Drugs%20misuse-England%202007%20with%20links%20and%20buttons.pdf
@daveatherton
and if heroin, ecstasy, and crack were sold in stores on every corner in nice pretty packages…do you think sales would increase or decrease?
do you even think before you write replies on here?
I don’t believe that any child has bought their first cigarette(s) from a shop or a vending machine. I believe that every child who starts smoking is given it’s first cigarette(s) by a friend.
#nailedit
@Charles
ok, so better to do NOTHING to decrease smoking rates. Let’s just let the tobacco companies do whatever they want. While we’re at it let’s go back to letting them advertise in television and print media.
Instead of coming up with alternatives you just bash what others are trying to do. Good points there Charles!
Another Pointless exercise set up by anti tobacco, the smoke free campaign has been a very costly failure to the Taxpayer and the only result from “smoke-free” has seen our Great British Pubs and Clubs being killed off by the ill thought out Smoking Ban. Since 2007 all the “claims” made by the anti smoking lobby have proven to be False. It is time for some common sense to be shown. Lifestyle choice is just that, Choice, the Public are sick of the “Nanny state”.
@tug
“the Public are sick of the “Nanny state”.
Actually the public is sick of second hand smoke everywhere.
“Great British Pubs and Clubs being killed off”
Money is more important than health?
Good analysis there.
Correct me if I am wrong but do not heroin, ecstasy crack and cannabis come in plain packets, does not seem to stop them making it attractive to people. The forbidden fruit becomes sweeter.
The main reason for this post is that in 2009 the following academic institutions researched smokers attitudes to hard hitting health warnings and by implication due to the coverage of a packet, plain packaging. The net result was surprising, it encouraged smokers to want to smoke more:
New York University, Department of Psychology, 6 Washington Place, New York, NY 10003, United States
b University of Basel, Department of Psychology, Missionsstrasse 60/62, CH-4055 Basel, Switzerland
c University of Würzburg, Lehrstuhl für Psychologie II, Röntgenring 10, D-97070 Würzburg, Germany
The results were surprising due to the psychological condition know as “Terror Managment,” from Ernest Becker who argues that “.. all human action is taken to ignore or avoid the inevitability of death.” Here is a summary from Jerry Fink and the 3rd quote is from the paper.
“A 2010 New York University study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (46,1) found that the anxiety evoked from the graphic images on cigarette packages could actually cause an increase in smoking…”
“…cigarette package images may cause people who already smoke to smoke more, as cigarette smoking is closely linked to one’s sense of self. Adolescents and young adults are particularly prone to coping in this manner. When presented with the threat of mortality, teens and young adults who already smoke may become more entrenched in their smoking habits in an attempt to bolster their fragile and developing sense of self.”
” Results suggest that to the degree that smoking is a source of self-esteem, later attitudes towards smoking become more positive if the warning message is mortality-salient. On the contrary, if the warning is terrifying but not mortality-salient and relates to the source of self-esteem, smoking attitudes become more negative with higher smoking-based self-esteem.”
I see in the last 5 years you smoking rates of 16-19 year olds was 24% in 2004, dipped down to 21% in 2007 and post smoking ban are up to 24% again. And yes that is a URL from Cancer Research you see before your eyes. You have to paste it into Google as URL’s on Stephen’s blog go into moderation.
info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/lung/smoking/#age
I thought this was the Liberal party? Why are you wasting your time as an MP trying steal companies’ branding IP? daveatherton is right, it won’t affect smoking rates and will simply make counterfeit tobacco packets a much easier business…
Go and join the Labour Party if you think this is a valid use of your time as an elected representative (although I imagine many of them will find this as ridiculous as I and many others do…
@DonkeyKong
It is not only that but under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules it maybe illegal under Article 20. So you will a long drawn out legal battle costing the tax payers £millions.
“Article 20
Other Requirements
The use of a trademark in the course of trade shall not be unjustifiably encumbered by special requirements, such as use with another trademark, use in a special form or use in a manner detrimental to its capability to distinguish the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings. This will not preclude a requirement prescribing the use of the trademark identifying the undertaking producing the goods or services along with, but without linking it to, the trademark distinguishing the specific goods or services in question of that undertaking.”
Add www. to the URL. wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/27-trips_04_e.htm#art20
The other major flaw in this argument is that people do not START smoking because of glitzy packages. The tobacco companies do not like this measure because it prevents DIFFERENTIATION. For the antis who don’t understand what this means, i’ll spell it out:
Firstly, a non-smoker has seen packets anyway. They know what a cigarette is, what it does and what it looks like. For every reason people decide to want to smoke, the packet isn’t it.
What the packet CAN influence is the brand. So, if someone decides to start smoking but isn’t sure what brand to get first, the packaging can influence them. That’s differentiation. That’s what every competitor in every industry does: differentiates from other companies. Saying Imperial et al don’t want it proves that it will stop people smoking is akin to saying Dell would be angry if each computer had to be the same aesthetic because it’d mean people would no longer buy computers. All it would really mean is people wouldn’t have any reason to choose one over another in terms of looks. Same with cigarettes. People will opt for the cheaper brand for instance, which will annoy Philip Morris because Marlboros are expensive.
The only other thing that will happen with this is people will get creative. Cigarette tins and cases have been around forever, and people will buy more, decorate them, customise them, and make them unique. This will make smoking more distinctive and individual than at any point in its history.
“So when you’re buying your Easter eggs, lottery tickets or just visiting customer services you will not be able to see the rows of branded tobacco products.”
And what a tremendous advancement for liberty and enlightenment that will be. Thank you “Liberal” Democrats.
Another MP falls victim to the Pharmaceutical industry sales pitch.
More rent seeking, ego stroking, feel-good legislation that serves no purpose beyond being able to say “look what I did”.
Here’s a better idea, lets put all the Anti-Liberty forces in the same plain suit, …then we’ll know who to avoid for our own well-being, and who to point at when we say. You did this to our country.
You do know what liberal means, don’t you?
Glad to see tremendous support for your worthless plan Stephen! I don’t think I’ve had such a laugh for an age as I read my esteemed friends educated responses. You plonker!
If the Liberal Democrats want the “evidence-based” drug policy they say they want – why don’t they wait for the Australian laws to kick in later this year and get some REAL evidence?
Why? They are terrified that the Australia plain pack wont cut smoking rates (why would it?) , or slow take up amongst “young people” – and then it will be almost impossible for the UK to follow suit… best to get in there quickly and get the legislation onto the books before it’s shown not to work.
Couldn’t all these £millions spent on lobbying under the guise of research be put to better use?
Pretty shabby Mr Williams. Not very liberal. Not very good use of your time or our money.
Never read such a load of old twaddle in all my years, get a grip Stephen or better still get a life.
There is no evidence for the plain packaging stopping children smoking or starting in the first place. Yet more expense for the shopkeepers to “hide” the forbidden fruit and to send them into closure. Another complete waste of time and money, another inconvenience for the smoker!
With all the efforts being targeted at smokers, why don’t you just advocate that all smokers should be line up and shot on sight! Then all the non-smokers can dig further into their own pockets for the £11 billion of taxation that will be lost. Who ever pull the word “liberal” in Liberal Democrats, never knew its true meaning.
I despair for this country and the low calibre of MPs that we have send to London to govern us – a complete waste of space!
It is not a parliamentary democracy at Westminster anymore. It is a parliamentary kakistocracy – government by the least able.
Since when have easter eggs been sold at tobacco kiosks? A sad attempt at linking kids with cigarette sales for adults, shame on you and Sobranie Cocktails have been on the market since the seventies, you make it sound like this is a recent ploy by tobacco companies. They could have been banned in the last illiberal anti-smoking legislation, why weren’t they? Could it be because there is no evidence that they recruit young smokers? I think you know the answer.
If you look very carefully at this comment thread you’ll notice that every single entry is negative, both to this and all other repressive measure aimed, if we can drop the hysterical “think of the children” pretence for a moment, at bullying people who smoke into ceasing their lawful and legitimate habit. What will you do about it: will you pause, will you reverse, or will you just carry on anyway trashing the freedoms for which your party laughingly claims to stand?
Smoking is less unhealthy than oppression. You and your kind are the ones who should come with the warning.
Another article from one of the pompous elite who think they know best. Let’s have a few economic facts. From the Government’s own figures the cost to the NHS of smoking related diseases is £2.7 billion/year. Wow you say. In that case smoking should be curtailed. However the Anti-smokng zealots never tell the other side of the story. Revenue on tobacco brings revenue to the treasury of £11 billion. It would seem to me that if this money was allocated to the NHS, then smokers are subsidising the healthcare of non smokers.
Makes you wonder why we vote idiots into parliament. Then again most of the 650 would find it difficult to hold down a proper job.
This campaign will not reduce smoking prevalence.
Stephen stop wasting your time and precious taxpayers money, on such a completely pointless exercise. Arguments that you are protecting children by using grotesque colours on cigarette packs don’t stand up scrutiny. This would be just another assault adult on smokers, using the children as an excuse.
Why don’t you redeploy these bully state tactics, to fat people or drinkers now because smokers have had enough.
“The primary aim of the campaign is to protect children”
Sorry, from where I,m standing a six year old child might have dreamed this whole idiotic idea up. It lacks Evidence. It makes our MP,s appear stupid and it lacks any good old fashioned common sense.
I would suggest as an MP you should be concentrating on helping all the small businesses thrive instead of deliberately creating more problems.
There is no point in brandishing statistics and reasoned argument at this person. He won’t deviate from his course until every smoker is shuffling down dark streets wearing a hoodie and looking for a car to break into. That’s where denormalisation ends, and these proposals are “the next logical step” in achieving what he sinisterly calls “comprehensive tobacco control” – similar to the “control” now exercised on illegal drugs – which are bought and sold in plain packaging by criminal.
I have always believed myself to be a respectable member of society. This man is intent on taking away my self-respect. He is a Liberal.
Exactly. He’s a waste of time, prejudiced from the start. Don’t waste any breath. One thing I hope I never am is as bigoted and plain stupid as your average anti.
My generation of child smoker could buy a packet of cigs easily from the shop back in the 60s. My children’s generation could not. Cigarettes became more expensive, regulations tightening up sales to young people, and a comprehensive education programme meant only one of my four children grew up to be a smoker – and, like many say here, she was given that first cigarette by a friend in school.
You may call it “addiction” when smokers continue to smoke but, like it or not, people like the taste of tobacco and enjoy smoking. It is a legal product after all. You should learn to live with adult smokers instead of trying to punish them for failing to take up your choice not to smoke.
Now, thanks to over regulation such as the tobacco display ban, and intended plain packaging, life will be easy for man with a bag who roams estates for organised criminal gangs, who won’t even have to bother with counterfeiting, selling ridiculously cheap but highly contaminated and unregulated cigarettes to children who, In Ireland at least, help him sell it.
It means my grandchildren are less safe than I was as a child over 40 years ago . And you call this “progression”?
The once good work of Tobacco Control has been sacrificed for the long term aim of control of the tobacco market and our children today are simply the pawns to achieve it.
To say that this is “for the children” is at worst dangerous and at best an insult.
Cigarette brands are aimed at adult consumers. To believe they are overlooked in favour of 10- 12 year olds is frankly hysterical and bordering on tobaccophobia.
It must have been that ‘glitzy’ packaging that caused me to start smoking at 12.
The white packaging and the small picture of a ship on ‘Senior Service’ cigarettes was just too appealing and I had to try one !!!
What a load of crap this “major campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of glitzy tobacco packaging to children” is. Another excuse to waste the taxpayers hard earned cash. Although I expect that some ‘profit’ will be made somewhere and some jobsworths will continue getting paid by the poor taxpayer.
Pathetic comes to mind.
Errr you have to be 18 to buy cigarettes and show ID. 18 is an adult in case that has passed you by.
Now you want to have plain packaging on an item that’s hidden from sale and can’t be advertised?????? Reality check please
l’ll let you into another secret … none of my friends and family purchase any tobacco products in the UK. We purchase them legally in the EU. Yes, they are duty paid but the UK gets none of that duty, the country where we purchase the product does. Wonder how you and your ilk put us in your stats? We are off your radar entirely and there is a growing number of us.
Do your worst … we enjoy the laugh.
Well said Smoking Hot and bang on. We too buy our tobacco products legally in the EU and pay the EU tax. We are robbed enough from our hard earned cash to want to give this pathetic excuse for a government a penny more than we have to!
As for packaging being classed as ‘advertising’ then hadn’t they better start on all the deadly alcohol and the obesity causing foods? Chocolate bars, for example, far more likely to be bought by kids, should surely be in plain packaging so as not to entice the kids to be attracted to the glitzy and colourful array on the shop shelves.
Any LEGAL product sold has a brand and that brand is expected to be seen on the packaging, whether it be food, drink, electrics or any other commodity. How in God’s name can anyone, however moronic, class this as ADVERTISING to attract children? When I started smoking in the very early 70’s all I was concerned with when I bought my cigs was the cost – which were the cheapest. I think it was a toss up between No 6 and Sovereign. I found I didn’t like No6 so stuck with Sovereign – Simple!
The biggest advert these days for the kids to start smoking is seeing all the smokers out on the street since we have been banned from indoors; and regarding adults not starting smoking – I have met quite a few that have started BECAUSE of the smoking ban! So, my ignorant, stick that in your pipe and smoke it!
To think that this is an example of an MP scares me to death and certainly gives me even less confidence in the Health of the this country that was once Great, but no longer deserves the name.
As someone else hear said: ‘Get a Life and leave ours alone’.
I haven’t bought cigarettes in this country since the UK joined the EU. I pay the tax, but not to ‘Her Majesty’s’ treasury, and the Border Control Authority’s ‘guidelines’ on the quantity of tobacco products us taxpayers can bring into the country for personal use are not only derisory, they are illegal.
Stephen Williams voted for the smoking ban which killed our pubs and clubs, and now he wants to kill our corner shops which are essential to the elderly in bad weather.
This would achieve little more than yet more wasting of precious taxpayers money and furthering the anti tobacco, smoke haters cause.
Call yourself an MP ? ?
“….in order to prevent the cigarette companies from recruiting new addicts”.
Stevo, bigots usually can’t tell that they’re bigots. But there’s the bigoted language. Smokers are portrayed as just “addicts”. It’s a term that’s been used since the mid-1800s by fanatics. Once “addicted”, the “addict” is depicted as incapable of coherent contribution, their entire existence tainted by this one habit – a “persona non grata”. This is a “definition” conjured by the antismoking fanatics; it tells of their derangement; it is bigotry in motion. And the fanatics gather at conferences and in committees speaking of “the addicts” in the third-person, pontificating on how to “solve” the “smoker problem”. So poorly does one who smokes figure in the fanatics’ minds that the fanatics claim that not one more new smoker should be endured, all steps reasonable in exterminating the smoking/smoker blight on society. And they do this because government empowered/enabled them back in the 1980s.
“Let’s ban advertising”, squealed the fanatics. That’s not it. “Well, let’s ban displays”. That’s not it. “Well, let’s completely vandalize the pack, making it an antismoking billboard”.
Stephen, you should be able to see where this is heading. The fanatics already want smoking banned outdoors. A person smoking is the “advertising” that “tempts” The Children™ to become one of the “pathetic” smoker “write-offs”. Therefore, all visible smoking must be eradicated.
Stevo, you should be ashamed that you’ve jumped on the antismoker neurosis/bigotry bandwagon, that you’ve let your mind become addled by the fanatics’ inflammatory propaganda. Not content with just riding the bandwagon, you want to help it become further out of control. Politicians should be protecting the public from dangerous fanatics.
well said
Steven,
Could you be “addicted” to Tobacco Control?
Smoking rates reduced quite steadily until you anti-tobacco campaigners grew to become a powerful lobbying group and one of the most counter-productive wastes of public money imaginable. Millions spent with insinuations but no promises of reducing smoking rates!
You actually promote smoking through your exaggerations, propaganda, lies, alchemy and legislation. The simple outcome —- maintained and even /increased smoking rates.
Even medieval lepers were treated better than the objects of your hatred.
Maybe you could actually achieve something worthwhile if you reversed your expensive vilification project and accepted that smokers, at no cost to the public purse, can be accommodated within a society not controlled by your, oh so righteous, money grubber friends in Tobacco Control.
Well said!
Stevo, before you jump on bandwagons, you should learn a bit of history. The background to the current antismoking fanaticism can be found here:
Add www. to the URL. rampant-antismoking.com
Also, antismoking is not new. It has a long, sordid history, much of it pre-dating the more recent concoction of secondhand smoke “danger”:
Add www. to the URL. americanheritage.com/content/thank-you-not-smoking
Add www. to the URL. historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5339http://www.bmj.com/archive/7070nd2.htm
Why don’t you just admit it, Stephen. You really haven’t a clue. The whole article above is just parroted propaganda from the pharmaceutical industry funded lobby groups like ASH. It will be (like the ban on smoking in ‘public’ places) a complete waste of time and money, will cost thousands of people their jobs, it will have no impact on youth smoking rates, and will further add to the burden on businesses up and down the country.
And to what end?
Liberal? Don’t make me laugh…
The All Party Parliamentary Group, of which Steven is a member, is just a front for ASH. They provide “research” and “administrative” functions for the Group.
Plain packaging for cigarettes will inevitably lead to increased price competition which in turn will lead to increased low price cigarettes. Plain packaging will also facilitate the market entry of generic, low-priced tobacco products. These consequences bear the substantial risk of actually leading to increased consumption of tobacco products.
“Were products to be in plain packaging, essentially markets would be made generic, which means everybody would be competing on price. There would be no incentives for companies to invest in quality and there is also a risk that it might actually increase illicit trade.” John Noble, British Brands Group, November 2010
“Contraband cigarettes are regularly sold in clear plastic bags…. Their lower prices make them especially attractive to youth.” Ontario Tobacco Research Unit, Update, December 2009.
Mmmm do l see ‘comment moderation’ on the horizon? 🙂
“The use of tobacco, in any form, is a dirty, filthy, disgusting, degrading habit….
You have no more right to pollute with tobacco smoke the atmosphere which clean people have to breathe than you have to spit in the water which they have
to drink.
…. use of the filthy, nasty, stinking stuff [tobacco]”
Stevo, sound familiar? These are the sorts of sentiments that are common amongst contemporary antismokers. Interesting is that the quote above is from an anti-tobacco billboard (photo circa 1915) on the road leading into Zion, Illinois, USA. When considering the sentiments appearing on the billboard, it must be remembered that this was many, many decades before the concoction of secondhand smoke “danger”.
Zion City was a “utopian” community established in the early-1900s by John Alexander Dowie representing a so-called “Christian” sect (Christian Catholic
Church). Tobacco, alcohol, and gambling were banned within Zion.
Add www. to the URL. wisconsinhistory.org/whi/fullimage.asp?id=55422
DO NOT Add www. to the URL. yeskarthi.wordpress.com/2010/03/27/1915-anti-smoking-sign-zion-illinois/
Serious, dangerous fanaticism/extremism was rife in America right up to WWII. The Temperance (religious leanings) and Eugenics (physicians, physicalists)
Movements, both having dictatorial tendencies and a delusional emphasis on and obsession with physical health, wreaked considerable damage in America.
The EM was by far the most influential in America and eventually produced catastrophe in Nazi Germany with global consequences. The Temperance and
Eugenics Movements shared the anti-tobacco sentiments in the quote above. While they attempted to change society with destructive consequences, Dowie chose to create his own “protected” community.
W.G Voliva wrote that sign and put it up before any science was done. Oddly, the message hasn’t changed in all this time. He was a flat earth believer and put up a reward to anyone who could prove him wrong. He lived on a diet of buttermilk and nuts and believed because of it he would live to be 120. He died in his 70s of cancer.
“Wilbur Glen Voliva turned out to be a tyrant and dictator, running Zion as his own personal fiefdom. He remained the head of the Zion Christian Catholic Church until his death in 1942.”
Add www. to the URL. forensicgenealogy.info/contest_121_results.html
We need the Smoking Ban “amended” it’s people like you turning this country into a “Nazi state” smoking is legal, you take enough of smokers in TAX.
Another nail in the cough-in for the tobacco industry hopefully and this proposal should be welcomed. The brightly coloured packaging which most companies use betray the poison that is contained within them. All cigarettes are harmful, irrespective of their particular brand and anything that might stop on continue to make smoking socially unacceptable should be applauded.
Oh do grow up.
Oh – and if course I am sure you do know that the “poison contained within” is added only if it is on the DoH approved list – or are you saying that the DoH puts “poison in organic tobacco?”
I am being ironic, just in case that doesn’t translate here, but your logic is astoundingly naive.
Duncan here are the tractor stats on ACTIVE smoking.
Smoking and ill health is dose responsive , i.e. the more you smoke the more it will affect your health. Certainly overall smokers generally live 7 years less than non smokers, 68% of lung cancer cases are smoking induced, 90% of emphysema cases I have always read are smokers. Although I have read some other papers recently which suggests it could be lower. ASH’s assertion that half of smokers die from their past time has some but not complete credibility. Certainly there are heavy smokers where it has no affect on their health whatsoever.
However there is a “safe” level of active smoking, up to 5 cigarettes a day. Those who do not exceed 5 a day do not run any higher risk of lung cancer, heart disease or emphysema. Also the last stats from the NHS say that 14% of middle and upper class people smoke and 28% of working class. A confounder on smoking could be poorer people live in an environment and have a diet that is inferior to the others. Someone on a council estate is far more likely to come across poor hygiene than someone living in a 4 bedroom detached house.
The tractor stats on PASSIVE smoking.
It is unlikely that few, if anyone has contracted lung cancer or had a heart attack from breathing on second hand cigarette smoke. Those who assert this are misleading us on a Biblical scale.
David: 68% of Lung Cancer cases are smokers. You cannot, absolutely, say ‘smoking induced’ as that particular proof for some reason is missing. Of course it also neglects to mention whether they are ‘active’ or ‘ex’.
I mentioned the ‘active’ and ‘ex’ to my Dr. He didn’t like it but couldn’t respond.
Steven, We are told we have a childhood obesity “epidemic” in this country. The first things which greet kids in corner shops and at supermarket tills are displays of brightly coloured, kiddy-tempting displays and packaging of sweets, starchy snacks and sugar-loaded drinks. Yet you continue to flog the proverbial dead horse of tobacco, with counter-productive results. Your efforts are admirable but completely misdirected. Think of “the children”.
McDonalds are a major sponsor of the Olympics. Twenty years ago, tobacco companies were major sponsors of sporting events.
What I cannot understand is why you Stephen, and people like you, are unable to realise that you are being manipulated by a sick group of fanatics, who in turn are being exploited to increase pharmaceutical profits. Are these sick minds intellectually superior to yours Stephen? God save us from fools!
“are unable to realise that you are being manipulated by a sick group of fanatics,”
Presumably because he’s one of them.
So the ‘All Party front group for ASH ET AL’ have spoken again! This group, composed mostly of peers (God Bless ‘Em!), have decided that the demolition of the small shopkeeper, just like the demolition of pubs, is a price worth paying to advance the growth of counterfeiting! Wow! Think about it – the counterfeits will be in plain packets behind closed doors. Who will know the difference? Ah, but, you say, the Borders Agency is cracking down on the import of ‘illicit’ tobacco! Well, no. Only illicit legal tobacco. They cannot stop loose tobacco, which can easily be packed in ‘baked beans tins’ or such. IDIOTS!
THE SMOKING BAN MUST BE REPEALED! NO FURTHER ATTACKS ON PEOPLE WHO ENJOY TOBACCO MUST BE CONTEMPLATED! DEVIOUS BUT BLATANT PERSECUTION MUST END!
Since ASH ET AL are corruptly being funded by Drugs Companies, and since ASH ET AL are paying the expenses of the All Party Front Group, isn’t the All Party Front Group itself corrupt from top to bottom?
Eh. Mr Stephenson! You forgot to mention ‘disgusting, filthy, stinking’. I trust that you have now taken a shower and washed all your clothes. But your fate is sealed in any case. The thing is that tobacco smoke converts into electromagnetic waves and travels along wires and through space. It then damages your DNA and condemns you to A PAINFUL LIFE EVERLASTING!!! Since only smoking causes ‘premature’ death, all non-smokers do not die ‘prematurely’, which obviously means that when a non-smokers is about to die, that death will not actually happen since it would be ‘premature’.
Stephen,
I have a question regarding smoking bans in cars – for the sake of The Children™. The few “studies” that there are indicate that there is a temporarily elevated reading for specific constituents (e.g., particulates) of tobacco smoke. There is nothing “profound” about such studies. All they demonstrate is the obvious that there is evidence of [remnants of] smoke where smoking occurs. So what?
There’s no point linking such “car studies” to smoky bars. The [questionable] argument for SHS risks concern long-term (e.g., 30, 40, 50 years) exposure. These [peak] car exposures are very short, e.g., seconds or a few minutes. So the critical question becomes – what is the demonstrated hazard of very short exposures? There is no demonstrated hazard in the “car studies”. What is the “hazard” associated with momentary elevations in particulates?
The antismoking fanatics are playing their confidence tricks again. Just indicate that these peak car exposures are similar – for a MOMENT – to a smoky bar, as if this somehow indicates hazard. It indicates no such thing. But the fanatics hope that no-one notices that the “hazard” claims are vacuous.
So, Stephen, what do The Children™ need to be “protected” from if there is no demonstrated hazard?
thanks for all the comments so far. Some entertaining, some abusive, many from the usual suspects and front groups for the tobacco lobby. There haven’t been many serious points for me to answer. A few people have denied the link at point of sale with other products that might appeal to children. They clearly go to different shops to me. In supermarkets or corner shops the tobacco kiosk is usually behind the counter displaying confectionery. Other family activities such as photograph developing, lottery tickets or the customer service desk are normally co-located. But the display ban, from April for large shops and next year for small ones, will deal with this issue. The plain packaging issue is what happens to the cigarettes once they leave the shop.
You said “..many from the usual suspects and front groups for the tobacco lobby.” As you know I am David Atherton of Freedom2Choose are you saying or implying that I have or am remunerated, paid, expensed or receive grace and favour from tobacco companies, affiliates, subsidiaries, nominees or proxies.
Can I have a yes or no this question.
I believe you have libelled me and others in your post.
Dave,
That claim – those disagreeing with the antismoking supremacist group (which apparently is omniscient) are “addicted Neanderthals” or “fronts” for the “evil” tobacco empire – has been core operating procedure for the fanatics for the last few decades in this crusade, as it was used early last century in America and Germany. The fanatics never tire of using the claim, no matter how asinine it is. But that’s fanatics for you!
One of these days they’re going to be held to account for such claims in a court of law. I’m sure that Stephen – a good little disciple of the antismoking cult – would really be amused then.
I have no connection whatsoever with any tobacco company or even any “freedom of liberties” group. I await your apology, Stephen.
“The plain packaging issue is what happens to the cigarettes once they leave the shop.”
So why mention how they are on sale, in ASH’s words put into your mouth, alongside chiiiildren’s sweets.
If you are going to lie and misrepresent to force through the Smokerphobic ideology, at least try and remember why you said it in the first place.
stephen williams.. ‘front groups for the tobacco lobby’ go on name names, this rates right up there with ‘some people say; as an argument.
Why not try representing your constituents rather then antagonising them, and why the hell are you in a Liberal party when you quite clearly arn’t Liberal?
Oh Dave, really! Rather odd for someone employed by the Freedom Association to start chucking round accusations of libel. Thought you might be in favour of debate and free speech. I didn’t single out anyone in particular but clearly you are sensitive….
Well, to whom are you referring? If you are not referring to anyone specifically, then why are you making the claim?
Of course I believe in free speech, and in fact a stream of foul mouthed abuse would not of bothered me. My blog says “..vigorous debate is encouraged. Comments are unmoderated but I will delete libelous, racist and homophobic comments.
Any anti smokers are welcome to wish me a lingering or quick death from lung cancer, tell me I smell worse than a pig sty, and that I kill and eat babies. I support the right to offend and happy to bear the responsibility to be offended.”
I have never deleted one comment save someone who was posing as someone else to cause mischief.
What I object to is the deliberate smearing and false accusation that my opinions are fed, controlled and directed by tobacco companies or associates. It is completely untrue.
I have never been paid for all the work I put in except ironically by Pfizer who invited me to debate in Amsterdam whether smoking was an addiction or a habit. I sincerely pay my way out of my salary.
I am like many smokers a very social person. As a smoker I took the increasing restrictions with good grace, work, cinema, buses and trains etc. You have no idea how much I resent the pub ban, as the anti smokers have severely compromised my social life. Stephen, the nearest I can explain to a non smoker is every time you go to dinner you eat your main course outside in all weathers. It only takes about 15 minutes and you will be with other diners, not that much of an inconvenience surely?
Just to clear a couple of matters up an employee on Facebook sent me a Freedom Association request which says I am employee. I will take this down as it is incorrect. I have however spoken at Freedom Association events and good friends with Simon Richards. I am employed by eXplanoTech who are a wireless telecoms software house and recruitment company. It is my only source of income, apart when I have a win in a poker tournament.
Here is my LinkedIn profile. linkedin.com/profile/edit?trk=tab_probs=1
I am very flattered Stephen that you went to the trouble of researching me down to my Facebook page, I must be doing something right.
“Stephen, the nearest I can explain to a non smoker is every time you go to dinner you eat your main course outside in all weathers. It only takes about 15 minutes and you will be with other diners, not that much of an inconvenience surely?”
David Atherton – since the smoking ban that is exactly what I have done which is why I no longer go out and enjoy a meal in company as non-smokers do.
One of my favourite restaurants before the ban had two establishments across the road from each other. One was smoking and the other non smoking. The smoking restaurant has since closed because people who feel as strongly as I do about forced social exclusion will not support such blatant discrimination by supporting this ban.
The ban was a spiteful act to further force through public disgust and further humilaition of people like me that the Govt has been happy to take tax from since the age of 8. And even now they are stating openly it is no longer about health but hate and forcing the smoker to be socially unaccepted. What right have they got to do that to someone who has been a smoker almost all of my life and accepted all of my life except for this last four years?
But of course Stephen – and his very close friends in ASH – know that they will get plain packaging because the Public Humilation Dept run by Anne Milton is as bigoted as they are in promoting a world in future made up of perfect size 10, untanned, non-smoking, alcohol free, water drinking vegetarian citizens.
I completely resent any accusation that I am paid to protest about my treatment by the tobacco industry which has largely thrown its adult consumers to the dogs in Public Health with the false notion that this appeasement can somehow save the last of its business.
Whose side are you on Stephen – big business or the little person? It certainly seems to me that you prefer political lobby groups than you do your own constituents unless they share your choice not to smoke.
And, I no longer donate to CRUK or the BHF and I know of many others who have stopped donating too even some non smokers because they want to fund research not propaganda.
To one who is one of the usual suspects of front groups for the funded anti-tobacco lobby, you make great claims supported by peer review only from fellow group members.
To quote one of your own in response to Health Committee questioning – “Quite honestly, I do not think that study stands up to any scientific scrutiny whatsoever, leaving aside the conflict of interest in the funding which to me is tantamount or comparable to a research study on organised crime being funded by the Mafia”
.-All the accepted medical evidence and especially that of ASH and Cancer Research UK must also be considered as having a conflict of interest since their very existence depends on Government and Pharmaceutical funding and proving the case for Tobacco damage.
Shame on you. As a representative of the people you fail to choose to represent a fanatical minority.
Last sentence should read ‘You Choose’ rather than ‘Fail to choose’
Perhaps the MP would like to indicate exactly who he was referring to as a front group for the tobacco lobby. You shouldn’t make such sweeping accusations without knowing exactly who you are talking about, and why. (He could also read calmly enough to realise that Dave Atherton is not ’employed by the Freedom Association’, but is Chairman of Freedom to Choose, a voluntary position.)
It makes perfect sense to me that both confectionery and tobacco should be sold at the point of sale. Both items need to be under the eye of the sales staff as they are easy to steal … can you imagine boxes of 20 next to the baked beans? The fact that ‘family activities’ share the same sales space as tobacco doesn’t mean that kids will start smoking (fewer kids smoke than don’t smoke) any more than it will make smokers take up family photography.
Stephen, Sir Peter Tappsell said in the house last year that Taxation without representation is not Democracy, where in all this are the rights of 15million smokers who add 11 billion pounds in Tax to the treasury represented, ASH and the pharma industry has your Parliamentary committee, Who represents the smoker. As far as I can see NO one, therefore would it not be equitable to remove taxation from Tobacco or at least to have a level playing field with the rest of the EU.
I am a non smoking pensioner with no links to the Tobacco industry, who believes that the denormalisation of smokers is totally wrong as it is a legal product.
I think your numbers are a bit iffy! 15 million smokers is about a quarter of the entire population, including infants….
Stephen he maybe right.
16 year old people and beyond make up 80% of the population so those who are 16+ are 80% of 60 million = 48 million.
21% of 48 million = 10,080,000 people
A further 7% smoke pipes, cigars, imbibe snuff and smoke E cigarettes. = 3,360,000
Additionally and I quote from a survey done by Sainbury’s insurance company. “There are some 3.02 million Brits who class themselves as “non-smokers”, but admit to having the occasional cigarette or having a “puff” of someone else’s cigarette, according to research by Sainsbury’s Life Insurance.”
I make that 16,460,000 people who will smoke this year.
Please add the necessary www. for provenance.
.easier.com/91574-non-smoking-brits-occasional-cigarette.html
ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_332_en.pdf
Stephen, this is my first encounter with your blog. With all due respect, you sound very much like a fanatic, someone who has swallowed the propaganda package hook, line, and sinker, someone able to parrot the standard, well-worn slogans, intent on bringing forth the smokefree “utopia”. Extraordinary is that you believe yourself to be a liberal democrat. Stephen, not only will you not bring forth the smokefree “utopia”, history shows that the mentality you are caught in will bring forth much thick, acrid smoke that has nothing to do with tobacco.
Stephen, fanatics suffer particular deficits. They typically have no grasp of history, or of scientific enquiry, or of coherent argument. They jump headlong into the same errors and catastrophe as their fanatical predecessors, having learned nothing useful from the past. Allow me to give you a gentle push in the right direction. You seem to be utterly unaware of what occurred earlier last century in America and Germany. You seem to be unaware that Public Health has been used as an instrument of persecution and fully government-supported. And it was medicos (and lawyers) that were the leaders in the “world-fixing” insanity. The “argument” is always the same. “Evidence” is contrived that demonstrates that particular social/ethnic groups are a “burden” on society; that they are disease carriers and spreaders; that they must be segregated for the betterment of humanity: It is a constant fear and hate-mongering. It turns out that the “world fixers” are the great danger. And, along the behavioral dimension (e.g., tobacco, alcohol, diet), contemporary Public Health is sounding very much like that of early last century.
Stephen, you really should look into what a bigotry bandwagon would look/sound like.
Let’s nail this silly sequence of points about the “anti-tobacco lobby” being funded by the govt and big pharma. This will come as news and something of an insult to the millions of people (myself included) who make regular donations to Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and other health charities. It denigrates the millions of hours of time donated by people who volunteer in the charity shops that are now on every high street.
People are concerned about cancer, heart disease and respiratory conditions. That’s because most people know someone who’s life was cut short by these illnesses. Premature death is caused by smoking. It is a rational response by me and millions of citizens to want to reduce the rate of smoking. I would like Britain to have the lowest rate of smoking in the world. I think this is an aim that is shared by the vast majority of British citizens including my constituents in Bristol West.
Tobacco control is popular. That’s why the tobacco lobby and their friends are running scared.
Why are people concerned about heat disease, particularly in a fairly cold climate such as that of the UK?
“This will come as news and something of an insult to the millions of people (myself included) who make regular donations to Cancer Research UK, the British Heart Foundation and other health charities”
We are all concerned about cancer etc BUT —-Research YES – Political lobbying NO — YOU insult all those who believe their donations are being used for research .
Many people, myself included, have stopped contributing to CRUK etc due to their massive propaganda spend.
It’s a shame that what should be a worthy cause has been high-jacked.
and as far as “Tobacco control is popular” dream on. The effects of such fanaticism damage the very fabric of our communities.
“Tobacco control is popular.”
That’s why 15% of our hospitality industry has disappeared in 4 years – people just can’t wait to get to those lovely tobacco-free pubs. Given a choice, many smokers and non-smokers choose not to go at all.
I suppose it’s also why ASH raises a colossal £11,000 a year from voluntary donations. It’s one of our most beloved charities!
Stephen, if you really can’t see a conflict of interest between an organisation that lobbies Government on an issue being funded by other organisations that profit from its actions, whilst other voices are discredited, then I despair.
I suppose you’d think that a Car Driver’s “charity” that was funded by Texaco and Shell that lobbied Government and produced anti-bus “research” would be similarly reliable and trustworthy? I pray you actually do your own research into the Tobacco Control movement, or even better, read the blog of Dr Michael Siegel, a tobacco-control advocate for several decades and Professor of Public Health, who now seems to spend much of his time discrediting what ASH and their ilk get up to in a vain attempt to restore scientific credibility to the movement. Have you actually read what they are coming out with? Smoke travelling down electrical wires? Smoke travelling through walls? No “safe dose”, in contravention of the first law of toxicology, making a wisp of smoke uniquely more dangerous than arsenic or cyanide?
You don’t even need scientific training to see this is PALPABLE NONSENSE!
There is a reason ASH only gets £11,000 a year, you know. And I bet CRUK and BHF would get a hell of a lot less if they advertised how much they give to ASH each year, too….
Good to see Pfizer donating too, to Cancer Research.
“CANCER RESEARCH UK will be supported by AstraZeneca and Pfizer in a multimillion pound initiative to examine how genetic tests to improve cancer diagnosis can be best rolled out across the NHS.”
info.cancerresearchuk.org/news/archive/pressrelease/2011-02-01-stratified-medicine-programme
“Tobacco control is popular. That’s why the tobacco lobby and their friends are running scared”
Just because something is popular, doesn’t mean that its right..
Having read your article, and your replies to many of those critical of your desire for control of individuals’ thoughts, I am confident in saying that you are neither a liberal nor a democrat. Is it possible that you could fall foul of the trades description act?
Get your head out of your backside, and take a long, hard look at your outright bigotry.
(For your information, I am not employed or subsidised by the tobacco industry; I have never smoked, and have never understood why anyone would want to – that said, I do not think that I have any right to interfere with another person’s choices, provided that they do not directly impinge upon any of my choices.)
“The plain packaging issue is what happens to the cigarettes once they leave the shop.”
stephenwilliamsmp
You mean those cigarettes that go into handbags, pockets and cigarette cases etc? Perhaps ASH have told you that all smokers wear them on open display?
Get a life!
all those people contribute to BHF and CRUK in order to fund tobacco control? silly me, I thought it was to develop treatments for cancer and heart disease. Premature death is caused by smoking? perhaps, when it isn’t caused by something else e.g. genetics, environmental factors of all kinds.
Stephen, you’re throwing a bit of a hissy fit. Are you aware of the origin of the heart foundation, the lung association, and what is now known as the cancer society, and the circumstance under which they were created? Why do we even need dismembered body-organ and disease groups? Are you aware that the American Cancer Society was making the claim in the 1930s/40s that a cure was just around the corner if only they had more money? For all of the billions of dollars that have been pumped through the cancer societies over the last century, where are the promised “cures”?
There are indeed genuine people within these organizations, but these organizations can also be used for ideo-political and financing manipulation through the constant play on the primal fear of disease and death. I would certainly consider it an insult to the volunteers working in charity shops that the CEO of the American Cancer Society, for example, a supposed “volunteer” in a “charitable, non-profit” organization, is on a $1.2 million package per annum – pp.57-65
Add www. to the URL. cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@finance/documents/document/acsd-005945.pdf
Apparently a really good cure for Cancer was found in the 1980,s Cesium Chloride and it proved to be very effective in 95% of patients who had never been subjected to either Chemo or radiotherapy and 50% of those who had, but it was blocked by the American FDA as the big Pharma companies would lose millions on the Chemo treatments.
While there is money to be made in promoting a certain treatment there is no incentive to find a cure.
Exactly the same can be said of NRT products they know they do not work long term 98.4% failure rate which ensures repeat customers = profits.
This may also explain why the FDA are trying to ban the new tobacco harm reduction product the electronic Cigarette because this device actually works.
Once again I am not a smoker and have no affiliation to any Tobacco company.
Article 5.3 of the FCTC says that if you don’t agree with Tobacco control you must be a Tobacco agent and are, therefore, to be ignored. In pushing for a tobacco free world, no account is to be taken of the views of smokers, retailers or manufacturers. Article 8 states that this drive must also discount all effects on ‘Health and Law’.
Wonderful thing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, signed by Blair’s Govt. Of course, nobody knew until it had been signed for very obvious reasons. The first constitution of a ‘post democratic society’. (to
borrow Mandy’s words)
I’m sure Stephen knows all about it. Ann Milton is very aware of our
‘obligations’ to it as well.
Mr. Williams, perhaps you can explain why it is that CRUK has well over £100m in assets and their chief executive earns an annual six figure salary.
“Premature death is caused by smoking.”
Stephen, although used ad nauseam, it may come as a shock to you that this statement is not correct. There are hundreds and hundreds of factors – many cross-correlated – that are linked to “premature” mortality. To single one out as “the cause” is delinquent. If you read the Godber Blueprint, you’ll notice that the provision of accurately-stated statistical information wasn’t good enough for the fanatics. They wanted more hard-hitting slogans. They – THEY – decided in the 1980s, in advancing the agenda, to use the most inflammatory terms possible, e.g., kill, poison, death, that go far beyond the implications of the underlying statistical information.
Further, Stephen, are you claiming that a person living to age 82 has lived a “better” life than someone living to age 77, say? No-one would deny you that you can believe that you would like Britain to have the lowest rate of smoking in the world. But could you explain why your belief should be imposed on everyone? No-one would deny you that you can believe that longevity or statistical probabilities are the “be-all” of living. But could you explain why your belief should be imposed on everyone?
“Tobacco control is popular.”
A bigotry bandwagon is very tempting to shallow, immature minds. It tells us that societies around the world aren’t faring too well when the shallow hold the reins of political power.
Good post.
If they had proper scientific evidence (that is reproducible and statistically sound) for their claims the anti-smoker bigots could use that, but they don’t have it so the bigots fail.
They use propaganda, but people see their lies so the bigots fail.
They use illiberal laws which they have concocted far beyond any manifesto pledge, but people see they are being abused and bullied, the law and politicians are brought into disrepute, so the bigots will fail when smokers vote for a party which will treat them fairly.
Just remember to keep a record of which bigots tried to forcefully impose their lifestyle choices onto you.
I am not a smoker, but my parents were, so I can understand some of the pain and damage such bigoty does.
Neither am I a member of any pro-tobacco industry or lobby group, which I mention as this MP made a sweeping disparaging statement implying those who don’t agree with his scientifically unfounded views are shills.
There was a footnote to the Article on the University of Californias total smoking ban, maybe others should take heed.
” Whilst no one can argue that it is a bad idea to encourage smoking in places where young people are finding their feet and developing habits that might last them a lifetime, a problem that is due to hit home in another decade or so, is when the cancer rates fail to drop and the spotlight turns to the myriad of toxic chemicals, insecticides, air-born contaminants, plastics, glues, paints and even cosmetic and food additives that are known to be highly carcinogenic. There should be plenty of interesting lawsuits – the question is whether these companies can survive, once public enemy number one is out of the picture”.
Look at the bigger picture Stephen instead of a microscopic view.
Fact Cancer rates have increased over the last 50years even though smoking has declined from 75% to 20%. so already we see that cancer rates have failed to drop.
This might well backfire.
First, the reason the tobacco companies object is because, without a brand identity, they would be forced into competing on price; their customers would benefit and their profits would suffer.
Second, young people in particular will buy cigarette box covers. I remember their being popular back in the 70s and 80s. Bear in mind also, that young people tend to do what adults disapprove of. Since the advent of smoking bans, smoking prevalence has increased in several countries, including Scotland, where it has increased even among young people.
The best way of removing children from the influence of smoking would be to allow smoking clubs for over 18s only. Far more people, including myself, walk around the streets smoking than did prior to the ban.
Stephen, the people commenting on here have no connection with the tobacco industry. They are usually, like myself, ordinary citizens enraged that they can no longer congregate outside of their homes to enjoy a coffee or a drink and smoke and chat. When you get a substantial minority who no longer feel part of society, you have problems. I am one of those mentioned above who no longer donates to CRUK. I also ripped up the donor card I had carried for 35 years after hearing, once two often, a doctor suggesting smokers should not be the recepients of organs. You may not be aware that 41% of the lungs transplanted in the UK come from smokers – healthy young risk-taking males who die in road accidents.
ASH International (USA) and Pfizer co-operation as stated in this Pfizer document. ASH International now fund ASH UK and Pfizer directly fund ASH Interntional.
“Global Strategies that advance cancer and tobacco-control efforts Mid-term report of the global health Partnerships Program February 2010.”
“Pfizer Foundation Global Health Partnership”
“Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) International, EMRO”
“Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) International, AMRO”
pfizer.com/files/philanthropy/ghp_compendium.pdf
correction: “once too often.”
Another correction: “recipents.” Have to put in the corrections because I’m writing under my real name.
Sorry, “recipients.”
“There haven’t been many serious points for me to answer.”
I can see quite a few serious points that you fail to address. You don’t have a visual impairment as well, do you, Stephen?
Including why Tobacco Control fanaticism has created a more dangerous situation for my grandchildren’s generation after working well to protect my children’s generation from starting to smoke.
I can only assume that it’s not about health or the children
@Stephen
You have no understanding whatsoever of the real world. All this hiding displays and plain packaging is a complete pointless waste of time.
How about warnings on cigarette packets saying ‘You ARE going to DIE from this product’ ?
Sounds good eh, Stephen? That’ll work won’t it? …. well, no.
A small independent tobacco company used DEATH as it’s marketing strategy. ln no uncertain terms it told their customers that they WILL DIE by buying their product! No ‘maybe’, no ‘chance of’ … they stated categorically that you will die!
They were quite succesful until the big tobacco companies (not ant-smoking groups/measures) forced them out of business. Take a look at one of their ads and now tell me if any your ridiculous measures can come close to the message ‘You WILL DIE from buying and using this product’?
What did the public do? … they bought the product!
“In supermarkets or corner shops the tobacco kiosk is usually behind the counter displaying confectionery.” According to the fattie-bashing fanatics, this is the first generation of “the children” who will have a life expectancy less than their parents. Yet, their parents are more likely to smoke or to have smoked. “The children”, we are told, are more likely to be or become obese and DIE. What is contributing to this? Could it be that “lethal” and “toxic” confectionery? Hide it away! And the alcoholic drinks! And the sugary non-alcoholic drinks! And the red meat! And the pre-processed meals! And those starchy snacks! Hang on a minute! What are on open display two shelves above the Beano? Porno mags!!!
Call yourself a Liberal. Not in any sense of the word as I understand it.
Your selfrighteousness is only eclipsed by your ignorance and total disregard for anyones freedom of choice.
A point proven by the opinion of vast majority of posts on this Blog. Most of which,because they disagree with your ill informed and narow minded view, will of course be ignored.
I take it you must smoke as “glitzy tobacco packaging” is still around and must have been in your childhood…………………. or were you capable of free thinking back then and decided that smoking just wasnt for you.
How dare you and others of your Ilk assume to decide what, when and how I choose to live my life.
LIBERAL. NOT IN MY LIFETIME.
“glitzy tobacco packaging” – indeed – according to the warped logic of tobacco control, the sight of dying babies, dead bodies and diseased throats currently on packaging is sooo glamourous isn’t it.
Firstly can I confirm this is the first occasion that I have visited your blog. I might also confirm that I am merely a concerned pensioner and not someone who is lobbying for the Tobacco Industry. Found that bit quite funny.
As a smoker for 50 years, I think I qualify as having more experience than you, as to why people buy cigarettes and whether glitzy packets influences children or adults for that matter.
They make no difference and this initiative is a complete waste of time but an added burden to the Retailer.
Secondly perhaps you would like to answer a couple of my questions.
Your profile suggests that you would like to see an end to bullying.
What term would you use to describe the constant harassment of smokers as instigated by Ash and possibly yourself?
and
Are you not ashamed of your personal involvement in the legislation which has virtually destroyed the pub trade, the working man,s clubs and the bingo industry?
@Ray I’m with you, very well and precisely said.
@Stephen I’m not in the pay of big tobacco.
@Everyone except Stephen: This is what I call a proper turnout of good people. It makes me proud to be pro-choice AND a smoker!
Aah, the old ‘front groups for tobacco’ canard. A sure sign the proposer’s argument is bankrupt and/or he/she has no credible rebuttal to objectors.
It never ceases to amaze me that people who are concerned about the level of certain health conditions find it necessary to force others to adopt lifestyles which they believe will reduce that level. Suppose that ‘the others’ simply do not want to have their lifestyles changed? Therein lies the serious flaw of the eugenicist argument.
Another massive flaw is the implication that the avoidance of premature death is much the same thing as the avoidance of death altogether. If the enjoyment of tobacco was completely eradicated, what would people die from? Inevitably, it would be cancer, heart failure and especially pneumonia (look at the death stats for pneumonia – 27,000 per an, almost all in very old age). These conditions very largely strike when the human body is ‘winding down’ to its end. Avoiding ‘premature’ death in very old age is largely pointless.
I would also like to make the point, regarding plain packaging and the display ban, that ‘protecting children’ is a red herring, and deliberately so. The real intentions are: a) to make the sale of tobacco products as unprofitable and troublesome as possible, and, b) to close down the multiplicity of points of sale. ASH HAVE SAID SO!
NB. I have no connection with tobacco companies or any such whatsoever.
Where’s my cheque from the TC’s?
Seems according to our esteemed host smokers cannot have an opinion unless they are being paid by tobacco companies … what a joke!
The way he’s going, all the evidence points to him being in the pay of White Van Man! Smugglers will be clapping their hands with joy. Every action this lot has done, not forgetting the UKBA, has increased White Van Man’s customer base.
Counterfeiter’s charter.
And fake fags won’t just be sold by friendly newsagents and supermarkets. They’ll be sold by unscrupulous folks who, by the very fact they sell illegal merchandise, are criminals and won’t think twice about selling to children.
So here we have a move to increase the ease of counterfeiting and to put the market in the hands of criminals.
Brilliant.
Throw in how much this ridiculous measure will cost and we have an absolute gem of an idea here. Unbelievable.
Looks like you’re losing this debate big time Stephen. You haven’t yet made any convincing arguments. You have resorted to the “front group for Big Tobacco” myth, and you have not addressed even a fraction of the points brought up by the posters of comments here. In fact, your proposal is completely without merit, and you lack the means to defend it.
With tobacco control being so incredibly popular in your constituency, I’m wondering where all your supporters are. There are a lot of comments here, and to date I’ve counted one that supports (half-heartedly), your proposal.
But of course, you won’t let a lot of dissenting voices dissuade you from your chosen path, will you. After all, they’re only smokers; untermenschen, filthy, stinking low-lives. They have no place in society anyway, do they Stephen. Only the pure, non-smoking chosen ones have an opinion that is worth listening to, isn’t that so, Stephen?
So you will plough on, regardless of the fact that you are carving out Orwell’s dystopian society in your own lifetime. It won’t be until you are old and incontinent that you will become fully aware of the damage you have wrought on society.
And then, of course, it will be too late…
Oh, as an addendum, I have never received any kind of remuneration from any tobacco company. My interest has more to do with what should be natural liberty (remember that word, Stephen?) than it has to do with smoking.
I support Stephen Williams. Well done. Methinks most of these shrill commentators do protest too much. The tobacco industry has fought so hard to stop putting cigarettes out sight and to stop unglamorous packaging that it seems to me that Stephen is clearly on the right track. Why else does it evoke such indignation? Tobacco company spokespeople have admitted that packaging is the way they can market their toxic tabs. It seems odd that medicines, that do our health good, come in plain packaging, in small amounts and on prescription from a doctor. Packs of cigarettes, that cause ill health and death to half its users, are sold in sweet shops on open display, in twinkly, glittery eye-catching boxes with gimmicky openings. I want my children grandchildren to remain smokefree and see it as normal not to smoke or see cigarettes promoted in a fancy way. So for all those who say ‘Get a life’ to you, I say, keep up your campaign so that my family will have a long and healthy life ahead of them.
Ms. Farren, when do us smokers have to start wearing yellow stars on our coats? You know, so the self-righteous can point us out to their children and tell them not to associate with us.
So here we see the hypocrisy of this whole situation – scores of people damning the idea, with only one advocate, all of whom are unpaid by any outside organisation connected to tobacco or tobacco control.
Oh.
And Cecilia Farren, of ASH South West – funded by Big Pharma and taxpayers’ money.
Touché.
And with a nice line in selling smoking cessation products, did you say? 😉
Oh Cecilia … what nonsense you talk. Medicines are medicines. Tobacco is a consumer product. I take it you don’t want your kids to be medicine junkies either. Apart from being rude to your opponents you have said nothing. except that tobacco companies want to promote their product legally. And when the branding becomes illegal they will find cheaper ways to do it.
“Why else does it evoke such indignation?” Because Ms Farren it is unnecessary and intrusive, and is not aimed at protection of children but bullying those of us now adults who started smoking in different times as children.
What you did in turning around a mostly smoking population to non smoking was a most admirable thing but in as much as other people’s “right” to smoke should not have been “inflicted” upon others who chose not to, your “right” not to smoke should not be inflicted on (thanks to your work) well-informed adults who still chose to smoke all things being considered.
People also find it offensive because as stated above by one anti-smoker commentator, it isn’t about health but further stigmatisation of law-abiding, contributing, adult smoker members of society as “anti-social.”
Again I ask what right do you have to do that to people who still smoke because they have not quit as you would like them to?
With its misleading campaigns, public bullying and harassment, downright untruths, silencing of ordinary dissenting voices, its war to control the tobacco market, Tobacco Control which you support has become the very thing you used to hate.
And sadly, as I pointed in my original comment, my grandchildren – and yours – are in more danger from smoking in the 21st Century thanks to over regulation than our children and ourselves were in the 20th Century.
Instead of hiding tobacco products why not have them sold at a separate kiosk as in my local supermarket. That way they will not be next to sweets etc.
Oh dear Cecilia, do you not like it when others are shrill? I think it’s about time my shrill comments were heard over your shrill campaigning. The anti-smoker’s shrill voice has protested quite enough and I would dearly like to silence it, but I have no choice but to exercise my freedom of speech in order to counter your shrill lies. You presumably will be campaigning for plain packaged alcohol soon, as the link between alcohol and death is indeed absolute. I have to protest shrilly that medicines no a great deal of harm and certainly do nothing for “health” (whatever that is), but never mind they pay your salary so that’s different.
I wish your family a long and “healthy” life. God help ’em should they decide, as adults, to start smoking. No Christmas presents for them heh!
Cecilia, you really are a silly woman, just5 because YOU object to something, it doesn’t necessarily follow that it should be banned!
Quote: “Packs of cigarettes, that cause ill health and death to half its users….” Guess what Cecilia. 100% of NON smokers die just as 100% of smokers do!
Quote: ” I want my children grandchildren to remain smokefree …” then educate, educate & educate Cecilia-don’t dictate! But if a child or dare I say it, an adult decides to sample a cigarette, a pipe, a spliff or a shisha pipe, then they will try it whether you like it or not!
Your problem cecilia is quite simple-you cannot live & let live. We are not all smokers, we are not all drinkers, we are not all fatties, nor skinny’s, nor living in luxury from state handouts, nor living in poverty at the other end of the state handout pay-scale but we all have one thing in common – and that is freedom of choice! Some choose to be drinkers (through enjoyment) some choose to be smokers (through enjoyment) and some even choose gluttony and enjoy fatness but it is their choice. Yours is to bastardise tobacco and all that goes with it but that doesn’t mean you can impose your views on millions of others lives if they choose not to follow your path.
I almost wish I were a smoker Cecilia, so to be able to tell you how pleasurable a cigarette may be but I am not so i won’t lie, cheat & scam others as you and your sickly entourage do on a daily basis.
Good luck with your plain packaging but it won’t make a scrap of difference you silly woman excepting that all these TC measures have seen a 2% increase in tobacco consumption (TC 🙂 ) in Eire! And of course we have to think of all the wonderful profits being made from illegal tobacco……oh lordy me!
Excellenty put Smithers – I should thank you for your support, however if I do that you will probably be smeared with being a Tobacco Mole!
The 2% rise in tobacco consumption is probably a lot greater due to the thousands that now purchase their tobacco products in the EU, swelling, as mentioned before, the government coffers of other EU countries rather than Britain’s.
Celia – if you do not want your children/grandchildren exposed to tobacco why did you and your ilk work so hard to get us all thrown out on the streets to smoke? Hoisted by your own petard, perhaps?
Cecilia: “I want my children grandchildren to remain smokefree and see it as normal not to smoke or see cigarettes promoted in a fancy way.”
By all means. Cecilia, you’re quite free to form your own community with like-minded fanatics – a là Dowie and Volivia – somewhere in the woods, a place that smokers and sane people generally would enthusiastically steer clear of. If you showed me where it is on a map, I would be happy….. nay, ecstatic….. never to set foot in your smokefree “utopia”. That way the fear and hate-mongering and mind-numbing sanctimony can be confined to you would-be gods.
“It seems odd that medicines, that do our health good”
Cecilia, not surprisingly, you obviously haven’t heard of adverse drug reactions (properly-prescribed drugs), which in America are estimated to cause 100,000 deaths per annum, i.e., iatrogenic. These are not statistical “deaths” associated with a lifetime’s use, as in tobacco. They are adverse reactions that can occur in minutes in all ages, producing fatality or disability.
But then, Cec, I suspect that you haven’t heard of all too much, comfortably ignorant in the shallow antismoking recesses of your mind: “Reasoning” must be so easy when information, history, science can be mangled at will, brutalized beyond recognition, to accommodate the ill-considered, simple-minded beliefs. Cec, I bet that you and Stephen weren’t even aware that anti-smoking/tobacco has a long, sordid history, typically based on a plethora of inflammatory lies that produce social division and upheaval. But why should that matter to your antismoking godships who are obviously benevolent and omniscient – people that have it all figured out, with their finger on the pulse of the universe.
Wow. I did’nt realise so many people read this blog, and almost all smokers. Well I don’t actually think plain packaging will make much difference, but as the tobacco industry as always been, to put it nicely, “suspect” in the way it has portrayed it’s products, then if it causes them the most minor of inconvenience it will be worth it.
If its about revenge then be honest and say so and don’t hide behind the children or health.
I don’t read Stephen’s blog but as an adult consumer affected by such legislation, the subject of smoking and tobacco is of interest wherever it comes up. I think I am entitled to say what I think and as a child smoker who has watched this issue develop over almost 45 years now, then I think my opinion is valid and of value in this debate into whether plain packaging will protect or harm in the long run.
Ahh. Another guardian/owner of The Children™. Paul, surprising is that only a few antismokers have managed to tear themselves from cocktail-sipping at some Pharma-sponsored antismoking awards-function to provide Stephen with some immoral support, to drag out the well-worn “slogans”. I suspect that Stevo has been on the horn to [C]ASH, asking for a presence or guidance on how to respond to questions that don’t appear in the WHO FCTC parrot manual. Maybe the [C]ASHites demand an appearance fee.
BTW Paulie, thanks for the standard “it was worth it” routine. You know….. By promoting irrational belief, fear and hatred, by creating social discord, division and upheaval, if we inconvenience the Evil™ tobacco empire, if we Save® one Life©, spare one of The Children™ from becoming one of those degenerate “smokers”, then it was all Worth It®.
‘worth it’, Paul? is this you weighing up the advantages and disadvantages? what qualifies you to say that the inconveniences suffered by customers and shops and near certain price war that will follow are prices that are worth paying. You won’t be inconvenienced, I dare say. I love it when people say that other people’s inconvenience and discomfort is a price worth paying for what they think is a good idea.
You should feel quite proud Stephen, you’re getting a masterclass in democracy in action. Your comments are from people who are sick to the back teeth of being told, and in many cases forced, how to live their lives.
We are not livestock, leave us alone!
lib·er·al (lbr-l, lbrl)
adj.
1.
a. Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry.
b. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded.
c. Of, relating to, or characteristic of liberalism.
d. Liberal Of, designating, or characteristic of a political party founded on or associated with principles of social and political liberalism, especially in Great Britain, Canada, and the United States.
a. FAIL
b. FAIL
c. FAIL
Seems that you might need to find another party to support. Why not try the communist party? Certainly your thinking is more akin with it.
PS. I’m not funded by the tobacco industry either.
Belinda, l totally agree but it l doubt you’ll get any of our representatives thinking like that. They believe they ‘know’ what’s best for everyone.
Justine – They know they know best because their Degrees and ‘advisory’ careers are testament to their superiority.
I remember one such who was accepting lap-dog praise about how much work she and her husband had done on their barn conversion when I was heard (through the thin smoking room door) to say quite loudly “Rubbish! She hasn’t done a thing – she’s simply paid capable people to do it.
We
Having read the above article again, (Just to refresh my memory) I can see why my hatred of the elected dictatorship we have now, endures. When you look at the last two decades and wonder why voters have stayed away from the poll booths, this article is a case in point.
Every day we are being assaulted by an interfering, scientifically illiterate elite, who rely on lobby groups to further their careers. I find it strange that various charities have to be funded by the taxpayer, (It is the taxpayer that pays) to get their message across. If the case is so overwhelming these charities would not require taxpayer funding.
I’m glad to note that Alcohol Concern and ASH have had their sucking on the public teet, withdrawn. How can an organisation such as ASH get millions from the taxpayer yet only receive £11,000 in private donations? If the public was concerned they would have donated, would they not.
This article is by yet another MP trying to better himself in the political elite.
Bring back politicians of stature that will actually do the will of the people. All we have now is political wannabees who just jump on the latest bandwagon.
What happened to common sense and serving the people they represent.
actually, I believe in tobacco control. I don’t need ASH to convince me. It’s one of my longest held political opinions and has been made clear in every election in which I’ve stood for the last 20 years.
We’ve had control of tobacco for many years and consumption has reduced BUT now we’ve got Tobacco Control that has expanded it’s remit to include social engineering. It doesn’t work.
The very best message was “If you smoke leave a bigger tip” – Gentle but effective (but unaffordable at today’s prices). A far cry from that of your friends who have used every demonic device available to no positive effect except that of providing employment for an ineffective, expensive empire of academics and ‘experts’ dependent on government and pharmaceutical funding.
Ask your friends how much each ‘free quit kit’ costs, recognise the failure rate for NRT and then explain to us all how this is a good use of public funds.
Ask your friends if they include the (approx £45,000 per smoker) state pension savings for all those 7 year premature smoking deaths when they calculate the cost of smoking to the economy.
As an historian you should be capable of analysing evidence and as a tax advisor you should be capable of recognising mathematical irregularities AND as a politician you should be open to the commonsense views of the electorate.
The ‘thefilthyengineer’ is right — Fail, Fail, Fail.
“It’s one of my longest held political opinions and has been made clear in every election in which I’ve stood for the last 20 years.”
So they only vote for you as you’re vehemently against smoking? speaks volumes for your constituents.
I gather that Stephen Williams likes to see comments from people that stand against him, and that he can brush aside with complete arrogance. He can play the ‘me biggest gorilla’ role as he likes, when it comes to the smoking issue. For the power hungry and arrogant, that is too big a temptation to resist.
actually if people make factually based comments I try to respond.
This from someone who wrote ‘I wonder how many smoking parents were aware of the heightened risk to their children’s health? The BMA did similar tests and found the intensity to be a wopping 23 times a smoky bar.’
You know, the most worrying thing about this is that the chair of All Party Group on Smoking and Health, someone in a position to influence government policy (and parents), actually thought the BMA had done some tests’.
It has to said, there are people commenting here that almost certainly have far greater knowledge of tobacco issues than you ever will.
Ok then, respond to this…….
.At a World Health Organisation conference in 1975, former British Chief Medical Officer Sir George
Godber announced that:
“It would be essential to foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active
smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or
young children who would be exposed involuntarily to ETS.”
Antismokers then started actively looking for ‘proof’. One of the first studies they seized upon,
in 1981, was that of Prof Hirayama in Japan, which showed a possible risk from ETS. Although
the risk was trivial, the methodology was dubious, and the director of Hirayama’s own Institute
cautioned against taking the study too seriously, it was seen as ‘encouraging,’ and ETS studies
started to proliferate rapidly. By 1990 the well-known American antismoking activist Stanton
Glantz was able to declare:
“The main thing the science has done on the issue of ETS, in addition to help people
like me pay the mortgage, is it has legitimised the concern that people don’t like
cigarette smoke. And that is a strong emotional force that needs to be harnessed and
used. We’re on a roll, and the bastards are on the run.”
….and by the way, I’m not in the pay of big tobacco, I’m just a lowly bricklayer from Sunderland who is sick and tired of being classed as “abnormal.”
So will this be followed by plain packaging for beer and candy? Maybe removing brand names and substituting letter strings would help too?
“Hi! I’ll have a six pack of XQZ beer today. The HTW beer didn’t quite sit well with Choco # 17B Bar last night.”
And all the McWhopperies with their golden arches and happy faced clowns could be forced to redecorate into “little brown boxes” by the roadside known only as “Burger Joint Type 1” and “Burger Joint Type 2” etc.
Sounds like a plan to me!
– MJM
Your highness, Stephen, believer of great things, you “believe” in tobacco control (anti-smoking/tobacco). You also seem to believe in the Bogey Man (aka the Silent Salesman). You obviously then believe in denormalization/stigmatization/leperization of those who smoke. I take it you’re OK with elderly patients having to walk off entire hospital grounds to have a smoke – in whatever weather. And I suppose you’re just dandy about denying fostering/adoption to those who smoke.
In countries (e.g., America) a little more ahead than the UK in the Godber Blueprint, they are now up to large-scale outdoor smoking bans and employment discrimination against smokers. This is all obscene social engineering that has been seen before. It is a progressive segregation where the areas available for smoking are eventually reduced to nil, and those that refuse to conform are progressively punished. Smoking, the sign of “neo-leprosy” in the fevered imaginings of the antismoking mentality, must be removed from public sight, lest one of Cecilia’s lineage, for example, is reduced to a neo-leper. This is the direct, repugnant consequence of the demonstrably-deranged antismoking mentality.
You see, Stevo, plain packaging is really not such a big deal. But it is the latest in a long series of salami-slice steps predicated on a long series of inflammatory lies by the Tobacco Control social engineers. So, Stevo, the comments on your blog are not just a reaction to plain packaging. They are a reaction to the one-sided, vulgar, inflammatory antismoking blather-fest that has been foisted onto the public over the last few decades.
The question you fail to address, Stephen, O Wise Seer, is why this cultic belief of yours should be imposed on everyone? Only more perverse than this “health fascism” that you seem to revel in – “for the greater good”, of course – is that you’re a member of a liberal political party!! How’s that for turning the entire framework upside-down. Another poster has provided a definition of liberalism, a definition that you obviously do not comprehend and directly violate.
Stephen. I was once a born again fundamentalist pentecostal evangelist. I was able to make very authoritative statements, and could be very convincing. My knowledge was based on the inspired writings contained in the worlds best selling book.
Any argument or criticism of my doctrine came from the devil. Whoever disagreed with me, even if they were educated people with sound argument, they were speaking filthy lies, they were wolves in sheeps clothing, they were inspired by evil.
Stephen. I am an atheist. I also enjoy smoking. I, and many friends and online contacts, have researched in our own time, and taken on board independant, peer reviewed facts and common sense. Why? Because we are being attacked by the Church of Smokefree. Just like my past experience, much of their argument is based on personal, manipulated doctrine. Any of theire doctrine which holds any value is distorted and exagerated.
Just as any argument or criticism against Christian fundamentalism is seen as the work of the devil, any argument or criticism against the Church oif Smokefree is seen as the work of the Tobacco Industry.
“I don’t need ASH to convince me.” – That says it all, Stephen!!!!
I don’t actually know you, Stephen Williams, being a few thousand miles away in Philadelphia, and it’s pretty clear that I strongly disagree with your point of view on the smoking issue…
But I will give you one thing Stephen: you’re willing to let folks freely express their disagreements and argument with you here on your blog. Despite anything else, that gets a lot of credit in my book. Very few on your side of the fence have that much conviction in their beliefs: In my view most of them are liars and they know they’re liars and they’ll run from an honest debate faster than a little girl from a pack of tarantulas.
And if you actually look up some of the information and claims you see here and put enough thought and effort into it to try to defend against them … well, then even more credit will be due to you.
Have at it and invite your colleagues to join in. Might get bloodier than one of your futball games, but hey, blood and guts makes for good reading!
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
Thank you Michael; I’m sure that you’ll agree with many smokers that smoking is not that good. Even smokers encourage the reduction of smoking prevalence!!!!!
I’m sure you will also agree that the tactics/evidence/influence of Tobacco Control has undermined non-smoking encouragement.
Like all fanatics Tobacco Control has created a ‘them and us’ war when society should evolve from an ‘us and us’ involvement.
I thank you for your understanding of us addicts (sorry I’ve been brain washed I tried to stop typing at the word us).
Er, I can’t actually say I’d encourage the “reduction of smoking prevalence.” I enjoy smoking. I enjoy seeing other people enjoy smoking. Is it good for them? I’d say probably not … it’s even somewhat dangerous. But so is playing sports. Or, for that matter, WATCHING sports! There was a study done just last year indicating that sitting on your butt for a couple of hours to watch a game on the telly may be the heart-equivalent of a pack of smokes, and I think there was another done showing a significant increase in heart attack deaths in the home towns of either the winners or the losers (I forget which) after a big season-ending game. (No, I’m NOT kidding about that, although I simply read about the study, not the study itself.)
– MJM
Didn’t some Chinese study on ETS and lung cancer back in the 1990’s find that owning a colour TV increased the risk of lung cancer by around 150% and owning a fridge by over 200%?
Perhaps Cecilia is right. Note where she says, “Tobacco company spokespeople have admitted that packaging is the way they can market their toxic tabs. It seems odd that medicines, that do our health good, come in plain packaging, in small amounts and on prescription from a doctor.”
Maybe there should be a level playing field. Make tobacco companies advertise their goods on radio and television, right along with the various Big Pharma “drugs.” Just as doctors give out “free samples” of drugs to patients who haven’t tried them, have the tobacco companies do the same. Does the government subsidize medications? Let them subsidize tobacco as well.
Are medications taxed? Of course not (at least here in the US) — Let’s demand a level playing field for tobacco. Ever wonder how many pence a pack of smokes might cost without the taxes? What would be the current base price of a pack in the UK right now if all tobacco taxes were eliminated? Before Obama brought in his SCHIP tax on smokers on the backs of the little children a Kilo of tobacco ran about $25 (15 pounds?) How does that compare with what the average British citizen is paying nowadays?
The tobacco companies may still object to plain packaging when you force these reforms on them Cecilia, but don’t despair! Fair is fair after all, right?
– MJM
I was a heavy smoker until at the age of 42 (I am now 74) I had a full Myocardial Infarction:10 days in Intensive care at University College Hospital in London and six months off work. I have never smoked since.
“I was a heavy smoker…”
What, you were over 150kg?
I also was a heavy smoker until I had a major op BUT was it due to an early dose of rheumatic fever, a resultant inability to ‘enjoy’ competitive sports, sedentary employment, a love of bacon and pork products, the pleasure of camaraderie in my local OR smoking?
The only advice was to give up smoking!
Whatever happens, I’ve enjoyed the journey and a message to our concerned medicos — Sort out the failures and errors in the health service (how many undisclosed payouts of billions for medical cock-ups) before you criticize and demonize me.
I say good for you John – but your decision not to smoke should not be enforced on others who chose to smoke.
Stephen, I’m interested in how you will “spin” the results on your comments board to The All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health. I take it you’ll refer to some appropriate section – Agenda-Driven Drivel 101 – in the WHO FCTC propaganda/parrot manual for guidance.
I’m guessing it will go something like this:
Dear members of the All Farty Eugenics Group on Antismoking Engineering, I am pleased to announce that, from a great contribution to my comments board, we are very much on track for human betterment. Even the many smokers making comments believe in the “cause” and are honoured to be reduced to third-class citizens. They are particularly ecstatic about being exiled from the indoors and are very much looking forward to being exiled from the outdoors. Although I considered it a step too far, they kept insisting that they be banned from more and more of “normal” society, and think that the addition of employment discrimination is a nice touch. They also made a proposal that we should accord due consideration – the possibility of treatment camps for smokers serviced by a dedicated railway system. OK. That’s enough work……time for lunch. Pass the lobster and the caviar.
Am I close?
When the UK wins its first medal at the Olympics, the names or logos of the major sponsors will be prominently displayed in the background at the medal awarding ceremony. Stephen, if you really believe in this unproven “Silent Salesman” (“salesperson” surely!) hypothesis, what message is that giving “the children”? To be successful at athletics, you must pig out on Big Macs and Cadbury’s Flakes, washed down with several cans of Coca Cola?
Let me get this right. Is Cecilia whatsit the same person who is the CEO of ‘Common Purpose’? I feel sure that I am correct, but it is late and I must to bed. I will check tomorrow.
I I am right, however, Cecilia has been a ‘prime mover’ in the persecution of people who enjoy tobacco for the last thirty years. If I am right, she believed in the UN’s ‘Millenium Goals’. That is, the elimination of poverty and disease from the World. Funny how these worthy goals translated into the persecution of people who enjoy tobacco, especially in the comparatively disease and poverty free Europe and USA. Odd, that, do you not think? The wonderful UN millenium goals became an attack upon Europeans who enjoy tobacco, rather than poverty, disease and deprivation in Africa, Asia and other places.
the worthy ‘Millenium Goals’ were perverted before they left the ground. How sad! Imagine how much good work could have been done if all the money paid in salaries to ASH ET AL and the con-men of climate change had been spent as they should have been! Quelle Domage!
But Mr Williams will ‘carry on regardless’. But his campaign and crusade will fail. One, because it based upon lying propaganda, and, Two, because it will turn out that free people will do as they wish, notwithstanding the stupidity of ‘the majority’. We free individuals will, eventually, bring the gravy train to a stop. And then we will start a witch hunt. There will be no hiding place for the persecutors. We are determined.
I smoke, not a lot, but I enjoy a fine cigar now and again. I know the health risks, I know the pleasure that I get from a good cigar. As an adult, I am quite capable of deciding whether the pleasure is worth the risk to me.
It is a mockery of the term Liberal, to suggest that the State has the right to dictate what I can and can’t do with my own body. JS Mill would turn in his grave at the thought.
Where will this “health nazi” approach end?
Why stop at tobacco, next alcohol will have to be sold in plain bottles and anything with more than 0g of fat in a brown paper bag.
Whatever happened to the right to live your life by your own decisions without being dictated to by Nanny State politicians?
I don’t need looking after, I need leaving alone!
Murray, while on the one hand I do not want to encourage you to smoke, however if you absorb the nicotine in your cheeks and gums rather than inhale onto the lungs you run absolutely no further increase in risk of lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease. You also do not run any higher risks of oral or oesophageal cancer too.
Hat tip Rose2.
Dr. Michael Siegel is a Public Health official in Boston, USA. He testified against tobacco companies in the 1990s which led to them paying $billions in damages. Michael additionally believes that second hand smoke can cause lung cancer and heart disease. He was once a member of Global Link a secretive anti smoking group where membership is by invite only. He was expelled from the group for disagreeing with the increasing illiberal legislation, much on it based on dubious science. Here are his comments.
“If you take part in secondhand smoke policy training in the tobacco control movement, chances are that you will be taught that all opposition to smoking bans is orchestrated by the tobacco industry, that anyone who challenges the science connecting secondhand smoke exposure and severe health effects is a paid lackey of Big Tobacco, and that any group which disseminates information challenging these health effects is a tobacco industry front group.
Consequently, the a chief strategy of tobacco control is to smear the opposition by accusing them of being tobacco industry moles. And in no situation should one say anything positive about an opponent, even if true.”
tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/04/in-my-view-brainwashing-in-anti-smoking.html
If a person wishes to smoke, thats up to them. I’m not anti smoking. But the article is about recruiting new smokers, espescially children. My beef is with companies who mislead, use untrue propaganda, all to sell more of their products. There are countless cases and the tobacco industry is a good example.
The best example is the Pharmaceutical Industry! – They even get Government to promote smoking cessation products with a 95+% failure rate!
What many forget is that tobacco companies do not need to promote their product to youngsters – playgrounds and peer pressure are the reason the majority of youngsters begin to smoke.
And countless Big Pharma companies that do the same in giving misleading messages to sell their often corrupt products like Champix. . But this isn’t about tobacco companies – this is about the consumer’s right to purchase without harassment a legal product. As a former child smoker, I can assure you that plain packaging will have no effect on how many young people take up smoking.
I have seen man with a bag in my home town and I know that all this will do is force contaminated tobacco use underground – but I guess that’s Ok as long as it’s chav children who use it and not the nice middle class privileged sons and daughters of those in Tobacco Control
Paul Bemmy Down
The article is about plain packaging and “my beef is with ‘companies’ who mislead, use untrue propaganda, all to get more funding to protect their salaries”
Here is some factual truth for you. l started smoking at school along with my friends. Never ever did we go by brand names and “glitzy packets”. We had very little money so we begged, stole or borrowed most of the time. Our favourite target was young working guys. We’d ask for a cigarette and a cigarette only. We wouldnt ask for a Marlboro or any particular brand, the brand was unimportant. All that mattered was the cigarette. When we could get enough money to buy some we’d buy a packet of 10. Again not by “glitzy” packaging but by price! We got the cheapest we could get!
Youngsters still do the same today. That’s the facts Paul, thats the truth Paul. The only difference between when l started to smoke and kids today is when we bought cigarettes we got them from shops. Gov raised the age from 16 to 18 to buy cigarettes so who filled the void? White van man, thats who, and with the extortionate tax that is now on cigarettes it is white van man that profits. Every piece of legislation and action by gov and ASH looks as though it has been written by white van man to increase his business.
His products aren’t on display either!
That brings back memories Justine. Me and my mates did exactly the same. None of this will reach this MP and ASH in their ivory towers though where all opposing views and facts are totally ignored. The joke is that this MP says he is a Liberal hahaha, yeah right.
Stephen,
I’m sorry I can’t come at this from an extremist position, but hopefully moderate points of view are welcome on this blog too.
As I understand it, the measures won’t stop the many existing keen smokers (like those on your blog) from continuing to buy cigarettes, it’s just that the cigarettes will come in dull looking packs. Not an enormous afront to our civil liberties if you ask me. Surely this is just closing the last loophole of the general ban on cigarrette advertising agreed years ago?
I’m not sure it will make much of a difference to smokers who are trying to quit. As I understand it, a high proportion would like to give up, but struggle to. But anything that helps those who want to stop (and doesn’t line the pharmaceutical companies pockets!) would surely be welcomed. It certainly took me a few years.
I started smoking as a kid myself because it was ‘cool’ to do so. I suspect that’s true of many people. If I worked for a cigarette company, and I knew that it was mostly young people who started smoking (i.e. were my best source of potential new customers) you could bet that I’d be doing my utmost to make my products & packaging as attractive to them as possible. Now that I’ve got 2 young children of my own, I’d support any measures which made smoking seem less attractive to kids. I doubt that changing the packaging alone will achieve this, but it seems to me to be an entirely reasonable step to take, and one that I’d support.
If, when they’re adults, my kids decide that the risks of smoking are worth it then fine, their choice – but I can’t say I’d want them to become smokers, and I suspect most parents would say the same.
Not an enormous affront to civil liberties? How big does the affront have to be for you to oppose them? This is how you lose your civil liberties, a little at a time. lt started with tobacco advertising and look where we are now. Open your eyes for gods sake!
“I’m sorry I can’t come at this from an extremist position”
All smokers want is to be left alone in peace without harassment – and that’s “extremist” ?
Ye Gods!
I would expect nothing less of a lib-dem mp. Your arguments FOR plain packaging hold no weight whatsoever or importance to anything relevant. Putting cigs in plain packaging will just hold up queues at supermarkets whilst the poor assistant trys to fathom out where the hell the Bensons are!.. Seriously, is this what MPs are paid for, to meddle in useless campaigns whilst far far more important issues are at hand? Smokers ARE human beings too you know, we are not scum, you guys have already removed our rights to go into pubs, restaurants, our place of work and a million other places and treat us like lepers rather than doing the decent thing and providing places for us to go and keep both US and the anti-brains happy… Just look at how many people on this blog are against you,, you should be ashamed..
No – it’s aimed at further humiliation of the smoker to make those impatient people behind them in the queue angry enough to have a go at them. It’s about promoting public bullying of the smoker.
Added to that is the purposeful, spiteful way the print on the product list has been designed to be so small it isn’t even of the standard required for people with sight difficulties.
Ultimately, Tobacco Control hopes shops will get fed up with this and complaints from non-smokers held up in the queue, that they will stop selling the product. After all, there isn’t much money in tobacco thee days for retailers because most of the cover price is tax.
Isn’t it funny how these right-wing ‘libertarians’ accuse anti-smokers of bigotry and make repeated offensive Nazi references? They may be crowing at how much negative response you’re getting Stephen, but they’re not representative. It is, as you say, all the usual suspects jumping up and down, and -judging by their ability to get people to sign their petition to reintroduce smoking in pubs, (less than 5000 in 5 months) – there really are very few of them. It’s quite sad how angry they get at government trying to help them get out of the clutches of the drug that’s killing them, but when they’d go for thatt over food given the choice, and staying home or standing in the rain to get another fix over socialising with friends, they’re probably a lost cause.
Simon (NSC),
I am quite sure that when the smoking ban is repealed, millions of people will take up the option of smoking inside in preference to the situation now, which is a choice of stay at home or subsidise the life style choices of others. If you want your smoke-free fix, fair enough, pay for it yourself, and leave me to spend my money at places where smoking is permitted.
Thanks.
I think you’ll find that a great deal more than 5000 have opted to stay at home (goes a long way to explain the loss of c.10,000 pubs post ban). Besides, the vast majority are unaware of any petitions. Nor have they bothered to find out how they, their families and friends were deceived re passive smoking. And now the sheep are threatened with outdoor, car and home bans. No doubt ‘liberal’ Stephen will also support the latter. Bound to, given that he’ll be briefed by those who are already gearing up for demands to ban smoking in the home. We know exactly how TC operates. Advice first then,failing compliance, legislation.
“It’s quite sad how angry they get at government trying to help them get out of the clutches of the drug that’s killing them, but when they’d go for thatt over food given the choice, and staying home or standing in the rain to get another fix over socialising with friends, they’re probably a lost cause.”
No, we are just human and have the right to be treated like human beings. As for smoking killing us, something will kill us all in the end – you could go out in your car or get on a bus or a plane and die – today! Whilst waiting for the inevitable, however, I prefer to enjoy my life and smoking, for me, is part of that enjoyment and something that no-one else has the right to take away!
And as I have pointed out to your before Simon (nsc) – give us your side’s funding and you’d soon see how quickly that number would go up. If only we had the same kind of access to prime time TV, offices the length and breadth of the country to promote it, as Big P promotes its products through smoke free “shops”.
The truth is we are the experts – those of us who are lifelong and experienced in knowing what makes people start smoking and what makes them quit.
As I explained before the Nazi analogy is because Tobacco Control is using the Nazi war on smoking template which it studied in the 1990s. It is a relevant comparison because of this and how you can applaud any Nazi ideology like enforced smoke-free really says more about you than those who would point out that nothing about the Nazis even smoke free is worthy of consideration. That way bigotry lies.
And now I hear that all the comments like mine are paid for by the tobacco companies. I wish.
To people such as Simon (not Simon Clark) and Stephen, our host for this weeks entertainment I often wonder if they listen to themselves bleating on about SHS, 3rd/H/S etc and ever contemplate just how much they are being manipulated by such as the WHO? We must remember that the World Health Organisation are laying down tobacco policies whilst thousand are dying on a daily basis in Africa. With the vast amounts of money donated to the WHO from each country, why haven’t these people got water, irrigation, means of self sustainability-what do the WHO do for them? Very little apparently!
I wonder why this report has been buried for so long? Just look at the first few lines and you’ll soon realise why:- “This document is not issued to the general public, and all rights are reserved by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Service
of Ecotoxicology (ECOTOX) of the Department of Public Health,Geneva.”
Click to access mvr.pdf
You see Simon/Stephen, the WHO don’t want the general public to know about the increasing dangers of traffic pollution as that would undermine their anti tobacco stance. Simples!
Closer to home we find that Cameron &Co are moving the goalposts all the time to avoid the massive £300m fines to be imposed for our diabolical Air Pollution situation! Who needs to smoke to die of lung cancer or some other form of the disease. Why are we ‘presumably protecting’ our youngsters from pretty designs when they can simply walk out onto any street and draw in lungful after lungful of highly polluted ‘air’? It rather debases all the arguments of the anti tobacco lobby (Cecilia Farren take note please). During the first year of the ban I do believe that cancer rates increased somewhat-4% males & 3.75% females-so what, in actual fact, did the ban achieve-apart from empty pubs & clubs?
When you dig deep enough, it’s amazing what grubby little secrets you can find!
And next week at the ‘Bristol Palladium’ we present………………….!
Excellent, Smithers.
To add, in all the decades that smoking prevalence has been decreasing, cancer rates have been increasing – really logical then that it is smokers and smoking that, somehow, is the cause of so many!
On the other side, the generation who are now living longer than any previous generation are those that grew up during the height of smoking prevalence and most of them smoked at some point in their lives and many still do – if they can afford it. So, how old could they live to if they had never smoked or been brought up in a smokey environment I wonder?
Do you pick cherries for a living Simon? Justine made valid and factual comments that l agreed with. No Nazis in sight on the virtually all of the comments.
Dear Mr Williams,
Please rest assured that I do not work for a tobacco company, nor am I associated with any pro-tobacco lobby groups or organisations. I am an ordinary citizen with no special interests other than my own and my fellow citizens’ rights to be free to choose our lifestyles. Considering how much tax we pay, I’m absolutely outraged that government is determined to dictate and legislate our lifestyle choices.
And can we be clear about something, please? There is no such thing as a premature death. It is simply the time of one’s death, regardless if one lives for one hour or 100 years, whether one dies of lung cancer or from a horrific accident. Indeed, do tell us what is the acceptable age of death? When should I die, and what should I die of? Could you answer that question, please, sir?
Cigarette packaging does not encourage anyone to smoke — not children, not adults. I know of no smokers who were wooed by the “subtle” marketing campaigns on a cigarette packet. And I would wager that you do not know anyone either. There is no evidence that cigarette packets encourage anyone to do anything. Tobacco companies hope their packet designs will encourage existing smokers to switch brands — it’s a flawed strategy, because smokers are the ultimate brand loyalists. This is more to do with flavour of a smoke, not the packet. Price is also an issue. As taxes on tobacco relentlessly and unfairly increase, poorer smokers may choose or be forced to choose low-cost brands. None of this has anything to do children smoking due to packet designs.
Teens take up smoking for many reasons. None of those reasons have anything to do with packet design.
So what will plain packaging achieve? For starters, it will not reduce the smoking rate. It will likely increase it. Additionally, it will make it incredibly easy for counterfeiters to sell their low-grade cigarettes to unsuspecting buyers — those counterfeit cigarettes will harm many more people than any legitimate. Plain packaging will increase the illicit tobacco trade. As a result, the UK will see less tax revenue from tobacco products. And let’s face it, the government is quite keen to take as much money from us a possible. In summary, plain packaging will not reduce smoking rates, but it will increase crime and will cause great harm to your constituents.
I understand that no-one will be able to change your mind about this, and I am certainly not trying to do so. I am simply warning you that by “punishing” tobacco companies (which is exactly your goal here, and it’s incredibly disingenuous to trot out the “protect the children” argument — for that is and shall always be a job for a child’s parents), you are going to cause a great many issues that are entirely unavoidable. You will be personally responsible for them. You will be responsible for and underground market for legitimate, branded tobacco products that do not collect any duty, and you will be responsible for the black market of illegitimate, counterfeited brands that will cause great harm. You have been warned.
one hundred and sixty two comments yield six instances of the word nazi, one in simon (Nsc)’s post, one in Andrea’s and one in mine (this one). Hardly overkill, and in no instance was it directed at a person, only at a policy. Simon echoes Stephen’s accusation of ‘tobacco front groups’ by calling everyone ‘right-wing libertarians’, another attempt to paint everyone in the same colour.
And one in mine above in response to Simon (nsc) to try and explain why it is used and believed to be relevant.
It appears you have been over to Taking Liberties to complain about Nazi jibes. The use of Nazi out of 161 comments is 5. Two are used in the context of “health Nazis” and three
as a reference with non pejorative attached, health fascism once. I have even checked for “facism/facist” sic. So it seems you are back to spinning.
“Social Stigma around Smoking may be Causing Smokers not to Disclose Smoking Status to Health Care Providers
Washington, DC – New results from a national survey show that one-in-ten smokers (13%) in the United States did not disclose their smoking status to their health care providers (HCP), who are among the most important resources that a smoker could have in quitting successfully. Furthermore, social stigma around smoking may contribute to why smokers sometimes keep their smoking status a secret from their doctors.”
www. legacyforhealth.org/4973.aspx
http://nothing-2-declare.blogspot.com/2012/01/plain-packaging-regs-passed-in-house-of.html
l have to agree
The USA does like to lead on tobacco control and this paper from as long ago as 2005 rather confirms that the denormalisation of smokers is all part and parcel of tobacco control.
I hope you are pleased, Stephen.
“Accepted on: Sep 2, 2005
Tobacco Control, Stigma, and Public Health: Rethinking the Relations
Ronald Bayer, PhD, and Jennifer Stuber, PhD
“Although such restrictions have been imposed on the act of smoking, they have inevitably had profound impacts on smokers themselves and their social standing. In any city, smokers can be found huddled outside office buildings no matter how inclement the weather. Firms boldly announce that they will not employ and may even fire smokers because of the additional cost of their medical care, or because smoking does not project the “image” they wish to present to the public.
“Commenting on the rise and decline of the cigarette and smoker in America, medical historian Allan Brandt, who in the early 1980s, on the eve of the AIDS epidemic, so carefully examined the stigma associated with sexually transmitted disease, wrote,
In the last half century the cigarette has been transformed. The fragrant has become foul. . . . An emblem of attraction has become repulsive. A mark of sociability has become deviant. A public behavior is now virtually private. Not only has the meaning of the cigarette been transformed but even more the meaning of the smoker [who] has become a pariah . . . the object of scorn and hostility.”
ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2005.071886
For goodness sake, have a think Cecilia! “Stephen is clearly on the right track. Why else does it evoke such indignation? “. Here’s a hint or two Cecilia;
‘Anti-tobacco’ consists, in the main, of liars and cheats who are sucking the blood of smokers and the very life out of decent society. In the UK alone, they have bankrupted hundreds of businesses, increased unemployment by thousands, and seriously injured/killed a number of the most vulnerable in society, particularly the ill, aged, infirm, AND children, with intent to cow the rest of society using fear and coercion. There are many other adverse consequences, too numerous to list. Do you really think that this would not ‘evoke such indignation’ in those aware of this? Do you honestly think that these tactics and the extensive harm they cause, will ever be accepted by decent people? Suppression or intentional degradation of any section of society may be successful for many years but it will NEVER be accepted, inevitably it WILL fail, and those responsible WILL be called to account.
Bearing in mind the crass, and clearly incorrect suggestion, that those who have challenged the anti-smoker deception on here are tobacco company shills, why did you (or for that matter the other two antismoker supporters who have commented) not disclose your vested interests and biased position?
Are you really “Cecilia Farren, of ASH South West – funded by Big Pharma and taxpayers’ money.” ?
I suspect that many anti-tobacco activists did at one time believe they were following a noble cause in preventing ill health and defending the vulnerable from the ‘evil tobacco barons’, but it should be clear by now that this is no longer the case and probably never was. The noble cause has turned drastically awry and is, in addition to all the other adverse consequences, causing far more ill health than it prevents. Money corrupts and this is what seems to have happened within the anti-smoker industry. Anti-tobacco is now swimming in cash that is used to swamp the public with anti-tobacco propaganda, lobby gullible MPs, and stuff the pockets to overflowing of those willing to compromise and ignore their personal moral compass.
By the way, I have no connection with any tobacco company!
Paul naively believes (or intends to maliciously perpetuate the illusion) that the latest measures proposed are purely for the benefit of children. Give your head a slap Paul, it has nothing to do with children! Time to realise that children and the emotive response of adults towards children are being exploited. The exploitation of children was, and still is, a major ingredient extensively utilized in advancing the anti-smoker agenda. They did not invent this psychological tool, it been used for many years to facilitate the curtailment of freedoms of adults, as demonstrated in this quote:
“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”
(Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler; 1943)
Stephen has ‘believed’ in tobacco control for 20 years. In actual fact I naively believed in it too – 20, even 10 years ago, but now I know better. When the evidence changes, I change my mind; what do you do Stephen? I am aware that your knowledge/expertise on this subject, as with most MPs, is probably no better than the average lay-man, your comments would tend to confirm this. MPs depend upon advice from ‘experts’ so, if they are given incorrect advice but accept it in good faith, then they are unlikely to be held accountable for the adverse consequences that follow from their actions, based upon that advice. The comments here, although only scratching the surface, have questioned the advice you have been given Stephen and MADE YOU AWARE of the ‘possibility’ that that advice IS incorrect.
As the chairman of All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health I should not need to point out the possible consequences of failing to verify anti-tobacco advice by not seeking out ALL the available information. You must remember that, as an MP, your responsibility is to the public NOT to some wealthy single issue lobby group, however well they have infiltrated the halls of power! Remember too that this has little, if anything, to do with ‘health’
K_F.
You wrote that “As an MP, your responsibility is to the public”. Stephen has the specific duty of representing ALL his constituents.
Tobacco control is only a small part of his and his party’s manifesto and, at the last election, he gained 26,593 votes. It is vital that he should also take note of the wishes of ALL those who did not vote for him or for his tobacco policy and remember that it is the wishes of the electorate may outweigh his own.
The total electorate for Bristol West was 82,728. Is he willing to go against party lines and support the 56.000 who did not vote for him??????
With a rebellion rate of only 0.3% it’s clear who he represents.
Please remove my reference to ‘liars and cheats’ above, and replace with ‘undesirables’. I would not wish to be accused of hyperbole.
As a fellow Liberal I do not see the incompatibility between plain packaging and a restriction on anyone’s actual ability to smoke. I am a ‘non-militant’ ex-smoker who is fully respectful of an individual’s right to take part in a legal activity. Plain packaging doesn’t restrict anyone’s smoking behaviour or choices around tobacco use. It does however, restrict the tobacco industry’s only remaining way of peddling a product that will kill half of half of those who use it and leave many, many more with life restricting health problems. I have never heard of any smoker welcoming the news that their child has taken up smoking and one of my main reasons for quitting was the knowledge that my smoking was in all likelihood increasing the chance of my children following suit. As the vast majority of adult smokers take up the habit under the age of 18, I personally welcome any measure that continues to de-normalise smoking and reduce the chances of our children starting in the first place. I would see this very definitely as an anti tobacco company issue and not an anti smoker one.
A Liberal happy with de-normalising smokers! Take a look at thefilthyngineer’s comment (9.18pm 17th Jan) Shewi and then in regards to the children look at Justine’s and Andres’s posts (11.10am & 11.28am today). Therein lies the truth my dear Shewi … that’s if you want the truth that is!
Isn’t “de-normalise” a word normally associated with social engineering and eugenics?
Those most affected by plain packaging will be the tobacconist/counter operative/evil sales person/death dispenser (delete as appropriate). The packaging is a useful tool for the easy identification and selection of the requested product.
But that’s OK because you won’t be inconvenienced.
Surely the next stage is to remove the name of the product and the name of the manufacturer from the packaging just in case one child somewhere in ASHton Gate might be attracted by interesting/glitzy words.
Shewi.
Have you not considered that the Tobacco companies may be rubbing their hands with Glee. Look at the savings in costs they will make in not haven’t to spend a fortune on their cigarette package design. And I see the whole “We must save the children” mantra is being trotted out again. That is for the parents to do. Children are not the property of the state. Yet.
FE, White Van Man and the Chinese Counterfeit Gangs are singing and dancing on their way to the showroom to order a new Porsche/Mercedes/BMW …. 🙂
Tim F: “I doubt that changing the packaging alone will achieve this, but it seems to me to be an entirely reasonable step to take, and one that I’d support.”
So, Tim, you think that more than just changing the packaging needs to be done. What do you have in mind? Maybe a well-worn, garbage-filled, 44-gallon drum bearing the sign “cigarettes”, complete with oil and dog-urine stains, can be positioned near the cash register of retail outlets. Those wishing to purchase cigarettes grab a used brown-paper bag and rummage through the garbage in search of loose cigarettes. Having found the required number of cigarettes picked clean of junk, the purchaser approaches the cash register for checkout. Does this sound a chord with you?
“We all know that people who resort to deploying the Nazis have already conceded in their own minds that they can not win the debate by rational argument…”
As pointed out above by several people, your Nazi jibe has no basis. What you have totally failed to do is engage with any of the arguments put forward by commenters here. That is called debate, and you seem to be avoiding it. So tell me, Stephen, where is your “rational argument”? We are all waiting, agog, for you to demolish with your razor-sharp reasoning all the points that people here would really like to debate rationally if you would but give them a chance. Instead you have posted an empty, sarcastic comment on another blog. That’s not exactly what I would call rational argument.
Simon Clark has offered you a public debate on this subject. Do you have the courage of your convictions to accept this challenge? That is, after all, the “rational argument” you referred to. I will await with interest to hear what your reply is. You didn’t dare engage with Dave Atherton, realising doubtless that his knowledge of the subject is far more comprehensive than yours, so I rather expect you will also squirm out of any debate with Simon Clark. We shall see.
On a more positive note, to your merit you have allowed the comments here to stand, which does suggest a degree of honesty in your approach. But will you be honest enough to admit that you are wrong? Because you are. In many ways and for many reasons. Idealogical grandstanding is not a good basis for legislation. You should know that.
Sorry, I’m late to the party, folks.
I’m a left wing libertarian.
I’m not funded in any way by the tobacco industry.
I work for my own business.
I don’t get paid for being anti-smoking.
I don’t get paid for being a politician.
I don’t “believe” in smoking: it’s not a creed.
But I am a smoker, and I REFUSE to be denormalised.
If all these comments were votes, Stephen would have lost his deposit way back.
Seems to me that the people who are exploiting the children are tobacco control activists themselves. Children are shamelessly used in tv propaganda to appeal to smoking parents’ sense of guilt and, at school, are terrified into believing that they are imminent orphans if their parents smoke.
I think that others have covered the poor rationale behind plain packaging and I, too, believe that it’s a tactic in tobacco control’s stigmatisation process.
And if you think, Mr Williams, that those who are commenting on your blog are but a few obsessives then consider that this thread had attracted more than ten times the usual number of comments. If we’re not representative then those who’ve commented on your other threads are certainly not. I wonder why you bother.
They for the most part are child actors, paid to take part in adverts, just as the graphic images on the packs are computer enhanced.
We know these things we have the internet, or maybe that is next on the prohibited list.
Air pollution on UK streets is contributing to tens of thousands of early deaths each year and the Government is not doing enough to tackle the problem, according to a report published today by the cross-party Environmental Audit Committee.
Report: Air Quality
Environmental Audit Committee
The MPs warn that Britain could face millions of pounds in fines if our cities continue to breach EU air quality targets supposed to protect public health.
Tim Yeo MP, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee said:
“Air pollution probably causes more deaths than passive smoking, traffic accidents or obesity, yet it receives very little attention from Government or the media.”
“In the worst affected areas this invisible killer could be taking years off the lives of people most at risk, such as those with asthma.
“The large EU fines we face, if we don’t get to grips with this problem, should now focus Ministers’ minds.
“Much more needs to be done to save lives and reduce the enormous burden air pollution is placing on the NHS.”
According to evidence presented to the inquiry, air pollution could be contributing to as many as 50,000 deaths per year – as it makes asthma worse and exacerbates heart disease and respiratory illness. Averaged across the whole UK population it is estimated that poor air quality is shortening lives by 7-8 months. In pollution hotspots it could be cutting the most vulnerable people’s lives short by as much as nine years, the report says.
Despite these considerable impacts on public health, very little effort is being put into reducing air pollution levels compared with efforts to tackle smoking, alcohol misuse and obesity, the report says.
Air pollution from road vehicles causes the most damage to health, the MPs conclude. A dramatic shift in transport policy is required if air quality is to be improved, they add.
This is a real problem you should concern yourself with Stephen, not a mythical one as it effects all of your constituents, Especially the Children who are almost at face level with this pollution
“Despite these considerable impacts on public health, very little effort is being put into reducing air pollution levels compared with efforts to tackle smoking, alcohol misuse and obesity, the report says.”
That’s because health has nothing to do with it. It’s ideology, pure and simple.
Just a point on “Nazi” references. Antismokers typically invoke “Godwin’s Law” to disqualify/ridicule the comments of anyone making a Nazi reference. As with many other issues, antismokers have mangled Godwin’s Law as well. GL is a point of humour, indicating that the longer a discussion goes, the higher the probability that a Nazi reference will be introduced, usually without basis. GL is not a criticism of uses of the Nazi reference where it is relevant to the discussion.
In the case of antismoking, the Nazi reference is entirely relevant. Anti-smoking/tobacco (and anti-alcohol) makes an appearance in Nazism. And, it didn’t just pop-up out of thin air. It is central to the eugenics framework, and eugenics was a foundational layer of Nazism:
Add www. to the URL. bmj.com/archive/7070nd2.htm
Eugenics is a peculiar fascist framework; it has [only] biological health – racial and behavioral – as a central tenet. The citizenry, which is viewed as a human “herd” and the property of the State, are expected to conform to [biological] health edicts, even to coercion, as their duty to the State. The [unfounded] promise of the eugenicists was that, under their control, disease, poverty, and crime would be eradicated. Rather, in that it entirely disregards psychological, social, and moral dimensions, the framework brought out the worst in people along these dimensions, e.g., bigotry, racism, cruelty, brutality. Also notable is that the Nazis didn’t invent eugenics; it was popularized decades earlier in America.
The current antismoking crusade, the Godber Blueprint, was put into motion by the standard eugenics personnel, e.g., physicians, biologists, statisticians, behaviorists. It has the same absolutist, social-engineering intent that is eugenics. It uses the same vulgar eugenics methodology of denormalization/propaganda to achieve its questionable goals. Post-WWII, the word “eugenics” is rarely used given its negative connotations. The obsession with physical health that emerged post-WWII has been referred to as “healthism”. Yet, healthism is really the behavioral dimension of eugenics. The antismoking crusade, which is a part of the “healthist” push, is also eugenics in motion. It is the eugenics framework that has made antismoking a societal ideal with a view to the eradication of tobacco use.
With antismoking well along, healthism (eugenics) is attempting to extend its reach to other behaviors it wants control of, e.g.,
DO NOT add www. to the URL. dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2012/01/precedent-what-precedent.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DickPuddlecote+%28Dick+Puddlecote%29
And now in the land where Smokerphobia began, the USA, the programme moves on towards segregation and downright hatred of a purposefully denigrated group . This is what Tobacco Control and that “Nazi” ideology has done to smokers http://patnurseblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/21st-century-niggers.html
However, it really doesn’t matter what any smoker says here on this blog or elsewhere. After all, we are merely the voters and we don’t matter. Hate is hate and fuelled by phobic fear such bigoted prejudice is now deeply embedded. The Govt has signed up to it and actively promotes it.
As the LibDems are losing three out of every four of their voters, I think that as the fair minded public begins to wake up, then we will see the last of the LibDems whose only chance at running Govt has let just about everyone down.
John S: “Isn’t “de-normalise” a word normally associated with social engineering and eugenics?”
Nazism was a particularly virulent manifestation of eugenics. Nazism denormalized quite a number of groups/behaviours. The most notorious and destructive denormalization was that of the Jews. Long before the genocide, Jews were banned from parks and other public places – even entranceways to buildings. The “justification” was that they were a public health threat; they were depicted as disease-carriers and spreaders.
Denormalization is really de-humanization. A behaviour or group is depicted as a threat/burden to normal society that, for “the greater good”, must be eradicated. Regardless of its target, denormalization proceeds in the same way. Consider smoking. Tobacco smoke has been manufactured into a bio-weapon like phenomenon that can now drop anyone dead with one whiff. Smoke has been banned from the indoors and now it is being banned from the outdoors. Unfortunately, tobacco smoke does not occur independently of a smoker. So, what is directed at the smoke is ultimately directed at the smoker. A smoker is depicted as “diseased” simply because they smoke. The smoke then causes other diseases in the smoker. By smoking in public, the “diseased” smoker is spreading disease – secondhand smoke: The smoker is a disease carrier and spreader. And, the act of smoking is “contagious” to others in that nonsmokers may take up the habit and therefore fall to the “disease” of smoking.
The denormalization has degenerated to “thirdhand smoke” where “remnants” of smoke on a smoker’s breath and clothing and where smoking has previously occurred are a disease “threat” to “innocent, normal nonsmokers”.
It is this denormalizing mentality that is very sick. It is a constant fear and hate-mongering. Whereas those who smoke would see themselves as normal people who happen to smoke, eugenics concludes that [only] because they smoke they are not normal people; in fact, it views them as such “abnormal” people that not one more of them should be tolerated.
One would think that the very idea of denormalization would set alarm bells ringing. But not so with fanatics who typically have a poor grasp of most things, including history. The fanatics speak of denormalization in glowing terms.
I don’t blame Stephen Williams for jumping on this excrement filled band-wagon, he is just as gullible as all the other politicians, no I blame the Tobacco Companies for not fighting their corner with any conviction. Pubs and retailers thought the ban wouldn’t destroy their business, but that is exactly what has happened, and now the damage has been done.
This draconian ban has driven a spiteful and poisonous wedge between decent and honourable people which will have a mighty backlash. They just don’t know it yet.
Stephen Williams has nothing to offer; he has no expertise in this area, and therefore cannot enter into any realistic scientific or medical debate of any worthwhile kind. There are many on this thread that can ask questions that nobody in the field of Tobacco Control can answer (I include myself in this group), because quite simply they rely solely on propaganda which is bereft of residual scientific fact.
He is nothing more than a brownie-point scoring dud.
I urge you to read this paper from Professor Carl Phillips who is the former Professor of Public Health at University of Alberta. Here he explores how dissenting scientists who dispute the anti tobacco movements assertions are marginalised, criticised and intimidated into silence. It is basically about honest science.
“But when core values and principles of epidemiology are attacked by quasi-religious zealots, many epidemiologists seem quite willing to join the zealots. There is certainly no united front in defense of the science.”
“Enstrom cites the reign of terror over biology under Stalin as one example of politics trumping science. Though the Soviet case is rather extreme (we North Americans who dare question the scientific orthodoxy only have our careers threatened; not our lives, at least so far), it is not the most extreme. Many cultures were hobbled for centuries because of religious adherence to pseudoscience, and damage to people’s health was one of the many results.”
.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2173898/
The link did not work.
Tobacco Companies have direct access to 12 million + smokers but don’t use it. A simple card in each packet would reach every smoker. You may see movement from the Tobacco Companies if this plain packaging is brought in. Trademarks are supposedly protected so l’d expect High Court actions from the TC’s suing for megabucks.
I believe you will SH.
I am still trying to figure out what the real objective of plain packaging is. We know that the display ban has nothing to do with children at all or health, but is an attempt to cause tobacco selling to be troublesome and unprofitable to small shopkeepers, and therefore to persuade them to stop selling tobacco, and therefore reduce the outlets. So what is the real objective of plain packaging? Why is this matter being pursued with such zeal, when there are so many drawbacks to the idea and the potential benefits so unrealistic?
I really do not know.
But this thought occurred to me. Is this a case of salami slicing a salami slice? That is, is plain packaging a precursor to gaining control of the whole packet? For example, would the ‘next logical step’ be to reduce the permitted length of the packet? In other words, you can have any length of cigarette you like, but the packet must be no more that, say, 5cm long. Oh, and not more that 5cm wide or 1cm deep. Once Tobacco Control get legal control of the design, they also get control of the size and shape.
Um……interesting.
In a letter you wrote to Andrew Lansley (cc’ing Debs Arnott in) you said that the UK spends £300 million on tobacco control. I was down at my local doctors and asked apart from patches and gum supplied by pharmaceutical companies do the quit advisers have any tools available, the answer was no. There is a peer reviewed method of giving up and by a factor of 53%. The cost is £7.00 from Amazon or free from your local library. I will let Deborah Arnott of ASH tell you how good it is. Why if you go to ASH’s website is this not mentioned?
“In November of last year, Deborah Arnott, Director of ASH claimed that specific success rates quoted by AllenCarr Easyway were “plucked out of the air” and “basically made up.” She made these comments whilst on the BBC Radio 4 “PM” programme during a piece concerning the death of Allen Carr, founder of Allen Carr’s Easyway organisation.
Deborah Arnott’s comments referred to two independent studies conducted by eminent experts in the field of smoking cessation which had already been published in peer reviewed journals indicating a 53% success rate for Allen Carr’s Easyway to Stop Smoking Clinics after 12 months.
Following a complaint by Allen Carr’s Easyway International, Deborah Arnott and ASH now acknowledge that it was wrong for Ms Arnott to have made the comments relating to the 53% success rate and have issued an unreserved apology.
ASH has agreed to pay the legal costs incurred by Allen Carr’s Easyway.”
allencarr.com/133/ash-apologise-to-allen-carrs-easyway
Nothing to do with this at all is it? Here is a letter from Action on Smoking and Health from 2001 written by Clive Bates.
“ASH has worked closely with both Glaxo and SmithKline Beecham staff and always welcomed the active collaboration. I hope to continue this with the merged company. We have worked with GSK under the auspices of the WHO-Europe Partnership Project on tobacco dependence and at various one-off opportunities. ASH was instrumental in securing greater government commitment to smoking cessation products in the NHS National Plan and we have helped with PR for both Zyban and Niquitin CQ.”
“The GSK forerunner companies have been champions of such collaboration, with partnerships with WHO-Europe (which includes ASH), Cancer Research Campaign, British Medical Journal and others.”
“ASH has a small shareholding in GSK and I will be attending with others to question you and the Chairman on this situation.”
ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_635.pdf
Or this for example
“Pfizer provided support to ASH Wales towards the cost of the ASH Wales Conference in 2009 and 2010.”
pfizer.co.uk/sites/uk/our_responsibility/Documents/Patient%20Group%20Interactions%20Dec%2009%20-%20Nov%2010.pdf
ASH and our host seem to be of the opinion that if you say it enough times it must true about SHS. Are they actually doing more harm than good by squandering large sums of money on something that has little basis in fact?
I was recently diagnosed with a peptic ulcer. I remember in the past when it was it was touted in the past that this was down to stress. I was amazed to learn that it was not.
Here is the timeline to modern day treatment.
History of Ulcer Diagnosis and Treatment
The road to a cure for ulcers has been a long and bumpy one. Recent news that ulcers are caused by a bacterium and can be cured with antibiotics has changed traditional thinking. Physicians and consumers have not been informed of the good news.
Early 20th Century
Ulcers are believed to be caused by stress and dietary factors. Treatment focuses on hospitalization, bed rest, and prescription of special bland foods. Later, gastric acid is blamed for ulcer disease. Antacids and medications that block acid production become the standard of therapy. Despite this treatment, there is a high recurrence of ulcers.
1982
Australian physicians Robin Warren and Barry Marshall first identify the link between Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) and ulcers, concluding that the bacterium, not stress or diet, causes ulcers. The medical community is slow to accept their findings.
1994
A National Institutes of Health Consensus Development Conference concludes that there is a strong association between H. pylori and ulcer disease, and recommends that ulcer patients with H. pylori infection be treated with antibiotics.
1995
Data show that about 75 percent of ulcer patients are still treated primarily with antisecretory medications, and only 5 percent receive antibiotic therapy. Consumer research by the American Digestive Health Foundation finds that nearly 90 percent of ulcer sufferers are unaware that H. pylori causes ulcers. In fact, nearly 90 percent of those with ulcers blame their ulcers on stress or worry, and 60 percent point to diet.
1996
The Food and Drug Administration approves the first antibiotic for treatment of ulcer disease.
1997
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with other government agencies, academic institutions, and industry, launches a national education campaign to inform health care providers and consumers about the link between H. pylori and ulcers. This campaign reinforces the news that ulcers are a curable infection, and the fact that health can be greatly improved and money saved by disseminating information about H. pylori. Medical researchers sequence the H. pylori genome. This discovery can help scientists better understand the bacterium and design more effective drugs to fight it.
Can my host here, hand on heart, seriously consider himself suitably informed on the issue of SHS?
Seeing that it took nearly a century, to get the treatment right for peptic ulcers.
The host might also look into what chemical in tobacco smoke actually causes cancer, if at all. I’ve yet to find any answers to that. Let’s spend the millions wasted on useless tobacco cessation programmes and denormalisation tactics, to actually find the cause of the cancer.
Then again what do I know? I’m just an Engineer who has to deal with facts..
H. pylori is found in 80%+ cases of colon and bowel cancer. It was always thought that smoking was a risk factor for cervical cancer (CC) with a statistically significant relative risk (RR) of 2.72. That is if you found 100 women with CC you would find 272 smoking women with CC.
The real cause of cervical cancer in women is solely Human Papillomavirus (HPV) types 16&18, genital warts to you and me. So the anti smokers made a song and dance trying to prove causation with correlation and made idiots of themselves.
Why are people critical of Cancer Research, here they are admitting that smoking was discounted, but still spin to keep the illusion up.
“The authors concluded that even though smoking was not a risk factor for HPV, smoking acted with HPV to cause cervical neoplasia (see also Smoking section below).”
What I think is the correlation is that smokers tend to be risk takers and bon vivants. It is their lifestyle in either having multiple partners and/or have unprotected sex is probably the correlation.
info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/cervix/riskfactors/
Junican, re your comment Jan 17 at 2.22 a.m. and the ‘peers God bless ’em’: I do wonder whether this is an example of the undermining of the independence of the House of Lords in recent years. I’ve tried to look up the full membership of this All Party Group. I suspect that most of the Lords are Life Peers. It looks like it from those mentioned on its Executive. Oh and the Parliamentary website describes All Party groups, in part, as ‘informal cross-party groups that have no official status within Parliament … many groups involve individuals and organisations from outside Parliament in their administration and activities.’ No official status. Perhaps we need to be more aware of that.
Exactly my point.
Essentially, Mr Williams is speaking only for himself.
Why not do it? After all this is a free country, so you can ban anything you want.
I have been wondering where all Mr William’s friends from ASH ET AL are. Perhaps they have been warned off for fear of making fools of themselves.
You ghastly little pious creep – do you have nothing better to do? If I could get close enough to you, I’d kick you liberal ass. But that’s not possible, so I’ll choose a cigar, enjoy taking it out of its wonderfully ornate wrapper, light up and metaphorically blow smoke in your face.
Mr. Williams what you propose is neither “Liberal” nor is it “Democratic”, so please tell us what are you doing as a Liberal Democrat?
You should resign and cross the floor to the socialists in the Labour Party. When are you going to realise that all people want is to be left alone. We do not want to be told what to eat, what and how much to drink, not to smoke and how many times we should be exercising per week. Your anti-smoking, anti-alcohol, anti-obesity and environmental policies are all based on junk science. Stop listening to the lobby groups posing as charities and do some reading and research of your own.
On the subject of plain packaging for cigarettes, I think we can safely say that the packaging is certainly not glitzy. Most of the pakcakges are either single colour or have two colours and the branding is obscured by false messages declaring that smoking kills or that smoking next to someone else is harmful to them. Smoking does not, in itself kill anyone. More people die due to lack of oxygen and smoke inhalation during a house fire, than die as a direct reult of smoking a cigarette. Smoking is a contributory factor in some cancers, not the only factor. Second-hand and even third hand smoke (as some so-called scientists would have us believe) is no more harmful than walking down a busy street inhaling exhaust fumes.
I’m assuming then that you and the your coalition partners have sorted out the deficit and debt problems the country is facing. No/ The what the hell are you doing fussing about whether cigarettes are in plain packaging or in a red, blue, or green box with writing on the front?
Absolutely agree Henry Crun.
To add to your final comment, unless these pious idiots get off their backsides and start working in the REAL WORLD of POLITICS and, as you say, sort out the deficit and debt problems of the country, there won’t be anything left of the country to ‘protect’ the ‘children’ from!
I cannot fail to be amazed how this country is still going as if any business in the land was run the way governments of recent years have been ruining (sorry running) this country they would have gone bust many times over!
It is about time the politicians started concentrating and working (if they are capable[?]) at what they were elected and are paid to do!
Dear Henry Crun,
Quote: “…you and your coalition partners have sorted out the deficit and debt problems the country is facing. No?”
Mr Crun, do you really expect us to relieve this country of the dire financial state left by Blair & Brown (B****x & Braindead)? Oh no no no dear chap, we have far more important things to do such as kidding people into living longer so that we cannot afford them when they are old & fragile. But we are considering shipping all people over the age of 70 to a specially built unit where they may spend the rest of their days happily inhaling sarin gas. If this doesn’t relieve the financial stress on this country enough then we will lower the acceptance age to 65 as that way we won’t have to pay any pensions whatsoever. The welfare state really has become burdensome of late!
What you don’t realise Mr Crun is that I haven’t a clue how to financially rescue this country but while I am in receipt of an MPs allotted salary I really do need to be seen to being active in Westminster by my constituents and as (I can safely guess) 75% of them don’t smoke I think my 38% of the Bristol West vote at any election is quite safe. (tfft !)
You see Mr Crun. it doesn’t matter whether I believe you, ASH, Peter Kellner or indeed the Lord God himself, I am ensuring that my family don’t suffer economic failure! I mean to say Mr Crun, I am a very important person you know, therefore I MUST be payed (by the peasants actually-what a wheeze !) The anti smoking bandwagon is a vast and well funded enterprise and even though Nick C himself likes a puff or three (cigarettes that is!) he realises too that the smoking debate is a marvellous attraction to take peoples minds off the real problems of this country. The economy.
Yes, I really do appreciate that we may have squandered approx £19bn on this cleansing programme but then you see Mr Crun, you haven’t a clue just how much revenue is coming in the back door from the pharmaceutical industry, as all you muppets continually use the NRT products which have a marvellous 1.6% success rate. Well, you can’t fault that really, as it is better than our financial recovery rate at present Mr Crun-splendid! And of course you must remember that every death via Chantix et al, is one less smoker to be costing the NHS.
We will be passing on the same message to those dirty, filthy drinkers as well! I mean to say just look at all the S.H.A.G (Second Hand Alcolholic Gas) they emit every time they have the audacity to pass wind-at both ends. It is inevitable that we must rid the nation of these drinkers as all alcohol related NHS costs are double that of smokers. And then we will really start on the obese, the overweight etc as they are costing the NHS even more than the drinkers-and look at all the S.H.A.G they produce, stuffing their faces 24-7; where do they find the time to sleep? Of course, our BMI index will not relate to MPs as we spend much time sitting around debating what to do to you lot.
So you see Mr Crun, the nations finances matter not a jot. I am on a roll here and fully intend to woo my constituents (if need be) to keep my non flatulent parliamentary bottom in my parliamentary seat, wage war on all things ‘cleansable’ and keep drawing a very nice salary thank you, while you miserable surfs bemoan your misfortunes.
Yours sincerely
faobo
Mr Stephen Williams MP-PM, what’s the difference?
Smithers, if that were not so close to the probable truth it would be absolutely hilarious!
Stephen — the great majority of these posts are from a sad little bunch of extremists in the UK pro-smoking lobby, a bunch you could get together in a about 10 phone booths (just check out the feeble numbers of people who follow some of their tweets and the even fewer who contribute to their blogs.) Do not mistake this for public opinion. They mainly talk to themselves and get certifiablly priapic when they think anyone pays them a moment’s attention.
Is this the same Professor Simon Chapman who was caught dishonestly spinning his way out of a paper that did not show any correlation between passive smoking and lung cancer. I quote Professor Chapman.
“..look at Table 7 in the way any journalist would … a reasonable conclusion will be that the idea that there is ANY lung cancer caused by ETS (environmental tobacco smoke) in Australia will be seen as a huge joke.”
” I think we had better get out a thesaurus and find a lot of words to express the words ‘conservative estimate’ in hundreds of different ways…. We are looking down the barrel of a MAJOR public relations problem …”
members.iinet.net.au/~ray/ETS1.jpg
members.iinet.net.au/~ray/ETS2.jpg
As I replied to Atherton on his own playpen some time ago when he got excited about my 1995 fax: (this was in the Canberra Times on April 22, 1997, following an article the day before):
Alan Gale’s report and your headline (“Passive smoking results were doctored, documents say” (CT April 21) defames all the members of the NH&MRC’s working party in its claim that we “massaged” research results and deleted those “which did not suit recommendations”. The ordinary reader, and especially our colleagues in public health research throughout Australia and internationally would be highly likely to form the view that we were scientifically dishonest and engaged in deceptive practices that should bring us into gross disrepute within our professions.
Gale bases his claims on a fax I sent to other members of the group in 1995 where I raised two concerns about an early working draft chapter. First, I argued that “fractional” annual deaths (ie: death rates of less than one per age band) would prove difficult for journalists and the public to understand. When Gale interviewed me for the article, I put to him the simplest of questions that sought to test his ability as a journalist to decipher what “0.5″ deaths per annum meant. His struggled reply was incomplete, thus demonstrating my point. There are many perfectly correct ways of expressing the same data in more comprehensible forms, and my fax urged nothing more than that we should realise that the table would cause unnecessary confusion. I subsequently argued in the committee that we should recast the data in a more understandable way (for example one death every 9 months).
His claim that this means we then “doctored” the data is grossly offensive, damaging to our reputations as researchers and wrong, as the publication of the final report will reveal. It
is standard procedure for all draft papers to undergo changes and editing. Often these are to improve clarity.
Second, I pointed out that our very conservative methodology estimated there to be some 93 annual deaths from ischaemic heart disease caused by passive smoking in Australia, whereasa recent American estimate put the US figure at 62,000. Since then the US Environmental Protection Agency has published an 8 volume report http://www.calepa.calnet.gov/) showing some 65,000 deaths. I advised the committee — correctly — that our report would be therefore “out of step with every international review’s conclusion on this subject”. Without offering a shred of evidence, Gale then implies that the committee somehow as a consequence of this then “deleted” or “doctored” material. In fact, the final report includes the same very conservative estimates which resulted from our only considering domestic (spousal) exposure data in people who have never smoked. We did not factor in workplace exposures, nor deaths among ex-smokers.
My fax rehearsed the sort of questions that we were likely to get from those who were familiar with the much higher US mortality estimates. If we had really wanted to “massage results to suit recommendations” why then would we have persisted in using our ultra-conservative methodology which was guaranteed to produce low estimates of deaths?
Significantly, Gale’s article was run in the week that two private member’s bills on passive smoking are due to be debated in the NSW parliament. The Canberra Times should know
better.
Just a simple question from a “booth-dweller”…..
Simon, when you are lying, are you aware of it, or is it entirely subconscious?
“… a sad little bunch of extremists…just check out the feeble numbers of people who follow some of their tweets and the even fewer who contribute to their blogs.”
I think that you are rather insulting our host who has averaged the following in comments: June 2011 – 9; Oct 2011 – 13; Dec 2011 – 13. There was a spike in Nov 2011 (40) but, hey, it was those pesky pro-smokers again peddling the extreme opinion that legislation shouldn’t be passed on junk science and objecting to the BMA lying that there was actually any science at all, not even junk science.
“…get certifiablly priapic when they think anyone pays them a moment’s attention”
….because the tobacco control lobby has engineered that we are ignored. And there are many smokers (and tolerant non-smokers) who are angry but they don’t blog or comment.
But they do read the blogs as the stats reveal – but then Mr Chapman wouldn’t know that. Then again, when did he ever let facts get in the way of his own bigotry?
Professor Simon Chapman said “just check out the feeble numbers of people who follow some of their tweets and the even fewer who contribute to their blogs”
They do say Australians are English people who have had too much sun. For the record Professor Chapman is subscriber to my blog and he has also blocked Chris Snowdon from his tweets.
Chapman is a sociologist not an oncologist or epidemiologist. A discourteous dunderhead is kind, a megalomaniac and junk scientist more fitting.
Dave, I subcribe to your blog in the same way that people can’t help looking at car crashes. What’s your training in, BTW?
“I subcribe to your blog in the same way that people can’t help looking at car crashes.”
That is sincerely funny.
My training is in statistics and standing outside smoking in the cold in the snow and the wind.
So you’d have a PhD in “statistics” maybe? A list of peer reviewed publications with lots of citations? Or perhaps instead a bachelors degree which included an introductory methods unit, but an elaborated conspiracy theory about how no one appreciates your peals and treats you like Galileo?
His initial comment was really quite sad for one who holds himself in such high regard – a simple slagging off followed by a super little medical reference — So, so clever from a professional bleeder of the public purse.
However sad our democratic system may be, at least Stephen W was elected to voice opinion (shame he voices those of his NICE friends rather than the Bristol West electorate).
Funnily enough Simon I have been accepted by two universities to do a PHD in in the causes of lung cancer in smokers and non smokers. I will be paying particular attention to role of benzo(a)pyrene (BAP) in p53 mutations and whether the rare cases in non smokers is the result of exposure to second hand smoke or wood/coal smoke, car exhausts, industrial pollution or even BBQs.
Assumptions: Population of Australia 2007 21,200,000
Lung cancer deaths in 2007 in Aus 7,626
LC rate per 100,000 = 35.97 approx = 36
90% of LC deaths are smokers, hence LC rate non smokers = 3.6
If you look at the IARC/WHO database Pfeifer and Hainault 10% of non smokers have the guanine to thymine, p53 mutation. This would give SHS LC rate of 0.36 per 100,000 per year, about 1 person per 300,000 people. About 71 people a year.
HOWEVER, BUT, BUT BUT.
The guanine to thymine transversion is also seen in coal miners from argon exposure who are non smokers. The IARC in their zeal to prove that BAP is the cause of LC have overlooked that BAP is also produced in far higher quantities in wood/coal smoke, car exhausts, industrial pollution or even BBQs. My provenance for this is er, Professor Simon Chapman.
In your letter to tobacco control you cites these papers:
“Ott and Seigmann[8] and Wallace and Ott[9] provide data on fine and ultra-fine particle emissions from different sources: “Controlled experiments with 10 cigarettes averaged 0.15 ng mm-2 … ambient wood smoke averaged 0.29 ng mm-2 or about twice those of cigarettes and cigars … In-vehicle exposures measured on 43 and 50 min drives on a California arterial highway gave PC/DC ratios of 0.42 and 0.58 ng mm-2 … Interstate highways had PC/DC ratios of approximately 0.5 ng mm-2 with ratios above 1 ng mm-2 when driving behind diesel trucks. These PC/DC ratios were higher than the ”signature” value of the cigarette (0.11-0.19 ngmm-2)measured in a large Indian gaming casino with smoking.” [8]
When it refers to “ultra-fine partiles” I assume you are referring to PM2.5 of which BAP is one. By your own omission you imply that non smokers ingest far more BAP from wood/coal smoke, car exhausts, industrial pollution, candles and BBQs.
It is quite possible that no one in Australia or the world has ever contracted LC from SHS and the very most it is is 71 per year out of a population of 22 million. This would be the equivalent of 210 in the UK, 3,000 people die on the roads every year in the UK, so crossing the road or driving your car is 15 times more dangerous than SHS?
Sorry it is late here and I hope my maths and decimal places are in the right place. My PHD I hope will let us at last have a honest debate.
All I want to do is have a cigarette in peace in a bar.
Oh really – so where are the people from Bristol in support of this? My experience and interest in this issue has shown one thing. Simon Chapman only ploughs into a debate when he feels his ideology is under threat.
The assumption being that everybody outside the ’10 phone booths’ supports it? So that’s why we have to have the threat of heavy fines and imprisonment if you don’t comply, is it? because everybody supports it? Fool!
“a bunch you could get together in a about 10 phone booths”
The tobacco control industry could not get this level of unpaid online activism for toffee.
Stephen. I am a non smoker, so cigarette packaging is not terribly relevant to me. I cannot believe this is the most pressing problem facing the UK at this time. Cigarette smoking is a legal activity, so why don’t you leave those who wish to indulge in it to do so, it is their right. There are already laws in place to stop the supply of tobacco to the under 16’s, by all measn enforce them, but do not follow on down the Labour nanny state path of introducing more laws and more bans.
well said ken. That is the bottom line here. These proposals will make no difference and will put children in far more danger.
I think that Simon Chapman betrays the errors of dictators down the centuries. First, there is his believe that a minority has no rights, and, secondly, that therefore it is acceptable to persecute said minority, and, thirdly, that said minority has no right to defend itself and should accept the wishes of the dictator. He also elevates the standing of ‘public opinion’ to the status of something akin to a court of law, even though that opinion has been manipulated by propaganda of the most vicious and destructive kind. He also fails to mention that he and his ilk are themselves a tiny minority. who just happen to have got their mitts upon a stack of cash and propelled themselves over a long period of time into governing positions within the State. Yes. Persecution is the right word.
People like Simon Chapman are akin to the religious zealots of the past who considered the old lady in the village selling herbal remedies to cure illness as a witch. Simon says that ” the great majority of these posts are from a sad little bunch of extremists”.
Simon. Every smoker I’ve talked to has felt the same. You only see the one’s that blog about it. I suggest you go out and properly poll smoker’s views. You might find that piano wire, lamposts, and anti-smokers crop up with monotonous regularity.
As I said elsewhwere. We ask for the riggt to be left alone in peace without harassment from people like Chapman – and that’s extremist? Really?
Look in the mirror Mr Chapman – you will extremist staring at back at ya.
So Simon Chapman is trying to stifle discussion again by belittling citizens interested in the issue that disagree with him, is he? What is it that he called them the last time? Oh yes, clowns I believe. So much class for someone who pretends to care for people. To his credit, at least Stephen Williams didn’t make this discussion disappear…yet.
http://cagecanada.blogspot.com/2011/09/you-can-run-but-you-cannot-hide.html
Well, well. What an honour it is to have Simple-Simon Crapman make an appearance. This is the man that helped change the fortunes of the antismoking fanatics back at the 5th World Conference on Smoking & Health back in 1983. The Simple one introduced the fanatics to “tricks & tactics” to advance the “cause”. His fifth-rate war manifesto, “The Lung Goodbye”, was enthusiastically received. Crapman preached framing antismoking as the war between mythical good and evil. And, you guessed it, Crapman and his buddies were the mythical “good” battling the “evil” tobacco empire.
In that same literary [giggle] piece, Crapman introduced his buddies to what may be termed “the Chapman Trick”. It is a trick that has been used incessantly for the last three decades – even by governments – because it is so effective. Unfortunately, it is effective because it is deceptive, and has been instrumental in concocting tobacco smoke into a phenomenon akin to sarin gas.
For those not familiar with the Chapman Trick, only one of Crapman’s contributions to science [giggle], here’s a description. We’ve all seen some variation of this “information”:
Acetone (nail varnish remover), Ammonia (cleaning agent), Arsenic (ant poison in the USA), Benzene (petrol fumes), Cadmium (car battery fluid), DDT (insecticide), Ethanol (anti-freeze), Formaldehyde (embalming fluid), Hydrogen Cyanide (industrial pollutant), Lead (batteries, petrol fumes), Methanol (rocket fuel), Tar (road surface tar).
This trick was suggested by Simon Chapman (an antismoker) at the Fifth World Conference on Smoking & Health (1983) while presenting his “manual of underhanded tricks & tactics”:
“A glance through any copy of the Smoking and Health Bulletin of the U S Department of Health and Human Services shows an entire indexed, section on ‘Tobacco Product Additives’ . Citations are included from patent office registrations of new chemical applications to tobacco processing and from the specialist chemical literature. Both these sources are virtually unintelligible, let alone normally accessible to the average person but are rich in potential for anyone willing to translate them into news items with popular interest . Polysyllabic chemical names should be checked through a reference book that lists common usages and toxicological data for chemicals . Look for usages that will connote revulsion or concern . For example, well known chemicals found in tobacco include cadmium (as in car batteries), ammonia (as in toilet cleaners), cyanides, formaldehyde and so on ……” (p.15)
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gjq72f00
The Chapman Trick is to associate trace levels of particular chemicals in tobacco smoke with industrial-type uses of the same chemicals that involve extraordinarily larger quantities of these chemicals. It violates the toxicological maxim that “the dose makes the toxicity”. It plays on the public’s ignorance and fear, knowing that people will typically read from right to left, e.g., there is ant poison in cigarettes, there is embalming fluid in cigarettes, there is road tar in cigarettes, etc. The only purpose of this trick is to deceive. It is intended to promote outrage or revulsion in, particularly, gullible nonsmokers at whom it’s directed. This trick has been used, ad nauseam, since the mid-1980’s because it is highly effective. It is highly effective because, like most antismoking propaganda, it is inflammatory and false: It outrages BECAUSE it is misleading. Its ONLY PURPOSE is to mislead, i.e., inflammatory propaganda.
Maybe Chapman should Google “Paracelsus Alchemy”.
Or if that is beyond him, I will quote from the Royal Society of Chemistry website:
“While there is no such thing as a safe chemical (either naturally occurring or man-made) in respect of the potential to cause adverse effects under all conditions of exposure, it must be realised there is no chemical that cannot be used safely by limiting the dose or exposure.”
Thank goodness the Royal Society displays an element of commonsense, if it was up to Chapman he would be banning many products containing trace amounts of these substances. Surprisingly he fails to mention that many are in baby products, mother’s milk, baby’s clothes and are even components of such natural products as their urine. I was going to call urine by it’s more colloquial name but Chapman has turned taking it into a fine and rewarding art.
Again, I’ve said elsewhere – the only chemicals in tobacco sold in the UK are those on the Dept of Health’s approved list. So who is putting in these chemicals that Mr Chapman speaks of? Big Tobacco or Big Tobacco Control?
I don’t think anyone gave a damn about the war on tobacco companies but it crossed the line of moral decency when the guns were aimed at the consumer – those the anti-smoking movement claims to “care” about and want to “protect.”
If not exactly lying, those are the actions of an amoral obsessive. How he has the nerve to preach from his high horse beats me!!!
I would think that the Chapman Trick is lying by omission – a coherent context has been removed and baseless associations presented. It is intentionally manipulating an unsuspecting public into false, inflammatory belief to advance the agenda.
Crapman was there from the early days of the Godber Blueprint. He has been instrumental in the denormalization of smoking/smokers in Australia, always bringing a flair for manipulative lying to the endeavour. Crapman was also instrumental in having “fire safe” cigarettes (FSC) made mandatory in Australia. The only problem is that these cigarettes were never health-tested before introduction, a responsibility lying squarely with health advocates. FSCs are an unfolding disaster that at some point will bite Simple-Simon and his buddies in the vicinity of an orifice, and rightly so.
Only more recently, there were more shenanigans from the antismoking fanatics in Australia:
DO NOT add www. to velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/peter-lavac-whole-story.html
Crapman is well-acquainted with both ASH and NSMA, whose members perpetrated the folly, an attempt to further promote mental dysfunction and bigotry in the nonsmoking public. Maybe Crapman could comment on this latest contribution by the fanatics to science and public health.
Dr. Chapman, you wrote, “Stephen — the great majority of these posts are from a sad little bunch of extremists in the UK pro-smoking lobby, a bunch you could get together in a about 10 phone booths”
Just imagine how many there might be if they had the same sort of funding that your side has Dr. Chapman.
Your comment on phone booths is interesting though. I was recently analyzing some antismoking research done in 2007 where they repeatedly exposed rats to smoke concentrations equivalent to 1,000 smokers in a phone booth. They did this three times a day to the rats and then discovered that the po’ li’l fellers didn’t recover from surgery as rapidly as the rats who weren’t so tortured. A Dr. Kenneth Mogell made the acute observation that, “This study shows that even if you are not a smoker that secondhand smoke has effects well beyond what we might have thought!”
Let’s see, at a thousand per phone booth, I’d say that’s a fairly decent number of folks to be termed “a sad little bunch of extremists,” would you agree?
– MJM
Guys I am very sorry for posting this twice but I think my analysis is something Prof Chapman and the anti smoking people badly need to address.
Funnily enough Simon I have been accepted by two universities to do a PHD in in the causes of lung cancer in smokers and non smokers. I will be paying particular attention to role of benzo(a)pyrene (BAP) in p53 mutations and whether the rare cases in non smokers is the result of exposure to second hand smoke or wood/coal smoke, car exhausts, industrial pollution or even BBQs.
Assumptions: Population of Australia 2007 21,200,000
Lung cancer deaths in 2007 in Aus 7,626
LC rate per 100,000 = 35.97 approx = 36
90% of LC deaths are smokers, hence LC rate non smokers = 3.6
If you look at the IARC/WHO database Pfeifer and Hainault 10% of non smokers have the guanine to thymine, p53 mutation. This would give SHS LC rate of 0.36 per 100,000 per year, about 1 person per 300,000 people. About 71 people a year.
HOWEVER, BUT, BUT BUT.
The guanine to thymine transversion is also seen in coal miners from argon exposure who are non smokers. The IARC in their zeal to prove that BAP is the cause of LC have overlooked that BAP is also produced in far higher quantities in wood/coal smoke, car exhausts, industrial pollution or even BBQs. My provenance for this is er, Professor Simon Chapman.
In your letter to tobacco control you cites these papers:
“Ott and Seigmann[8] and Wallace and Ott[9] provide data on fine and ultra-fine particle emissions from different sources: “Controlled experiments with 10 cigarettes averaged 0.15 ng mm-2 … ambient wood smoke averaged 0.29 ng mm-2 or about twice those of cigarettes and cigars … In-vehicle exposures measured on 43 and 50 min drives on a California arterial highway gave PC/DC ratios of 0.42 and 0.58 ng mm-2 … Interstate highways had PC/DC ratios of approximately 0.5 ng mm-2 with ratios above 1 ng mm-2 when driving behind diesel trucks. These PC/DC ratios were higher than the ”signature” value of the cigarette (0.11-0.19 ngmm-2)measured in a large Indian gaming casino with smoking.” [8]
When it refers to “ultra-fine partiles” I assume you are referring to PM2.5 of which BAP is one. By your own omission you imply that non smokers ingest far more BAP from wood/coal smoke, car exhausts, industrial pollution, candles and BBQs.
It is quite possible that no one in Australia or the world has ever contracted LC from SHS and the very most it is is 71 per year out of a population of 22 million. This would be the equivalent of 210 in the UK, 3,000 people die on the roads every year in the UK, so crossing the road or driving your car is 15 times more dangerous than SHS?
Sorry it is late here and I hope my maths and decimal places are in the right place. My PHD I hope will let us at last have a honest debate.
All I want to do is have a cigarette in peace in a bar.
Maybe Simon and his friends will Peer Review your study – rolf
So, Crapman, the esteemed professor of propaganda, has had a long career in antismoking, up to his eyeballs in the manipulative junk. Well might Crapman be guarded, he has much to answer for. Touch on any of the delinquent conduct and Crapman, like any of his mythically “good” buddies, come out squealing “tobacco industry conspiracy”. Let anyone question their despicable methods, and Simple Simon lets loose with the “ad hominems”. “Don’t you know that I am a professor of poop”, screams Crapman: “Only I know the Truth® because I made it up”.
Sadly, contemporary “world-fixer” fanatics like Crapman are exactly like their fanatical predecessors. They wreak havoc in imposing their deranged world view. The current crop of world-fixer-uppers weren’t familiar with the fanaticism of early last century. Being already entrenched in all the dysfunctional methodology, as they were made aware of the fanaticism of this earlier time-period, it has been interesting how the current fanatics have attempted to distance themselves from their predecessors. “Just because we think and act like them, we’re very different to them”, explain the current fanatics. That’s it! How’s that for some profound scholarship.
Well might Crapman and his “good” buddies increase the volume of their squealing. Their “esteemed” careers are being found out, recognized for the agenda-driven, mentally-unstable folk they are. Come on, Simon, give us some of that inimitable spin, that academic blather, maybe even in a rock-n-roll format.
DO NOT add www. to dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2011/11/cringing-things-prohibitionists-do-in.html
Let me help you along, Simon (from the song Leader of the Pack), you know the song..……
We saw him [Simon] on our TV screens
The smartest? shyster we’d ever seen
That’s why we fell for
The Leader of the Crap
[background cheers]
I see that Chapman has been trying to use both the ad hominem attack on Dave Atherton AND the appeal to authority at the same time. This is exactly the same trick as Arnott tried to use against him. “But you’re not an expert, are you Dave?”
‘Experts’ are precisely the people who are ‘experts’ at distorting facts to fit their agenda. They get away with it precisely because they are ‘experts’. Mr Williams would be advised to be very suspicious of ‘experts’. Mr Williams might himself have ‘a gut feeling’ about smoking, but he ought not to use that feeling to intimidate and persecute smokers whilest using propaganda to divide the nation – propaganda devised by ‘experts’ such as Chapman (Professor of Sociology).
Chapman is trying to wriggle out of his own clear statement that ‘Table 7’ shows that potential harm from SHS is infinitesimally small. He cannot do it because he said it.Of course, he is ‘an expert’. He is also particularly nasty.
Goodness me you have some very unpleasant rude people in the UK writing responses on this blog.
Good luck with your efforts Mr. Williams.
I come from the ends of the earth – a small place called Tasmania, where we care about the health of our people, and take measures to reduce the attractiveness of smoking, and remove it from public places where it can cause harm to others or be a nuisance.
You must be very brave to deal with such levels of abuse and nastiness. It is a pity people cannot just use calm and logic.
And you must be…… Simon’s PR agent, perhaps?
Well Derek are the comments as nasty as these they have appeared on newspaper blogs?
“Smoke in your own home. Get cancer. Die.
Just keep it away from me, that’s all I ask.
daviduk84
12:27pm
et’s have free loaded pistols for use by these smokers there too so that they can end their pathetic lives in a dignified way and save us and our already burdened health systems a lot of problems.
tjtwatterjones
10:49am
“But what about the rights of smokers?”
They have the right to die. That’s it.
davycrockett
11:20am
“SMOKERS. DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! [repeated 30+ times]”.
“Pubs have become infinitely more pleasant places since the smoking ban. […] they can certainly survive without smokers. I hope the cold winter kills a few more off in fact”
I like watching recent American TV police shows where the guy who smokes gets shot. That’ll teach him.”
“—- Tasmania, where we care about the health of our people, and take measures to reduce the attractiveness of smoking, and remove it from public places where it can cause harm to others or be a nuisance”
Good to notice how effective your unasked for Tobacco Control intrusions have been —- Smoking rate -2001 was 24.4% -2008 was 24,9%.
Truthful information helped smoking rates to fall dramatically in the later half of the 20th. Century before Tobacco Control declared open warfare on law abiding citizens.
Abuse and nastiness? That’s the Smokerphobic’s forte – they pump that out in main stream ads. perhaps if I called you a filthy, selfish, ugly, child abuser then you would know what nastiness is. This is not Tasmania so why do you comment?.
I come from the ends of the earth – a small place called Tasmania…….
.
You must be very brave to deal with such levels of abuse and nastiness. It is a pity people cannot just use calm and logic.
Well, Derek….unfortunately for me, I don’t come from the ends of the earth…I live in the real world, in the UK, where the levels of abuse and nastiness towards those of us who just want to be left alone to enjoy our legal pastime, are there for all to see
If you read the majority of these posts, you will see that 99% of them are, indeed calm and VERY logical..
S. Chapman writes: ”the great majority of these posts are from a sad little bunch of extremists in the UK pro-smoking lobby, a bunch you could get together in a about 10 phone booths (just check out the feeble numbers of people who follow some of their tweets and the even fewer who contribute to their blogs.) Do not mistake this for public opinion.”
Yet from a study conducted by his own people, here is what was found: http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2011/04/27/tc.2011.042986.abstract
”Results Of 117 relevant news items, 41 included 1818 reader comments. 1187 (65.3%) comments contained no reference to plain packaging, and mainly addressed a tobacco tax rise announced at the same time. The comments about plain packaging were more than 2.5 times more likely to oppose than support the policy. The dominant argumentative frame, comprising 27% of oppositional comments, was that plain packaging would be ineffective in reducing smoking. Online reader poll results showed equal support for and opposition to plain packaging.
Conclusions The results of this study can be used by tobacco control advocates to anticipate opposition and assist in reframing and counteracting arguments opposed to plain packaging”
And public opinion be damned!
And this was from Australia yet, a country that breeds and raises anti-smokers!
[tick….tick…..tick……tick]
Still waiting, Simon.
O Simon, my perception has been left with the taint of disappointment. The antismoking bully had entered the scene. I was fully expecting some of those razzle-dazzle “explanations” – some of that spin par excellence, some of those logic-defying incoherent analogies, some of those mind-numbing antismoking “slogans” and clichés, some more of those infantile put-downs – in edifying us (booth people) on our “misunderstanding” of the Chapman Trick, or FSCs, or the Lavac Incident – for starters.
Or do you need to convene a committee meeting of your [mythically] “good” buddies – the co-perpetrators, perhaps over cocktails, karaoke (you get the [rare] opportunity to “sing” again) and considerable back-slapping, to engineer some “fallout containment” strategies?
Come back, Simon, O wonderful, omniscient social engineer. Was it something I said?
Be fair magnetic, the $358,800 grant doesn’t stipulate that S. Chapman should engage in debate. No, he only has to spy on ”pro-tobacco” messages in the internet and put up F/B and other pages to chat with like-minded TC advocates on how to counter the ”tobacco industry” messages. How expensive can it get to put up F/B pages, a ”supersite” or two, and communicate with like-minded individuals? Let’s see… oh wait a minute, we do it for $0 !
http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/national_register_public_health_research/29771
I would like to comment about ‘additives’ in cigarettes, (not pipe, cigar and hand rolling tobacco, and when I say cigars, I do not mean cheroots, or mini cigars). The tobacco companies have had official legislation to control the tobacco in cigarettes. Back in the 1930’s, the average tar content of a cigarette was 35mg. These were not king size or filtered. The nicotine content, (that is the harmless chemical which creates phsycological addiction) is naturally linked to the tar.
Tobacco companies, aware of a threat to their business, (business is business, especially a succesful one, so you modify it if there are apparent dangers in yoiur product) voluntarily reduced the tar yield. They even developed a ‘safer’ cigarette, ready for the market in 1979…but the neo prohibitionists didn’t like it, they wanted it eradicated totally, and got it stopped.
I think it was 2000/2001 when they were instructed that no cigarette could contain more than 10mg of tar, which is 0.9mg of nicotine. Now then, let us use common sense, you don’t need science for this one. If you have a factory produced cigarette, and you have to reduce the amount of tobacco in it to comply with the tar allowance, how do you ‘fill it out’…you have to add something.
To sum up. Tobacco Control ordered the tobacco industry to reduce the tobacco in cigarettes, then accuse them of adding things, which they had to do to comply with the legislation.
So…despite the addition of substances at the insistence of Tobacco Control (which had not been thoroughly tested for carcinogens) STILL NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON CAN BE PROVEN TO HAVE DIED AS A RESULT OF SHS!
Chapman lies and lies again and lies again.
Not only that, but NOT A SINGLE PROOF EXISTS THAT NORMAL CHILDREN SUFFER ANY DELETERIOUS EFFECTS FROM SHS. NOT ONE.
Chapman lies, lies and lies again.
And what about this guy, recently in the news, who claims that smokedrift ’caused’ him to get lung cancer? He is a zealot and conspired with another quack professor zealot to enact a confidence trick.
Lies, lies, lies.
But that’s ok since only a few people can see the lies. The masses can continue to be conned by propaganda issued by ‘experts’ in propaganda.
And Mr Williams, purported to be a Member of the most August Parliament the world has ever known, accepts the word of these quack professors and doctors without question! And thus systematically destroys our pubs and clubs, demands the persecution of the poorest amongst us, intends to decimate small shops, indoctrinates children, and wastes our money on ASH ET AL. Brilliant, Mr Williams! Well done! Your voters will cheer you in the streets!
Of course, when the brown stuff hits the spinning thing thing, Chapman will….quitely disappear with his ill-gotten gains.
Antismoking, a superficial, delusional mentality, has a very limited repertoire. It insists, at times under threat of litigation, for inane, ill-considered policies and changes. When the fallout or contrived fallout comes, the fanatics disavow any responsibility, and blame the “evil” tobacco industry, i.e., just another tobacco industry “conspiracy”.
All UK tobacco manufacturers have agreed only to use ingredients in tobacco products for consumption in the UK that are approved and within permitted limits in accordance with a list held on the DH website: http://www.dh.gov.uk/ab/scoth/dh_095371#_4.
Pat, additives were never secret. Look at the Chapman Trick reference from 1983 – “A glance through any copy of the Smoking and Health Bulletin of the U S Department of Health and Human Services shows an entire indexed, section on ‘Tobacco Product Additives’”.
Additives were already listed with the US Dept of H & HS, and there for anyone, including Chapman, to look at…… and abused, e.g., Chapman.
I am still wondering why the ASH ZEALOTS have not appeared here to defend their MP Chairman of the ….erm…what is it?….the cross-party fake parliamentary committee? Could it be that, when they cannot fall back on propaganda such as ‘disgusting, filthy, stinking’, they know that they have no real argument to support the persecution? For persecution it is, and deliberately so. It is no accident that the zealots demand price increase in tobacco products. These price increases are deliberately aimed at the poorest amongst us. King James wanted to reduce the level of tobacco imports, but not so much that ‘the better sorts’ could not have it – at a price which they could afford, of course.
The more time advances, the more the corruption of Tobacco Control becomes evident. There is no doubt.
Maybe the self-serving parasites are realising their lucrative careers are under threat and are filling in their CVs to join the Anti-Alcohol and Anti-obesity gravy trains.
Hey! does this Simon Chapman snide twerp have a blog of his own? Seen his pic and he certainly should be plain packaged with a paper bag over his head. Yuk!
Did he give up on his AIDS campaign or couldn’t be arsed when they wouldn’t pay him? Mind we were all going to die of AIDS back then, weren’t we according to the ‘experts’? 🙂
And since then, Avian Flu, Swine flu, BSE, you name it, it was going to cut swathes through the population. Some ‘experts’, eh?
Shamefully, Tobacco Control studied stigma against people with AIDS/HIV to see how it could be used to exclude smokers from healthcare. Truly disgusting. I seriously do wonder if Stephen knows what he supports.
Promotion of health information with regards to smoking is an admirable cause – propaganda with a view to creating hate, prejudice and fear against smokers would be illegal for any other minority and would be called hate crime.
There’s only a reincarnation of the Bubonic Plague left for them to dally with then!
Wait for it, wait for it! If there’s public funds in it, they’ll even flog ‘bad airs’ and witchcraft.
‘Stephen — the great majority of these posts are from a sad little bunch of extremists in the UK pro-smoking lobby,’
‘Methinks most of these shrill commentators do protest too much.’
‘thanks for all the comments so far. Some entertaining, some abusive, many from the usual suspects and front groups for the tobacco lobby. There haven’t been many serious points for me to answer.’
Fredrik Eich wrote, “The tobacco control industry could not get this level of unpaid online activism for toffee.”
Heh, they couldn’t get it for even a lot more than toffee Fredrik. If their money line was yanked they’d pretty much all disappear except for a few lonely nuts. If I may quote from one of my favorite books…. ;>
====
Few people, however, make the automatic leap to the realization that a good bit of the power and money that keeps workers, lawyers, and high-salaried CEOs employed at Crusading organizations flows directly from the perceived impact of and contributions raised by such advertising: it is not as altruistic as it appears at first glance. Indeed, when some funding cuts for New Jersey’s Antismoking efforts were being considered recently, Paul Wallner of the Medical Society of New Jersey said “Everything stops. There is no money.” despite the fact that NJ BREATHES (a local Crusading group) was still slated to get $14 million for its activities in 2002 (Ralph Siegel. Associated Press 01/08/02).
When fourteen million dollars is referred to as “no money” there is clearly something very, very wrong.
====
So yeah, evidently a LOT more than “toffee” is needed to keep them going.
– MJM
Hey, the cigarette firms are certainly doing the business by the looks of it here, paying people to write angry blogs about civil liberties. You know who you are, taking your blood money and pretending to be just ordinary smokers.
Don’t know how you can go home and look your children in the eye at night.
No, 1/10 for that effort. Must try harder. Idiot.
Paul,
If you have any evidence that any of us are paid big tobacco shills please show it to us or keep your paranoid fantasies yourself.
Thanks.
You have a way with words Anonymous Paul. Care to put your name behind them, get nice and specific in your claims, and stand up to a libel suit? Or is your liver the color of a lily?
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
What an idiot. Would you care to look into that? Hey – contact me privately, come on over, and I’ll even show you my bank balance. You will see not one penny comes from any tobacco company and indeed I’m almost skint thanks to you Smokerphobic bigots forcing me out of work due to hate crime propaganda.
Foul, foul, people who have no defence to their lies other than “You must be paid by Big Tobacco” when you are all creaming off undeserved tax that you steal from smokers to fund your wealthy lifestyles and hate campaigns. You are disgusting.
If, as Dave Atherton claims, Simon Chapman has in some way refused to engage in debate with Chris Snowdon, this is surprising. Chris is a serious author who has never claimed smoking is without risk.
Stephen, if you really want to save lives, research snus, the Swedish oral tobacco product, whose export to the rest of the EU was banned when Sweden joined. Chris’s book is a good place to start. Sweden has both the lowest incidence of male lung cancer and the lowest male smoking prevalence in the developed world. The “Quit or Die” campaign which Simon Chapman and his ilk have been responsible for, with smoking bans and denormalisation campaigns supported by a junk science house of cards published in journals such as The Journal of Tobacco Control and the bmj, has only resulted in smoking prevalence remaining constant in England since the smoking ban, Not much quitting but plenty of dying.Thousands of publicans have lost their life savings, some have committed suicide, smokers have had their leisure time ruined, patients in secure mental hospitals have been banned from smoking. And we are “the sad little bunch of extremists”?
It’s not about health hence Chapman and his team don’t want to engage in rational debate with anyone.
Paul,
Prove that any of the comments here were written with tobacco industry blood money or retract your libel. Surely you can do it for at least those who use their real name, I being one of them.
and me also!
Golly I’ve hit a nerve. Does it irritate you when people expose web trolls as third parties paid for by the industry?
Paul,
Here is a quote from Simon Clark (Forest) from days ago
“neither I nor any of my colleagues commented on Stephen’s blog.”
Got it?
Show us your evidence.
Put up or shut up.
Golly gosh Paul, you certainly got a way of placing comments with no evidence at all but, for the truly inept, it’s par for the course.
Stephen Williams at least thinks he’s got evidence although we’ve researched it and found it (to be kind) ‘wanting’ in fact and substance.
You are a liar – and worse a coward as well. Put up your real name and retract!
you’ve exposed nothing, Paul. Are you going to substantiate your allegations or retract them? Who is being paid to say what by which companies?
There you are, see? One ‘defender’ has appeared. And what does it have to say as a contribution? Nothing! Well done, ASH ET AL! Your ‘defender’ has done the very best he can. He has claimed that we are all tobacco company shills. That’s it. That’s all. Brilliant!
Anonymous Paul, the Tobacco Industry long ago gave up on the UK. It didn’t even bother to protest about the smoking ban. The people writing these comments have nothing to do with the Tobacco Industry. Our only wish is some sort of amendment to the smoking ban to allow non-residential premises where smoking is permitted. I have no wish to see more people smoking and would advise people not to take up the habit. That so few Members of Parliament have any scientific or statistical education enables anti tobacco campaigners such as Simon Chapman and ASH UK to bamboozle committees such as the one Stephen is Chairman of, and have undue influence on Government policy. I too am using my real name.
My wish is simply to be left alone in peace to socialise with like-minded people and to be treated as equally as anyone else in the UK – and for the hate campaigning by paid activists like Paul to stop. I don’t give a stuff about Tobacco companies. I’ve started growing my own.
Neither does the Tobacco industry care about me or any other smoker – they threw us to you well paid dogs years ago.
Interesting strategy by MP Williams perhaps here. Perhaps he’d like to make this entire thread of commentary “disappear” and needs a good excuse for doing so.
Mr. Williams, if indeed this “Paul” thing is your creation, you might want to be aware that the evidence isn’t as easy to erase as you might at first think. See:
http://www.icyte.com/saved/stephenwilliamsmp.wordpress.com/556018
And, if I were you, I’d avoid doing anything that might erase the “paper trail” leading back to Paul’s IP. Given this notice then you yourself could conceivably be implicated since any “Gee, I never thought about that when I erased it.” defense is now gone.
– MJM
If you can find his IP MJM then perhaps that can identify him with regard to action for libel
Lots of links to FOREST as well, an industry funded front group. Oh well nothing fishy going on there!
If only Forest, a legitimate consumers’ rights group, enjoyed the funding ASH gets from Big Pharma, either directly or indirectly, and Govt, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. At least Forest is open about it. ASH and it’s charity front groups are mostly dishonest and do not allow the public to see how they are being conned for the sake of favours from the Pharma industry.
Can I say again that I am firmly of the opinion that there is a hidden motive behind the plain packet agenda which has nothing to do with children. The hidden motive is to get legal control of everything about the cigarette packet. If this legislation is passed ‘for health reasons’ (which are the the only reasons that can possibly interfere with international law), then ‘health reasons’ can be used to legislate the size and shape of packets. That is the reason for the enormous effort being put into this business.
By the way. Best just to ignore ‘Paul’ – he is simply a troll, out to try to change the subject. Ignore completely.
whatever else Paul is, he is a wind-up merchant. Now that we have (thanks to Michael McFadden) saved everything we need for a libel suit he’s probably best ignored!
Blimey Junican, who do you imagine you’re triumphantly squaring up to as you tap away at your keyboard in your office or dining room? Are you trying to sound like Voldemort, or a fearless Viking warrior, or was it just accidental?
Paul, you have brought nothing to this thread. All views are welcomed on this subject, but all you’ve done is to try to provoke, like a sulky teenager pushing his long-suffering parents..
If you have nothing to offer other than insult and scurrilous accusations, I would suggest you don’t waste anybodies time and patience further.
That should have been “anybody’s”.
See what I mean?
Paul, precisely how does links to Forest back up your baseless assertion
I’m still waiting for my cheque from the tobacco companies, Paul. They must have sent in the second class mail.
Yes TFE – about 30 years ago and it got lost in the post
But I will say this about Stephen Williams, he has allowed this debate on his blog and I don’t believe that he will delete anything. I do believe, however, that his beliefs are so strong that he doesn’t hear a word we say – hence he has not replied even to legitimate concerns about how plain packaging will drive child smoking underground and make smoking far more dangerous than it ever has been before.
I have not deleted any of the comments here. I am in favour of free speech – even when some of the comments are grossly offensive to me personally. And I’ve replied to lots of the comments, not just this one!
I am still waiting for your apology for accusing me of having connections to the tobacco industry, other than enjoying their products, or belonging to any “freedom to smoke” group. You too have been offensive and insulting.
And I acknowledged that.
Mr Williams, About three years ago I started a campaign to get the Government (then Gordon Brown) to agree to force the tobacco companies not to use any harmfull additives in their products. I posted my campaign up on the then Government’s website, after also pushing as hard as I could with all the other pro-smoking websites. At the end of the day my campaign bit the dust after atracting just a 100 or so signatures. I eventually received a reply, allegedly written by Gordon Brown himself, saying he disagreed with my proposal and it would be far too costly to change the law to force the tobacco companies to adhere to this. Governments, and especially Brown’s old Government could spend our money like water on other stupid projects and end up bankrupting this country whilst doing so, but they couldn’t bring in a law to make smoking safe – Why? Because this whole smoking-ban lie is not based upon health at all, but Control of our lives!
“..many from the usual suspects and front groups for the tobacco lobby.” Lots of people from freedom2choose here.
“Allow Freedom2Choose says new anti smoke-ban group” is the headline of an article from when freedom2choose was founded.
The article says “The Freedom2Choose group, the brainchild of cigarette vending machine operator Rod Bullough, hopes to persuade the Government to seek alternatives to an “undemocratic” ban”
So freedom2choose was founded in 2004 by someone in the tobacco business, but claims not to be a tobacco lobby front group?
Can someone explain? Perhaps one of the many freedom2choose members who have posted on this thread could help. It should be good for a laugh!
Let me get you started. “It is true that freedom2choose was set up in 2004 by a tobacco supplier to fight smoking bans, but we are not a tobacco lobby group because…..”
I can’t wait.
… because we were not founded in 2004 but in 2007, by which time the original organisation was no longer active. We had nobody from the tobacco funded campaign freedom2choose. Our current organisation has only ever had private members’ contributions to fund it and a very small amount of non-tobacco-related advertising.
Paul I am the Chairman of Freedom2Choose and we were formed on the 31st of October 2007 as a legally constituted group. I am one of the original signatories. We have never, nor do we currently , nor do we seek to receive funding from tobacco companies, affiliates, proxies or subsidiaries. Directly or indirectly.
Is there any part of no you do not understand?
Why choose exactly the same name as an organisation set up only 3 years earlier by someone in the tobacco industry?
I haven’t said you receive money. I would expect any front group to distance itself from tobacco funding.
So why, out of ALL the possible names that you could have chosen, did you choose to copy the name and the purpose of a group set up by a tobacco company only 3 years earlier?
That’s right, Dave. Mike D has a point [giggle]. Dave, you had the entire dictionary to choose from. Why didn’t you call your group iroquois3galaxy, or daybreak5salad, or toenail7chamomile, or, say, logrolling8artichoke?
Mike D wrote, “I haven’t said you receive money. I would expect any front group to distance itself from tobacco funding.”
Interesting. And how would YOU define “front group” then Mike? I believe the traditional definition involves two elements: (1) secrecy, so that people don’t realize it is truly the background organization pulling the strings and dictating the dial on, and (2) being financially supported by that background organization.
Currently I don’t know of any organization that fits that definition in the area of tobacco tobacco activism. There are several organizations such as FOREST that have open funding from tobacco companies, and there were organizations in the last century that had tobacco company connections that were downplayed or hidden from public knowledge; but at the current time, aside from any small income that might come from people clicking on ads on a particular website, I don’t know of any activist group that is at all dependent upon tobacco funding.
Of course when one looks at the background of the various anti-smoking groups, and realizes how much of their funding comes from pharmaceutical related interests, it’s hard to see why tobacco funding should actually be avoided by free choice activists. Perhaps we should be to begin appealing to the governments to provide us funding similar to what they provide to the anti-smoking groups. The source could be the same: Big Tobacco money laundered through taxation and the government. I think that with equal funding the “level playing field” would suddenly undergo a very radical change and the smoking ban cockroaches would go skittering back into their corners.
– MJM
Here is a letter written to Ms Sheila Duff Of ASH in October 2008 by Belinda Cunnison
” Dear Sheila Duffy
Thank you for your letter.
First, there is no connection, and has never been a connection, between our organization and that headed by Rob Bullough and backed by the tobacco vending company Duckworths. We are self-funded, by membership subscriptions, public donations and an insignificant level of website advertising.
I appreciate that the coincidence of names is unfortunate but when your briefing paper ‘Myths and Realities’ speaks of ‘campaigns of disinformation that can be traced back to the tobacco industry’, we take these with a very large pinch of salt given the false conclusions that your researchers have allowed you to infer about our own organization. Have you passed this nugget of ‘disinformation’ to anyone else? ”
Ms. Duffy’s curt reply was:
“Thank you for your letter. I note the points you raise but feel at this point it would not be constructive for us to engage in further debate.”
freedom2choose.info/news1.php?id=867
Previous F2C’s had the following, now defunct domains.
freedom2choose.org spitefully the domain was bought by an anti smoker
freedom2choose.co.uk
We are freedom2choose.info
Another ‘ad hominem’, but a bit cleverer in this case. Nothing to do with the subject matter at all. Ignore completely.
I have just been looking at the introductory paragraphs of the intro to the WHO Treaty on Tobacco Control. I noticed this sentence:
“…..in contrast to previous drug control treaties, the WHO FCTC asserts the
importance of demand reduction strategies as well as supply issues.”
‘Demand reduction strategies’! What could those words mean, if not ‘attack and persecute people who enjoy tobacco’ in order to reduce demand?
The plans to persecute smokERS were already in place in 1999.
Here is another quote from the same document:
<Non-price measures to reduce the demand for tobacco, namely:
Protection from exposure to tobacco smoke;
Regulation of the contents of tobacco products;
Regulation of tobacco product disclosures;
Packaging and labelling of tobacco products;
Education, communication, training and public awareness;
Tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; and,
Demand reduction measures concerning tobacco dependence and cessation.
Note particularly the fourth item in the list.
This blueprint is being followed to the letter. I wonder if Mr Williams knows that he is just a ‘useful fool’ – a puppet on a string.
“Touch on any of the delinquent conduct and Crapman, like any of his mythically “good” buddies, come out squealing “tobacco industry conspiracy”.”
—-
Paul, you sound like one of Crapman’s mythically “good” buddies. You’ve ridden in on your little mule, ready to deal with the “unbelievers”, twirling the puffy “shill” accusation. Is that all you’ve got, mule man? The only thing you’ve accomplished is that it’s now difficult to tell which is the ass. Or maybe you’ve made it easier for everyone with no need to distinguish which is the ass.
Paul, it seems that YOU are the representative of the “hit nerve” brigade. With no intention (or competence) to address any of the issues raised, what got you so riled up, head pounding, that you couldn’t keep your fingers from the keyboard, couldn’t resist making a few stupid comments? Getting a little hot under the collar, Paul? Too many questions of your cultic beliefs and the supremacist clique? Too little respect for shysters and fake moralizers? Too much delinquent conduct exposed? Maybe an avenue to questionable funding is being jeopardized? Squeal away, Paul, “Hee Haw”. We’ve heard the asinine, antismoking trash before.
Oh, is that Mike D also riding up on his little mule? Another ass!!
Any more asses?
Could all members of the antismoking group “Asses Я Us” please refrain from going over old, baseless ground. Address the issues, or redirect your mule. Maybe instructions delivered to the mule have a better chance of being understood.
One area that ASH is coming in second is the internet and blogs. I see another person does not have the integrity to post in their real/full name or identify where they are from. To know the coincidental name of Freedom2Choose from a vending machine manufacturer and the current group requires specialist knowledge. Only someone from ASH or the Department of Health would know that.
I assume like Mr. Williams it is yet another concerted smear campaign which demeans public paid officials.
Mike D says: “The article says “The Freedom2Choose group, the brainchild of cigarette vending machine operator Rod Bullough, hopes to persuade the Government to seek alternatives to an “undemocratic” ban”
So freedom2choose was founded in 2004 by someone in the tobacco business, but claims not to be a tobacco lobby front group?”
Cigarette vending machines are/were only one part of the vending machine empire run by Mr Bullough. It is a family business, not a ‘tobacco only’ funded vending machine business and has nothing whatsoever to do with ‘tobacco funding’ or fronting for so called Big Tobacco. 10,000 newsagents protested against the suggested ‘tobacco display’ law but that does not mean that all 10,000 were funded by Big Tobacco. In actual fact, Ken Patel shied away from any association with BT. No matter what any individual says or thinks against the Smoke Ban law, they are automatically tarnished with the “in pay of….” banner.
Incidentally, could Paul ?????? be that loathesome creature known as Pal Hooper (ASH-Warwickshire) who suddenly appeared as an ‘expert’ on shisha pipes for the Dept of Health?
Google is really powerful.
I found an article showing that freedom2choose was founded by a tobacco supplier in 2004.
Belinda and Dave Atherton then said that freedom2choose was founded in 2007.
According to Forces “Freedom to Choose was founded in 2005 to oppose the introduction of a blanket smoking ban in the UK.”
So was the 2005 freedom2choose the tobacco supplier one?
Seemingly not. The article continues “We are a not for profit organisation funded solely by donations from our members” and gives a link to freedom2choose.info
Mike I will give you 2 options here.
I will lay you a bet of £10,000 that Freedom2Choose was formed in 2007 and has not received a penny from tobacco companies.
If not you will have 24 hours to retract and I will ask for Mr. Williams for your IP address and email address and put it in the hands of our solicitors.
Can you post the URLs of your “research.”
My first response was not accepted so I’ll try again. I have no doubt that a version of freedom2choose was formed in 2007 and doesn’t receive a penny from tobacco companies, so I won’t be taking your bet.
Would you like to disprove/bet that there was/wasn’t a freedom2choose formed in 2004 by tobacco seller Rod Bulloch?
Can I also suggest that you google the phrase ““Freedom to Choose was founded in 2005 to oppose the introduction of a blanket smoking ban in the UK.” In the search results you will find this claim on the Forces website, and also on the International Coalition Against Prohibition website.
I’ll post the links separately as they may have been the reason my first response wasn’t published.
“tobacco seller Rod Bulloch” – I take that you and your fellow rabid fanatics consider anyone who sells tobacco as the “enemy”. Is this the reason why you are so determined to close thousands of local shops by introducing this and similar legislation?
(Deep, deep, yawn and sigh) As it happens the elements of Dave Atherton and Belinda’s Freedom to Choose did exist in 2005, but the group was indeed, not formally constituted until 2007. How do I know? I wrote their constitution.
The fledgling unconstituted organisation, however, was created by Bob Feal- Martinez and others from the hospitality industry in 2005 in order to combat damage to that industry. Initially, we had no knowledge of Rob Bulloch’s group, as even then it was something of a non-entity, hence the name Freedom to Choose was picked by coincidence. By the time we discovered the existence of the Bulloch group we had already, through one of our former members – Loraine McGregor – worked closely with members of the house of Lords to oppose a smoking ban and, in addition, decided to to pursue a judicial review of that ban and therefore, changing our name was hardly going to be practical.
So that’s why you have all this confusion. However, it still doesn’t alter that fact that the the Ron Bulloch organisation and the the Freedom the Choose
everyone knows today are completely different organisations – always have been and always will be.
How do I know all these things? Because I was there when they happened.
Freedom2Choose as a concept does not start and end with smoking in a pub. but the right of consenting individuals to live their lives free of as much state interference as possible.
One hobby of horse of mine is gay rights. I maybe controversial but I believe Parliament should pass an act where gay and lesbian couples, with the consent of the individual vicar, Rabbi, Priest or Iman etc, should be allowed to marry. However dissenting voices should be heard and not howled down as bigots.
The spin machine of the Liberal Party reached its nadir in the 1983 in the Bermdonsey by election. For Labour was Peter Tatchell who still now is a well known gay activist and Simon Hughes. I have downloaded this from Peter Tatchell’s blog. Tatchell was the victim of a barely concealed homophobic campaign from the Liberals and I quote:
“Simon’s election leaflets described him as “the straight choice.”
“The Liberals fought a very dirty campaign during the Bermondsey by-election.
“Some of their male canvassers went around the constituency wearing lapel stickers emblazoned with the words ‘I’ve been kissed by Peter Tatchell’, in a blatant bid to win the homophobic vote.
“On the doorsteps they spread false rumours that I was chair of the local gay society – no such society existed.”
“This endorsement comes from Peter Tatchell, the former Labour candidate, who was defeated by Simon Hughes in the 1983 Bermondsey by-election – regarded by many commentators as the dirtiest and most violent election in Britain in the last 100 years.
To Peter’s credit he writes:
Mr Tatchell, now a member of the Green Party, says it is “time to forgive and move on.””
The ultimate hypocrisy?
Simon Hughes is gay too.
I think the spin machine at the Liberal Democrat party is in evidence here too.
petertatchell.net/politics/simonhughes.htm
Dear Mr Williams.
Can you please confirm to me that ASH has lost it’s Government funding? In reply to an E mail sent by me, they asserted that they now no longer receive funding from government. (E mail can be forwarded on request). Surely if they were so important to the government why has this funding been rescinded? Could it be back peddling by the cabinet, who realise that they may be onto a vote loser in the next election. The power of the internet against these illiberal measures is slowly gaining ground. This is a forum that ASH cannot control. Considering that 20% of the electorate smoke I suspect the PM may be worrying that this bloc has considerable voting power and will be loath to antagonise them more.
I as a long time conservative refused to vote for any of the three main parties at the last election as I could see from the manifesto promises, that an overturning of the smoking ban was never going to happen. Your deputy prime minister, who offered us a referendum on smoking, and then once gaining a position of power, U turned has, shown to so many of the electorate, that those words were empty promises, just there to garner votes.
I suggest you do your home work rather than listen to lobby groups. The populace are not stupid and are beginning to question the Westminster bubble, status quo.
Regards
The Filthy Engineer
The Government may not overtly fund ASH but we can be sure they will pay ASH to carry out studies and provide ‘data’ for them and also for ‘essential’ secretarial services to the DoH and various Government ‘Health’ committees.
Technically the cash will not be a grant BUT……….. asking a biased Charitable organisation to provide information to the exclusion of others runs close to Political Lobbying especially when it is invited to the offices of Government decision makers whilst also benefiting from funding from organisations/companies that gain profit from that Charity’s influence.
We are fortunate to have the calibre of politician that would never be so gullible as to support the use of public funds to purchase and promote products that have a failure rate of over 95% nor would they support advertising that suggested better success rates for users of products than those of people who achieve the intended outcome without any assistance from the product.
Public funds are, to say the least, stretched thanks to unthought-out Political Bandwagons and poor decisions by MPs in the recent past. Our current ones promised change – They promised they would repair previous damage and reduce harmful legislation or was that a pre-election fib?
If their lips moved when they said it it was a fib.
Mike D, “Google” may be “powerful” but the googler, not so much. Just as a point of research, you should have attempted to verify the Forces statement before making allegations. Not all information is necessarily correct. Information with third parties may have been wrong to begin with, or entered incorrectly, with no “conspiratorial” overtones. Proper research is about verification.
But, Mike D, since you have ventured onto the comments board, attempting to make who knows what point, would you care to address some of the delinquent antismoking conduct highlighted on this board that has not been addressed, even by Crapman? For example, the Chapman Trick, FSCs, and the Lavac Incident. Others may also have questions for such a profound googler as yourself.
To use your words, “It should be good for a laugh”, “I can’t wait”.
Is this a debate on Plain packaging or not, all I can see is a lot of people who oppose plain packaging and a few people from ASH trying to divert the discussion away from plain packaging which is clearly a lost cause!
No wonder that ASH and those who support them are held in such high contempt if this is the standard of their debate.
Getting back to the issue at hand…
The attractiveness of the packets is irrelevent. No matter how pretty they are, when you tear it open and spark up your first fag you’ll discover how truly awful the contents taste.
Aquiring the taste takes quite a lot of time, a lot of coughing and even some gagging (and in the early days something to wash away the taste after you actually manage to choke the cigarette down).
Owning a carboard box with nice colours is not enough of an incentive to subject yourself to this.
I thought that being a lifelong non-smoker you might not know how much effort is required to start enjoying smoking and hence why you think plain packaging will have more than zero impact.
Incidentally, I notice a deviation from the standard MO on this one. They haven’t trotted out the family member of a dead person to speak out for them. “I begged our Jimmy to stop smoking for years, but he kept telling me he couldn’t coz the packets were just TOO gorgerous.”
Last thought; does anyone actually know anyone (and I mean a real person, not a statistic) who started smoking because of the packaging?
“Last thought; does anyone actually know anyone (and I mean a real person, not a statistic) who started smoking because of the packaging?”
I understand that there is one such person. He is apparently kept in a vault at [C]ASH headquarters. No-one, other than [C]ASHites, has ever seen this marvel. The public has been asked to trust the [C]ASHites that said vault-person, the pack fancier, exists. Now who could argue with such trustworthy folk as the [C]ASHites.
No – not a single one and everyone I know smokes.
“Pat Nurse permalink
January 21, 2012 1:41 am
No – not a single one and everyone I know smokes.”
Everyone you know smokes? Do you not know a single non-smoker?
Fair point Mike D because three of my four children don’t smoke but I don’t have any friends who are non smokers. I recall once having this discussion with an anti-smoker. I was sincerely shocked that everyone he knew (he said) was a non smoker and he didn’t know any smokers (apart from me and his mother). Everyone I knew (adult friends) were smokers. We both just concluded that we mixed in different circles.
I fear that thanks to the bigotry and discrimination pushed by the Smokerphobic ideology that I am unable to find employment and certainly my opportunities to earn a living have been severely compromised by the hate campaigning of Smokerphobic groups. As I am also unable to go out and socialise I guess my contact with more non-smokers is even more limited.
But the question was did anyone I know who smokes ever begin because of plain packaging and as all the adults I know who smoke never did, I guess I phrased that answer wrong. But the truth is my life has been surrounded by smokers.
Doh – I meant, of course, “glitzy” as opposed to “plain packaging”. :>)
Pat, do you not think that living in a bubble of only having friends who smoke is likely to give you rather biased opinions? I’m not all that sure of what proportion of my friends smoke, it isn’t important to me, but I’d guess at 25-30%. I think smoking status is a pretty trivial part of what defines a person. Surely things like values, integrity, tastes, common experience, etc are more important things on which to base friendships,.
If you choose to surround yourself with smokers with a persecution complex this will surely influence your views.
None of my smoking friends have a persecution complex. I don’t think I’ve ever met a smoker with the sort of persecution complex that we see writ large in most of the posts in this discussion.
Its not a complex if you’re actually being persecuted.
Given smokers are, as we speak, being denied employment and medical treatment there is grounds to claim persecution.
It might not be widespread today which is why its easy to either avoid it or be ignorant that its going on, but it WILL get harder to avoid/ignore as time goes on.
I lost my job in January 2009 because I am a smoker. When I asked advice from various solicitors about unfair dismissal I was told that as it was smoking related I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on as the government want people to quit smoking, whatever the cost!
None would take up the case.
Lyn, get some better legal advice. What the government wants is not grounds for you to lose an appeal. The law doesn’t work like that, and you need to get a decent lawyer to represent you and fight your corner.
RTS “Its not a complex if you’re actually being persecuted.”
Claiming that buying your cigarettes in a packet without pretty colours on it is ‘persecution’ sounds really petty.
As I said before, none of the smokers that I know have a persecution complex.
Mike D I approached every legal company I could find on the internet that dealt with employment law and unfair dismissal and they ALL told me the same!
It seems that it is a little like going to court against the UKBA if you have had your legal tobacco supplies confiscated at customs – no legal firms will take them on as it seems it is a foregone conclusion that as a smoker you have no legal rights! Unfortunately UKBA are able to intimidate too many people into handing over their legal goods and they know that they have precious little chance of even getting to court with an appeal – to do so they need a lot of available cash to stump up should they lose the case!
Lynn
Were you dismissed purely because you were a smoker? Or had you breached a rule about where or when you could smoke?
I tend to think your case is more complicated than the former if you can’t find a solicitor to take you on.
UKBA case law on personal allowances is not relevant to employment law.
You should either keep looking for a solicitor to represent you, or accept that your dismissal was not simply because you happen to be a smoker. Some of my friends smoke and work in explosive conditions in a factory. Their company just insist they leave smoking materials in their lockers. They know they will be dismissed on the spot if they are found with matches or a lighter in the factory.
@Mike and Lyn
I work in recruitment by coincidence and in the UK a company is entitled to state in a job advertisement that only non smokers will be considered and has full discretion to set the smoking policy at work.
Smokers have no employment rights in the UK.
Mike D – Due to the smoking ban I suffered a deep depression, but was only off work for 6 weeks and in order to undergo CBT therapy reduced my working week to 4.5 days, so as not to inconvenience the company I worked for.
I was PA to the CEO and MD. My hours were discussed and it was agreed between myself and the CEO after the therapy and I was back on 5 days that I would benefit from finishing early so I worked through lunch as I could not afford to lose income through reduced hours.
The MD then decided that there should be no smoking whatsoever during work hours, not even when we had to walk across a main road from one office building to the other, which happened a few times a day, quite legitimately. I could not manage to go the whole day without having a smoke and had previously never abused the situation, mostly having a smoke when I was required to to visit the other office building and at most taking 5 minutes once or twice a day outside my office building for a smoke. At times, even my main boss, the CEO, would say, Lyn, go have a smoke.
I spoke with the MD (at the time the CEO was off with personal problems) and explained that as I worked through lunch I would struggle not having a smoke all day, He felt that the hours I was doing suited me best but as I felt it would be difficult to cope without a smoke then it would be best if I left as his new smoking policy was non negotiable.
So, no there was nothing else, except the fact that I had suffered a deep depression and was still working my way through it, however, this had not been affecting my work.
I’m sure you will be able to find a solicitor who could win against a company that denied you a lunch break. This clearly breaches the law, unless you work less than 6 hours a day.
Contact ACAS.
David Atherton, Chairman of smokers rights group freedom2choose says “Smokers have no employment rights in the UK.”
Not true.
Are you sure you’re not on overtime, Mike D? Or do you get paid for each comment you post?
David Atherton, Chairman of smokers rights group freedom2choose says “Smokers have no employment rights in the UK.” Not true.
Yes it is true Mike D – ask those of us who have been on the receiving end!
Lyn, I’ve told you that ACAS should be able to advise you if you have a genuine case of unfair dismissal. You said you were unable to take a break to smoke at lunchtime. If you work for over 6 hours you are entitled to a break of 20 minutes, not to be taken at the beginning or end of your shift.
To be honest you seem to be more keen to exploit your situation to further the tobacco industry’s rights to keep pretty packets than you do about getting a proper resolution.
Is it true that smokers have ‘NO EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS’?
No, that is a lie.
Mike D if you had read my response you would have seen that the I did not take a lunch break as due to the depression it was more beneficial for me to finish early, but I could not afford to lose any pay. Therefore the company, in that respect, accommodated me. I do know employment law in that respect as I used to be in HR.
The fact was, that knowing about my illness and being happy to accommodate me in the hours I worked and knowing that I was a smoker, by bringing in this smoking policy they knew my position would be untenable – it was therefore because I smoked that I lost my job.
Well, we are led to believe that the reason why women but cigarettes is because the boxes
come in pretty colours and the cigarettes are thin.
Blatent, sexist, anti smoking claptrap.
Totally sexist, maybe pink suits his lifestyle.
And who paid for it????
Obviously someone from an organisation with too much funding and it probably cost more than we allow half a dozen pensioners to live on for a year (or Prescott’s lunch allowance).
If, for a moment, we think in big, philosophical terms, there is no reason whatsoever that people, who wish to do so, should not enjoy tobacco. The enormous, worldwide, massively expensive and totally useless anti-tobacco movement IS A FRAUD! YouGov surveys are FRAUDULENT. ASH ET AL is a fraud! The BMA, RCP, CRUK, BHF are frauds! Why? Because they all depend upon faulty statistics, and they know that. They are all corrupt from top to bottom.
The Australian and New Zealand governments are especially corrupt, because they have spread lies upon lies. All their lies are based upon false philosophical ideas. The enormously fraudulent philosophical idea which CHAPMAN ET AT are promoting is that EVERONE must conform to an ideal which they ONLY are capable of deciding.
STINK, STINK, STINK.
Just passing on a message from S. Crapman.
Good one Janucin! I know some people who play Russian Roulette in Moscow. If they bet on “red” and “odd”, they tend to win. But is that a good reason not to bet “black”. Think about it. It’s certainly helped me to understand things. It’s like urinating in a pool – or on a Roulette table. Who doesn’t get contaminated? Who doesn’t win? Roulette and pools is what it’s all about. That’s dangerous.
S. Crapman
I don’t know Junican. Canada is right up there with Australia and New Zealand. Where there is lots of pharma influence, there is deep corruption.
And exploitation of naive, science-ignorant politicians!
I know many smokers who subscribe to YouGov polls but I have never come across one who has been invited to a poll on smoking, they cherry pick pollsters to come up with the desired results.
Mike Daube (wonder if that’s Mike D), a rabid Australian antismoking fanatic – a careerist like Crapman, has appeared on Australian TV indicating that the idea of “smoker licenses” will be put to the 15th World Conference on Tobacco or Health to be held in Singapore later this year.
World Conference Programme
Notice a few sessions on the “endgame” (prohibition)
DO NOT add www. to. wctoh2012.org/nav-confprogramme.html
Crapman has also advanced the “licensing” idea in Australia:
Add www. to. theage.com.au/victoria/now-butt-out-new-push-seeks-to-outlaw-cigarettes-20110521-1ey2s.html
Thanks magnetico1. I’m not “Mike D” as you suggest. If I want to comment I do so under my own name – which you don’t seem to have the courage to do.
But I do agree with the comments made by Simon Chapman, which no doubt won’t stop you from abusing us with the kind of cheap nastiness that is easy from behind a pseudonym.
Hope he’s not trying to pass it off as his own idea – it was mooted in the UK a few years ago by Julian Le Grand.
During their discussions of the idea, one thing’s for sure: not one moment’s thought will be given to the effects on the lives of those whom they wish to license. They care not one jot about the misery they already have or will inflict. Uppermost will be whether they can sell the idea to governments bearing in mind that consideration must be given to the considerable revenue generated by smokers which would diminish since there can be no point in a license which doesn’t control consumption.
And all this based on zealotry, vested interests, lies and the astonishing arrogance that they are entitled to demand that other people forfeit their right to make their own decisions.
1.
Ah. The Daubster, enjoyer of the media spotlight and mover and shaker amongst the Public Health social-set, makes an appearance. It’s good to see that the extreme-of-the-extreme fanatics, the “rabid ones”, are keeping an eye on this blog.
Well, Mikey, if I may call you that (the other options may not be quite as flattering), I didn’t questionably install myself into a “world-fixing elite” making decisions for all. I didn’t set about denormalizing/stigmatizing/leperizing a significant portion of the adult population. I didn’t make a career out of it that I would have to put my name to in order to attract a paycheck. YOU DID. It is you and your elitist, deranged buddies that promote mental dysfunction and bigotry with reckless abandon, and even with glee it would seem. All seems to be acceptable “collateral damage” in the fanatics’ quest for the tobacco-free “utopia”. [I notice that you’re now also in charge of the assault on alcohol – another eugenics favorite]
Mikey, you’re very much like your fanatical predecessors. Fanatics are so rigidly fixated on their questionable goal that they are unable to comprehend much else. Utterly obsessed with their “world fixing”, anything is deemed legitimate for its accomplishment – the end justifies the means; the inflammatory lies come thick and fast in the manipulation of the public, the media, and politicians. And when politicians succumb to the fanatics’ seductive promises then there is much damage to come.
There is more than ample evidence from the current “crusade” and the history of antismoking that antismoking fanaticism is a mental disorder with at least this cluster of dysfunctions: acute fixation (monomania), obsession with control (megalomania), self-absorbed (Narcissism), and a “god complex” – delusion of grandeur, delusion of benevolence, delusion of omniscience. This cluster of dysfunctions is held together by pathological lying.
So, Mikey, concerning cowardice, I would venture that you are the coward. You are the [paid] fear and hate-monger. It is you who are unfamiliar with the history of fanaticism and its methodology, and therefore unable to discern when enough is enough; fanatics don’t know when to stop – that’s another part of the mental disorder. It is you who was unable to get your erratic thinking in check, opting for the easy [paid] path of unbridled enactment; you are the cheap, sanctimonious, anti-smoking/tobacco supremacist. And there are quite a few others like you.
Isn’t it amazing that the zealots want to put a face and a name to a smoker (are you even a smoker?) when it is only convenient to them. The rest of the time we are nothing but faceless statistics, cash cows, addicts with no right to thought or speech and prohibited from every official discussion!
Very well put.
And targets for Govt funded abuse due to hate campaigning by the likes of Simon Chapman. Pot/kettle/Black Mike Daube.
2.
Mikey, your fanatical predecessors did much damage earlier last century in America and Nazi Germany. Ken Burns’ documentary “Prohibition” documents some of the damage done in America from the “noble experiment”. At the end of Prohibition, the sanctimonious fanatics that still pushed social engineering were met with a question that can well be asked of you, Mikey, and your fanatical buddies – “Who do you think you are?” So, Mikey, who do you think you are that you can use society for your social-engineering experiments, however “noble” you have concocted them to be? Who do you think you are that you gather with your buddies, pontificating about those who smoke in the third person – a dehumanized object in the distance – as a “problem” that must be “solved”? Who do you think you are that, through fear and hate-mongering, you should turn ordinary people into a reviled third-class citizenry, if not even criminals? Who do you think you are that the objects of your “benevolence” must sit there in silence, accepting all the bigotry, control, and extortion that are tossed at them? Who do you think you are that you deem it perfectly acceptable to sow the seeds of discord, social division, and economic hardship through your baseless, poisonous slogans? Who do you think you are that all must be made to conform to your [medicalized] world view?
Mikey, who do you think you are? Really, WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? God? Mikey, it may come as a shock to such a massive ego but you ain’t God, not even a god – not even remotely close. It is you who should be apologizing – profusely – to many that your vanity and stupidity got the better of you, even believing yourself to be a god.
Mikey, you are the promoter of multi-dimensional damage. Yet, you, the demonstrable supremacist, have the gall to claim that I – me – am abusing you with a cheap nastiness. For heaven’s sake, man, have you no scruples or sensibility whatsoever. I’m making some considered comments on a blog. You and your buddies have been wreaking global havoc for decades.
Over the past 40 years, Tobacco Control, if it existed at all, could have searched for better medical treatments and overseen the tobacco industry in searching for lower-risk cigarettes. Instead, TC was hijacked by the extremists, the world-fixer-uppers, e.g., the Daubster, Crapman. With their derangement at the helm, we have stalled treatment, more hazardous cigarettes (FSC), an assault on scientific integrity, and mental, social, moral, and ideo-political dysfunction galore. It’s beyond tragic. Daubster, take a bow for your “great” work.
Mikey, you and your buddies should be concerned that more and more, smokers and nonsmokers alike, are becoming familiar with the shenanigans of antismoking fanaticism. And they’re obviously angry at the [paid] bigoted manipulation.
The local Bristol newspaper This is Bristol does not seem too impressed either.
“As much as I applaud any attempt to stop kids taking up smoking, sadly I think they’re barking up the wrong tree here.
I honestly don’t think cigarette packaging is as glamorous in the eyes of these kids as it’s being made out to be. I think that’s a red (smoked) herring. A straw poll of my smoker friends revealed that when they started smoking secretly as teenagers, attractive packaging had nothing to do with it. Rather, they saw older, cooler kids, rock stars and actors smoking and thought if they smoked, they’d be cool, too.”
“Even if they are, if printing ‘SMOKING CAUSES DEATH’ on the packet doesn’t put them off, is plain packaging really going to?”
“But not only do I think the plain-packaging brigade are just playing into the nicotine-stained hands of smugglers flogging putrid foreign fags, even if the Government goes for plain packaging for PR points alone, while it continues to make many hundreds of millions of pounds every year from cigarette duty, it has no real incentive to stop young people starting smoking. So the Government backing this initiative would be nothing but a smokescreen.”
http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Plain-packet-crusade-s-red-smoked-herring/story-14984244-detail/story.html
For what it’s worth, and I am sure that truth doesn’t matter to these people, I never started smoking to be “cool”. I started because as the youngest of five kids in a single parent, and very poor, family I wanted to grow up sooner than I should have done and smoking as an adult pursuit was one way of trying to achieve that.
sorry to disappoint you Dave but that’s not a piece of journalism. It’s a comment on the letters page by “Girl Friday”…. who doesn’t seem to rely on evidence for her opinions. The Evening Post actually ran two positive stories about the launch on Monday. They’re also running stories about people trying to quit smoking throughout January.
“…who doesn’t seem to rely on evidence for her opinions.”
Hello Kettle, this is Pot. You’re black.
There’s no evidence worth commenting on to suggest plain packaging will have any meaningful impact on youth smoking rates. Given that plain packaging requires legislation that will erode the rights of all companies (not just tobacco companies – if the gov claims to right to dictate branding of one company it claims to right to do it any company) you’d think you would have good, solid evidence… which you don’t.
Stephen, if you’ve read the Godber Blueprint ( rampant-antismoking.com ), you should be up to speed with the World [Eugenics] Conferences on Tobacco or Health. This is where the “world fixer” fanatics have gathered for more than four decades to reinforce each others considerable mental dysfunction, massage each others massive egos, and “strategize” the themes to be pursued in the 3-4 years to the next Conference.
Well, it’s that time again. Time for another Conference. Time for the neurotic bigots to congregate into a hotspot of derangement. Let’s look at the fun times ahead.
“We have planned a conference programme that sets the agenda for advancing the global tobacco control efforts. Throughout the Pre-conference (19 – 20 March 2012) and the Main Conference (20 – 24 March 2012) programmes, there will be exciting and interesting opportunities to:
Build up our capacity through the sharing of best practices, experiences, knowledge, research and latest trends;
Celebrate our successes;
Renew our commitment to fight the global tobacco epidemic; and
Connect with each other for future collaborations.”
DO NOT add www. to. wctoh2012.org/nav-programme.html
And there’s a wonderful “social programme” too:
“All delegates are invited to relax and dine at the welcome reception. From catching up with old friends, to savouring of Singapore’s local fare, this is a night not to be missed for all!”
DO NOT add www. to. wctoh2012.org/nav-social-programme.html
The delegates have wonderful opportunities for social activities:
Universal Studios Singapore®
City Tour
Full Day Sentosa Tour
Night City Tour
Night Safari Tour
Tyrants of History Tour
Now, Stephen, I’ve got to tell you that it is repugnant – obscene – that this collection of misfits, a self-installed “elite”, most funded by Big Pharma or taxpayers (mostly extorted from smokers), gather to renew old “friendships”, sip on cocktails, have a good ol’ bit of backslapping and award-giving, and take in some of the city sights as they conspire to further “leperize” a significant portion of the adult population. These “world-saving” buffoons have no clue – and that’s if they gave a hoot, about the multi-dimensional damage they are creating worldwide. It’s about time some placard-wavers made an appearance at these conferences – something like “EUGENICS BIGOTS NOT WELCOME”.
Freedom2Choose as I have mentioned were constitutionally approved on the 31st October, here is a copy of it. If you go to page 5, third paragraph down it says:
“The constitution was approved by the Association on the 31st day of October 2007, and amended at the Annual General Meeting held on 15th October 2011.”
I hope we can now move on.
Dave Atherton
Chairman
Freedom2Choose
freedom2choose.info/docs/F2C_Constitution.pdf
Yes, you approved a constitution for one iteration of freedom2choose on 31st October 2007, but the group (in some form) clearly existed before that.
Look at your own website, which carries articles from almost a year earlier – eg
“A Little Bit Of Anything Does You Good
Steve Cross
November 20th 2006”
“Memetic Aphorism
Colin Grainger
November 18th 2006”
“James Repace Shows his True Colours
Loraine McGregor
2nd December 2006”
“Myth 2
Colin Grainger
3 December 2006”
“Numbers, numbers, numbers….
Colin Grainger
3 December 2006”
You haven’t said why you chose to keep the name of an organisation started in 2004 by a tobacco supplier. I’m not implying anything, I’m just curious why, out of all the names available, you were so keen to use one that had been used for the same type of campaign only a few years earlier.
My, it’s become a cosy comments board. We’ve had Crapman and the Daubster make an appearance. The only one missing is, say, rabid-antismoking “royalty” himself – Stan “The Mechanic” Glantz. Stan, of course, is the “go to” man to produce the junk studies that advance the agenda. He was responsible for the original economic study, although he’s not an economist, that concluded that smoking bans don’t hurt [any] hospitality businesses. And who could forget his [cherry-picked] Helena “heart-attack miracle” study that concluded that the rate of heart-attacks drops following, and due to, the implementation of smoking bans. Beautiful!! And, exploring the heights of scholarship [giggle], Stan is currently working on a WHO-inspired film-censorship venture – and who better-qualified than an antismoking mechanic – where he wants all films depicting smoking to attract an “R”-rating.
And Stan even made an appearance in London in 2001 to lobby the UK government for smoking bans, claiming, of course, that they were wonderful for business.
DO NOT add www. to. 85.18.251.150/10e/roadshow.htm
Add www. to. ash.org.uk/ash_9ps8vjxq.htm
I’m sure that there are many in the UK that would have to be physically restrained from expressing their gratitude to Stan for the effect the bans have had on their business.
So if you’re out there, Stan, your “supremacist highness”, feel free to drop in and say hello to the “lepers”.
<i?"…Stan is currently working on a WHO-inspired film-censorship venture…"
I’d love to see his face if he goes to see “Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy”. In deference to the realities of the era, just about everyone in every scene is smoking.
sadly if these people get their way then like the Nazis burned books they didn’t like, peolle like bigoted smokerphobic Stanton Glanz would consign such great films to the dustbin never to be seen by another single living person just because they personally object to smoking scenes. Philistines come to mind.
It doesn’t matter if “research” shows that smoking in films has no effect on people choosing to take up smoking, they will just pervert it to suit their own aims and they can because they get paid handsomely to mislead and distort.
To all you anti smokers largely paid from the taxpayer, you just don’t get it, do you? It maybe galling that there are millions of smokers who know full well the risks of smoking who like me altruistically give up their spare time and wages to fight for our cause.
I thought the best way of fighting anti smokers was to learn as much as possible, knowledge is power. If you want a frank comment from me about tobacco companies, post 1954 when the Hill/Doll later Peto paper on UK GPs and smoking first came out, the way tobacco companies tried to rebut for over 3 decades quite obvious link between lung cancer and smoking to my mind is quite wrong.
While two wrongs do not make a right, but pharmaceutical companies who fund directly and indirectly anti smoker campaigns and organisations have been equally poor. Pfizer’s varenicline marketed as Champix and Chantix is associated with depression and 200 suicides. Pfizer knew of these side affects in 2006 but suppressed the results. I particularly object to my taxpayer’s money spent on nicotine replacement from Big Pharma (BP) when it is so ineffective. E cigs, Allen Carr’s Easyway and Swedish snus are scientifically proved to be more effect. In Sweden snus is so successful that Sweden has half the smoking rates and half the lung cancer rates, yet remains via the EU illegal elsewhere in the EU. This is the result of BP lobbying.
Tobacco control is not about saving lives.
You have no idea how I resent the smoking ban. You have no idea how I dislike being told by the state how to live my life on private property using a legal substance.
You bigots and authoritarians are like heroin junkies, addicted to bans and restrictions with no end to your big stick.
As a student of history when ever you get a rise it is followed by a fall. Sooner or later you will decline. I hope I have done my bit.
well said David Atherton. Whatever the tobacco companies did, and I am no friend of theirs, I always knew there were risks in smoking. The bullies in the playground in the late 1960s told me so in cat calls of “cancer stick”.
It’s why I truly despair as a very well informed adult that govt ploughs billions into anti-smokerism to come up with slogans such as this when it has been the bullies’ call for decades.
I resent the smoking ban because it’s not about health but further denigration of a social group to force the end result of a smoke free world and the exclusion of people they despise because they won’t buy into this ideology.
I am saddened that such bigotry is encouraged in what is supposed to be an enlightened age. We are going socially backwards.
Smoking doesn’t have to affect anyone else if we had choice and that is the bottom line but this isn’t about choice. It is about enforced ideology and a very unlevel playing field to achieve that aim at any cost.
Take away their funding and the whole thing would fall apart because most people don’t support it. If they did, Govt funding would be unnecessary because the public would donate willingly to their cause. Before Labour came to power in 1997, smoke free groups in England were dying on their feet.
“15th World Conference On Tobacco Or Health”
An insight into the mind of the zealot. Tobacco OR health – can’t have both, despite the fact that non-smokers suffer ill-health and smokers do not all suffer from smoking-related conditions.
The strap-line is “Towards a Tobacco-free World” which conveniently glosses over the fact that tobacco doesn’t smoke itself and which should really read “Towards a Smoker-free World”. To what lengths is the zealot prepared to go to eradicate smokers?
Inquirind mind wants to know why all the fuss and waste of time from MikeD re Freedom2Choose origins? Even if (and I am not saying I know) the present F2C took over where a vending machine operator left off, what does this have to do with the tobacco industry? Is MikeD telling us that even tobacco retailers should be muzzled in this issue since they are making a living distributing tobacco? What about those who make lighters and matches? What about the cleaning personnel at BAT’s? What about the delivery trucks that distribute tobacco? Back in the 70’s I was working for a transportation company to which the tobacco industry was giving their business to arrange deliveries from their warehouses to distribution centers. Oh please, please, please, don’t take my freedom of thought and speech away from me. I promise it will never happen again!
Let’s try the good old logical sequence ‘if A equals B, and B equals C, the A equals C’
Where to start?
Smoking causes bad health.
One puff on a cigarette is ‘smoking’.
Therefore one puff on a cigarette causes bad health. QED.
Lots of teenagers have an occasional puff on a cigarette.
One puff on a cigarette causes bad health.
Therefore lots of teenagers suffer bad health. QED
Cigarettes come in glitzy packets.
Glitzy things are attractive to teenagers.
Therefore teenagers are attracted to cigarettes. QED
Glitzy packets contain cigarettes.
Lots of teenagers suffer bad health form one puff on a cigarette.
Therefore glitzy packets cause bad health in lots of teenagers. QED
It is a bad thing that lots of teenagers suffer from bad health.
Glitzy packets cause bad health in lots of teenagers.
Therefore glitzy packets are a bad thing. QED
The Government is obliged to stop bad things.
Glitzy packets are a bad thing.
Therefore the Government must stop glitzy packets. QED
Can anyone see any faults in that logic?
Hmmm – I see you don’t have my related blog post on your “trackback” list so I post a link here for anyone who wants to read it.
http://patnurseblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/reality-fantasy-and-downright.html
Mr Williams will not stop. You see, Tobacco Control have targets to meet. They need to reduce smoking prevalence by 2% plus a bit annually. How much it costs is irrelevant since they do not pay. That is why they are content to spend £84,000,000 (on big pharm products alone – not counting all the salaries of participants) on products with a 95% failure rate. All that matters is the 2% plus a bit.
People reading this ought to take a look at Freedom 2 Choose blog. There is a report there about statistics compiled by Primary Care Trusts (aka Tobacco Control) about people who ‘set a quit date’ and succeeded in quiting. But success in quiting is assumed (on the basis of self-reporting) after only four weeks! But they go further in their quest to ‘prove’ success:
“A client is counted as having successfully quit smoking at the four week follow-up if he/she has not smoked at all since two weeks after the quit date.”
So a person can carry on smoking for two weeks after the quit date before the quit date kicks in! And, if the person does not smoke at all for the two weeks after the new quit date, he/she is counted as having quit permanently! Talk about crazy statistics!
Not to mention newspaper and TV advertising costs.
I did a back of a fag packet calculation re Scottish stats. I estimate that a successful quit at 12 months costs the taxpayer around £8000 per person. This would be up to £2000 more if loss of tobacco duty is factored in. Add advertising costs and this figure would be well into five figures.
What an utter waste of public funds.
people who quit smoking live longer. They have more productive and fulfilling lives. And yes that means they pay more taxes – on their earnings, vastly outstripping the lost duty and VAT on cigarette sales.
For just four weeks?
“People who quit smoking live longer. They have more productive and fulfilling lives. And yes that means they pay more taxes – on their earnings, vastly outstripping the lost duty and VAT on cigarette sales.” – For the “average” smoker, those extra years will be post-retirement (based even on the “facts” fabricated by the likes of ASH). I thought the LibDems were in favour of raising the income tax threshold, not reducing it to below the level of the state pension!
“(P)eople who quit smoking live longer”
True
Tractor stats. Those who quit before the age of 30 return to normal mortality.
Those who quit before 40 regain 9 out of their 10 years lost mortality, 50, 6 years and 60 I think is 2. Check out Hill/Doll and Peto paper
Quitting means you are a net gain to the treasury.
Utter rubbish.
The Dutch Health Ministry published a paper in 2008 where they looked at the lifetime costs from age 20 of to death of healthy, obese and smoking people, and I quote:
“Dutch researchers have confirmed what fat smokers have waited years to hear – that healthy people are actually a greater burden on the state, because they live longer and oblige the taxpayer to deal with the cost of “lingering diseases of old age like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s”.
“That’s according to the Netherlands’ National Institute for Public Health and Environment, which found that while “a person of normal weight costs on average £210,000 over their lifetime”, a smoker clocks up just £165,000 and the obese run up an average £187,000 bill.
The team’s findings, published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS), are based on modelling “three hypothetical populations from the age of 20, to see how much they would cost in medical bills throughout the different stages of their lives”
This Czech Ministry of Health last year conducted an academic review of costs versus taxes from smokers and I quote.
“ČTK |
15 AUGUST 2011
Prague, Aug 14 (CTK) – An analysis the Czech Health Ministry has made shows that Czech smokers pay in consumer taxes and VAT dozens of billions of crowns more than what their treatment costs, the Czech Television (CT) public broadcaster Sunday quoted Health Minister Leos Heger (TOP 09) as saying.
“About six billion crowns is spent on the treatment of smokers’ diseases in the system of public health insurance annually while the tax on tobacco products brings in the state budget about 60 billion,” Heger said.”
.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/05/healthy_tax_burden/
praguemonitor.com/2011/08/15/minister-smokers-treatment-costs-one-tenth-taxes
they would have to lead _vastly_ better and more profitable lives to make up any deficit in tobacco revenue considering how few succeed in quitting using NHS help (8 per cent at 12 months according to NHS Scotland).
If those who chose to continue to smoke are living unfulfilled lives it is because the vile propaganda targeted against them is aimed at making their lives miserable through public humiliation and exclusion. I still don’t understand why you can’t live with smokers who really don’t want to bother you or anyone else but do what to be treated equally and fairly. Why is that so wrong in a modern, fair and equitable society?
If people wish to quit smoking that is their choice and I wish them good luck. All I ask is that I’m left alone in peace to socialise with my own kind and I completely resent being treated as Public Enemy No 1 because I choose not to quit.
For lifelong smokers like myself the health issue is not as back and white as you would believe. And when it comes to the choice to quit that is down to me, and my family, and it has nothing to do with the state or publically funded hate campaigns designed to force me to take on board the views of those I have never met nor will ever meet.
Anti-Tobacco – the modern KKK. “They” stink. “They” are an inferior sub-class. We will suffer “them” and allow “them” into our establishments but only if “they” conform to our superior standards. (Same again, darling. Lovely t*ts! Not many of them to the pound! And one for the smoker in the leper pit. Thank God they don’t allow smokers – and gays – in this pub.)
“And let’s not blame those of us who care about public health outcomes for the jobs lost in the cigarette industry.”
Not much comfort to those banned from applying for jobs advertised to “non-smokers only” and not much comfort to those not able to afford all the things their children need – even food – because they’ve been forced out of work thanks to political ideology. .
Dunno if you’ve ever tried to live on the dole. it is a miserable hand-to-mouth existence and it is unfair to hound people out of work because “those who care about health outcomes” believe they can push, bully and force people out of earning their own living.
Social engineering is what is going on here and why all of the people opposed to it have commented. What next when they have been forced to become unemployable – banning them from even claiming the dole you’ve forced them to claim? I really wouldn’t be surprised.
Stephen Williams MP Wrote “And yes that means they pay more taxes – on their earnings, vastly outstripping the lost duty and VAT on cigarette sales.”
False in fact.
You are referring to smokers who can tick the follwing boxes;
1. They die of a smoking related illness
2. They die before retiring.
3. They were a tax contributer rather than a tax consumer – those on benefits and public sector workers can all be exluded from the calculation.
If they cannot tick ALL of these boxes then their death COSTS the state money and in reality the overwhelming majority cannot tick all the boxes.
Whilst eliminating smoking is a laudable goal it does not excuse pretending there’s an economic incentive. There isn’t, point blank. If every smoker in the country quit tomorrow the state purse would take a fairly hefty hit, immediately in the form of lost tax reciepts and long term in the form of increased pension payouts and medical costs.
” They have more productive and fulfilling lives.” i was very happy and fulfilled untill tobacco control decided to go ball out to make me miserable.
“And yes that means they pay more taxes – on their earnings, vastly outstripping the lost duty and VAT on cigarette sales.”.. WOW, we really are income streams or cannon fodder for people like you arn’t we.
Mr Williams, when vending machines were banned over 500 people lost their jobs. That’s 500 families, hundreds of children deprived of a living as a result of the obsession that you and others have with smoking.
And although the courts upheld the decision they had this to say about the evidence:
“…statistics used by the DoH to justify the ban were ‘little more than guesses’, the judge said”
Perhaps you’d like to frame a few words for these people, to explain to their children how their mum or dad lost their job because you don’t like smoking?
Simon, it’s not a question of whether I personally like smoking. The evidence is that smoking hugely increases your chance (and those around you) of dying prematurely. That’s the real family tragedy. I think children would prefer to have a live and healthy parent than one who happens to work in the cigarette industry.
And let’s not blame those of us who care about public health outcomes for the jobs lost in the cigarette industry. I am a Bristol MP. Imperial used to employ thousands of people in the city making cigarettes. They still make billions of cigarettes – but in countries with cheap labour costs.
Let me dissect what you have said.
The evidence is that smoking hugely increases your chance…. of dying prematurely.
True
(….and those around you)
Utter rubbish.
This is one of the biggest scientific and medical frauds I have researched. The two nearest examples are Galileo being sent by the Catholic Church in 1633 to permanent house arrest for suggesting that the earth went round the sun, rather than vice versa. Or Florence Nightingale being publically being berated in the Lancet for wanting clean wards in the Crimea.
I won’t mention Dr Josef Mengele but I will Dr. Trofin Lysenko who is the byword on scientific fraud.
“Melvyn Bragg and guests delve into the dark world of genetics under Joseph Stalin in discussing the career of Trofim Lysenko. In 1928, as America lurched towards the Wall Street Crash, Joseph Stalin revealed his master plan – nature was to be conquered by science, Russia to be made brutally, glitteringly modern and the world transformed by communist endeavour”
Screen shot time on your post Simon, jobs in Bristol are not important then?
Malawi has come into the spotlight as 70% of its foreign earnings come from tobacco exports, let the the UNICEF tractor stats.
“Primary school net enrolment/attendance (%), 2005-2009* 91%”
% of routine EPI vaccines financed by government 2009, total 100%
Immunization 2009, 1-year-old children immunized against: TB, corresponding vaccines: BCG 95%”
“Immunization 2009, 1-year-old children immunized against: DPT, corresponding vaccines: DPT1ß 97%”
In Malawi, tobacco saves lives. Also it seems free trade and the tobacco companies have greatly improved the lives of Malawians.
unicef.org/infobycountry/mal … stics.html
With an average life span of around 80 Years and the saving of a minimum £6,000 State pension + allowances these smokers are not ‘costing’ the Country but saving it money vastly outstripping any loss of duty and VAT from cigarette sales
The many fewer deaths that may be genuinely attributed to smoking before retirement may reduce tax income from their earning but, as recent figures show, they would free an equivalent number from unemployment and state dependency and additionally provide tax from their new-found earnings.
Scrutiny of these facts and figures our expensive Tobacco Control empire feed to their operatives and the public creating ‘Science by Press Release’ soon shows the that Scientific rigour takes a poor second place to epidemiological rigging.
As for ‘fulfilling lives’ are concerned you might consider that ever increasing number of citizens living in poverty: 13.5 million people in 2008/9 an increase of 1.5 million on 4 years previously. They must feel really fulfilled.
I only have to be away for half the day and the junk science returns.
“Junk science has replaced honest science and propaganda parades as fact. Our legislators and judges, in need of dispassionate analysis, are instead smothered by an avalanche of statistics—tendentious, inadequately documented, and unchecked by even rudimentary notions of objectivity.”
– Robert A. Levy, Senior Fellow in Constitutional Studies, The Cato Institute; Adjunct Professor of Statistics for Law, Georgetown University Law Center and Rosalind B. Marimont, former mathematician and scientist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly the Bureau of Standards) and the National Institute of Health.
From: Lies, Damned Lies and 40,000 Smoking-Related Deaths. Regulation 21 (4)
.cato.org/pubs/regulationies.pdf
The truth is that Smokerphobia is more harmful to those around you. I can guarantee that I have never hurt a single living soul in my lifetime – neither did my parents, my grandparents, or my great-grandparents.
Sorry, but Dave Atherton’s link to Robert A. Levy’s quote no longer works.
Currently the correct link is (needing 3Ws of course):
.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv21n4/lies.pdf
A broader relevant quote from that same link which our political REPRESENTATIVES should bear in mind is:
“The war on smoking started with a kernel of truth—that cigarettes
are a high risk factor for lung cancer—but has grown
into a monster of deceit and greed, eroding the credibility of
government and subverting the rule of law. Junk science has
replaced honest science and propaganda parades as fact. Our
legislators and judges, in need of dispassionate analysis, are
instead smothered by an avalanche of statistics—tendentious,
inadequately documented, and unchecked by even rudimentary
notions of objectivity.”
I hadn’t read that before I made my comments regarding ‘junk science’ and propaganda, but then it has largely become self-evident and is a contributor to why our politicians are held in such low esteem.
Please note that the late Alvan Feinstein was a sceptic on the harm of SHS and was quoting a colleague from the World Health Organization.
On the 1993 EPA Report: “Yes, it’s rotten science, but it’s in a worthy cause. It will help us to get rid of cigarettes and become a smoke-free society”.
– Alvan Feinstein, Yale University epidemiologist writing in Toxological Pathology.
– Cited in Colby (1999)
.lcolby.com/colby.htm
“The world must protest the ongoing deceit and the squandering of public monies for rigged and incompetent ETS studies. And people should feel offended by the complicity and sham paternalism of health authorities and of profitable tax exempt charities. Such an officially imposed tyranny has no place in countries that claim and presume to be free, enlightened, and just. We are not children, nor bumbling simpletons who need to be deceived for our own good — a deceit that is doubly grating when the wilfully flawed surgeon general’s report on ETS runs against statutory requirements of “ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by a government agency.”
– Dr Gio Batta Gori, Former Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute, Division of Cancer Causes and Prevention, Acting Associate Director, Carcinogenesis Program, Director of the Diet, Nutrition and Cancer Program, and Director of the Smoking and Health Program
From: Stoking the Rigged Terror of Second Hand Smoke, Regulation, Spring 2007.
.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv30n1/v30n1-5.pdf
“Of those chemicals present in ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) only a very few can be classified as toxons or carcinogens. Some basic physics, a bit of chemistry and a series of rather simple mathematical calculations reveal that exposure to ETS is hardly a dangerous event. Indeed, the cancer risk of ETS to a non-smoker appears to be roughly equal to the risk of becoming addicted to heroin from eating poppy seed bagels.”
– Michael.R. Fox, Phd. Chemist, Richland W.A (1999) Toxic Toxicology: Putting Scientific Credibility at Risk. Littlewood & Fennell: Independent Public and Health Policy Research.
Could I ask you Mr Williams when you last left your office and asked your smoking constituents why they smoke the brands they smoke?
They will tell you that they like the taste, they will tell you that the brand is economically viable for them, they will not tell you that they like the pretty coloured boxes!
If asked why they started they will tell you ; that their friends smoked, that they were curious, that they were underage and all the adults were doing so. They will not say they started because they liked pretty coloured boxes.
If asked why they continue to smoke most smokers will say it relieves stress, that they can think more clearly, that they actually enjoy it! Some will say that they want to give up, that is fair enough if that is their choice I certainly will not condemn them for that unlike the anti-smoking lobby who revel in such condemnation. Again they will not tell you that it is because they like pretty coloured boxes.
How do I know all this Mr Williams? Well sir I am an authority on smokers and smoking, I know how they think, I know how they resent the tax which pays for the treatment of 3 non smokers for every smoker on the NHS. I understand why they chose to abandon pubs, who wants to drink in an establishment where they are treated like lepers? Forced by law into shelters that are not legally fit for pigs! Especially when they can buy cheap beer, visit friends to watch the big match and smoke in comfort like the civilised human beings they are. Why they go to Europe and give Belgium and Holland tax revenue for cheaper tobacco. Why many would now rather avoid duty altogether by buying from the black market than pay the anti-smoking lobby to bully them.
All I ask is to be treated just like every other citizen in Great Britain, that I may socialise with my peers in smoking venues where non smokers have the choice as to whether they want to enter or go to a non smoking venue, I am sir a human being, not something to be despised by the misinformed, or by bigots and as a citizen of Great Britain I demand the equality that is my birthright, Neither ASH nor any politician has the right to deny me that, yet you and some of your colleagues seek to do so, it is sir, neither right nor honourable, it does not befit a Right Honourable Member of Parliament to treat the citizens whom he or she represents and works for in such a manner.
As I said, I am an authority on smoking because I smoke, I know that many smokers and in fact, many tolerant non-smokers will agree with what I have told you, a few may not but most will and some of those are your constituents.
I think it’s obvious they don’t give a damn what smokers who chose to continue to smoke think or feel. They care only about those who chose to quit.
Pat.
They don’t even care about them. They care about nobody at all.
I’m afraid Dave, Simon, Junican, xopher, et al. Stephen has found himself as a politician, in a position of, in his own mind, importance. These people will never relinquish that power whatever you say. All they seek is influence whether it be antismoking, antidrinking or whatever is the soundbite at the time. They have convinced themselves that they have to climb the greasy pole of politics by whatever means. They’ll use any means possible. After all it’s not as if like the rest of us, he’s worked in the real world that we live in.
Resume:
“Stephen was interested in politics from a young age. While studying at the University of Bristol he was President of the SDP/Liberal society, and an active member of the local party. He has also served on Avon County and Bristol City Councils, elected as Councillor for Cabot ward in 1993 aged 26. He was leader of the Bristol Liberal Democrat group from 1995 to 1997. He was the Liberal Democrat candidate for Bristol South in the 1997 General Election, coming third with 13.4% of the vote, before being selected to stand for Bristol West in 2001, where he achieved second with 28.89% of the vote. He then won Bristol West in 2005, taking the seat from Labour with 38.3% of the vote, in what was described as one of the biggest swings to the Liberal Democrats of the 2005 General Election. This made him the first Liberal MP ever for that constituency and the first to be elected in the city of Bristol since 1935.”
That says it all. I would suggest that he stands down as politician at the next election, attempts to get a real job, and then re-enters politics with an understanding of the real world that the rest of us have to live in.
I can assure him then in my own experience as an ex servicemen, when the bombs are dropping around you, death from SHS is the least of your worries. What pissed me off most of all was the nonsmokers were smoking my cigarettes to calm their nerves. (Bye the way. As far as I know, they’re still alive.)
My wars can be supplied on request.
As Leg-iron would designate you. “One of the righteous”
http://underdogsbiteupwards.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/1657/
That’s an extract from the political section of one of the numerous profiles of me. It summarises what I have done in politics. You’ve left out the 17 year career in tax and business consultancy from 1988 to 2005. Unlike many MPs, I did work in a succession of “proper jobs” before becoming an MP and all of them were in the private sector. You’ve also left out all the personal information and background.
Stephen, you are quite right I think you worked for PWC and Grant Thornton. As someone who works in recruitment, kudos for you as I know how difficult it is to get a job there.
Narurally, Anti-Tobacco are deniers of the “fobidden fruit effect” – until they can exploit it to provide “evidence” for whatever they are trying to ban in the future!
1.
Stephen, I would like to thank you for keeping this comment board open and allowing people to express their thoughts, however at variance they may be with yours; it is a very rare opportunity indeed. And I would like to thank you for at least responding – at times.
“people who quit smoking live longer. They have more productive and fulfilling lives. And yes that means they pay more taxes – on their earnings, vastly outstripping the lost duty and VAT on cigarette sales.”
Stephen, just that one statement is loaded. Firstly, “people who quit smoking live longer” is a statistical statement of probability; it is an average. There are no guarantees. There are many that have no interest in leading “statistical” lives. Longevity is also a very grey area. Once a person gets into their 50s, the creaks, pangs and pokes come with greater frequency. As people go through their 60s, 70s, and 80s+ impairment becomes more pronounced. There are some good days and some bad days. As the physical system further deteriorates, there is compounded disability. Certain debility doesn’t heal, e.g., arthritis, it can only be attempted to be managed. People find themselves visiting the doctor with greater frequency and on a multiplicity of medication (which poses its own risks). The bad days become more frequent. For many, memory begins to fail. Perception of time is very different. As a nonsmoker dying at whatever age, they won’t be thinking about X extra years they had as a nonsmoker, and the antismoking fanatics won’t be at their bedsides telling them that they are now experiencing the “benefits” of not smoking.
This is the deterioration of the physical state. It’s been occurring since time immemorial. The demise of the physical system can be protracted; exiting this world can get very ugly. There would be few that have “happy” encounters with someone else’s mortality or the idea of death generally. Until the physicalists took over, people didn’t see the meaning of life as trying to live as long as possible. They lived their lives according to a variety of multi-dimensional principles, and whatever came, came.
I asked in an earlier question if someone living to 75 has lived a “better” life than someone living to 68, solely on the basis of longevity. Stephen, you (and your physicalist buddies) are claiming “yes”. Physicalists are forced to. That’s the only dimension they have to work with. They have stripped away every other dimension of the human condition and stand in pitiful judgment of everyone solely on how many years they’ve lived – life reduced to arithmetic. There was a questionable adage that only the good die young. The physicalists are pushing the equally questionable adage that only the good die old or oldest.
2.
And in the physicalist madness come the inflammatory slogans. The greatest discrepancy in longevity, smokers v nonsmokers, begins in the 60s and peaks through the 70s, 80s+. A smoker dying at age 70 is referred to as “premature”. They are referred to as dying “younger”. “Younger” refers to the other end of the longevity scale. Rather they have died not as old or as older. In other slogans they are even referred to as dying “young”. There are even antismoking adverts that portray, as typical, that very young children are “at risk” of being left motherless, fatherless, or orphaned due to their parents’ smoking. It’s not true; it’s inflammatory trash. The extremely-high likelihood is that “children” will be shipping their old parents off to a nursing home, whom they might visit once or twice a year.
Remember, too, that smoking is but one risk factor amongst many. For example, for heart disease alone there were over 400 identified risk factors – all of poor predictive strength – at last count.
So, Stephen, let’s get back to our 60, 70, or 80 year old smoker. A person who smokes may be content with their lives, happy in the thought that they have upheld particular principles with integrity, even through what may have been difficult circumstances. But to the simple-minded superficiality of physicalism, none of that matters, judging all only on “years lived”, declaring that smokers have somehow let someone down – fallen short, led an “unfulfilled life”.
Well, Stephen, it’s those that have stripped away all but the physical dimension and longevity, those who have stripped away the multi-dimensional art and detail of living, stripped away what makes humans human, that are the deranged ones. Which brings us to “productive and fulfilling lives”.
Productive and fulfilling according to whom and by what criteria. Again, we can see that the physicalists have only their contrived “numbers” game. And even using the sickly superficiality of physicalism, the proclamations are fraudulent. For example, in simply economic terms, those who smoke are not “costly” to the health system, e.g.,
DO NOT add www. to. velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2010/03/do-smokers-pay-their-way.html
DO NOT add www. to. dengulenegl.dk/economic_studies_cost_of_smoking_2011.pdf
3.
There was a presentation in the 1980s (see Godber Blueprint) at one of the World Conferences concerning the “cost of smoking” to the health system. There were no studies to that point. The presenter, who was partial to antismoking, concluded that smokers were not an additional cost. He also pointed out that these sorts of studies are highly arguable in that they rely on so many questionable assumptions. Obviously, the fanatics didn’t receive this presentation too well and simply disregarded it. For decades, they have been proclaiming that smoking/smokers are a burden to the health system, even though study after study over that time indicate that it is not true.
Through this fraudulent claim, the fanatics convinced governments to hike tobacco taxes to “cover” the extra medical services. Governments are only too happy to oblige; it means more money in the coffers. And the fanatics always insist that they should be given a cut of the extra taxes to continue “educating” the public, keeping them in comfortable employment. In the last decade, tobacco taxes have been hiked many times into the realm of compounded extortion. So inflated are the taxes that it’s impossible to hide the charade any longer.
Consider a recent “cost analysis” in Australia. Net health costs of tobacco-use was estimated at $318,400 (p.67). The net revenue from tobacco sales was $6,700,000 (p.38). The revenue from tobacco is 21 TIMES the extra cost of treating smokers. Even the extent of this “extra medical cost” is arguable, but we’ll leave that for another time. The difference is obscene.
Add www. to. nationaldrugstrategy.gov….ile/mono64.pdf
Governments and the fanatics that advised them aren’t going to come out and admit that they’ve severely overcharged smokers to the point of robbery. Given that the fantasy that smokers cost the health system can no longer be maintained, the fanatics do what they do regularly – they change the “argument” (storyline), i.e., shift the goalposts. NOW they argue, smokers [way] more than cover their additional health costs, but there are “other costs”. And the above report concocts around $32,000,000 of “other costs”. There isn’t time to consider how all these “other costs” are entirely arguable. However, the absurdity of the claims attracted some rare criticism.
Add www. to. theage.com.au/national/economists-challenge-healthist-view-of-smoking-alcohol-risks-20111221-1p5nl.html
Shifting the “storyline” or goalposts keeps the ideological fanatics happy (and they usually call for additional funding to help “educate” the public), Gigantic Pharma is happy because it can keep peddling and profiting from its essentially useless NRT wares. And the government is happy because it can claim that it needs to extort even more taxes from smokers. There is now a lucrative antismoker industry that did not exist 30 years ago. From part of the extortionate taxes, it is smokers that are financing a considerable portion of it: They are being forced to pay for their own persecution. It is a very sick, self-serving system. It can well be referred to as racketeering.
So, Stephen, what can be said from the above. What should be clear is that simple, erroneous, single-sentence claims that violate multiple principles/ideas are very easy to make. Attempting to untangle the mess they create can be very time consuming. For example, “there is no safe level of tobacco smoke”, “smokers die prematurely”, “smokers are addicts”, “the Chapman Trick”, “smokers are a burden to the health system”. Very simple to make these claims that are inflammatory and agenda-driven, and that are used to push questionable perspective and policy. And the fanatics are really good at these baseless, one-line slogans; they have many of them; they are constantly concocting them. They couldn’t care less if slogans are truthful. Their only interest is in their effectiveness in manipulating the public, the media, and, particularly, politicians into antismoking policy.
Then we have “for people who care about public health”. So, Stephen, although you and your buddies believe you have a monopoly on “care” and “health”, the superficial physicalist framework you are entrenched in is anything but healthy. Consider the plight of smokers, those who do not conform to supremacist edicts. They used to have a social life, their smoking was a background phenomenon. They had all sorts of friends. Then came the antismoking assault. They are depicted as “lesser” humans, potentially Saved® only by quitting smoking. Their outlets for engaging in normal society have all but been removed. They have been ostracized, leperized. Consider elderly smokers. They have lived a law-abiding, tax-paying life. They have raised children. Now in their old age, they have been made “abnormal”. It is an assault on the psyche. Consider the plight of smokers in nursing homes that have suddenly been told that they are no longer permitted to smoke in their apartments. They can only smoke outside in the freezing cold or face eviction. Consider university campus bans where students, particularly young women, are forced under fear of expulsion to venture many hundreds of meters in the dark to smoke in a designated outdoor area. Their immediate health is being jeopardized to play some deranged statistical game as to what may or may not occur 40, 50, 60, 70 years from now. Consider elderly patients who are forced to walk off entire hospital grounds in all weather to have a cigarette. Consider involuntary mental patients, who are not criminals, that are physically or chemically restrained rather than allow them to have a cigarette. Consider those who used to frequent their local pubs and bingo. Since the bans, they just stay home, i.e., alienation which is an independent risk factor for ill health. The pubs, a hub of community life, have been decimated and the community life with it. And what about nonsmokers who have been brainwashed into the irrational terror of smoke/smoking/smokers to advance the bigotry bandwagon?
It is long overdue to take a serious look at those that have created these ghastly situations. That they claim that they are “health promoters” and “care” about people’s health is testimony to their derangement. In chasing questionable statistical markers for longevity, they are brutalizing the act and art of living in the here and now; in attempting to “protect” people from what may be in 40, 50, 60, 70, years and which is ultimately unprotectable, they are jeopardizing people’s immediate multi-dimensional health; while they have people obsessed with disease and death, they are making every moment of living miserable. They are sickly, self-interested supremacists producing sickly, perverse circumstances.
Stephen, your declaration that you and your advisors “care about public health” and that those that do not agree with you must not care about public health is vulgar. There are metaphysical perspectives that would view the lives of Crapman, Daubster, et al as an utter waste with an eventual very-severe cost; they are fanatics that have spent not a moment on scrutinizing their beliefs, have done nothing to transcend their superficiality. Crapman et al might respond that they do not subscribe to these metaphysical systems and couldn’t care less what those beliefs are. To which the reply would be that, indeed, Crapman et al can live their lives as they see fit and believe what they will. But Crapman et al do not afford anyone such a contrary view. They do not say that their view will not be forced upon anyone, that all are free to live their lives as they see fit, even though it may be at variance with Crapman et al. Quite the contrary. Crapman et al believe that only they know care and health that must be imposed on all: Anyone who disagrees with them is “obviously” wrong. In that is the dangerous, superficial fanatic.
Patsy, you wrote, ” if these people get their way then like the Nazis burned books they didn’t like, peolle like bigoted smokerphobic Stanton Glanz would consign such great films to the dustbin never to be seen by another single living person just because they personally object to smoking scenes.”
They’re moving slowly but surely on this, trying to build up a public image of “parents are horrified when they take their children to a movie and see someone light up a cigarette!” You’ll get repeated crazy statements by people like Glantz and his friends working off of multimillion dollar SmokeFree Movies grants trying to equate 2 or 3 minutes of onscreen smoking with a terrorist dumping large amounts of Plutonium into London’s water supply. Eventually they know that the power of repetition and exaggeration WILL move public opinion to the point where they can demand R and X ratings for movies that even show a background glimpse of an ashtray in a scene (Believe it or not, that can be defined as a “smoking event” by these psychotic bean counters!)
They won’t outright BAN the old movies … just “improve them” by removing harmful images of drug addiction.
Wait’ll you see how great the new 15 minute version of Casablanca is!
– MJM
If Stephen Williams and the readers out there want proof that tobacco control is not about health look no further than this article I received today from the British Medical Journal, Tobacco Control blog, co written by Dr. Anna Gilmore. Dr. Gilmore was also co-author of a paper which said that the smoking ban had not led to the closure of pubs. That is the level of biased and inaccurate papers that emanate from her PC.
“How online sales and promotion of snus contravenes current European Union legislation”
Snus are 4mm square pouch that looks like a mini tea bag packed with tobacco and hence nicotine. It is placed on the upper gum and cheek. In the EU it is only legal in Sweden and ironically it was one of the conditions of entry to the EU that they stayed legal too.
Opponents of snus say that it leads to a oral cancer and maintains an “addiction” to nicotine and Gilmore’s paper complains that in the EU it is being circumvented by internet sales.
Sorry for the strong words but this opposition from the EU and the anti tobacco movement is a stain and disgrace. Snus are one of the most effective ways to not start smoking and one of the most effective ways to quite smoking. Sweden has half the smoking rate of the UK and half the lung cancer (LC) incidence. The current annual LC rate for the UK is 47.8 per 100,000 and Sweden 25.5 per 100,000.
“In 1998, the authors reported on one-year success rates from the first and only clinical trial using smokeless tobacco as a nicotine substitute. That study, which appeared in the American Journal of Medicine, reported quit rates of 31% among men and 19% among women using smokeless tobacco. (“Smoking cessation” was defined as self-reported smoking abstinence for the four weeks before contact.) Prior to that study, most participants (87.5%) had failed to quit with prescription nicotine products, and over one-half (56.3%) had used both nicotine patch and gum. The new research involves six additional years of data involving the same individuals.”
Does snus lead to any other higher incidence of other cancers? No.
“Abstract
Interest in snus (Swedish-type moist snuff) as a smoking alternative has increased. This wide-ranging review summarizes evidence relating snus to health and to initiation and cessation of smoking. Meta-analyses are included. After smoking adjustment, snus is unassociated with cancer of the oropharynx (meta-analysis RR 0.97, 95% CI 0.68-1.37), oesophagus (1.10, 0.92-1.33), stomach (0.98, 0.82-1.17), pancreas (1.20, 0.66-2.20), lung (0.71, 0.66-0.76) or other sites, or with heart disease (1.01, 0.91-1.12) or stroke (1.05, 0.95-1.15).
In conclusion and if you are reading this Stephen, you wonder why I have such a jaundiced opinion of tobacco control. When public rent seekers such as Dr. Anna Gilmore produce junk science of this magnitude and a regular invitee of your All Party Parliamentary Group On Smoking and health, do you wonder why I have such contempt?
The ‘quit or die’ approach is putting lives at risk. If harm reduction of smoking is to be achieved a fresh approach is imperative.
tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2012/01/21/tobaccocontrol-2011-050209.abstract?papetoc
info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/lung/incidence/#geog
smokersonly.org/research/seven_year_followup.html
.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21163315
“That’s an extract from the political section of one of the numerous profiles of me. It summarises what I have done in politics. You’ve left out the 17 year career in tax and business consultancy from 1988 to 2005. Unlike many MPs, I did work in a succession of “proper jobs” before becoming an MP and all of them were in the private sector. You’ve also left out all the personal information and background.”
In that case, I apologise.
Philippe Even was professor emeritus at University of Paris Descartes and the president of the Research Institute Necker, which is why his comments to Le Parisien have attracted so much attention.
leparisien.fr/abo-faitdujour/on-a-cree-une-peur-qui-ne-repose-sur-rien-31-05-2010-943934.php
velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2010/06/free-at-last.html
What do the studies on passive smoking tell us?
PHILIPPE EVEN. There are about a hundred studies on the issue. First surprise: 40% of them claim a total absence of harmful effects of passive smoking on health. The remaining 60% estimate that the cancer risk is multiplied by 0.02 for the most optimistic and by 0.15 for the more pessimistic … compared to a risk multiplied by 10 or 20 for active smoking! It is therefore negligible. Clearly, the harm is either nonexistent, or it is extremely low.
That’ll be the ‘overwhelming evidence’ they keep telling us about.
It is an indisputable scientific fact. Anti-tobacco associations report 3,000-6,000 deaths per year in France…
I am curious to know their sources. No study has ever produced such a result.
Many experts argue that passive smoking is also responsible for cardiovascular disease and other asthma attacks. Not you?
They don’t base it on any solid scientific evidence. Take the case of cardiovascular diseases: the four main causes are obesity, high cholesterol, hypertension and diabetes. To determine whether passive smoking is an aggravating factor, there should be a study on people who have none of these four symptoms. But this was never done. Regarding chronic bronchitis, although the role of active smoking is undeniable, that of passive smoking is yet to be proven. For asthma, it is indeed a contributing factor … but not greater than pollen!
The purpose of the ban on smoking in public places, however, was to protect non-smokers. It was thus based on nothing?
Absolutely nothing! The psychosis began with the publication of a report by the IARC, International Agency for Research on Cancer, which depends on the World Health Organization. The report released in 2002 says it is now proven that passive smoking carries serious health risks, but without showing the evidence. Where are the data? What was the methodology? It’s everything but a scientific approach. It was creating fear that is not based on anything.
Why would anti-tobacco organizations wave a threat that does not exist?
The anti-smoking campaigns and higher cigarette prices having failed, they had to find a new way to lower the number of smokers. By waving the threat of passive smoking, they found a tool that really works: social pressure. In good faith, non-smokers felt in danger and started to stand up against smokers. As a result, passive smoking has become a public health problem, paving the way for the Evin Law and the decree banning smoking in public places. The cause may be good, but I do not think it is good to legislate on a lie. And the worst part is that it does not work: since the entry into force of the decree, cigarette sales are rising again.
Why not speak up earlier?
As a civil servant, dean of the largest medical faculty in France, I was held to confidentiality. If I had deviated from official positions, I would have had to pay the consequences. Today, I am a free man.
Like
Be the first to like this post.
I’m posting this twice just to make sure this debate is finally put to bed. (The original posting is in response to Mike D.)
“(Deep, deep, yawn and sigh) As it happens the elements of Dave Atherton and Belinda’s Freedom to Choose did exist in 2005, but the group was indeed, not formally constituted until 2007. How do I know? I wrote their constitution.
The fledgling unconstituted organisation, however, was created by Bob Feal- Martinez and others from the hospitality industry in 2005 in order to combat damage to that industry. Initially, we had no knowledge of Rob Bulloch’s group, as even then it was something of a non-entity, hence the name Freedom to Choose was picked by coincidence. By the time we discovered the existence of the Bulloch group we had already, through one of our former members – Loraine McGregor – worked closely with members of the house of Lords to oppose a smoking ban and, in addition, decided to to pursue a judicial review of that ban and therefore, changing our name was hardly going to be practical.
So that’s why you have all this confusion. However, it still doesn’t alter that fact that the the Ron Bulloch organisation and the the Freedom the Choose everyone knows today are completely different organisations – always have been and always will be.
How do I know all these things? Because I was there when they happened.”
John Gray
(Director – TICAP)
Hi John
You state that you are a director of TICAP
TICAP’s website says “Freedom To Choose
Description
Freedom to Choose was founded in 2005 to oppose the introduction of a blanket smoking ban in the UK. We are a not for profit organisation funded solely by donations from our members, who come from all walks of life and are united in their determination to expose the myths about smoking that are eroding the freedom of British citizens.
We are a pro-choice organisation seeking accommodation of the needs of smokers and non-smokers alike to allow both to work and socialise in harmony. We can demonstrate that tolerant alternatives to a blanket smoking ban exist, are already working well in many other countries and that the majority of the UK population favour partial restrictions over a total ban.” It links to the freedom2choose.info website.
So, from what you said in your post, and what your TICAP site says, the current Freedom2choose was clearly in existence and operational in 2005. It seems extremely disingenuous and misleading to now claim that it wasn’t operating until an administrative procedure happened on 31st October 2007. By your own admission it clearly was
Freedom2choose version 1 was founded by tobacco supplier Rod Bullough in 2004.
Freedom2choose version 2 came into existence in 2005, and chose not to change its name once you discovered that an organisation of exactly the same name existed, and had links to the tobacco industry. Indeed, Rod Bullough, Head of Freedom2choose v1 was still giving interviews in November 2005 in his capacity as ‘Head of Freedom2choose” (Google “Rod Bullough Head of Freedom2choose” and you’ll find a link to an interview he gave in that capacity to the Mirror for an article on 7th November 2005). So both organisations seem to have co-existed, yet version 2 still chose to cling to the name.
What is it about the name that is so precious? I would love to know.
I do believe that the freedom2choose from 31 October 2007 receives no tobacco funding.
Can anyone answer if the organisation, or any of its members, are receiving advice, information, strategic counselling or similar non-financial support from anyone linked to the tobacco industry, its lobby groups or marketing groups with links to the tobacco industry?
People have been very good at denying that there is any financial support. To establish its credibility totally, I would have thought they would also want to deny that anyone in the group is getting any form of steer from anyone linked to the tobacco industry.
I for one am sure they aren’t, but there are some probably some cynics reading this discussion who aren’t so sure. There seems to be a lot of confusion about when you were formed, so why not use this opportnity to declare that your members are wholly free from any form of intellectual influence from tobacco companies and their lobbyists.
Mike D, Are you getting paid overtime for working on a Sunday?
John S, like freedom2choose (v2) I am not receiving payment for this.
John S, just out of interest, are YOU getting paid for posting here.
It seems fair to ask since you’ve raised the subject.
Mike D, I am not getting paid nor do I have any connection with the tobacco industry or any “freedom” group. I value my local corner-shop and do not wish to see it closed as my local pub was.
Well Mike you remind me of a 5 year old who thinks there are monsters in the wardrobe.
“Can anyone answer if the organisation, or any of its members, are receiving advice, information, strategic counselling or similar non-financial support from anyone linked to the tobacco industry, its lobby groups or marketing groups with links to the tobacco industry?”
No.
David Atherton
Chairman
Freedom2Choose
David Atherton, Chairman of freedom2choose (version 2?, 3? 4?)
I asked if anyone in your organisation could answer if any of it’s members were getting advice etc from tobacco industry groups on lobbying.
You replied No.
Is that
a) No, nobody can confirm that. ?
or is it
b) No, neither the organisation, or any of its members, are receiving advice, information, strategic counselling or similar non-financial support from anyone linked to the tobacco industry, its lobby groups or marketing groups with links to the tobacco industry.
At the time of me writing it appears to be 1.25 am in Perth, WA, the noises from the wardrobe must be deafening. In the morning can I suggest you get in touch with the Centre For Clinical Interventions: Psychotherapy, Research and Training:
223 James Street, Northbridge, WA, 6003.
Services include: “Another obstacle maybe the generally elevated wariness or suspiciousness that characterises those with paranoia.”
They may suggest you start a self help group, NPWDSBs or Normal People Who Dislike Smoking Bans.
“Mine name is Mike and I am an NPMDSB as only someone who is in the pay of Big Tobacco can be against anti BT measures, please help me.”
You are in a fantasy world if you think I’m an Australian.
Typical that you resort to insults rather than taking an opportunity to clearly state that members of your organisation are not taking advice on lobbying from people connected to the tobacco industry.
Why the obsession with payment? People don’t have to be paid to be puppets.
I am reluctant to engage with someone who is not giving their full name and interest in this debate.
Also is there any part of no you do not understand
I’ll take your ‘no’ to mean you refuse to take this opportunity to state that nobody in your organisation is taking advice on lobbying from people connected to the tobacco industry.
Stephen,
Now you have read the comments from people that have really researched the subject. have you any slight doubt that you might be wrong in your assertions. After all you’ve not actually rebutted any of the commenters points on this blog post, have you? If I was you I would be seriously be checking the facts and questioning what I’d been told.
But then again, I’m just an Engineer.
“people who quit smoking live longer. They have more productive and fulfilling lives.”
Well, I can understand why Stephen Williams is an MP. Anyone with an encyclopedic knowledge of the achievements, aspirations and psychological well-being of every single smoker and ex-smoker on the planet is clearly someone not to mess with.
“people who quit smoking live longer. They have more productive and fulfilling lives.”
I agree Rick S. I, for one, have a much more productive and fulfilling life as a smoker, far more so than as a non smoker!
As for giving up? As with anyone, the only way to succeed is to really WANT to give up. If the heart and MIND are not into the idea, no amount of willpower will work, never mind any amount of NRT or counselling.
Stephen, do you wish to keep babbling on about useless measures when we have this supposed situation?
[quote]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-16631926?
Lung emergencies at 10 year high[/quote]
With smoking rates supposedly dropping like a stone then it only leaves this dimwit government to consider air pollution!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/mar/11/britain-300m-fine-london-air-pollution
Any comments on a real problem Stephen? Any more moving of goalposts concerning non payment of fines to the EUSSR? Why worry about pretty coloured boxes when we are ALL getting ‘black lung’!
I know many considerate smokers. And I would credit the “anti smoking propaganda” that Dave Atherton and his Freedom 2 Choose mob hate and resent so much as being resposible for this. Before 2007 people including myself did not think twice about lighing up around others. I for instance used to smoke around my pregnant wife to my eternal shame, not dreaming about the chemicals I was exposing her to. Have you ever looked at the contents of real cigarettes and considered they contain arsenic, lead and formaldehyde, as well as radioactive substance polonium 210? And then tried to convince yourself the smoke doesn’t harm others? Madness!
They would go back to the good old days where bar staff and anyone else unfortunate enough to be sitting nearby them on a bus/ plane/ office/ restaurant have to be exposed to these chemicals for their precious freedoms.
Did any of you watch the Aldey Hey documentaries where a 20 a day smoker sat there with his asthmatic son with gromits and dismissed the evidence around smoke? It’s you folk who are the experts in pseudo science, as are the tobacco industry funded “civil liberarians” such as Forest who quite clearly wouldn’t be in it, fighting your selfish cause unless there was a great big fat tobacco industry paycheck at the end of it. Funded now from getting African kids hooked. Nice !
Freedom and rights depends very much on which side of the fence you are sitting.
Paul: “Have you ever looked at the contents of real cigarettes and considered they contain arsenic, lead and formaldehyde, as well as radioactive substance polonium 210? And then tried to convince yourself the smoke doesn’t harm others? Madness!”
Paul, you obviously don’t read other posts. You really should. You’re using the Chapman Trick which has been referred to in an earlier post. When you get past your sanctimonious episode, feel free to go and read it.
Just to be sure, the [smokefree] air we typically breathe has many of the same chemicals as in tobacco smoke, and more, and in higher concentrations.
Add www. to epa.gov/ttn/atw/nata/mapconc.html
Again, these chemicals are typically at trace levels and are not problematic.
If you do a google search, you’ll find similar chemicals in raw food and from cooking, and in drinking water.
Do NOT add www. to water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/index.cfm
Paul this paper comes from 1991 and looked at the amount of chemicals given out by cigarette smoke. The basis of the experiment was a room 100m3 sealed and unventilated. The narrative is chemical, output and the number of smokers required to reach danger levels. Let’s start with polonium.
Polonium, 0.4Csi and you have to be surrounded by 750,000 smokers
Toluene 1 1,000,000 smokers
Benzene 0.24 13,300 smokers
Nitrogen Oxides 2.8 1,780 smokers
Shall I go on?
prevention.ch/20465909330950.pdf
Paul it looks like ASH have sent you to put a few comments on. In the 1950s when smoking was at its highest, about 52% of the adult population smoked, now it is 21%. How come asthma and atopy (general allergic reactions) have risen by a factor of two or three fold? This is from the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
“50 years of asthma: UK trends from 1955 to 2004″
“Abstract
Trends in asthma indicators from population surveys (prevalence) and routine statistics (primary care, prescriptions, hospital admissions and mortality) in the UK were reviewed from 1955 to 2004. The prevalence of asthma increased in children by 2 to 3-fold, but may have flattened or even fallen recently.”
thorax.bmj.com/content/62/1/85.abstract
Here is the Mishra paper from 2008 which demonstrated that exposure to cigarette smoke actually reduces asthma.
“To ascertain the effects of nicotine on allergy/asthma, Brown Norway rats were treated with nicotine and sensitized and challenged with allergens. The results unequivocally show that, even after multiple allergen sensitizations, nicotine dramatically suppresses inflammatory/allergic parameters in the lung including the following: eosinophilic/lymphocytic emigration; mRNA and/or protein expression of the Th2 cytokines/chemokines IL-4, IL-5, IL-13, IL-25, and eotaxin; leukotriene C4; and total as well as allergen-specific IgE.”
jimmunol.org/content/180/11/7655.abstract
This is a 3 generation study from Sweden into asthma and exposure to passive smoking.
“Children of mothers who smoked at least 15 cigarettes a day tended to have lower odds for suffering from allergic rhino-conjunctivitis, allergic asthma, atopic eczema and food allergy, compared to children of mothers who had never smoked (ORs 0.6-0.7)
CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates an association between current exposure to tobacco smoke and a low risk for atopic disorders in smokers themselves and a similar tendency in their children.
.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11422156
This study is from New Zealand.
“Smoking linked to reduced allergic sensitization By David Holmes 21 January 2008 J Allergy Clin Immunol 2008; 121: 38-42
“MedWire News: Parental smoking during childhood and personal cigarette smoking in teenage and early adult life lowers the risk for allergic sensitization in those with a family history of atopy, according to the results of a study from New Zealand. Writing in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Robert Hancox (University of Otago, Dunedin) and colleagues explain that “the findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the immune-suppressant effects of cigarette smoke protect against atopy.” The authors write: “We found that children who were exposed to parental smoking and those who took up cigarette smoking themselves had a lower incidence of atopy to a range of common inhaled allergens. “These associations were found only in those with a parental history of asthma or hay fever.” They conclude: “The harmful effects of cigarette smoke are well known, and there are many reasons to avoid it.” Our findings suggest that preventing allergic sensitization is not one of them.”
.medwire-news.md/48/72330/Respiratory/Smoking_linked_to_reduced_allergic_sensitization_.htm
Sorry daveatherton, but your final link was missing the letter ‘l’ from the end thus resulting in a 404-error.
The correct link is, after adding the 3Ws of course:
.medwire-news.md/48/72330/Respiratory/Smoking_linked_to_reduced_allergic_sensitization_.html
I’m just surprised that the MP didn’t point that out after following up on it, interested as he is in scientific evidence and Liberal ideals.
Paul, have you ever looked at the contents of real food?
All very scary.
And radioactive bananas and other foods rich in potassium! All potassium and potassium compounds contain traces of the naturally occurring radioactive K40 isotope. Before the Anti-Tobacco alchemists took science back to the Middle Ages, this was demonstrated in schools using a banana and a Geiger counter. Such a demonstration today would probably result in mass hysteria in the classroom.
John S,
Well I found this quote.
Damn those smoke-free restaurants are dangerous places, best ban them. To protect the staff and the children, naturally.
“Have you ever looked at the contents of real cigarettes and considered they contain arsenic, lead and formaldehyde, as well as radioactive substance polonium 210?” – And just how do you think these femtoscopic amounts of these chemicals get into cigarettes? They are absorbed by the tobacco plant from the environment, as they are by ALL plants including your “healthy” five-a-day fruit and veg. BTW “Lethal” formaldehyde is naturally produced in our bodies as a part of our normal, everyday metabolism.
Paul:- “Have you ever looked at the contents of real cigarettes and considered they contain arsenic…..”
There is a well known maxim in toxicology that “the dose makes the poison.”
A scientific study showed that a person would have to spend an hour in a small room with 165,000 smokers, to inhale as much arsenic that you’d get in a large glass of water!
But of course, I wouldn’t expect you to know this, as tobacco control are very good at what they do, and what they want the general public to know, and not know.
It’s only by looking into things deeper, that you start to realise that folk are being misled and misinformed on a massive scale concerning the “dangers” of SHS.
They tell you, for instance that there’s 4000 chemicals in SHS, and try to make it sound oh, so scary….but what they don’t tell you is that only six of these are human cacinogens, and are no danger whatsoever!!…remember (the dose makes the poison!)
It will probably surprise you “normal” human breath contains over 3000 chemicals……….unless you’re a tobacco control zealot spouting constant bull**** in which case the numbers are far higher!!!
Sorry, not really interested in whatever a Chapman Trick is. Bottom line – many angry smokers – want to smoke wherever they want to and don’t like efforts to stop children smoking.
You claim to represent smokers but you only represent people acting in the interests of tobacco industry shareholders, whether you are funded by them or misguided into thinking you are protecting civil liberties.
If you want a cause worth fighting for, go and find out. There’s plenty out there rather than defending the most profitable corporations on eath.
Paul: “Sorry, not really interested in whatever a Chapman Trick is.”
Says it all. If it gives you a sense of superiority, just keep blathering the propaganda, Paul. And keep at your mind-reading as to what smokers want and don’t want; you’re bound to get something right eventually purely by chance. And you’re back on the mule, Paul, twirling the puffy “shill” accusation again. Paul, are you having a bad day?
“There’s plenty out there rather than defending the most profitable corporations on eath.”
Sorry, Paul, but you’re mistaken there as well. The two largest industrial complexes, which dwarf the tobacco industry, are 1. the military industrial complex, and 2. the medical industrial complex (including the gigantic pharmaceutical cartel).
Firstly Paul I do not believe you are/were a smoker.
One of the biggest stains from the anti smokers is blaming second hand smoke (SHS) on for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or cot deaths. It seems despite 20 years of nasty propaganda we finally have the reason. As usual science triumphs.
“SIDS Linked to Low Levels of Serotonin
ScienceDaily (Feb. 2, 2010) — The brains of infants who die of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) produce low levels of serotonin, a brain chemical that conveys messages between cells and plays a vital role in regulating breathing, heart rate, and sleep, reported researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health.”
“The researchers theorize that this newly discovered serotonin abnormality may reduce infants’ capacity to respond to breathing challenges, such as low oxygen levels or high levels of carbon dioxide. These high levels may result from re-breathing exhaled carbon dioxide that accumulates in bedding while sleeping face down. The findings appear in the Feb. 3 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
“We have known for many years that placing infants to sleep on their backs is the single most effective way to reduce the risk of SIDS,” said Alan E. Guttmacher, M.D., acting director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the NIH institute that funded the research. “The current findings provide important clues to the biological basis of SIDS and may ultimately lead to ways to identify infants most at risk as well as additional strategies for reducing the risk of SIDS for all infants.”
.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100202171811.htm
“One of the biggest stains from the anti smokers is blaming second hand smoke (SHS) on for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or cot deaths.”
Actually Dave, one of the most disgusting pieces of lying that pro-smoking lobbyists (amateur and professional) do is to try to pretend that smoking isn’t linked to Cot Death and SIDS. Here is good advice from an organisation whose only aim is to reduce the numbers of parents suffering this terrible tragedy; the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.
Smoking
Evidence from a very large number of studies worldwide consistently demonstrates that maternal smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of SIDS. The risk appears to be dose related. For example:
Risk of smoking
Cigarettes per day Odds ratio
1-10 2.6
11-20 2.8
>20 6.9
Cigarettes per day Odds ratio
1-9 4.25
10-19 6.49
>20 8.56
It has been suggested that if maternal smoking during pregnancy were eliminated, the SIDS rate would be reduced considerably – by 27%, 30%, 50% and by 30-40% in a population where 30% of mothers smoke. If these estimates are applicable to the current position in the UK, then over 100 babies a year could be saved, if no pregnant woman smoked.
Smoking during pregnancy is also associated with low birth weight, a factor linked to SIDS, but data from research studies shows that this does not explain its importance. Smoking still contributes to SIDS when allowance is made for a range of confounding factors such as maternal age, parity, marital status, education, breast feeding, sleeping position, family situation and sex of infant.
Some of the studies of SIDS and smoking during pregnancy make reference to the effects of smoking after birth on the risk of SIDS but it is difficult to distinguish between the effects of smoking during pregnancy and exposure to passive smoking after birth. There are studies which do link SIDS to exposure to passive smoking after birth. Studies also demonstrate an increased risk if the father also smokes. Considering mothers who smoke only after their baby is born shows that postnatal smoking is an independent risk factor but the small number of such mothers makes these studies difficult. The risk of SIDS is greatly increased by bed sharing when either parent smokes, even if they do not smoke in the bed. Parents who smoke should avoid sharing a bed with their infant.
FSID’s advice to parents is not to smoke during pregnancy or after birth; this also applies to fathers. Keep the baby out of smoky atmospheres. More detailed advice can be found in the FSID/Department of Health leaflet ‘Reduce the risk of cot death: an easy guide’.
“Fiddling those smoking figures again
Anti-smoking campaigners’ use of statistics has become ever wilder”
“This recalls the fashion some years back among anti-smoking campaigners for blaming passive smoking for the soaring incidence of cot deaths. The only snag was that the years between 1970 and 1988, when cot deaths shot up by 500 per cent, coincided with the very time when the number of adults who smoked in Britain was falling most sharply, from 45 to 30 per cent. To anyone but a fanatical anti-smoking campaigner,
this might have suggested that “environmental tobacco smoke” was unlikely to be the chief cause of cot deaths.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7530949/Fiddling-those-smoking-figures-again.html
Paul-yet again you are talking utter drivel! Children who want to try a cigarette will most certainly find a way of sampling a cigarette. Conversely, those who have no interest in smoking/cigarettes whatsoever will not try a cigarette.
Your statement : “want to smoke wherever they want to and don’t like efforts to stop children smoking.” is also utter drivel. The fury of the smoking brigade is mainly due to the fact that Blairs administration failed to allow choice for smokers & non smokers; ie, allowing licensees choice would have been a start. Many pubs would still be open for business thus many ex licensees saved the indignity of ‘signing on;, losing their home, poverty & bankruptcy. You are obviously one of those silly people who thinks that total obliteration is the only answer but look ahead to the future of this country and try to be realistic. Having already wasted approx £19bn on this idiotic crusade (which has not seen any great reduction in smoking prevalence), how much more do YOU think we ought to waste? At the end of the day pretty coloured packets etc make absolutely no difference-flavour (apparently) does and I don’t know one smoker who advocates his/her children or any other children to take up smoking!
“… the most profitable corporations on eath.” Now i would have thought that the pharmaceutical industry weren’t too far behind-given the massive funding, to buy favour, they dish out!
Dave Atherton – I did not mention cot death which has small (but still significant) numbers of smoking related mortalities compared to the very large number of respiratory conditions in children. I thought my post was clear in talking about gromits and asthma….perhaps you’d benefit from reading properly.
You’ve been quite clear in threatening others who disagree with you with legal action, yet are quite happy in calling other people a liar.
By the way, love the website. You must all be so proud of your shoplifting chef friend! I can only imagine the way you CRINGED when that came out!!!!
Paul, take a deep breath before you blow an antismoking gasket.
Think happy thoughts.
Sing along with me, Paul:
Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur,
Ta-ta ta-ta taa taa [don’t know the words], purr, purr, purr.
Better?
How about this?
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear;
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair;
Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t Fuzzy….. Wuzzy?
Cheap snide remark. Maybe we should all be so proud of our troughing friends in Parliament who even complain about their subsidised food bought with their generous expenses . Or maybe those who enjoy a generous income when producing headline grabbing statistics that prove to be total garbage when compared to official annual statistics.
Antony Worrall-Thompson is a Patron of Forest, not Freedom2Choose.
However while criminals should face the full majesty of the law and Worrall-Thompson was quite wrong, he has been a good friend to smokers.
As Jesus said, you without sin may cast the first stone. To err is human, to forgive divine.
Paul dear boy, you really are a card! You’ve debased yourself completely by referring to “AWT”, trumpeting his shoplifting as a slur on anti prohibitionists but you obviously didn’t do as i have, and that is to check which organisation AWT has sworn allegiance to! SOPAC is an offshoot of FOREST and absolutely nothing to do with “freedom2choose” according to my miniscule research but then I may be wrong on that-very doubtful indeed!
However Paul, trawling the internet has given me the opportunity whereby you can partially atone for one of your numerous sins as one website ( http://smokersjustice.co.uk/ ) are looking for donations to keep a man, who has seen the legal process use every twist & turn to thwart him, from spending 47 days in jail for smoking a legal product of which the government happily steals in excess of 80% of the purchase price! I’m sure with all your public spirited finances Paul you’ll be more than happy to chuck £50 in the pot! 🙂
And you still haven’t answered my previous comments either! intolerable of you dear boy.
I have no problem being a friend to smokers. Having smoked (a few a week and more with booze rather than regular) and still with a lot of friends who do so, I dislike people who turn their nose up at them and make unkind remarks. My eight year old son is currently going through the zealot stage because of the smell and I have had to chide him for making comments at people smoking in doorways, as neither myself nor my wife believe in lecturing 8 yrs olds about public health. Smoking does smell but you don’t realise this until you stop.
However, I do have a problem with smokers whose right to smoke their chosen product is not in question, but whose role in life is to try to stamp on iniitatives aimed at turning young people off smoking because they feel their rights somehow oppressed. Would the tobacco companies spend so much money on branding if it didn’t work?
Paul,
I remember when I was a kid my parents buying plain packaged food from the super markets, you know the really cheap stuff. As a kid I had no problem identifying what plain package biscuits came in compared to plain package bog roll and helping myself to the biscuits. I did not think to myself “those biscuits come in plain packaging I don’t think I’ll bother eating them”. I just ate them anyway. Yummy.
There are so few outlets that tobacco companies may legally use to promote their products now. I’m guessing of course but I daresay any accountant employed by tobacco companies will advise tobacco companies to spend just in order to reduce their tax liability.
I don’t think that the mere fact that tobacco companies spend money on something means that it ‘works’, still less that it ‘works’ exactly as anti-tobacco activists would like to think that it does. Even if it ‘works’ I doubt whether it ‘works’ solely to encourage the young to smoke. It didn’t tempt me when I was young.
Belinda, if you really believe that tobacco companies just make the packets pretty to avoid paying tax, why are you objecting to this proposal?
In effect you’re just arguing for everyone to pay more tax to subsidise the tobacco industry.
Mike D, I simply don’t understand how you get from a to b.
Brand packaging is an integral part of presenting products to the market. It’s not done to tempt kids to take up the product, be it baked beans or maltesers. That is not its purpose though of course some kids find bright colours attractive but this doesn’t mean that they will like to consume the product. Its done to make abundantly clear to consumers which product it is, and it is absolutely their business to know what they are buying. Design is the way to make this clear to the naked eye.
It is surely clear that without distinctive design features to distinguish the products, the main driver will be price.
I have no idea where you think I believe everyone else’s taxes come into it. But you’re wrong anyway.
“Mike D, I simply don’t understand how you get from a to b. ”
Simple, I read your silly comment.
Paul wrote – “but whose role in life is to try to stamp on iniitatives aimed at turning young people off smoking because they feel their rights somehow oppressed”
You just haven’t got it!
There’s hardly a single piece of anti-smoking legislation that has achieved what it suggested it might. For all the hassle caused by the ban there’s been no reduction in smoking levels; in fact quite the opposite.
Price hikes have created a larger black market of smuggled and counterfeit tobacco products.
Free NRT patches for the young has created a craze of an extra high when wearing a patch and smoking as well.
Etc – etc.
Initiatives and fine words are one thing but when it is blatantly obvious that there is no independent, unbiased evidence in support of a measure or that many downsides have been ignored there needs to be dialogue. Tobacco control will not allow this and put themselves above democracy.
Has anyone noticed? Paul, the troll, has succeeded! In the first place, he is getting lots of attention, and, in the second place, he has changed the subject several times – a classic troll trick. Better to ignore completely, but, if you must answer him, do so in the third person. It is true that tobacco smoke has a fragrance, but it is not the fragrance which non-smokers do not like (although they think that), it is the irritation. But irritiation only occurs in ‘smoke filled rooms’, it does not occur in decent sized rooms with ventilation. Prior to the full ban in Spain last year, it was quite noticeable in the pub which I frequent there that lots of people smoked, but there was no haze at all. But what we notice about Paul the troll’s last comment is the thinly disguised re-introduction of ‘the stink’.
The debate is: “Do the colourings on (hidden) tobacco packets cause young people to take up smoking?”
Since there is no rational argument that says that this is true, then we must seek for the real intentions in Tobacco Control for this measure. My opinion is that they want control legally established of tobacco packets. The control of tobacco packaging has been one of the aims of The Framework Convention from the beginning:
Non-price measures to reduce the demand for tobacco, namely:
Protection from exposure to tobacco smoke;
Regulation of the contents of tobacco products;
Regulation of tobacco product disclosures;
Packaging and labelling of tobacco products;
Education, communication, training and public awareness;
Tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship; and,
Demand reduction measures concerning tobacco dependence and cessation.
From the Framework Convention, Foreword Page v:
Click to access 9241591013.pdf
The WHO (in collusion with Big Pharma and possibly with Big Tobacco as well) has it all planned out including the shift of tobacco sales to the black market who.int/tobacco/en/atlas38.pdf
But as Pr. Robert Molimard, who has studied tobacco and tobacco addiction throughout his career, has wisely opined :
”The problem is that if the tobacco industry exists it is because it responds to a demand. If tobacco has spread around the world since Christopher Columbus, during an era when there was no other means of advertising than word of mouth and when tobacco was cultivated by primitive means, it is because there is something attractive about the product that causes people to crave for it. The industry responded to the demand, it did not create it. If the industry were to disappear, the demand would remain and would require to be fulfilled. And it would be fulfilled. Multinationals would be investing their money in tax havens, where they would fund an offshore production in some underdeveloped nation. Cigarettes would be distributed through organized criminal networks, fueling underground commerce and auxiliary crimes in the process. No quality control could ever be achieved. Control could only be dealt with through the police and corruption would inevitably creep in. For these reasons, the fundamentalist anti-tobacco crusaders are a true danger to social balance and public health.”
The link for the above is : cagecanada.blogspot.com/2010/12/beliefs-manipulation-and-lies-in.html
MikeD, as usual with Antismokers you play cleverly with words while hoping to lure your opponents into a trap. Thus: your question to DaveA asking him to confirm that none of F2C’s members “are receiving advice, information, strategic counselling or similar non-financial support from anyone linked to the tobacco industry, its lobby groups or marketing groups with links to the tobacco industry.”
Two points on this:
1) Obviously Dave has no way of absolutely confirming that no one who has ever joined F2C and sent them ten pounds or whatever receives any financial support from groups like newssellers or pharmacies that sell smokes etc and could, loosely, like a vending machine guy, be labled as “a marketing group with a link to the tobacco industry.” If Dave answers, “No.” and you’re able to dig out some crazy example like that, then you could go on parade and flaunt how you caught the leadership of F2C “lying and covering up its paid tobacco connections.” You know quite well what you’re doing Dave, and you may think it’s subtle… but it’s not subtle enough.
2) Even without the question of financing, you could play a similar card with your insertion of “receiving … information … from anyone linked to the tobacco industry.” This could, if stretched and distorted by an Antismoker such as yourself, include someone reading “Smoking Kills” on a pack of cigarettes since that is indeed “information from the tobacco industry.”
“Oh, Gee! I would NEVER make such crazy claims!” you might say, MikeD. Perhaps you’d stick with saner claims like saying that two minutes of smoking in a movie is “the same as dumping a bunch of plutonium in the water supply.” Of course THAT statement was made by someone far more ‘responsible’ than an anonymous internet poster… it came from “Dr.” Stanton Glantz, the “Dr.” of mechanical engineering, and the recipient of on the order of tens of millions of dollars of antismoking grants.
Mike, I think you are suffering from something called ASDS: “AntiSmoking Dysfunction Syndrome.” You can read more about it and get some hints on recovering from it at:
http://wispofsmoke.net/recovery.html
Best of luck with it, and try not to give the guys in the white coats too hard a time. You can explain how you’ve “helped” them by forbidding them and their patients from smoking on the psych hospital’s grounds and maybe they’ll give you “special treatment.”
– MJM
Can David not speak for himself?
And why do pro-smoking lobbyists (amateur and professional) think that everyone who doesn’t agree with you is mentally ill?
This discussion is about a proposal to remove branding from cigarette packets. And pro-smoking posters are willing to try to obscure the very well evidenced link between smoking and SIDS/Cot Death in their desperate efforts to block this measure.
Do you, MJM, believe that there is no link between smoking and SIDS/Cot Death?
SIDS is cryptogenic.
What has that got to do with plain packaging?
Babies can hardly recognise any kind of packaging let alone plain cigarette
packages.
What is the link?
You are conflating the aims tobacco control industry with cryptogenic cot deaths.
Show us your evidence between plain packaging and SIDS.
Thanks.
A TROLL!!!
MikeD ignored the vast majority of my post and points, as expected from a troll, but I found this interesting: “And why do pro-smoking lobbyists (amateur and professional) think that everyone who doesn’t agree with you is mentally ill?”
Not everyone Mike. As you’d know if you’d read my book, Antismokers come in many stripes, colors, and smells. Some are simply greedy, some are just brainwashed, some have various degrees and types of mental illness, etc. you struck me as one of the type suffering from ASDS, thus the suggestion.
there are a few problems with the cot death hypothesis: including this:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7530949/Fiddling-those-smoking-figures-again.html
‘This recalls the fashion some years back among anti-smoking campaigners for blaming passive smoking for the soaring incidence of cot deaths. The only snag was that the years between 1970 and 1988, when cot deaths shot up by 500 per cent, coincided with the very time when the number of adults who smoked in Britain was falling most sharply, from 45 to 30 per cent. To anyone but a fanatical anti-smoking campaigner, this might have suggested that “environmental tobacco smoke” was unlikely to be the chief cause of cot deaths.’
why do people who don’t agree with tobacco control think everyone who disagrees with them is either a right-wing libertarian or a ‘stooge’, paid lackey or otherwise ‘useful idiot’ in relation to the tobacco industry?
Doesn’t make for very constructive dialogue, does it?
Paul, you ask, “Would the tobacco companies spend so much money on branding if it didn’t work?” in relation to “young people smoking.”
You could pose a similar question with regard to Guinness Stout, Harp Ale, Budweiser, and Dom Perignon Champagne. Do you think any of them might object to “branding initiatives” that would force them into being “Beer X” and “Bubble Wine Q” in nice brown packaging? Do you think their objections would be because they wanted “young people” to drink?
You live in a strange world Paul.
– MJM
Again, as regards the ‘Framework Convention….’, I discovered that it was signed by an official from the Foreign Office, which suggests to me that no minister of the UK actually gave much thought to it. I wonder if the Treaty would have been signed if the Government had known at the time just what was involved – the loss of sovereignty, the persecution, the cost, the unintended consequences. AND ALL FOR NOTHING! Few people who enjoy tobacco have stopped enjoying tobacco, even though they might have stopped smoking in theory (usually for financial reasons). Despite all the hysterical claims of ASH ET AL, smoking prevalence has gone up. Despite the claims of the Border Agency to have confiscated billions of fags and tons of tobacco (supposedly ‘smuggled’, when they are, in fact, the ‘bona fide’ purchases of travellers in the EU), smoking prevalence has gone up. Tobacco Control interpret this to mean that the screw of persecution must be tightened further and even more billions of pounds spent (mostly on their salaries).
I call on politicians everywhere to grasp the nettle. Refuse to believe that children are harmed by SHS – it is simply untrue, except, remotely, those children who are already ill, in which case the parents will already be aware of the problem. Where is the need for State interference?
Here is an excerpt from the Royal College of Physicians report (2010) on ‘Passive Smoking in Children’:
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Methods
4.3 Sudden infant death syndrome
4.4 Lower respiratory infection
4.5 Wheeze and asthma
4.6 Middle ear infection
4.7 Lung function
4.8 Meningitis
4.9 Confounding
4.10 Summary
That is just and excerpt from the report contents (no need to go into detail here).
I have highlighted two items.
Sudden Infant Death.
A new report has found that ‘Sudden Infant Death’ is most likely to be caused by a) seratonin deficiency (seratonin is involved in the auto-breathing mechanism), and b) re-breathing CO2, when a baby is lying on its tummy, due to bed-clothes acting like a mask.
Tobacco smoke irrelevant.
Meningitis.
Deaths from meningitis are extremely rare:
http://www.meningitisuk.org/meningitis/disease/surveillance/disease-trends.htm
Looking through the causes of death ONS statistics, I did not find a single death from meningitis in 2010. Also, meningitis is caused by either a virus or a bacterium. How can smoke cause a viral or bacterial infection? In very, very rare cases, it is remotely possible that tobacco smoke had a minor part to play in creating the conditions for the infection (remember that we all carry the bacteria around with us all the time, but are rarely troubled by them), but, there again, the stats are so uncertain that any number of other conditions could apply at the same time. For example, did any researchers check for the simple fact of dampness in bed-clothes?
No, smoking has nothing directly to do with meningitis.
Asthma.
For heavens sake! As smoking prevalence has declined, asthma prevalence has increased! Besides which, there are studies which have shown that asthma is significantly less present in children whose parents smoke!
So the reality is that the WHO, Tobacco Control EU, ASH ET AL, etc are just fabricating evidence. How are the getting away with it? Well…the reason is that there is no organisation charged with responsibility to hold them to account. None at all.
What is the answer?
In my opinion, a commission ought to be set up to look into this very important matter – from all perspectives (after all, some 10,000,000 people are currently being persecuted in the UK), but without any members of ASH ET AL, or Big Tobacco or Big Pharm being members of the commission. Nor any health zealots. A couple of judges, a couple of physicists, a couple of statisticians, a couple of engineers, etc. NO HEALTH ZEALOTS.
Tobacco Control fixed things up so that they had a clear field to do their worst. But, as Marx (or was it Lenin or someone else?) said: “There is thesis then anti-thesis then synthesis”
Junican, I was doing some research a while back on an Australian study supposedly relating children developing “Brain Fever” to either second or thirdhand smoke. The report basically warned against letting smokers touch your children unless you’d put them through the decontamination showers first.
I had to dig a bit, but eventually got some numbers on the problem and, if I’m remembering correctly, found that, even if their claims were 100% true, they were talking about one child out of every three MILLION developing this problem! And this risk is being presented to the public as being serious enough to warrant denying those three million children years of warm loving hugs from their evil smoking parents.
That’s the kind of evil that we’re fighting out there.
– MJM
Well Stephen, your blog has certainly gained a lot of attention.
We’re not nutters. We’re concerned citizens who hate exaggeration/spin especially when it comes to initiatives from paid anti-smoking zealots benefiting from an ever increasing financial bandwagon. We believe the proposed measures will, at best, have no effect but unfortunately, like many previous demands will be counter productive.
As an ex teacher I can assure you that many PHSE lessons were met with ridicule yet as a sinful, not now allowed an opinion, smoker I explained from a position of experience that smoking might not be a good option. I was a damned sight more effective than the propaganda they ridiculed.
Thanks to ASH etc and the Framework of Tobacco Control I am now the enemy in their war against tobacco and not allowed an opinion.
Gentle sensible advice lowered the smoking rate from the post war height yet the massive use of billions of pounds to fund smoking hatred has reversed that decline.
As a student of history you should know that compulsion is an illiberal and ineffective tool used by dictators to little effect and as a current MP you must accept we have no financial capacity to fund such idealism.
Thank you giving the enemy the chance to put alternative views to yours and I hope you, unlike Tobacco Control, will realize that an informed public can add to discussion even when we are ‘reliably’ informed ‘the discussion is over’ and more importantly play a useful part of this Country’s development.
BTW when did ‘the discussion’ take place? No smoker I know was involved.
Stephen, considering that MPs are perceived to be expense-fiddling, “nose in the trough”, generally corrupt and self-serving, shouldn’t you have to wear a paper bag on your head and a khaki-coloured, ill-fitting shellsuit? And shouldn’t you be known as “Parasite #378”? We can’t allow “the children” to have aspirations to become a politician, can we?
Some disgusting inferences by the tobacco trolls/lobbyists that smoking has nothing to do with SIDS/Cot Death.
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths are extremely clear about this – since the vast majority of parents took advice to sleep their babies on their backs the numbers of these terribly tragic incidents fell, but smoking vastly increases the risk of it happening.
The Foundation believes that a further hundred fewer cases would happen in the UK if parents didn’t smoke when pregnant and kept their babies free from exposure to smoke in infancy.
What relevance has this to plain packets? None.
But it has significant relevance to the credibility of the people posting on here about the evidence that plain packets will or won’t be effective in reducing the number of kids who’ll start to smoke.
If the tobacco trolls/lobbyists are prepared to either lie or post their gross misunderstandings about the links between smoking and SIDS/Cot Death, how can anyone trust their opinions on plain packets?
Just in case you missed it.
“Fiddling those smoking figures again
Anti-smoking campaigners’ use of statistics has become ever wilder”
“This recalls the fashion some years back among anti-smoking campaigners for blaming passive smoking for the soaring incidence of cot deaths. The only snag was that the years between 1970 and 1988, when cot deaths shot up by 500 per cent, coincided with the very time when the number of adults who smoked in Britain was falling most sharply, from 45 to 30 per cent. To anyone but a fanatical anti-smoking campaigner,
this might have suggested that “environmental tobacco smoke” was unlikely to be the chief cause of cot deaths.”
telegraph.co.uk/comment/7530949/Fiddling-those-smoking-figures-again.html
Dave Atherton, Chairman of Freedom2choose. The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths don’t have an ax to grind – you and your pro-smoking cronies do.
That’s why you seem happy to try to obscure the facts about the impact of smoking on SIDS/Cot Death.
FSID are confident that their evidence shows that 100 cases could be prevented each year in the UK if people followed their advice on smoking in pregnancy and aound babies.
100 babies that will continue to die each year if people believe you instead of them.
Perhaps MikeD feels that the National Public Affairs Director of the SIDS Alliance, Phipps Y. Cohe, is a tobacco troll? Here’s an excerpt from a letter he sent on December 4th, 1996to John Banzhaff, the founder of ASH on our side of the ocean.
====
The sensational heading for one of your recent Internet reports [07/30] “Smoking Parents Are Killing Their Infants” has gone too far. The fact is, researchers still do not know what causes SIDS…Insensitive generalisations about SIDS broadcast through print or the electronic media serve only to perpetuate the public’s misconceptions…Your literature states that smoking ‘kills more than 2,000 infants each year from SIDS.’ Any published figures are sheer speculation, or guesses, not grounded in actual experimentation…we respectfully request that you adjust your message as far as SIDS is concerned.While we support your cause, we can not do so at the expense of the tens of thousands of families we represent. Thank you for your consideration of our concerns. A copy of our latest information brochure is enclosed.
We welcome your reply
===
The SIDS Alliance of course got no satisfactory reply from the Antismokers, nor did they change what they had said on their website. The truth means nothing to them. Abusing our love of our children is far too important a weapon in their arsenal.
– MJM
Michael
Don’t you have anything new on this issue, and from the UK? USA is a different country. Since 1996 a lot has happened and the numbers of cases in the UK have fallen significantly.
Have a look at what the modern UK organisation says on the subject then come and tell us that there is not a problem with mothers smoking while they are pregnant.
Have a look at what the modern UK organisation says on the subject then come and tell us that there is not a problem with people smoking around babies.
I dare you.
From the introduction to a SIDS-ETS epidemiological study:
“Epidemiological studies have identified a large number of factors that are associated with
SIDs.Other than prone sleeping position, these factors include the use of soft mattresses, overheating, head covering, season, having had a recent illness (gastro-intestinal
as well as respiratory), complications of pregnancy, low birthweight, premature birth, not
being immunised, male sex, central nervous system abnormalities, lack of breast-feeding,
using a pacifier, sharing a bed with the parents, intrauterine growth retardation, alcohol
consumption and illicit drug use by the mother during pregnancy, young age of the mother,
no pre-natal care, size of family, race, the mother’s education, and socio-economic status.”
More recent studies have suggested increased risks associated with the mother’s caffeine consumption, maternal depression (both pre-and post-natal), lack of air circulation, air pollution (other than ETS), twin births……………………
How does the funding and level of other resources for research into all these other suspected factors compare to those provided from the overflowing Anti-Smoking coffers? And, on that subject, what were the corresponding figures for “claiming” cervical cancer as a “smoking-related” condition against those for research into the HPV virus?
1.
Over the last three decades, antismoking fanaticism has produced many abominable claims. And right up there in the abominable category is the claim that SHS “causes” SIDS.
SIDS in particular presents a peculiar situation. Unlike other mortality, it has no identified disease precondition. It is a syndrome defined by exclusion rather than demonstrable, specific pathology. When no other pathology explanation is possible, it is labeled as the unexplained category of SIDS: “SIDS is defined as the sudden death of an infant under 1 year of age that cannot be explained after a thorough case investigation, including a complete autopsy, examination of the death scene, and review of the clinical history…”
If there is any “positive” in the circumstance is that SIDS is rare. There has been much research into SIDS producing a very long list of risk factors. The problem is that, given that SIDS is rare, is that, in Relative Risk assessments, the baseline is small, barely above zero. Even RRs of 5.0 – or even 10.0 or more – don’t necessarily mean anything because they are multiplications of a tiny baseline.
The implication of SHS in SIDS is extremely poor. For example, the incidence of SIDS in Japan is extremely low despite there being a high incidence of smoking and SHS exposure. Further, the incidence of SIDS in the West began to increase as smoking prevalence was decreasing.
There are far, FAR more mechanistically plausible causes of SIDS than SHS, e.g., accidental smothering while the infant is sharing a bed with parents. In the case of accidental smothering, underlying causation, in mechanistic terms, is completely understood. In such cases, SIDS is not SIDS. There is clearly definable underlying causation that has nothing to do with a “mystery” syndrome.
Add www. to knoxnews.com/news/2007/dec/22/scripps-study-sids-focuses-accidental-suffocation/
2.
The idea of SHS “causing” SIDS has been pushed by antismoking fanatics. Advocacy/activist groups (including the Office of the Surgeon-General) can essentially say whatever they want, however outrageous. They are not held to account because no-one is compelled to pay attention to any of their claims. But the fanatics keep pushing these causal claims as if they are definitive.
Pushing the idea of SHS “causes” SIDS is particularly repugnant in attempting to force antismoking conformity. In the case of SHS and SIDS all sides of the causal equation are, and remain, unknown – even after [baseless] “causal attribution”. According to the antismoking fanatics, an unknown attribute(s) of highly-dilute remnants of tobacco smoke produces an unknown condition through an undefined process that results in mortality. Such a proposition is only delusional – preposterous. This is not causal explanation: It is derangement. It is nothing short of staggering that such claims are even given cursory consideration let alone incoherently elevated to the status of “definitiveness.”
There is a respect for grieving parents where, for example, accidental smothering is suspected. There is an attempt to protect them from further grief by not belaboring the causal point, if mentioning it at all. But not so the antismoking fanatics. If they suspect that smoking had occurred somewhere in the vicinity of a SIDS case, they come out firing, utterly sure in their “causal understanding” of the situation, fingers wagging, obsessed with making as many repetitions of blame as possible. Again, this says nothing of the propensities of SHS, but indicates the depth of depravity of antismoking fanaticism.
We can even go further back to the fanatics’ predecessors and some of their baseless, inflammatory claims:
“Early in the 1900’s it was some church groups (e.g., Methodist Episcopal Church’s Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and Public Morals) that considered nicotine as a “killer of babies.” The “controversy” was picked up by the New York Times in two stories. In one story it was claimed that 40 babies from a New York maternity hospital “suffered from tobacco heart caused by the cigaret smoking of their mothers.” In the other it was claimed that “sixty percent of all babies born of cigaret-smoking mothers die before they reach the age of two, due primarily to nicotine poisoning.” (Journal of the American Medical Association, 1929, p.123) The American Tobacco Trust was viewed by the church board as “conscienceless baby-killers” that by promoting cigarettes to women were directing a “lying murderous campaign.””
Mike D, while you blather about “disgusting inferences”, let’s consider your conduct on this comments board. You have contributed absolutely nothing of value to the discussion. You have not addressed one point of antismoker duplicity that demonstrates a pattern for the current derangement of plain packaging. Rather, you have slithered in and out, flinging [baseless] accusations of “tobacco industry connection”, opting to repeatedly push this baseless line even after your inane questions were reasonably addressed. It should be obvious to a pumpkin that you’re using the standard antismoking tactic – smear the opposition as “shills” of the [evil] tobacco industry and, therefore, anything that said “shills” say about plain packaging – or anything – should be dismissed as another tobacco industry “conspiracy”. It is your conduct that is repugnant.
If this stupidity wasn’t enough, you then lowered the depravity-bar once more, if that’s possible. You take-up the emotive SIDS issue, accusing anyone questioning the antismoking [propaganda] view as “disgusting inferences by the tobacco trolls/lobbyists”. You then cite an advocacy group’s view of SHS and SIDS (although you provide no link), a group which is obviously caught in the antismoking hysteria of the time, as definitive evidence for a “causal” association.
And why has Mike D gone down this track? It is the act of a fanatics’ utter desperation. Let’s have one more shot at smearing they who dare question the antismoking faith, surmises Mike. There’s Mike D’s puny mind working in overdrive. Well, claims Mike D, “If the tobacco trolls/lobbyists are prepared to either lie or post their gross misunderstandings about the links between smoking and SIDS/Cot Death, how can anyone trust their opinions on plain packets?” And he hoped that would be the last comment on this board. Pathetic!
Mike D, it is YOU that has been making the disgusting inferences, ad nauseam. There have been many examples posted on this board of the delinquent, self-serving, fraudulent conduct of the antismoking brigade. You can attempt to smear away. It ain’t going to make any difference. The evidence is clear – the antismoking conduct is perverse. Anyone reading this board should get a good insight into the depraved antismoking mentality that has dictated proceedings for the last three decades. Question their sick conduct and they go scurrying. Others return in their place attempting to smear the questioners as tobacco industry “shills”, an “affliction”, a “tainting”, that supposedly renders all their questioning void. Well, Mike D – and your buddies, you haven’t had a leg to stand on in your vulgar smear campaign. You’ve been shown up for the foolish, morally destitute person you are.
Every move you make brings tobacco to the forefront of childrens’ minds. They must think it’s wonderful stuff if so much fuss is made about it, and it is kept under the counter. It was realised in the last century that a conspiracy of silence about sex made it an ever more attractive forbidden fruit to youngsters, and that the solution was to treat the subject in a frank and honest way. But anti-smokers wouldn’t understand that, would they?
Belinda wrote, “why do people who don’t agree with tobacco control think everyone who disagrees with them is either a right-wing libertarian or a ‘stooge’, paid lackey or otherwise ‘useful idiot’ in relation to the tobacco industry?”
Belinda, as Dr. Siegel has pointed out from his years of working as our version of “The Insider,” and also as testified to by the various planning handbooks you can find on the net, it’s a planned propaganda trick. Americans don’t like “big evil conniving corporations,” particularly not when those BECCs threaten “The Children.” As you can see in the present battle about plain packaging, “The Children” are thrown forward as the crux of their argument.
And that’s one of the things that has always most roused my anger at the Antismoking Crusade: their use and abuse of our love for our children: you see it either blatantly or simmering just beneath the surface in every campaign that’s poured out of their “World Conferences” of the last 35 years.
For that abuse alone people should reject them.
– MJM
It seems that the fanatics own The Children™, Youth©, TRUTH®, Health™.
Oops….. I forgot, they also own Benevolence®, Infallibility®, and Omniscience©.
Ah, sorry….. there’s more. They also own CARE®, Saving Lives™, and MORALITY®.
And….. a few more. They own GOOD™ and Protect©.
Just one more. They also own THE MONEY’S ALL MINE™.
And the irony of it all? Not one of them calls for a legal age to possess and use tobacco. They mislead the public thinking that there is a legal smoking age referring to the law that kids are not allowed to buy tobacco or rather adults are not allowed to sell it to them. As if not being allowed to buy it has ever stopped kids from getting their hands on tobacco through their older peers or siblings or even their parents! The bottom line is that if there was an official legal smoking age, which is the first coherent thing a government can do to prove their good faith that it’s all about the children, the crusaders would lose their precious ”for the children” card that they like to wave every time they want to institute a law.
Well said. It’s a no brainer, isn’t it? And the same could easily be applied to alcohol as well.
Children are being used as political pawns. Tantamount to abuse (for want of a better word).
For God’s sake, Mr Williams, just mind your own business and leave us alone. And, were you to ask, no, I don’t smoke.
Q Why was freedom to choose set up?
A “It was set up by Feal-Martinez in 2005 who was a Swindon publican, and he is still is as far as I am aware. I think he wanted to do something that was quite separate from FOREST. This was 2004, 2005 when the pub smoking ban was due to come in. Like a lot of the people, before we had taken the smoking ban in good grace, because there was always the pub where you could go and have a smoke in – I think that was the straw that broke Bob’s back to get himself motivated to start a campaign to stop the ban at the time, which obviously failed, and to hopefully get it amended now.”
So can we now trace the origins of Freedom2choose back to 2004?
” I am the Chairman of Freedom2Choose and we were formed on the 31st of October 2007 as a legally constituted group.”
Both quotes are the words of Freedom2choose Chairman David Atherton
see John Gray’s comment, 22 January.
No, we cannot meaningfully trace the origins of Freedom to Choose back to 2004, although I cannot account for a wish that may have been going through someone’s mind. Freedom to Choose begins as a fledgling organisation in 2005!!!
I also reiterate for the purposes of responding to your angling, Mike, our Freedom to Choose has absolutely nothing to do with Rod Bulloch – period!!
I wonder, do you have a problem with the English language?
Mike D, try moving your head to the right, and then to the left, and then forward and backward. You need to get blood-flow back to your brain.
I suppose we should thank Mike D, the mule-rider, the ass aboard the ass, the smear twirler. Mike D, you really have a serious problem. You are a silly, little man that pursues the baseless for inflammatory purposes regardless of the facts. You have simply consolidated my earlier unflattering point. You seem to be so entrenched as an antismoking cultic disciple that at some point you would need considerable de-programming.
I personally am not affiliated with freedom2choose, or any other group for that matter. I am a private citizen, as I suspect many others on this board are. I have indicated antismoking duplicity as others have which demonstrates a self-serving, deceptive pattern of conduct. You have not addressed one of these points that have nothing to do with whatever you have made of freedom2choose in your one-track fantasy world. You have attempted ONLY [baseless] smear, and more than once. You should be ashamed that you have allowed yourself to deteriorate to such a delusional state. Seriously!!
Belinda, only 4 days ago you said “we were not founded in 2004 but in 2007”
Dave Atherton says it was 2004, 2005 and 2007.
Dave Atherton also said “I will lay you a bet of £10,000 that Freedom2Choose was formed in 2007”
I wish I’d taken that bet!
Hey Mike…. Mike… over here, Mike,
Give it a rest. Please. PLEASE. I beseech you (in kneeling position). Have mercy on us. You’ve demonstrated your stupidity. Then you’ve demonstrated your incredible stupidity. Do you really want to go for demonstrating your astronomically incredible stupidity?
So what? What does any of this matter to the issues raised on this board that have nothing to do with freedom2choose? Are you daft, man? Get a grip!! Splash some water over your face. Or should I be addressing your mule that is far better at communication?
Formally we were founded in 2007. Before that we were not an organisation. That in my mind is what ‘founded’ means. Prior to 2007 John Gray’s recollections are clearer than mine.
Belinda, David Atherton (Or Dr DaveA as he likes to portray himself elsewhere) said “I will lay you a bet of £10,000 that Freedom2Choose was formed in 2007″
Not founded, ‘formed’
The amount of dodgy information that comes out from freedom2choose members is astonishing.
Is your chairman David Atherton a Doctor? If not why does he call himself DrDaveA on the Guardian site, where he posts a load of medical looking evidence?
He’s also said on here:-
“daveatherton January 23, 2012 12:59 pm
…
Smokers have no employment rights in the UK.”
This is not true.
Freedom2choose members also seem obsessed with denying that smoking in pregnancy is linked to a proportion of cases of SIDS/Cot Death. The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths disagree.
Freedom2choose members also seem obsessed with denying that exposing babies to smoke linked to a proportion of cases of SIDS/Cot Death. The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths disagree.
Can we trust ANYTHING that freedom2choose members bring to this debate?
If there is a genuine problem with removing the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets, why do members of this group need to resort to being misleading or dishonest?
Mike D, Is spamming your profession? How much does it pay? Who pays it – the taxpayers?
John S
January 25, 2012 3:17 pm
Mike D, Is spamming your profession? How much does it pay? Who pays it – the taxpayers?
I am entirely free, the taxpayer (or anyone else) pays me not a penny for this.
I’d say there was some pretty heavy tobacco industry investment in this response to Stephen, wouldn’t you?
How many normal people want to preserve the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets? Not many I’d suggest. Stephen’s blog posts normally attract a handful of comments, even though he posts a lot of things that are of importance to his constituents. Then he posts about pretty cigarette packets and a plague of lobbyists (amateur and professional) arrive like locusts, some of them telling porkies (eg Smokers have no employment rights in the UK)
Mike D, Change the record! The “guilt by association” argument, even IF the association could be proved, would be thrown out of every court in the country (not ALL countries, but then not all countries are democracies!). Provide some hard EVIDENCE of your accusations. Better still, respond to some of the specific points that have been directed at you – or are all Anti-Tobacco methods and propaganda indefensible, both morally and scientifically?
To go back to the original theme of this post, the people who win are the Tobacco companies. I was wondering why they backed off from their challenge to this legislation?
“For the tobacco industry, as with any other, one of the prime considerations is to how to save money without affecting quality. When it comes to cigarette packaging, any small amount saved on each pack, when multiplied by a year’s production, can have a very profound effect on the bottom line.”
http://www.meinfo.co.uk/2006/12/11/reducing-cigarette-packaging/
The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
1. Make a token gesture.
2. Receive bonus from shareholders for increasing company profits.
3. Ability to lower price of cigarettes to gain more custom from the younger generation.
QED
they haven’t backed off in Scotland.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-16561067
They’ve backed of in Oz
Belinda. Don’t get me wrong. The righteous have been hoisted with their own petard. Children will be encouraged by their peers to smoke, as it always has been. The Tobacco companies will gain ground through lower costs, and I shall light up another cigarette as I press the “Post Comment” button.
Personally I would like to be left alone by the bullying health fascists who revel in making sure that the future generation will be doomed to a grey life, devoid of pleasure, unless it is state permitted. We are moving rapidly to a totalitarian state that Marx would be envious off.
PS. Stephen< I hope that you are still following this post. A slight doubt in your mind?
Yes. No.
TFE – you wrote “Children will be encouraged by their peers to smoke, as it always has been. ”
Sadly they are also attracted, possibly more so, by the incessant MSM ‘marketing’ of smoking as a nasty to be cured with NHS help – TV, radio, newspapers and periodicals, website and Google amongst others – they can’t get away from it.
Anti-smoking has created the highest possible profile imaginable for an activity that they say should be avoided and, human nature being what it is, an activity that must be tried.
The influence of plain packaging is as nothing compared to that of the incompetence of our ever growing smoking cessation empire.
And what did the smoking ban achieve? The smokers are now outside the pub in full view of “the children”. “The children” notice the comradery of the smokers, laughing and having a good time, and think “I want to join that gang. They seem so much more fun than the sour-faced tut-tutting prudes who pretend they have a bad cough whenever they go anywhere near them”.
Here’s another example of antismoking shenanigans involving the eminent propagandist, the Daubster.
There is no scientific basis for plain packaging. So what do the antismoking fanatics do? Make it appear as though there is a scientific basis, i.e., confidence trickery.
“Four former Australians of the Year have signed a joint letter to federal MPs, urging them to support legislation to mandate plain packaging for cigarettes.
They are among 260 professors, from medical and health faculties throughout Australia, who say plain packaging of cigarettes would help reduce the appeal of smoking, particularly to children and young people.”
So what? These are all people/groups committed to the antismoking cause. What they believe has nothing to do with the underlying science, if there is any underlying science. Their [antismoking] BELIEFS have nothing to do with science re plain packaging.
Enter the Daubster:
“Professor Mike Daube from the Public Health Association says the scientists are backing plain packaging because of the compelling evidence and the potential for improved public health.
“So with 20 years of evidence, including the tobacco industry’s own market research, showing how effective tobacco packaging can be for influencing young people, it is no wonder so many leading health experts back plain packaging,” Prof Daube said in a statement.”
Do NOT add www. to news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8289296/leading-australians-back-plain-packaging
“Compelling evidence”? Puhhh-leeeez!!! All of it is antismoking hearsay. But by ensuring that the words “scientists” and “experts” appear in the article, it fosters the impression that [antismoking] scientists support the move because of a coherent scientific basis. If scientists and experts support it, then surely that makes the case for plain packaging “rock solid”. Yet their status as scientists in other areas and the basis for plain packaging are two very different things, particularly when the scientists and experts are also antismokers. And, look, there are 4 Australians of the Year (3 just wouldn’t have been enough) standing for the “cause”. Surely that means that the case for plain packaging is “super rock solid”.
This political activism, this confidence trickery, fostering the impression of “science-based” is delinquent, pitiful. These so-called “eminent’ folk should be ashamed of themselves, especially the Daubster.
EXPERTS!!!!!!!!!
Basically troughers who gain the ear of politicians and other influential people.
Each new expert has a new solution to what they identify as a problem.
In the area of education we seem to see a new method of teaching basic literacy every couple of years accompanied by new recommended reading schemes delivered through new sets of reading books produced in association with the ‘expert’.
So called experts – more trouble than they’re worth because they can’t see outside their own blinkered world and dispose of far too many ‘babies with the bathwater’.
Without doubt this sums up the effectiveness of our anti-smoking experts who cause society so many unnecessary problems.
I have just taken another look at Mr William’s press release. I do not believe for a moment that it has been written by him personally. The indications are that it has been written by ASH’s press release writer. All very easy for him and his (fake) Parliamentary Group. ASH do all the secretarial work, write the speeches, pick up the bills (paid eventually by us), All he and the other members of the Group need to do is polish their halos.
It would seem that the Government are slowly distancing themselves from ASH and it’s propaganda. I wrote an E mail last November to ASH asking what funding they get from central government. Their reply was, that they’re funding had been stopped from that source. However they did admit to getting funding from Cancer research and the British heart foundation. Although they might have been trying to give the impression that they were not getting direct government funding they may well have been funded by roundabout sources.
I have of course submitted a FOI request to try to ascertain where this funding is going. For instance. Is Cancer Research funding ASH through the backdoor of received government grants?
Right approach, FE. Keep pestering them. So should we all. If we must be persecuted, let’s at least make it cost them.
Or even worse that ASH is funded by bona fide donations to CRUK and BHF by the public, who gullibly believe that their hard-earned cash is being used for genuine research
Junican – utter nonsense. I am the only person who writes this blog – indeed that is the whole point of it. It’s not a Lib Dem, Government, charity or anybody else’s official site. It is my views and an opportunity for anyone to comment on them. I’ve never had a speech written for me, though many MPs do work that way. The group that I chair is not “fake” – it actually has real live MPs and Peers as members. It’s not a figment of my imagination or perhaps your nightmares. Put away your conspiracy theories and engage with the issues!
Smoking leads to poor health. It’s entirely rational for Parliamentarians to want to reduce its prevalence.
Smoking leads to poor health. It’s entirely rational for Parliamentarians to want to reduce its prevalence.
That’s fair enough, but it’s the way that the tobacco control zealots are going about it that really rankles with people.
Smoking MAY lead to poor health. Even according to the Anti-Tobacco propaganda, less than half of smokers will die of a “smoking-related” condition. If you do some research on those people who live to over 100, a surprising number of them indulge in unhealthy, even “lethal”, habits.
Whatever happened to “evidence-based policy making”? Where is the EVIDENCE that this legislation will have any impact on the number of “the children” taking up smoking later in life? More to the point, where is the EVIDENCE that this legislation will not decimate our corner shops in the same way that the smoking ban closed thousands of pubs, working man’s clubs, British Legion clubs, snooker halls and bingo halls?
Stephen, you’re obviously an intelligent person. Me, I’m just an ordinary bloke…a bricklayer who likes to smoke.
The smoking ban has completely ruined my social life, and that is the reason why I started to investigate the nature of this ban.
As an MP, I would like to think that you, also, have looked into the reasons behind the ban.
The best article I read, was a real eye opening experience for me. “Smoke, Lies and the Nanny State” by Joe Jackson sums it all up perfectly.
I would be grateful if you could take 10 minutes of your time to look it over, and to make an honest appraisal of it.
Click to access 5smokingpdf_jj_smoke_lies.pdf
Cheers…David Copeland.
Stephen, I agree with you, smoking does lead to poor health for the smoker, but that surely is up to the individual if he/she wishes to self harm, but there is no absolute proof that SHS is in any way dangerous, any more than airborne pollution is.
What I do not understand is the unremitting attacks on those who choose to smoke, other than a drive to own the nicotine market by Big Pharmaceutical companies who are funding most of this on going battle.
Plain packaging Yes but why is this not being applied to Alcohol or chocolates/sweets as these are just as harmful and as costly to the public purse, in terms of Alcoholism and obesity.
I believe the simple answer is that as yet the Drug companies have not come up with a Choco patch or a alko patch but when they do then the continued harassment of people will continue.
I am not a smoker, but I will defend the rights of those who do and who in the process give enormous amounts to the treasury, that I would otherwise have to pay in extra tax.
Stephen, many things in life can lead to poor health, but banning them all would lead to certain death as most, if not all, are necessary for life to exist. The Victorians regulalry took arsenic – they didn’t drop dead taking it as it is the dose that makes the poison and as, with medecines prescribed regularly by doctors, many contain substances that, taken in excess, are highly poisonous and would kill – hence the ‘dose’ prescribed by the doctor!
Many people today are sick and tired of governments trying to fit square pegs into round holes. None of us are the same because we are INDIVIDUALS. This means that we like different things in terms of food and drink, the jobs we do, what our goals are in life, etc. In fact, if we didn’t then we would not still be in existence! We need to be different to tackle the miriad of problems that life throws at us otherwise none of the challenges of life would have been resolved.
These life challenges do not include trying to mould people into clones of what some see as the ‘perfect’ package. This is why the resistence to bans that affect the choices of individuals, when those choices are to do or partake of something that is legal, never mind the fact of whether or not it is something that raises billions for the treasury.
Just like square pegs will not fit into round holes, people will not be manipulated and squeezed into lifestyle choices that the paranoid wish to impose, simply because WE do not fit! The fit becomes far tighter too when the basis for this manipulatation is totally flawed and based on lies that even a child can see through and on top of that is solely about making money for the huge pharmaceutical industry and at the same time bleeding the public purse dry.
‘Cloning’ to produce the ‘Perfect’ being has been tried before and failed miserably – it will continue to fail because we are individuals and we cherish that fact.
One final point: it is because we are individuals that some die young and some die old; some can lead an exemplary and healthy life, never smoking , drinking or eating anything but healthy produce, early to bed and early to rise, etc and still die in their 30’s and 40’s or earlier – Why? Because that was in their genetics. The same as some can lead a totally debauched lifestyle and live well into their twilight years – their genetic make up was such that short of getting run over by a bus or shot or caught in a burning building, they were always going to live a long life, whatever they did. Some are destined to live sickly lives and some are not, it is all down to genetics.
Very simply, Stephen, THAT IS LIFE!
Exactly right Lyn
.
Bruce Lee was said to be the fittest man in the world. He died aged 32
Fulla Nayak, an Indian woman, smoked cannabis and cigars every day of her life, starting when she was 8 years old. She died recently…………….aged 125 🙂
http://networkedblogs.com/sqAvl.
”But plain packaging will not instantly cut smoking rates, he (Simon Chapman) cautions. “We’re not expecting plain packaging to have much impact on existing smokers. It’s a policy about the next generation of kids who are coming through, so we would expect to slowly starve the industry of new customers by de-normalising and de-glamorising their products.”
Read the full article on Chapman and plain cigarette packaging here http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/24/simon-chapman-plain-cigarette-packaging-activist?fb_action_ids=2467006762015&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=other_multiline
He wants to starve the industry? This would be too funny if it wouldn’t have such tragic consequences. What he wants to starve is the ”bigger” tobacco makers as he himself admits : ”Replace those colourful packets with nothing but a plain colour, the manufacturer’s name and a massive health warning, and many people will stop buying the premium brands, he argues.” How’s stopping people from buying the premium brands going to help the chiiiiiiildren™ ? A cigarette is a cigarette is a cigarette whether it’s a premium brand or a less popular brand. The only thing it is going to cause, as some have noted here, is make it easier for smugglers to sell crap to the chiiiiiiildren™, much like it’s happening in Canada where contraband tobacco without any quality control whatsoever is sold around schools for as little as $10 for 200 cigarettes. Pure junk is found in such tobacco, such as rat droppings, floor sweepings and bugs but the kids smoke them! But little does Chapman care, as long as Philip Morris or BAT’s profits are hurt in the process as if these giants didn’t have other plans for their tobacco plants, like recycling to pharmaceutical nicotine for instance bat.com/group/sites/uk__3mnfen.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/DO52AEMG/$FILE/medMD8FNE7K.pdf?openelement
bat.com/group/sites/uk__3mnfen.nsf/vwPagesWebLive/DO52AEMG/$FILE/medMD8FNE7K.pdf?openelement – absolutely bloo*y brilliant BUT
This cannot be so because Tobacco Control devotees know they are the way, the truth and the light. Big Tobacco are nasty. They propose an irrational scenario and are telling big biased porkies with this website.
We in Tobacco Control are perfect in thought, deed and self-interest bankrolling.
Divert public attention to money grabbing bankers, politicians,union officials and purveyors of death who line their own pockets – We though are nice ‘cos we’re doing it for the cheeeeeuldren.
Iro Cyr wrote “But plain packaging will not instantly cut smoking rates, he (Simon Chapman) cautions.”
They’ve learnt by their previous failures!
Were ASH involved in writing parts of various Public Service Agreements such as the Spending Review in 2004 –
“3. Tackle the underlying determinants of health and health inequalities by:
reducing adult smoking rates to 21% or less by 2010, with a reduction in prevalence among routine and manual groups to 26% or less”
What a glorious encouragement for almost unlimited public funding for anti-smoking measures such as the smoking ban and a spectacular failure to deliver?
Stephen, it’s a fair bet that, without the intervention of your friends, smoking prevalence would have reduced rather than missing the above funded dream by a mile.
And how much taxpayers’ money has been wasted and how much government revenue from closed pubs, etc. have been lost on this glorious failure?
John S wrote, “Neither am I a member of any pro-tobacco industry or lobby group, which I mention as this MP made a sweeping disparaging statement implying those who don’t agree with his scientifically unfounded views are shills.”
The problem we face in this sort of argument/atmosphere is that IF you ARE an “active citizen” who wants to have their voice heard, and then, to further that, you join a group like F2C, the Antismokers will try to disparage the power of what you say simply by saying “Well, he’s a member of a lobby group so of COURSE he’s saying that!”
It’s as though members of Greenpeace had their arguments dismissed simply because they’d joined Greenpeace in the first place!
Of course it’s actually even worse, since the Antis throw in the language/debate trick of conflation: constantly using phrases like “INDUSTRY and lobby groups” or “Big tobacco spokespeople and their allies.” In both cases, “innocent” people are made to look as though they and their views should simply be made equivalent to and subsumed under one’s views of an “Evil Capitalist Child-Murdering Industry.” and whose arguments should be instantly dismissed out of hand because they’re “just like” the ones used by “people who get paid to say these things.”
We need to remember and constantly publicize that for almost all of our groups (with the few exceptions of those who openly and happily accept tobacco funding in order to better get their word out: e.g. FOREST) we are nothing but angry and frustrated non-funded citizens who seek, through books, letters, internet postings, council testimonies etc to get our words and thoughts to a public overwhelmed by the big-money podiums of a highly funded and well-organized antismoking lobby. It’s also important for us to remember and do our best to point out that the visible funding of that lobby is just the tip of the iceberg: the thousands of researchers and full-time staffers working for funded organizations that have “Reducing Smoking” as one of their organizational goals. Imagine if every college campus had a “Student Smoking Group” set up and given facilities, materials, and funding by BAT or Philip Morris … and then look at every campus that has a “Student Smoke Free” group given facilities, materials and funding by the Campus “Student Health” programs partly supported by taxes or by grants from the NicoGummyPatchyProductPushers.
We are involved in what are truly called “Ciitzens Lobby Groups” — which are quite different than “Industry Lobby Groups” — and we should be proud of that involvement and make the difference clear every step of the way.
– MJM
It looks more like astroturfing to me.
Although early attempts at astroturfing required paid professionals, the internet has created a large community of single issue groups which attract many conspiracy theorists to their membership.
All a guiding hand (amateur or professional) needs to do is keep the paranoia bubbling under then tell the membership where to swarm, and prime them with some things to say. All for free, thanks to the internet.
An early astroturf group was established by the tobacco industry in the 1990s
The National Smoker’s Alliance (NSA) was a group formed in 1993 to protest U.S. anti-smoking legislation. The NSA was a public relations created front group funded by the tobacco industry, which operated nationally from 1994 to 1999 to advocate for adults using tobacco products without vigorous regulation or increased tobacco taxes. An early example of astroturfing, the NSA employed stealth marketing tactics to give the appearance of grassroots opposition to anti-smoking laws.
One of the NSA’s members included famed talk show host Morton Downey, Jr.; however, he gave up smoking after being diagnosed with lung cancer in 1996; he died of the disease in 2001.
In 1999 tobacco company Philip Morris announced that it would withdraw funding after the NSA made an ethics complaint about John McCain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Smokers_Alliance
Hello, Mr Williams.
I don’t normally like quoting sentences from a comment – that’s what trolls do. But I feel that this sentence is somewhat patronising:
Put away your conspiracy theories and engage with the issues!
I have rarely strayed away from the issues in the comments that I have made here.
There is no conspiracy theory, but there is a conspiracy. Read AGENDA 21 and The Millenium Goals and note that there is no mention in those documents of Tobacco. And yet, within a year of the Millenium Goals (being all about alleviating poverty and disease in the third world) being approved, out came the fully-fledged Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – starting in the wealthy, mostly disease and poverty free nations of Europe. That, Sir, is conspiracy.
As regards your Group, I use the word ‘fake’ in much the same sense that we describe organisations such as ASH as ‘fake’ charities. That is, ‘pretending to be something which it is not’. Parliamentarians will know that this Group is just a loose collection of individuals with no official standing. Not really different to me and my mates in the pub. But ordinary people do not know that. Why does your group have cosy meetings with ASH and receive reports and studies from ASH, and then make profound pronouncements? And then there is this statement from your press release:
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, which I chair, will building support in Parliament for the campaign.
Can you not see that this can be interpreted as blatant lobbying on behalf of ASH, which itself is a lobby group for Big Pharm?
If you say that you wrote it yourself, and assuming that it did not go through some sort of ‘approval’ process, then I apologise. But there are certain words and phrases which seem to be common to ASH press releases. The word ‘glitzy’, for example, has been popping up a lot in press releases in the last few weeks. Let us look at that word.
I used to know a very nice lady from the pub. Don’t see her much these days since the smoking ban emptied the pub. But I nicknamed her ‘Glitzy’. Why? Because she turned up one Christmas with glitter on her face and in her hair. Here is the Cambridge Dictionary definition:
having a fashionable appearance intended to attract attention
“There you are, you see!”, I hear you cry, “Intended to attract attention!” But then you insert the words, “….of children” and spoil it all.
But the really important thing is that you guys have taken a perfectly likable, amusing, innocent word and tried to turn it into a nasty word.
Finally:
Smoking leads to poor health. It’s entirely rational for Parliamentarians to want to reduce its prevalence.
No it isn’t entirely rational. On the contrary, it is irrational. It is irrational because the Government is raking in billions of pounds per an from smokers. And, no one can buy tobacco unless they are adults, and adults can decided for themselves. And, the methods being used are propaganda, persecution and denormalisation in its filthiest sense.
junican, is it ‘rational’ for a load of shouty people to swarm to a thread like this to protest in favour of the tobacco industry’s right to have pretty packets?
Its not everyday that I get a chance to put my views to an MP who holds an opposing view to my own, on a subject which I have a great deal of interest in. So yes…it’s perfectly rational.
Parmenion, you have a great deal of interest in the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets?
You need to get down to the pub mate.
Mike D – “You need to get down to the pub mate.” The smoking ban closed my local!
MD- you have set yourself up as judge and jury on promotional aesthetics – please then provide us with your list of who and what you can allow to be ‘pretty’ and, of course, all those you condemn to your ugly bin.
A definition of ‘shouty’ may also provide interesting from one who harps on so monotonously.
Mike D
Yes it is Even though we have no connection with Tobacco Companies, it has become apparent from the persecution that we have to fight against people like you every step of the way. And it isn’t just about tobacco, it is about every other ‘denormalisation’ process on the horizon.
Mike D….Parmenion, you have a great deal of interest in the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets?
You need to get down to the pub mate
To be honest Mike, I couldn’t give a toss what type of packet my cigarettes come in. What does bother me though, is the unjust smoking ban
I used to be a regular at my local cinema…not now though.
I used to go tenpin bowling…not now though.
I used to follow my local football team, where I REALLY needed a cig to calm my nerves!…not now though.
……and as for going to the pub, well, Sunderland hasn’t got the warmest of climates so now I check the weather forecast before venturing out.
This means nothing to you, I know, but this ban has totally ruined my social life.
Hope you and yer pals are happy with yourselves…
Cute “bait and switch” scam trick there Mike D. You start off with saying:
“It looks more like astroturfing to me.
Although early attempts at astroturfing required paid professionals, the internet has created a large community of single issue groups which attract many conspiracy theorists to their membership.”
and then go on to talk at length about an openly tobacco-funded 1990s group in the US: Philip Morris’s NSA.
By doing that you’re attempting to conflate the two concepts: true voices of citizens forming their own groups and working together out of their own motivations and pocketbooks for a cause with groups that are formed and supported by industries to promote industry goals.
You know perfectly well that it is the latter type of group that falls under the term “astroturf” — but you try to confuse it with true grass-roots citizens activist groups by peremptorily redefining the term in you own oddly twisted way.
You ask if it’s “rational” for a group of people who have been strongly attacked in many different ways over the past 20 years to “swarm” to a public message board to voice their opinions about yet another, although relatively minor, attack designed at further pushing them out of the mainstream (as “plain packaging” would in effect do … since we don’t require such “plain packaging” for other child-harmful products such as beer or McWhopperie Burger Outlets).
I can assure you that if the proposal was to require “plain packaging” for **ALL** of these sorts of goods you’d hear a lot less howling from the smokers: 99% of us don’t give a good flying fig about what color our cigarette packs are… but when we’re deliberately singled out for nasty treatment we DO howl … and howl loudly. If we had one-tenth of the money spent on public relations by “the other side” you’d be amazed at how loudly and effectively we’d howl and how quickly the teeter-totter would tilt in the smoking ban battles.
– MJM
“You ask if it’s “rational” for a group of people who have been strongly attacked in many different ways over the past 20 years to “swarm””
The thing is Michael, you haven’t been that badly ‘persecuted’ have you?
In the grand scheme of things, having to go out of the pub for a smoke isn’t really ‘persecution’.
Your paranoia is immense.
This is about the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets. Yet look at the hundreds of posts here.
“Going out of the pub for a smoke” ?
Can you truly be that innocent Mike D. Given your postings here I doubt it. You should know perfectly well that we’re dealing with targeted taxation at levels in the hundreds of percent, denials of medical care, denials of reasonably private housing, denials of jobs, and having our children taken away from us.
To lump all that down into “Going out of the pub for a smoke” is, again, nothing but a trick of conflation… and on a grand scale. This is about FAR more than “pretty packets” and you know that perfectly well. And, although you may not have the self-perception to realize it, the “passersby” that you are actually playing to hear will generally be smart enough to realize it as well.
– MJM
No, this is about pretty packets.
and paranoia.
MD seems to be an practicing expert in both fields.
why is it when there are so many like-minded people to talk to, we have to talk to Mike D, whose posts are deliberately designed to bait and provoke.
But there really aren’t that many ‘like minded’ people who are in favour of the tobacco industry keeping the right to pretty packets. Lots of posts, but not that many people. Perhaps you are losing potential supporters because they are embarrassed to be associated with a bunch of people who are trying so hard to mislead.
As I posted earlier, the amount of dodgy information that comes out from freedom2choose members is astonishing.
Your chairman David Atherton is not a Doctor, but he calls himself DrDaveA on the Guardian site, where he posts a load of medical looking evidence. But he’s not a Doctor.
He’s also said on here:-
“daveatherton January 23, 2012 12:59 pm
…
Smokers have no employment rights in the UK.”
This is not true.
Freedom2choose members also seem obsessed with denying that smoking in pregnancy is linked to a proportion of cases of SIDS/Cot Death. The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths disagree.
Freedom2choose members also seem obsessed with denying that exposing babies to smoke linked to a proportion of cases of SIDS/Cot Death. The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths disagree.
And those feeble efforts to try to say you were only formed in 2007.
If there is a genuine problem with removing the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets, why do members of this group need to resort to being misleading or dishonest? I think it is losing you support.
Mike D: I’ll try a direct question again. Where is the EVIDENCE to even suggest that this legislation will have any impact whatsoever on “the children” taking up smoking? Where is the EVIDENCE that it will NOT adversely affect the livelihoods of small shop owners? (Both with links please.) If you refuse to answer this question directly, it can only be taken that no such EVIDENCE exists (and/or conflicting EVIDENCE is being withheld).
John S Stephen Williams is better placed to answer about the evidence.
I am happy to point out that the chairman of freedom2choose refuses to deny that his members are taking steers on lobbying from the tobacco industry
I am more than happy to keep pointing out that many of the people so vociferously opposing it are being misleading and, in some cases, telling porkies.
This is about tobacco industry rights to pretty packets.
The matter does not justify people pretending to be doctors, pretending that smoking is not an important factor for a proportion of SIDS/Cot Death cases, telling lies about employment rights and so on.
It’s the provocation, Belinda, innit? Hard to resist. Mike D is the epitome of a Troll. Constantly quoting your own words back at you, and quite cleverly. You are right.
1. Tobacco packets are not ‘glitzy’. That is a lie. The word applies to people and events, and not things..
2. Tobacco packets are not designed to attract children. That is a lie. They are designed to differentiate one manufacturer’s products from another’s.
3. ‘People start smoking before they are 18’. That is a lie. Teenagers may have a few puffs, but do not ‘start smoking’ in the sense of becoming smokers until they are earning sufficient money, at which point they are normally adults.
4. The reason for plain packaging is to stop youths taking up the habit. That is a lie. The reason that zealots are anxious to have plain packaging is to gain legal control of the packets.
5. ASH is a charity devoted to the ‘wellbeing’ of the people. That is a lie. ASH is a front group for Big Pharm. Why else would Big Pharm fund them?
6. The WHO is a UN organisation devoted to the welfare of the poorest and most prone to disease. That is a lie. If it were true, they would have devoted their energies to alleviating poverty and disease in Africa and Asia, and not smoking bans in Europe. Why, 12 years after the turn of the century, do we still have begging adverts on the TV to provide clean water for Africans? That is exactly what the billions of pound which have been spent on Tobacco Control should have been spent on.
7. Tobacco Control in the UN went to great lengths to associate smoking with all the ailments which they intended to eradicate. That was a lie. It was pure propaganda. People DO NOT starve their children to buy fags.
8. Tobacco contributes to global warming. That is a lie. Tobacco plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. Most of the carbon in tobacco is retained in the ash and falls to the ground.
9. The oceans are clogging up with filter tips. That is a lie. the oceans are enormous – much bigger than our puny imaginations can estimate. In any case, filter tips are made of ‘cellulose’, which is a kind of wood, although it is more long-lasting than ordinary wood. It disintegrates and is probably eaten by fishes.
10. Tobacco smoke causes premature death. It is a lie. There is no such thing as premature death. Premature death is a mental construct. It particularly applies emotionally. It has no place in science. Nor should it have a place in politics.
11. Enjoying tobacco is an addiction. It is a lie. It is a habit. You may say that it is a bad habit if you wish, but it is no more than a habit nonetheless. It is a hard habit to break, because it is an ‘all day long, anywhere’ habit, but merely a habit. Nobody gets ‘delirium tremens’ when they stop enjoying tobacco.
12. People stop smoking for health reasons. It is a lie. They stop for financial reasons.
13. The Health Dept, the Royal College of Physicians, the British Medical Association, and the others, are full of quack doctors and quack professors. TRUE! TRUE! TRUE!
14. Cancer Research UK and the Heart Foundation are fake charities. TRUE! TRUE! TRUE! They must be since the are funding the Big Pharm lobby group known as ASH.
15. Certain politicians in the UN and the WHO are receiving bribes from big pharm? The jury is out, but do not expect a verdict for the next 50 years.
No connection with….. bla, bla, bla.
I post as ‘Junican’ which is my nickname. I would post under my full name, but I am worried about the Border Agency singling me out for special treatment when I go on holiday. I know that such events are happening. The law says that citizens of the EU must not be chosen by the Border Agency randomly or without prior knowledge that ‘there is a commercial purpose’ if they carry tobacco products, but the Border Agency ignore that ruling by the courts and steal people’s goods. Members of Parliament have created these conditions, at the request of ASH ET AL and are are responsible for the persecution, for persecution it most certainly is.
I’m a humble blogger that has retired from my profession as a marine engineer. Since I’ve retired I’ve noticed due to my amateur research, that there seems to be a move afoot to denormalise, anyone who does’nt fit a perceived model.
I’ve found quite a few people who are Non smokers or former smokers, that are also concerned about the illiberal views that are being expressed by the health lobbies, The couple who like wine with their evening meal or the couple who like eating a hearty Sunday lunch, are realising that they are the next likely target.
Successive governments are being being coerced by the fake charities. (http://fakecharities.org/) who perpetuate these scares in order enable their continuing existence. The public are now beginning to realise that they are being conned. One example is the drop in support for the “We’re all going to die from global warming”, scam.
Politicians would be advised that the public is slowly becoming more aware. Most especially the 21% of smokers. Why vote for ConDemLib, when all you’ll get is the same? At the last election I looked up the voting record of the applicants only to find that they voted for the smoking ban.Therefore I voted for an independant. After all why vote for somebody who hates you?
PS. Come the time, I’ve a garage full of piano wire and hold a portfolio of lampost futures.
Hey up, FE! There may be a good case for ‘stringing up’ Mike D (because he is a troll), but there is no case for doing likewise with Mr Williams. Mr W is an honest politician who just wants the best for his constituents.He feels that he can save his constituents from a fate worse than death. The fate worse than death is premature death! Nothing could be worse than ‘premature’ death. Better to commit suicide than suffer premature death.
Lansley believes the same, and so does Milton. Both of them are obsessed by premature death. Not ‘ordinary’ death, but ‘premature’ death. Lansley himself, on the TV, claimed that smoking causes 80,000 ”premature’ deaths. Weird or what? It can be assumed that smokers decide to smoke at their own volition, therefore, if they die as a result, they have not died ‘prematurely’. The idea that people are not aware of potential danger to their lives is stupid. Surely soldiers must know that they are at serious risk.
This idea of ‘theoretical’ risk is actually killing our soldiers, strange though it may seem. Our soldiers are being killed in such numbers because NATO did not invade Afghanistan fully and properly.
But that is another matter altogether. I must admit that, despite the waffle above, I would have no idea whatsoever about what should be done about Afghanistan.
What is important to us all is the idea that we, grown-ups, must not be allowed to conduct our lives in a risky way. We must not conform to the dictates of ASH ET AL (front groups for Big Pharm) as to what risks we can take.
Damn it! One could go on and on and on!
Mr Williams, you must change your mind! You must stop being a lackey for ASH, the WHO, the EU, and so on. Just stop! It is really easy. Specifically, demand that ASH prove to you positively that children suffer from SHS. Everything that ASH ET AL say about asthma and smoking is lies. It is obvious, since smoking has decrease and childhood asthma has increased. ASH ET AL ARE LYING!
If you are a proper MP, you will start to ask questions. You will not accept waffle.
You’ve clearly never had any one in your family slowly suffocating to death with COPD have you?
FOR GOD’S SAKE: “howdy” you are a complete loony bin.
Every day I have to clear forty or so of your RUBBISH out of my mailbox before I can do any useful work,
PLEASE STOP IT!!.
It’s always fun watching anonymous internet trolls try to score points by attacking details about real people who post under their real names. Hey MikeD: want to tell us about what sort of “Dr.” the good Dr. Stanton Glantz is?
And Glantz wasn’t just playing around with an internet name that most people know to take with sizeable grains of salt, but with TV and newspaper interviews. Back in the 1990s his real status was well-hidden enough that there were a number of full blown discussions on the old usenet groups where some people were claiming Glantz was just a mechanical engineer while others were claiming that was just a “conspiracy theory” type claim.
Heh… time told, eh?
So how about it MikeD? Willing to go on a level playing field with Dave and post under your real identity? And I don’t mean a made-up “real sounding” name like Rollo Tomassi, but something as verifiable as Dave or I? You can’t very well claim concerns about government persecution since the government is on your side, and you don’t even have to worry about job discrimination as some smokers do. There’s absolutely no excuse for pro-ban internet posters to have to lob their mud from behind pseudonyms unless they’ve got something to hide.
– MJM
Mike D: “is it ‘rational’ for a load of shouty people to swarm to a thread like this to protest in favour of the tobacco industry’s right to have pretty packets?”
Mike D (first-class ass), I’d be interested in what you have to say about ASH UK’s “swarm effect” and confidence trickery that it has publicly admitted and involves current ASH employees (e.g., Arnott):
Add www. to guardian.co.uk/society/2006/jul/19/health.healthandwellbeing
MD, your latest ranting and raving should attract some scrutiny. Your only stupid and vulgar “contribution” to this board has been to create a theme that anything said in criticism of antismoking activity is not to be believed. You began your inane venture by alluding to freedom2choose’s tobacco-industry “connection”. This baseless claim, this contrived “controversy”, you squealed, invalidated everything on this comments board that questioned antismoking activity, including plain packaging. But MD, unconstrained by logic or good sense, was only getting started. He then created the “controversy” that anyone questioning causal claims about SHS and SIDS was not only obviously “wrong”, but it also invalidated everything on this comments board that questioned any antismoking activity – not that MD at any point addressed any of this questionable antismoking activity that has been highlighted, his own activity now qualifying as such questionable antismoking activity.
But even this wasn’t enough for MD. Unperturbed by fact or reason, he was able to slink further down, right to the bottom of the barrel, his face raw with splinters, where he gleefully scraped away. The entire antismoking house-of-cards is built on tobacco industry “conspiracy” and that anyone – anywhere – ever questioning antismoking conduct simply reflects more “tobacco industry conspiracy”. While relying exclusively on “tobacco industry conspiracy”, MD then pulls one of those really mind-boggling, antismoking contortions of logic, a 6G-spin through the rules of inference. While he constantly relies on [tobacco industry] “conspiracy”, MD claims that everything on this board that questions antismoking activity should be dismissed because it is “conspiracy theory” of antismoking conduct, that those making such claims are “paranoid”. “What’s the big deal”, squealed the oaf, “you just have to step outside for a cigarette”; “there’s no problem”.
According to MD, all of the verifiable claims highlighting the inflammatory lies and duplicity in antismoking conduct that stretches three decades don’t mean anything, just fevered imaginings. Apparently these claims are just the productions of paranoia, silly “conspiracy theory”. Also hallucinatory are outdoor smoking bans, apartment bans, and denial of employment and medical treatment to smokers. Even though there are verifiable instances of such, according to MD, claims of such are just more paranoia. Not only is it paranoia, but the nitwit, MD, even managed to bring in “tobacco industry conspiracy” again like a rabbit out of a hat. According to MD, the “paranoid” people are really only trying to protect the tobacco industry’s “pretty packets”. Wonderful, a “paranoid conspiracy”!!
MD, I’ve got to tell you that your “contribution” to this board must rate as one of the most sustained ventures in astronomically incredible stupidity, haughtiness, and insult. You could have stopped at any time but chose to just keep pushing the unsavoury envelope. Hopefully, anyone reading this board can clearly see your shallowness and puny “thinking”, and your commitment to one pitiful, pathetic line of approach. The abominable conduct you have engaged in has been the mainstay of antismoking conduct for decades; you’ve just demonstrated it so clearly on this board. You and your antismoking buddies must be worried about their self-serving duplicity that has been exposed – some disquieting rattling on their otherwise smooth gravy-train ride – for you to attempt such multiple, desperate attempts at smear.
Now a word to your mule – the one with the higher cognitive potential: Jeff (mule), could you please take the pretentious, pompous buffoon riding you to the nearest psychotherapy clinic – and leave him there.
There is no need to get rid of the Mike D’s of this world. They do not comprehend. They do not understand that Tobacco Control is a virus. It can only be eradicated by MPs asking the right questions. We must be asked: “What, exactly and precisely is the evidence that ALL children are injured by SHS? It is important to understand that ALL children must be at risk, and not just a few unknown unknowns.
I hate to say this, but there is no alternative. We need a revolution, in order to defeat and dismiss the lies.
We shall see.
TFE: “They’ve backed of in Oz”
TFE, re plain packaging, they [tobacco industry] haven’t backed off.
Top silks in tobacco fight over plain packaging laws
Add www. to perthnow.com.au/business/top-silks-in-tobacco-fight-over-plain-packaging-laws/story-e6frg2qc-1226251966803
This is totally justified- what other product kills half of its long term customers? Most start when they are kid. And you have to laugh at the tobacco industry. It’s the only known one to claim its promotional efforts are only to create brand loyalty and brand switching – not attract new customers
Gift wrapping of 4000 chemicals, including 70 known to cause cancer!!!!
Carolinel:-
There is a well known maxim in toxicology that “the dose makes the poison.”
A scientific study showed that a person would have to spend an hour in a small room with 165,000 smokers, to inhale as much arsenic that you’d get in a large glass of water!
But of course, I wouldn’t expect you to know this, as tobacco control are very good at what they do, and what they want the general public to know, and not know.
It’s only by looking into things deeper, that you start to realise that folk are being misled and misinformed on a massive scale concerning the “dangers” of SHS.
They tell you, for instance that there’s 4000 chemicals in SHS, and try to make it sound oh, so scary….but what they don’t tell you is that very few of these are human cacinogens, and are no danger whatsoever!!…remember (the dose makes the poison!)
It will probably surprise you “normal” human breath contains over 3000 chemicals……….unless you’re a tobacco control zealot spouting constant bull**** in which case the numbers are far higher!!!
I love your line ” as tobacco control are very good at what they do”- I couldn’t agree more which is why it’s so good on days like today to find out that deaths from heart attacks have halved-yes halved!- in the last ten years and much of this is due to the efforts to reduce smoking. I really can’t fathom why people can’t support this. It ain’t rocket science to believe we should be protecting our kids from such a lethal product- Anyone seen the latest Benson and Hedges pack of 14 which distinctly looks like on the front? Have to scratch my head to ponder who that could be possibly aimed at.
According to the “official” statistics on the BHF website, the decrease in deaths would appear to be more like 25%. The rate has been falling steadily and uniformly since it peaked around 1980. There are no sudden “miracle” dips corresponding to the introduction of smoking bans, etc. (And give the NHS most of the credit.)
The only effect that smoking bans appear to have had is to reverse the steady decrease in smoking prevalence! Raising the legal age for selling cigarettes had a similar effect on teenage smoking prevalence. Anti-Tobacco’s “propaganda and big stick” methods seem to be counter-productive.
There is absolutely no evidence (or none that Stephen and your fellow Anti-Tobacco troll are prepared to produce) that this legislation will have any impact, other than adversely impacting the livelihoods of the owners of small shops. If I were a betting man, I would put a couple of quid on smoking prevalence, both in adults and teenagers, increasing slightly.
Looks like lego on the front.
“…what other product kills half of its long term customers? “
Caroline, all it’s long (and short) term customers die. As does everybody else, customer or not.
I’m sure that some smokers will die at a younger age than they might have done had they not smoked. Just as some joggers will die at a younger age than they might have done had they not jogged. Or boxers had they not boxed. Or drinkers had they not drank. Or drivers had they not driven. Etc etc.
But saying “tobacco kills half its long term customers” is a meaningless statement. How do you know how long anyone will live? How do you know that smoking has killed someone? The health lobby play fast and loose with the figures they publish.
Died of a heart attack? Was he a smoker? Another death caused by smoking. That he may have had angina caused by something entirely unrelated to smoking is irrelevant. He goes down as another killed by smoking. Killed by a brain tumour? Was he a smoker? Another smoking death. And so it goes on.
Caroline, you can prove anything you like with figures. All you need to get those figures accepted as truth is a well funded lobby group and a bunch of tame “experts”. There are many commenters here who could prove, using those same figures, that water is lethal and causes the deaths of half the people who use it. That wouldn’t make it true, but the reasoning would be just as valid.
Well it is more like 10,0000 and up to 100,000 chemicals. But as I pointed out to Paul earlier your Christmas dinner is full
of chemicals “known” to cause cancer. Link here.
So why not ban Christmas?
To cut down on that festive intake of known carcinogens.For the sake of the children , naturally. What mother could knowingly give feed their children food laced with cancer causing chemicals? Best call social services. That’s not to mention alcoholic drinks which are riddled with cancer causing chemicals. I can’t wait until they ban drinking in public places, there is nothing worse than sitting down to a meal in a pub and coming back with your clothes stinking of cancer causing booze. Selfish, drinkers, just take it outside.
Caroline, The human body contains MILLIONS of different chemicals, including many suspected carcinogens. At least four of them are classified as HUMAN carcinogens – acetaldehyde, formaldehyde, ethanol and oestrogen – and are produced NATURALLY by the human body.
Caroline…”deaths from heart attacks have halved-yes halved!”
As mentioned in another post, the US Center for Disease Control’s own figures relating to heart problems and death are:
Coronary heart disease- current smokers 29.3% Former smokers 31.8% Never smokers 38.9%
Stroke – current smokers 30.1% Former smokers 23.0% Never-smokers 47.0%
……so you see Sweet Caroline, you’re more likely than me …God forbid…to suffer from a stroke!
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5644a2.htm
Ahhh. They’ve given Mike D a break (requiring urgent treatment for facial splinters due to bottom-of-the-barrel scraping) and tagged-in “Sweet Caroline” [Ta Ta Ta…. good times never seemed so good]. And what does Caroline of questionable sweetness bring to the discussion? Just a few more of the standard antismoking slogans. You guys are pathetic!
The anonymous MikeD’s quite a pro at the cheap debating tricks I see. E.G. this one he’s pulling on Dave A while combining it with the industry mudslinging:
“I am happy to point out that the chairman of freedom2choose refuses to deny that his members are taking steers on lobbying from the tobacco industry”
Obviously no head of ANY organization can speak absolutely for the behavior of all its individual members. All any such person could ever do, honestly, is say they are not aware of such things. And then the MikeD’s can take that statement and twist it to sound like a dodge … when in reality it is the ONLY true statement that could be made.
Those reading through the thread will see repeated examples of this sort of thing and will hopefully learn the fundamental lesson from it: Antismokers simply do NOT have truly sound bases for most of their claims. Once they move beyond the fairly sound science of the damaging effects of a lifetime of smoking on smokers’ own healths they move into the realm of misdirection, debate tricks, and lies.
MikeD is playing the game at a pretty elementary level: disruption and mudslinging by innuendo and “Have you stopped beating your wife?” demands. There’s a reasonable chance he’s doing it professionally since there’s so little oversight of the activities of the smoke-ban organizations and their money flow, and his amateurish style may simply be a persona he’s playing as a means of disruption. “Caroline” could easily just be another aspect played by the same person. By flooding a thread with this sort of nonsense they can hope to drown out the message from the other side in the one medium where, since it’s free from the influence of massive amounts of money, there’s a reasonably level playing field between the Free Choice folks and the Antismokers.
But where I believe the MikeDs and their backers make their big mistake is in underestimating the audience: readers of threads like these have seen those tricks used before and recognize them for what they are. The impression they’ll walk away with is that the ban folks are trying to cover up and destroy messages they don’t want to be heard. And THAT impression will then lead that audience to look all the harder for those messages in the future!
Here you go Mike ‘n Caroline: want something to criticize? Try offering a few specific, substantive criticisms of “The Lies Behind The Smoking Bans” at:
Click to access StilettoGenv5h.pdf
It’s a quick and easy read, aimed mainly at pub patrons reading it in dim light inside of bars while fighting incoming bans or at the smokers and their friends standing outside who’ll page through it in a few minutes and get angry. Feel free to attack anything within it: I promise I won’t mind.
– MJM
“The anonymous MikeD’s quite a pro at the cheap debating tricks I see.”
Not a pro at all Michael, a rank amateur.
Of course you are quite a professional fighter for tobacco rights, a published author on the subject I see, and presumably receiving an income from sales of those books.
You say “We are involved in what are truly called “Ciitzens Lobby Groups””. Hmmm How many genuine ‘citizen lobby groups’ get advice and support from people who publish books on the subject?
MD: “Not a pro at all Michael, a rank amateur.”
No argument there. You ARE rank. And you are an amateur.
Mike D, Has it never occurred to you that people, smokers and non-smokers, are ANTI the mercenary parasites and charlatans employed by Tobacco Control, like yourself, and ANTI Tobacco Control’s real goals and the methods they are employing to achieve those objectives?
MikeD wrote, “Of course you are quite a professional fighter for tobacco rights, a published author on the subject I see, and presumably receiving an income from sales of those books.”
Yep. And quite literally an income equal to about 1% of what I’d be getting if I wrote books for the folks on your side of the aisle ‘Mike.’ Brains won’t ever get waved around on Oprah or bought in bulk to be distributed to school districts. RJR bought six copies early on– at the same price as everyone else — but I decided to put off my vacation in the South Sea Islands. And, if you look back at my history, you’ll find several thousand internet posts from me stretching back for fifteen years or so before I actually sat down to write it: As an environmental activist type I saw what was coming down the road a LONG time ago.
And you wrote: “You say ‘We are involved in what are truly called “Ciitzens Lobby Groups” ‘. Hmmm How many genuine ‘citizen lobby groups’ get advice and support from people who publish books on the subject? Quite a lot actually. Look around a bit at the growth of various grass roots movements and the writings that helped them gather steam. Would you like to try to claim that the antismoking movement is “grass roots”? I could point you to quite a few books out written by people who write books and give “advice and support” to folks on the subject. The only difference is that most of them ALSO get paid to do so.
– MJM
btw Caroline, since you added one of the antismoking lobby’s signature statements to your last post, let me take a moment with it. You wrote:
“Gift wrapping of 4000 chemicals, including 70 known to cause cancer!!!!”
Parmenion is correct: Most of those “4,000 chemicals” will also be found in sometimes greater and sometimes lesser amounts in your ordinary daily food and water, as well as in the exhaled breath of your fellow pure nonsmoking companions. That even holds true for the nasty carcinogens such as benzene that you like to point to. And as for the “70 known to cause cancer” you might want to be a bit more honest and point out that most of those only cause cancer in specially mutated hamsters/mice/goldfish/rats/whatevers … and not human beings.
And I had to laugh at your mangling of the following: “the only known one to claim its promotional efforts are only to create brand loyalty and brand switching – not attract new customers” Really Caroline? You mean the beer and vodka companies with their fancy brand ads actually claim they’re trying to entice innocent teetotaling children? And the two big burger chains competing in massive head-to-head TV ad campaigns aren’t *really* working on brand loyalty and switching but are seeking to corrupt pure-of-heart vegetarians into chomping their teeth into chomping on dead carcasses?
– MJM
I was once solicited by an internet survey company that surveys consumer preferences. I guess they were mandated by some tobacco company to do a survey on packaging.
To be part of the survey you had to be 1) An adult 2) A current smoker.
Now why would tobacco companies be paying good money to such survey companies to get adult smokers opinions about what would make a smoker switch from one brand to another if that was not at least the main purpose of their packaging? Does this in any way prove that they don’t also want to attract the youth? Of course not, but as legal companies they have the right to compete with each other to promote their brands and as long as we can,t prove without a doubt that they have deliberately conspired to specifically design their packages to attract minors, we are accusing them on maybe’s, and suspicions only because we can! Does this not violate their rights? I would think it does, and if it happened to any other company they would be screaming blue murder and with reason. It is not because they are selling tobacco (which is still a legal product last time I checked) that we can trample their every corporate and intellectual property right just because we can. If we can do it to them through obsessive advocacy, we can do it to EVERY company we have a vendetta against and an agenda and the way things are going with the healthist movement I am sure we sooner or later will using the tobacco companies as a precedent.
Not forgetting there are over 2,000 chemicals in coffee.
“From a scientific viewpoint, coffee is an incredibly complex substance. It is estimated to contain more than 2000 chemical constituents, although an exact number has never been determined. Not only do scientists not know what coffee is composed of, they also don’t know the effects many of the various chemical components on the human body.” (1)
“From arsenic to aluminium, copper, tin, nickel and acrylamide – a chemical that has the World Health Organization (WHO) on alert aft er it was found to cause cancer in rats – most of the coffees analysed had about a dozen contaminants.” (2)
1. library.thinkquest.org/04oct/01639/light_en/science/index.html
2. bodyandsoul.com.au/health+healing/news+features/what+chemicals+are+in+your+coffee,9861
Apart from the fact that eventually everyone dies, smoking kills more never-smokers and former smokers than current smokers. Unbelievable? Look at the chart from the CDC to see who gets ”smoking related” diseases here http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5644a2.htm :
Lung Cancer – current smokers 20.9% Former smokers 61.2% Never-smokers 17.9%
Other cancers – current smokers 38.8% Former smokers 33.2% Never smokers 28.0%
Coronary heart disease current smokers 29.3% Former smokers 31.8% Never smokers 38.9%
Stroke – current smokers 30.1% Former smokers 23.0% Never-smokers 47.0%
Emphysema – current smokers 49.1% Former smokers 28.6% Never smokers 22.3%
Chronic bronchitis – current smokers 41.1% Former smokers 20.0% Never smokers 38.9%
Other chronic disease – current smokers 23.0% Former smokers 23.5% Never smokers 53.5%
Noteworthy are the definitions of current smokers and former smokers.
According to the CDC and spelled out below the charts in the link, a current smoker is someone who has smoked 100 cigarettes in his lifetime and still smokes sometimes or everyday. This of course would mean that anyone who started smoking 1 year ago and smoked 2 cigarettes a week would be included in these statistics. When we know that it takes at least 20 years (if ever) for a person to get a disease suspected to have been caused by smoking, how much sense does it make to include anyone who hasn’t been smoking very much and for very long in these statistics? It makes sense when you want to boost figures to impress people such as Sweet Caroline and politicians of course.
According to the CDC and again spelled out in the link, a former smoker is someone who has smoked 100 cigarettes in his lifetime and no longer smokes. This would mean that anyone who smoked 5 ”glitzy” packs of cigarettes at age 16 stopped smoking and never smoked since, yet contracted chronic bronchitis or whatever at 75, would be included in these statistics. Again when they tell us to stop smoking and very soon after (depending on the disease) we will have the same risks of a non-smoker, how much sense does it make to include such people without even knowing how long ago they quit and how much they smoked, in these statistics? It makes sense when you want to boost figures to impress people such as Sweet Caroline and politicians of course.
I hope Sweet Caroline now realizes that the 50% figure used ad nauseam includes former smokers and very light occasional smokers of the type I described above and doesn’t mean a thing other than scaring people with catchy slogans. What one also has to consider is how old these people were when they got these diseases and how many of them died from them at a ”premature” – as determined by the tobacco control gods – age?
Which makes one wonder, what’s the use of quitting smoking if one will be part of the morbidity and mortality statistics one way or the other no matter how little one smoked and how long ago one started? Maybe our anti-tobacco control gods can answer us?
People not finding any benefits in quitting or cutting down is the real danger of throwing around bunk statistics and ”no safe level” nonsense! It is high time that tobacco control started becoming honest and telling it like it is until they can believably prove otherwise : Heavy and long term smoking significantly increases one’s risks of dying from some serious diseases. This is about the only thing we know almost for certain because the epidemiological evidence and the statistics have been so far corrupted by vested interests, nothing else is any longer believable!
Something that I have only just noticed from Mr William’s statement:
Plain packs would be the same size, same colour, same font for the product name and nothing else other than the health warning. [my emphasis]. So easy to miss these things.
You see? No more ‘More’ cigarettes (the long, slim, brown ones), no superkings (100mm), no variations upon the size dictated by the Health Dept (aka ASH ET AL). And how long will it be before ASH ET AL are hacking 10mm off the length of packets (and thus, the contents)? And 10mm off the width? With no reduction in tax, of course.
That, you see, is why the zealots are fighting like cornered rats to get this legislation. The stuff about pretty colours and children is camouflage covering the real intentions behind this legislation.
Maybe Mr Williams does not himself know about these intentions, but if he doesn’t, why did he mention the size?
Junican – He mentions the size because that is exactly what Tobacco Control intends to do…to keep reducing the size of cigarettes and packets but keep the price the same.
This will they hope have the effect of eventually putting BT out of business and bringing about full prohibition which is what they’re really after.
Death by a thousand cuts.
Either he has inadvertently let the cat out of the bag or he has ‘slipped it in’ hoping that it would not be noticed amid the verbiage. I have asked below for clarification. Will I get it?
The reason it’s particularly difficult to avoid intimate exposure to those respiratorily exhaled human byproduct carcinogens is because of the glitzy packaging.
Just take a walk around downtown sometime and check out what’s walking around all hotted up in the latest outfits! Yeah, they claim they just want you to switch brands from that old model that’s kicking around back in the kitchen or den at home, but we know the REAL reason for the Armanis and Guccis and the rest of the batch: they wanna hook those of us who’ve never “gotten close” before.
And as soon as we fall for it?
WHAM! We got the MikeD’s and the SweetCarolines pouring their respiratory carcinogenic wastes all over us, right up into our innocently oscillating olfactory organs.
And of course all this “pretty packaging” is flaunted right in the sight of vulnerable children as well. No wonder the world is a mess.
Get rid of the packaging. People Don’t Need Pretty Packs! Plain, Given-By-God, unadorned brown, white, yellow, black, and red packages are all that’s needed to contain the variously viscous viscera, and the children would no longer be attracted into lives of exhalation addiction!
– MJM
In order to remove uncertainty, I wonder if Mr Williams would be prepared to tell us what plans are in the pipeline as regards the actual size of cigarette packets. What are the plans for the size immediately consequent upon the legislation, and what are the future plans? Surely, the All Party Parliamentary Group must know?
The Coalition Government will be holding a consultation exercise on “plain packets” and I’m sure that all these points of detail will be raised. Of course, the phrase plain packets that we have all been using is a bit of a misnomer. If we follow Australia they won’t be “plain” but they will all be similar. Perhaps “standard” packs would be a better way of describing where I think we will end up. Packs will be the same size (the traditional 20 fags size) and shape so as to do away with all the marketing ploys of “slim” packs or packs shaped like lipstick and so on. They will be the same colour, the brand name will be the same font and font size. Maybe the health warnings will have more variety! The size and colour of the cigarettes themselves will also become standardised.
I guess this reply will provoke another round of outrage…
So more people will roll their own. And isn’t the percentage of contraband and non-UK Duty Paid rolling tobacco smoked in the UK around 75%, compared to around 25% for manufactured cigarettes? A bonanza for the smugglers and organised crime.
Isn’t it time you dissociated yourself from these rabid fanatics, before you become as big a target for hatred and ridicule as they are?
Stephen: “I guess this reply will provoke another round of outrage…”
Now why would you say that, Stephen? The commenters here obviously love you….. sort of.
But may I at least ask if you have looked, with an open mind, at the considerable information that has been passed through this board? Or are you so far gone as a disciple, that anything questioning the cultic dogma is taboo? Why do people who smoke, who are taxed to extortionate levels, have no representation for that taxation by politicians that have pitifully accepted a social-engineering agenda? Remember that “plain packs” is just the latest in a long series of steps that is [intentionally] punitive to smokers and has ostracized them through nasty means from redefined “normal” society.
At what point do you say “enough is enough”, that to go any further with the social-engineering can only produce nastier social consequences, to fuel a bigotry bandwagon?
Well, Mr Williams, I am surprised that you have actually revealed the plan. So the plan is to standardise the size of the pack and the size and shape of the pack and, thus, the size and shape of the cigarettes inside the pack, and the type of tobacco and the flavourings and where they can be sold, and who can buy them, and how much they cost, and the colours and …….
All this messing about and waste of your time and that of your august Group, and the massive waste in supporting fake charities along with all the quack professors and quack doctors, could all saved very easily. Ban tobacco tomorrow entirely. Also, while your at it, ban alcohol totally and completely tomorrow. What is stopping you and your august pals on the honourable committee calling for that? What are you waiting for? BAN EVERYTHING NOW! Your mate Cunningham MP wants to ban smoking in cars for the children. But children spend very little time in cars, as opposed to in the home. Why is he calling far a ban on smoking in cars ‘for the children’ rather than a ban on smoking in the home?
Gosh! How vicious and manipulative can a mind get? How dare you call yourself ‘human’? Are all the members of your august GROUP equally minded?
You see, Mr Williams, when you set off on the road to prohibition, it really does not matter how many steps are involved – you still end up in the same place – PROHIBITION. That is, a direct attack on the quality of human beings to exercise free will. The more steps involved, the more costly PROHIBITION is to impose. Either do it or don’t. Stop messing about. The longer you try your tricks, the more that people will dig their heels in.
You have hit the point of non-cooperation. The non-cooperation spreads beyond tobacco in itself. YOU ARE A CRUEL AND VICIOUS PERSON. And so are the members of the GROUP. This is evidenced by your adherence to the Godber blueprint. Your intentions are dishonourable, and you know it, since you have the intention of distorting free will.
Mr Williams, I am sorry, but I cannot understand why you have agreed to become a lackey of the WHO and the EU, and worst of all, a lackey of the Eugenicists of the American Eugenicist Foundations, and, furthermore, a ‘useful tool’ for the Drugs Companies.
OK. Let’s get it right. Let’s decide upon some definitions.
CHILDREN: Little ones up to the age of, say, 11 years old.
YOUTHS: Say, young people from the age of 12 years to the age of 18.
ADULTS: Over 18 years.
CHILDREN ARE NOT INTERESTED IN FAGS – THEY CANNOT BE EATEN. Thus, you are really only concerned with YOUTHS (ADULTS are outside of your control).
YOUTHS will experiment – it has always been so. The more that you demonise an activity, the more attractive it is to youths.
ADULTS are outside your remit, since they have ‘free will’. Persuade if you wish, but do not force.
I have no doubt that you will continue with the ‘Godber blueprint’. But there are those of us who will not only refuse to comply, but throw spanners in the works of every ‘social engineering project’ that you invent. They will complain and complain.
But you do not care a toss. You are just ‘passing through’. The ‘fake charities’ will continue to drain our resources long after you are gone. They do not want tobacco to be banned – it would end their lucrative gravy train. Be aware, Mr Williams, that you are being used by a vast, world-wide industry.
We have a law which forbids the sale of tobacco to people under the age of 18. If that law in enforced, what other laws are required? People over the age of 18 can exercise their free will. What is the problem?
No connection with Big Tobacco whatsoever…..bla, bla.
Oh you are reading this, Stephen. I still have a post from 25 January awaiting moderation.
the smoking ban has completely ruined my social life to such an extent that i have considered moving abroad to one of our european neighbours where such a stupid law is not so widely adhered to , such as Greece.
I’ve done exactly that, and I’ve not regretted it for one moment. The Greeks treat laws like the smoking ban with the contempt they deserve. Most of the bars and restaurants here operate as they have always done, with ashtrays provided on the bar and at the tables. Government offices like the Post Office and the Tax office have ashtrays on the desks. The main Police Station reception office is staffed with smoking policemen. (And ashtrays on the desks.) My accountant chain smokes while his clients are with him. And no-one, but no-one indulges in any faux nose wrinkling and hand waving. It it utterly, refreshingly non-PC. And as I understand it, the Greeks have one of the lowest LC and heart attack rates in Europe.
Mr Williams.
In the USA, Tobacco Control have moved over in a big way from ‘denormalisation’ to ‘stigmatisation’. Can I refer you to Dr Siegel’s blog:
http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/
There you will see an article about a clinic in the USA which is testing prospective employees for cotinine and refusing employment to persons who test positive for that substance. (Cotinine is a ‘marker’ which indicates that a person has absorbed nicotine. I believe that it is detected via a saliva test) Thus the clinic is deliberately stigmatising people who enjoy a legal product even if they only do so in their own homes. Nor does the test differentiate between cigars, pipes, cigarettes, ecigs or even nicotine patches. The mere presence of cotinine debars a person from working, in any capacity, at that clinic.
No doubt you will applaud.
Is that the way that you want the citizens of this country, including your own constituents, to be treated? Because that is where you are heading. We are not seeing a crusade here – we are seeing a form of genocide.
It’s is even more extreme than that. From the Franciscan Health System website (http://www.fhshealth.org/jobsearch.aspx):
“Franciscan has implemented a policy of hiring only job applicants who are nicotine-free. As of March 1, 2011, nicotine will be added to list of substances screened for during the post-offer, pre-employment testing for all external job candidates offered employment. A positive test for nicotine, regardless of the source, will eliminate a job candidate from employment consideration.”
The key phrase is “regardless of the source”. If your partner or someone you share a flat or house with smokes or you even hang around with someone who smokes and are exposed to secondhand smoke, you are excluded.
Next step? No job unless you you are completely teetotal? No job if your BMI is over 20? No job if we think you’re ugly? And we will hire a PI or pay informers to ensure that you are not associating with drinkers, fatties and ugly people.
Carol: “I couldn’t agree more which is why it’s so good on days like today to find out that deaths from heart attacks have halved-yes halved!- in the last ten years and much of this is due to the efforts to reduce smoking.”
Hey Carol, I am not a fool (Neil Sedaka). You are spouting the standard antismoking spin, i.e., you are lying. You must be an activist because you’re up to date with the latest trash.
You ought to take a look at this:
Do NOT add www. to velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2012/01/sheer-heart-attacks.html
Does anyone have a figure for how many smokers want their children to take up smoking?
When did you stop beating your wife? (‘Have no wife’ is not an acceptable answer)
Casual readers of the blog who make it down this far should take note of the various tricks used by “MikeD” in avoiding discussion of the real issues and the questions that have been posed to him/her. In particular note how often he drags in “The Children.” Here’s a passage from one of my favorite books on the subject:
===
Protecting innocent and defenseless children is an almost universal aspect of the basic human psychobiological system. The knowledge of the extreme emotional reaction experienced by the average person when confronted with any threats to the safety and well being of children has been used by war propagandists since time immemorial.
Whom is Cruella Deville mean to? Not just dogs, but “puppies.” How did Hitler rev up the Germans? By picturing evil Jews corrupting Aryan children and then drinking their blood in secret ceremonies. How did George Bush Sr. capture the energies of the American people and direct them against Saddam Hussein? By playing on an image of Iraqi soldiers grabbing incubators and dumping premature babies onto cold linoleum floors.
Protecting our children is such a primal human instinct that the use of it in any political argument should be immediately suspect. Unfortunately, the blatant obviousness of this propaganda ploy is usually not enough to deter its use: the raw power of the imagery is far too useful to manipulators.
Antismoking Crusaders have never been shy about playing the “save the children” card but the use of this stratagem has been increasing in recent years as the power of their other arguments has started to fade with familiarity. It has become a common phenomenon for children to be dragged to City Council hearings by parent activists to testify that they are being choked to death by the fumes of evil smokers in public places. Mothers even bring toddlers to hearings primarily concerning smoking in bars and actually dress them up in little gas masks to show the urgent need for fast implementation of universal bans.
===
“Saving The Children” is just one item in their grab back of their “glitzy” but slimy tricks, but it’s one of the smelliest.
– MJM
Mike D, If you have kids of your own, would you want them to grow up and become what you are? Would you want your kids to have poisoned minds?
As neither Stephen nor his “minder”, Mike D, are prepared to offer any evidence whatsover to even suggest that this legislation will stop “the children” from smoking, may I hazard a guess at the “evidence” provided by their puppeteers ASH.
The same treat was placed in several packets, some “glitzy” and some plain. Infants, probably around the age of 5, were asked to select a packet to obtain their treat. Shock! Horror! “The children” picked the “glitzy” packages. The obvious control trial was to repeat the test using all plain packets, But no! “The children” would get stressed, stamp their feet and scream ‘There are no “glitzy” packets. I refuse to pick one!’ .
From these “eye-opening” results, they made the quantum leap and claimed that “the children” would be “lured” by the “glitzy” packeting to consume whatever “treat” was placed inside – a dog t*rd or, even worse, cigarettes.
I have a suspicion that I’m pretty near the truth. Correct me if I am wrong, Stephen or Minder Mike.
Now to “prove” that plain packaging would have no effect on the trade of small shops, Anti-Tobacco sent one of their “experts” (why waste funding on a real economist, who may not come up with the “right result”?) to a remote community in a country very similar to the UK – like Iceland.
This community had one shop, was over 50 miles from the nearest Tescossons supermarket and everyone knew each other like family members. When Stan (or Satan) the Smoker went into the shop, the owner (his brother-in-law) would enquire “Twenty of the usual, Satan?”. When asked whether plain packaging would affect his trade, the owner replied “Of course not.” And there we have “irreputable” proof that plain packaging will have no effect whatsoever on local shops!
I have a suspicion that I’m pretty near the truth. Correct me if I am wrong, Stephen or Minder Mike.
John S.
There is no need to do that – just invent the figures and statements, as ASH ET AL have been doing for ages. There are no checks on them, you see. No MP will question them and ASH ET AL have control of the Health Dept. No one has access to the accounts of ASH ET AL, so no one knows who is paying their salaries. Newspapers are ‘partners’ and toe the line. No one can dispute the ‘studies’ or ‘surveys’ of ASH ET AL because anyone who works in the Public Sector dare not speak. Lone voices cannot get a hearing because they are blocked out.
And so the persecution of people who enjoy tobacco will continue – for the time being. When Mr Williams starts to reduce the size of fag packets, and thus the contents, smokers will use their ingenuity. At that point, the unofficial import of tobacco will be at its most profitable. Not cigs – oh no! – plain tobacco – good stuff – in plain baked-bean tins. A cottage industry of fag making will spring up. Policemen will be smoking these ‘plainly packaged’ fags. And so will members of Mr William’s Parliamentary Group (as they sip their illicit wine). But do not dare to be poor or jobless! You will be subjected to cotinine tests to check that you do not smoke before you can claim benefits. ASH ET AL (aka The Health Dept) will see to it. That is what Mr Williams wants.
@ Mike D – “Does anyone have a figure for how many smokers want their children to take up smoking?”
Another typical anti smoker, ridiculous question but one that is easily answered! I ask you MikeD, “does anyone advocate their children taking up smoking?” – the answer will be “No, not really” but at the end of the day it is their own personal choice, not yours, mine or anyone elses! A few Tibetan people fully believe that fresh Yak dung is highly therapeutic, and it may or may not be, but would you injest that? I don’t think so and nor would I but it is the Tibetans choice to do so!
Does anyone have a figure for how many yak dung eaters want their children to take up yak dung eating?
Do you drink, MikeD?
Do you want your children to become alcoholics?
I ask a simple question and just look at the responses!
7 responses in 6 hours (all from people wanting to preserve the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets)
7 responses between just before 1am and just before 7am (all from people wanting to preserve the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets)
Overnight, 7 responses from people wanting to preserve the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets
The tobacco industry must be TERRIFIED of this measure – what better indication do people need that it will be effective in helping to stop kids starting to smoke than the fact that 7 shouty posts appear whilst the nation sleeps.
Oddly enough, none of them seem in the slightest bit concerned whether their kids start to smoke at all – just read them. Some even seem to believe that only a nazi would be interested in looking after the welfare of children.
They want to deny the right to try to protect children.
They want to preserve the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets.
How low will they go?
Sorry to see the psychotherapy didn’t help.
Mike D, I think perhaps your obsession with “pretty packets” indicates a problem. Maybe you should check out this site:
http://helpguide.org/mental/obsessive_compulsive_disorder_ocd.htm
“If you have obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms, you may feel isolated and helpless. Whether you suffer from uncontrollable thoughts, irrational urges, or feel compelled to perform the same rituals over and over again, there is a variety of help available. Educating yourself about OCD symptoms and treatment is an important first step.”
You may find some info which will help you control your need to keep repeating a meaningless phrase.
Mike D wrote, “Overnight, 7 responses from people wanting to preserve the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets The tobacco industry must be TERRIFIED of this measure”
Interesting conclusion MkeD. But you’ve illustrated something a bit different than you might desire.
You love trying to paint your opposition as creatures of the industry, always with the undercurrent of “Maybe they’re getting PAID by the industry?” in there.
If the tobacco industry were really behind this opposition in a formal way, do you think they’d be paying people to work in the middle of the night? Unfortunately for antismoking lobby, there is no such easy target out there amongst any except the few openly affiliated organizations such as FOREST and MonChoix (Which may actually I believe have been defunded several years ago.)
The true “professionals” are all bought and paid for with tax money and Big Pharma funds — and they’re all on the smoke-banners’ side.
And, again despite your inferences, they have no real interest at all in “protecting the children” except when it advances their antismoking goals. Point out to them that lowering the tax rates would reduce the easy black market availability of cigarettes to children and they’re silent as a brick wall. Point out that bans pushing smokers out on sidewalks make children perceive that smoking is far more of a common and interesting group activity for adults than it actually is … and again they make a brick wall look noisier than a New Year’s Eve party.
No, aside from some individuals within the movement representing certain subcategories of motivations, the antismoking movement as a whole only worries about children in the sense of how best to abuse our natural love for them in pursuing its goal of eliminating smoking.
MikeD, one of the funniest things about you folks is that you have no concept, despite having it repeatedly pointed out to you, of just how much your online activities help those of us fighting the organized antismoking movement. No one is interested in reading “preaching.” But you provide the sort of show that EVERYONE loves: a blood ‘n guts tussle with points being made and lost and with winners and losers — and you thereby help us to actually get information out to the wider public.
And I have no fear of saying this, simply because I know you’ll never deviate: it’s not in your nature.
– MJM
I wasn’t inferring that the tobacco industry was funding people to stay up all night in the UK posting on blogs Michael.
Perhaps some of the 7 posts were written by people who cannot sleep because of paranoia and persecution complexes. Those people have my sympathy, and I hope that you can get the help you need in getting some perspective into your life.
Perhaps some of the 7 posts were written by people who live in a different time zone to the UK. Perhaps those people should mind their own business and let the UK decide things for itself.
Perhaps some of the 7 posts were written by paid lobbyists, I doubt we will ever know who these people are.
Am I the only person who thinks it is distinctly odd that 7 posts appear between 1 am and 7 am?
And still nobody has any figures on what proportion of smokers don’t want their kids to start smoking. Just lots of insults that I’d dare to ask such a thing. After all, the pro-smoking brigade would have us believe that the only people to care about children are Nazis.
”Perhaps some of the 7 posts were written by people who live in a different time zone to the UK. Perhaps those people should mind their own business and let the UK decide things for itself.”
Much like Chapman who is minding his own business all the way from Australia? In case you forgot to notice, tobacco control is a global issue, what happens in the UK today will happen in Canada, where I am from, tomorrow and vice-versa.
You still haven’t answered my question : If it’s all about the kiddies, why is there no legal smoking age?
“Am I the only person who thinks it is distinctly odd that 7 posts appear between 1 am and 7 am?”
Em, yes.
Not everyone goes to bed at 11pm and rises at 7am. Some people work shifts, some people work from home, some people rise early, some people rise late. D’you see? But of course you do – you are merely trying to be provocative: you have no effective weaponry in your arsenal.
Mike D, you insult anyone that argues with your line of questioning, your policies-why is that? I happened to arise at 5 am this morning, does that make me a “preserver of the tobacco industry”?
I don’t smoke, does that still make me “preserver of the tobacco industry”?
I don’t disagree with anyone choosing to smoke or not to smoke, does that make me “preserver of the tobacco industry”?
You stated ‘(all from people wanting to preserve the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets)’. You really do come up with some childish drivel Mike D! Most of the smokers I know couldn’t care less what colour the packet is, they smoke according to taste (apparently) not colour. You are the one stooping to any level to deride those that oppose your views-as for me? well, I’m just a good old fashioned believer in freedom of choice!
And you’d think that if the industry was behind this opposition, instead of paying people to post on forums that attract at best a couple of hundred readers, that they wouldn’t buy through their astroturf groups whole pages in newspapers, that attract a much bigger readership or infomercials on TV?
And just to answer your silly question MikeD, I will simply copy paste what I have answered someone else (maybe it was even you under a different alias) in the Guardian.
Attempting to prevent kids from starting to abuse tobacco is a noble goal and one that even as a smoker I managed to succeed with my children before anti-smoking became obsessive and hysterical and without help from public health. But the world didn’t stop turning with this and the next generation of kids and prohibitions that curtail adult activities should be kept to a minimum lest we become police states.
The day we will stop drinking, gambling, divorcing, having sex before wedlock, speeding, doing dangerous sports, producing violent movies, videos, stop using guns, stop being couch potatoes, stop eating unhealthy food, start losing weight, walk or bicycle (with a helmet) everywhere we possibly can, then we can say we are being consistent when saying that we must do everything to save the children. How many of these activities and their advertising are you willing to prohibit to save the next generations? After wearing the shoe that affects YOUR life and lifestyle, I am sure you would happily concede that children are their parents’ responsibilities and love, communication and a convincing education are worth much more than impersonal feel-good public health policies, prohibitions and bans that will obtain nothing more than further frustrate adults who have just about had it with the ever increasing bully state.
PS – MJM – Monchoix was defunded at least 3 or 4 years ago. Obviously the bans weren’t hurting the tobacco industry because they pulled away all the funding and redirected it to fight what is really hurting them – contraband. Yes the same contraband cigarettes that are sold to kids by their school yard at $10 for 200 cigarettes of crap tobacco containing rat droppings, floor sweepings and bugs that children make a business out of reselling to their peers with the proceeds often going to buy themselves illegal drugs. Maybe this is something MikeD would be happy to encourage?
But you avoided to answer a question that I asked early in this discussion MikeD. Why isn’t there a legal smoking age?
is Freedom to Choose funded by the tobacco industry? And how can you claim to represent smokers when you aren’t representative of the views of any of the smokers I know? Is F2F the fanatics wing? How many members do you have? Is it more than 50? Not counting some of the fake bloggers on this site who are clearly paid tobacco stooges of course, spouting obscure facts from industry funded documents then claiming to just be the man in the street wading into a debate they’ve overheard,
Comical the organisation is so obsessive distancing itself from the tobacco industry. You’d almost think being associated with the industry was something to be ashamed of!
“Not counting some of the fake bloggers on this site who are clearly paid tobacco stooges of course” – Paul.
Paul if you have any evidence that of this can you please share it with us.
Thanks.
I’ve checked out Freedom2Choose and, sorry, I am a smoker and I agree with them.
“is Freedom to Choose funded by the tobacco industry? And how can you claim to represent smokers when you aren’t representative of the views of any of the smokers I know? Is F2F the fanatics wing? How many members do you have? Is it more than 50? Not counting some of the fake bloggers on this site who are clearly paid tobacco stooges of course, spouting obscure facts from industry funded documents then claiming to just be the man in the street wading into a debate they’ve overheard,”
What a load of claptrap! It’s difficult to know which bit of the above is worthy of attention. I’ve thought about it and consider the sex life of a lettuce is more important.
Sorry, bit distracted here! I couldn’t stop chuckling as I scrolled up and found one of your “members” had tried to get people to click on Joe Jackson’s website.
I love it! Talk about a celeb who’s so very “now”!!! Someone who’s never out of the public eye. Was Blakey from “On the Buses” not available to have a moan about the smoking ban four years after the horse has bolted?
Ah well, if you’ve only got a small handful of angry vitriolic campaigners whose pleasures are limited to hijacking newspaper articles and blogs under various pseudonyms you take who you can get! Especially if your other “high profile” supporter has been entirely discredited and is presumably too busy eating a bit of humble pie/ cheese.
Love and kisses
Paul,
I would much rather be in a pub or restaurant where smoking is permitted. When the smoking ban is repealed and sufficient laws are in place to protect smokers from discrimination and hate, I shall go back to spending my time in pubs and minding my own business. I am sure that future generations of smokers will be very great full. I would guess that future generations of smokers will have very long life expectancies and will not appreciate having to subsidies smoke-free environments any more than we do now.
Love and kisses
@Paul – “..the smokers I know”. Would they be the ‘legions’ of smokers who love the smoking ban because it helps them to cut down their smoking? (How much time DO these people spend in the pub – obviously too much, tut, tut) or those who, mindful that a few precious souls cannot tolerate the odd whiff of tobacco smoke, are glad to stand outside beside the bins in the cold and rain, or perhaps they’re pensioners who, flying in the face of the wisdom of tobacco control, have the audacity to be alive after fifty years of smoking who prefer social isolation to a game of bingo in company down the social club?
BTW Only you care about Joe Jackson’s ‘celebrity’ status which is completely immaterial just as David Hockney’s status is (although I believe he is very ‘now’). Both are outspoken in their outrage about the treatment of smokers.
Usual disclaimer: I am not a paid lackey of the tobacco industry, just a completely hacked-off smoker who gets up at the crack of dawn to slog my guts out to give money to a government who gives it to ASH to fund my demonisation and make my life a misery and who would be quite happy to buy my fags in a brown paper bag and decant them into a smart cigarette case but who objects to time and money being spent on a measure the effectiveness of which is not supported by credible evidence.
Mr Williams must cringe when he sees the intellectual standards of his supporters on this blog. There again, perhaps it is those people his statements are aimed at. I am still wondering where the Arnotts, Duggans and members of his holy All Party Group are.
But I am satisfied that Mr Williams has admitted that the stuff about children and glitz is camouflage and that the real purpose o f plain packaging legislation is to gain control of the size of cigarette packets, and therefore the size of cigarettes themselves. He seems to have admitted that the glitz and the children are simply propaganda, and that the real purpose is to ratchet up the persecution of people who have the simple pleasure of the enjoyment of tobacco.
I am pretty certain that MPs will do their usual trick of rolling over to have their tummies tickled, and that this measure will be passed. It doesn’t really matter that much to me personally. Both herself and I have almost stopped going to the pub – boring. We do not buy tobacco in this country. We can drink and smoke what we like at home – children grown up, no immediate neighbours to complain, little traffic and therefore little murderous fumes.
Statistics say that I have lost 18 years of life – so, since I am still alive at the age of 72, I am the equivalent of 90! If I survive for another 10 years (and there is no reason that I should not since I am in good health), I will be the equivalent of 104!
“Mr Williams must cringe when he sees the intellectual standards of his supporters on this blog.”
I suspect Mr Williams might get a good chuckle at some of the paranoid drivel, confusion and lies that are being posted by some of the people who want to preserve the tobacco industry’s rights to pretty packets.
Most of the smokers I know couldn’t care less what colour the packet is, they smoke according to taste (apparently) not colour.
That is correct and much of the 2-hour plane flight smoking bans back in the 80’s where all this hysteria first started didn’t affect most smokers but look at where it has lead us just because we let them. Short of total prohibition there is no more room for any further tobacco control. It has gone way past what was reasonable and credible. It is now high time to shit or get off the pot. Make tobacco illegal or move on to the next money grabbing issue. I hear obesity and alcohol control pay pretty well.
Mike D and “Paul” are like a couple of stuck records. Freedom2Choose yadda yadda, tobacco industry stooges yadda yadda – are ad hominems really all they’ve got? It would be a very poor reflection on the anti-tobacco movement if that were the case.
One would have expected their arguments to be strong and cogent enough to simply be put forward without all the mudslinging that we’ve seen above, and yet all we ever seem to see are personal attacks on those people with opposing views. Could it be that they really haven’t got anything to back up their assertions?
Disclaimer: I am not paid by the tobacco industry (quite the reverse, in fact), but that shouldn’t be relevant either way. Any attempt on their part to discredit me by suggesting that I am would merely add more strength to the impression of hollowness that their repetitive and tedious accusations have already conveyed on these pages.
Mr Williams! Mr Williams! They’re advertising ALCOHOL on the boarding around the court at the Australian Tennis Open! There are hundreds of teenagers in the audience and millions watching on the TV! It is a disgrace! Think of the children being corrupted by BIG BOOZE! Dr Nathanson of ASH ET AL said that it is time to denormalise alcohol. Why are you and you mates on the Holy Committee falling down in your duty?
Alcohol is next you say? Well, that’s OK then. What a relief!
After the Heart attack statistics issued by the BHF there’s an ugly rumour going round about a new found morality in Tobacco Control circles —– Jill Pell is paying back the funding she got for her 17% reduction study!
No, no, no. Ms. Pell is correct. You must ignore dodgy stuff like NHS data and the recent BMJ graphs. They’re just fronts for big tobacco. The NHS and BMJ are full of tobacco shills, didn’t you know?
It’s very interesting reading all this but you’re wasting your time with the likes of Williams et al. Their minds were made up a long time ago and simple things like data or lack of data have no effect whatsoever. Who needs it, eh?
Wasting time? Yes in one way BUT, in one place, an enormous collection of data that even Williams hasn’t tried to put up any defence against.
Evidence of anti-smoking dogma of the worst type.
Any historian worth his salt would be looking at the role of Primary/Secondary evidence and bias in order to reach a balanced understanding of the true situation. Not so for all the academically qualified!
Ah yes but that’s in normal and everyday life. This is smoking we’re talking about, the devil incarnate. Normal analyses and civilities don’t apply. Neither does any form of logic or sense. It’s Religious.
I am hoping to do some more research over the weekend but the anti smoker’s argument is falling apart piece by piece.
Firstly Chapman in his Guardian article concedes “But plain packaging will not instantly cut smoking rates, he cautions. “We’re not expecting plain packaging to have much impact on existing smokers.” He then goes on to say “.. Australia are at their lowest ever, just 2.5% of 14- to 17-year olds smoke. The figure in England is 17%.” (1) So 17% of teenagers smoke cigarettes. So how many teenagers are involved in drug taking? This is from the NHS “Statistics on Drug Misuse: England, 2007.” (2)This is the extent of drug taking in the UK, “For younger adults aged 16 to 24, drug use in the last year fell between 1998 and 2005/06, from 31.8% to 25.2%..” and “In 2006, 17% of pupils reported taking drugs in the last year, a fall from 19% in 2005. Again this has fluctuated since 2001 when it was 20%.” and Similar to previous years, drug use increases with age; among 11 year olds 3% reporting taking drugs in the last month compared with 17% of 15 year olds. For 15 year olds, 29% reported taking drugs in the last year and 8% said they used drugs at least once a month.”
So it appears that cannabis, ecstasy, heroin and cocaine which come in the plainest of bags are consumed just as much as cigarettes. In fact one could strongly argue the demonisation of smokers and smoking may increase the amount of illegal drug taking in this country. On Simon Chapman’s head be it.
.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/24/simon-chapman-plain-cigarette-packaging-activist
http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/drugmisuse07/Drugs%20misuse-England%202007%20with%20links%20and%20buttons.pdf
Dave, why do you pass yourself off as DrDaveA on the Guardian.
Are you a Doctor? Do you have any qualification that allows you to use Dr. in front of your name.
And why did you tell a whopping big porky earlier in this thread where you stated
“daveatherton
January 23, 2012 12:59 pm
……
Smokers have no employment rights in the UK.”
That isn’t true. Smokers do have employment rights.
Mike D – if smokers have employment rights then how come employers can place adverts for positions where it states ‘smokers need not apply’ or ‘non smokers only’?
It is not legal to advertise jobs and state ‘ethnic minorities need not apply’ nor is it legal to stipulate gender, except in some particluar circumstances; it is also not legal to descriminate on religious grounds.
So, back up your statement about employment rights and explain how come it is perfectly legal to to descriminate against smokers when placing a job advert and then explain where the smokers rights are in employment!
I am not alone in losing a job because I am a smoker, many others have found themselves in the same position and not been able to get legal representation to fight the case.
Mike D (and his buddies) doesn’t address questions. That would require coherent thinking, a skill that Mike hasn’t yet mastered. The industrious buffoon only ASKS asinine questions – many, many, inane questions. And please don’t mention facts to Mike D and his buddies. Just the word “facts” is like a crucifix to a vampire, the antismoking fanatics’ eyes lose focus and roll uncontrollably, and the skin breaks out in blisters. No wonder they’re so desperate to keep their shenanigans in the dark.
For anyone interested in the exercise, they can pluck out Mike D’s (or Paulie’s) comments and paste them in a word document. They can then marvel at the wall-to-wall, drivel-infested “contribution” that is an insight into the sewer that is Mike’s mind.
Lyn.
Have you been to see ACAS yet? I think you have a case against your employer.
If not, why not?
Mike D, as I said in an earluer post I contacted everyone I could find on the internet and they all said the same. Yes, ACAS was one of those that came up under the search.
Will you be responding to my post of yesterday (I think it was yesterday but it may have been Thursday – working nights I get a bit confused with days!) It was the post about job adverts stating ‘smokers need not apply’ or ‘non smokers only’.
Mike D[imwit], why have you made so many baseless accusations?
Why have you failed to address even one question directed at the antismoking fanatics?
Why have you failed to address demonstrable, delinquent antismoking conduct that has allowed the fanatics to build a lucrative antismoker industry that didn’t exist 30 years ago?
Why is your entire repertoire one of attempted smear?
Your mania, your multiple, infantile attempts at distraction and misdirection, betray your obvious desperation. You seem desperate to have the last word, stupid as it ever is. Why so desperate, Mike? It sounds like you and your fanatic buddies are a little worried by the scrutiny, maybe even weeing in your diapers.
Keep it up, Mike (and Paulie). You’re only demonstrating with crystal clarity the shallow, pompous, perverse, self-serving “workings” of the antismoking mentality.
My advice to my children is don’t go the way of the superficial, neurotic, bigoted, sanctimonious antismoking fanatic, a most tragic path indeed.
XOXOX
I work with a lot of smokers (all really normal people and none with a persecution complex).
They all have employment rights.
Employers are allowed to have smoking policies, but these do not take away ALL of a smokers employment rights.
To say that smokers in the UK have NO EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS is a lie.
Still avoiding questions, O pretentious one?
“To say that smokers in the UK have NO EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS is a lie.”
You’ve accused those who disagree with you as ‘shouty ones’. Are you aware that to post in block capitals = shouting online?
Smokers are not protected by law against discrimination by employers when inviting applications for a vacancy. It is illegal for employers to say that disabled people/ women/homosexuals/Catholics/Protestants/Jews/Muslims/Sikhs/
Hindus/the old/the young/single people/married people/divorced people/black/brown/white people need not
apply. It is legal for employers to say that smokers need not apply. Smokers, therefore, can be refused employment
by virtue of being smokers and have no right to employment.
Comprendez?
Jay, I do cemprendez, and you are missing the point. Despite what you say, smokers in employment DO have employment rights.
To say that smokers in the UK have NO EMPLOYMENT RIGHTS is a lie.
So, what point am I missing?
Junican
“we are seeing a form of genocide”
Loony!
The persecution complexes exhibited here seem really extreme. Just imagine how shouty these posters will be on issues which are really contentious.
Here are some issues from Stephen’s blog
Caring for the homeless at Christmas – 8 comments
Supporting Human Rights Day 2011 – 2 comments
A new way to tackle unfair tax avoidance – 31 comments
High Pay – time to call a halt to the executive gravy train – 2 comments
Tobacco plain packs – a protection against the “Silent Salesman” – 660 comments
Surprising, the shouty people aren’t bothered about the homeless, real human rights abuses, rich people avoiding tax so we poor people have to pay more, or fat cats getting million pound bonuses.
But they’re REALLY shouty about protecting the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets.
You’re the only one shouting with your sanctimonious drivel. Blather away, O ye of the sewer. You’re building to a frenzy. Careful, or you’ll pop another antismoking gasket.
“660 comments”
It shows that we care about freedom of choice and hate being bullied by the state.
“But they’re REALLY shouty about protecting the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets.”
There you go with that “pretty packets” obsession again. You really should try to control it. I gave you the link to a site which you might find helpful in my last comment. Have you looked at it yet? You really should. I’m getting quite worried about you. Fixations like that just aren’t healthy, you know.
I’ll copy and paste it here for you, just so you don’t have to scroll up:
http://helpguide.org/mental/obsessive_compulsive_disorder_ocd.htm
“If you have obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms, you may feel isolated and helpless. Whether you suffer from uncontrollable thoughts, irrational urges, or feel compelled to perform the same rituals over and over again, there is a variety of help available. Educating yourself about OCD symptoms and treatment is an important first step.”
You may find some info which will help you control your need to keep repeating a meaningless phrase.
Mike: “Tobacco plain packs – a protection against the “Silent Salesman” – 660 comments”
You blather-spouting, snivelling jackass. You’ve contributed at least 20 comments to that total. In none of those comments did you consider the issues that you now raise as important. Your comments have all been attempted smear. And your latest venture is “Look everyone, the people on this blog don’t care about anything else except protecting the tobacco industry’s pretty packs”. Getting really desperate now, O purveyor of piffle. Mike, you’re adding new dimensions to “pathetic”. Keep it up, O desperate one!
”660 comments”
Perhaps if the first 60 had been addressed honestly or even addressed at all, decent people of the UK could have focused their attention on other issues. Perhaps if there was an ear for extortionist tax paying citizens of the world to address their grievances, concerns and views instead of being consistently and deliberately excluded from every decision making discussion, you wouldn’t see 660 comments the few times there is a platform where they can express themselves.
The day no one cares or does anything for the other issues you mentioned and anyone trying to bring them up is vehemently attacked and libelled for it, more decent people would be shouting to be heard.
Why is there no legal smoking age?
Nisakiman, you offered MikeD the help link to an OCD site, and he may indeed have a problem with that, but I believe it’s more likely an outgrowth of advanced ASDS, AntiSmoking Dysfunction Syndrome. I may have referenced it for him earlier in these 660ish comments, but here it is just in case:
http://wispofsmoke.net/recovery.html
Hope it helps!
– MJM
Michael
Aren’t you an American author of pro-smoking books who makes posts like the above on websites all over the world?
Now THAT is proper OCD.
So it’s all about the kids hey? Let’s see if we can be reasonable people and show our good will to fix that. I’ll propose a deal with Stephen, MikeD, Paul and all those cheering on the ”glitzy” pack ban. How many of those commenting here would agree to this?
Since anti-tobacco tells us that most people who start smoking do it before the age of 18, there is little danger that many people will take up smoking once the older generations will have passed on.
Let’s agree to
1) Institute a legal smoking age
2) Let’s give police officers the necessary power to confiscate cigarettes from kids when they see them smoking anywhere and everywhere and get them to do community work as a deterrent from doing it again .
3) Heck, I am willing to go even further than that. Let’s hold adults liable for not reporting to the authorities any child they see or know is smoking.
In return for getting our full support to stop tobacco companies from attracting children to smoke:
1) Let’s bring the taxes down (extortionist taxes that are supposedly deterring kiddies from smoking will no longer be necessary since it will be illegal for them to smoke).
2) Let’s allow private businesses to make the choice of being adult smoking venues
3) Let’s allow airline companies to declare some flites ”all adult smoke-friendly flites”
4) Let’s allow cinemas the choice to make their theatres ”smoke-friendly” if they present R-rated movies.
5) Let’s allow adult employees to make the decision whether they want to work in a ”smoke-friendly” all adult environment or not.
6) Let’s make it mandatory that old age homes, hospitals, psychiatric clinics provide a warm and comfortable designated smoking room.
6) Let’s stop lying for money and use our taxes for honest carrot approach motivational campaigns that helped millions of adults give up smoking in the past.
Deal?
One more condition. Let’s make it illegal to refuse to hire anyone based on lifestyle choices that they partake in on their own time.
Iro, if I may add to your point about taxes: If Mike D et al were TRULY concerned about the “smoking children” then the FIRST thing they would do would be to eliminate cigarette taxes and thereby eliminate the black market that floods the underage buyers with no-ID purchase options.
Of course they DON’T really care about the children so they’d never back such an idea: they just like abusing our love for our children as a propaganda tool.
– MJM
We all know damn well they would never go along with anything like this. Not a single one of them has ever thought of even proposing it. Children is what’s keeping them in the anti-smoking business in the first place. Would they give up their most powerful weapon so easily?
Mike D. Are you a parrot?
I think that Mr Williams should make it plain to his supports like Paul and Mike D that the children angle is a propaganda ruse. The real physical objective, as he stated earlier, is to gain control of cigarette packets and their contents, and thus further reduce the choice of people who enjoy tobacco. I’ll repeat that for the intellectually challenged – REDUCE CHOICE. And, of course, gradually reduce the size and shape of cigarettes, again to REDUCE CHOICE. It is simple persecution. A further tightening of the screw.
I have an idea. How about we propose that taxes on cigarettes be set to cover actual total health costs (which, according to most recent research seems to be either zero percent or a negative number — if you can believe the Antismokers’ claims about early deaths that is.) thereby eliminating the black market and saving the children in that way.
THEN, at the same time, we could get rid of the pretty packets that the Antis claim are also causing harm to children! 🙂 I’m sure most posters on here would feel at least moderately comfortable with that, as long as the same principle were extended to other vendors that market harmful to children to children through “pretty packages” — the McWhopperies, the beer and soda companies, and suchlike. Similar limited “variety” could be allowed of course: 75% of bottles covered with bodies ripped in half from car accidents or 450 pound bathing beauties sunning their bedsores. We’d probably end up with a whole generation of healthier (at least physically healthier) kids.
Maybe Mike D would be willing to write a formal letter to ASH proposing the combination of the above as a sure-fire double-barreled way to “protect the children” while removing most public opposition to the plan. And MP Williams could propose it in Parliament! With public support it would certainly be sure to pass and the healthy children will be free to join them dancing in the daisy fields.
After all, they *ARE* here for the children, right? Now’s their chance to prove it!
Or admit that they’re lying and run away faster than little girls from a pack of tarantulas.
– MJM
P.S. I don’t usually link to my website MikeD, but since you seem so interested in our links to Big Tobacco, I thought you might like to see the rather public way I’ve addressed my own situation. Note the second sentence at http://www.antibrains.com/preface.html
American obsessive blog poster MJM says “Of course they DON’T really care about the children so they’d never back such an idea: they just like abusing our love for our children as a propaganda tool.
– MJM”
YOUR colleagues “love” for children is given form in several posts earlier in the thread that seek to hide the undeniable link between exposing babies to smoke, both in the womb and after birth, and SIDS/Cot Death.
You all love your pretty packets so much that you want to try to obscure the evidence that has convinced the UK’s Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths to conclude
“How significant is the risk of cot death if I smoke when I’m pregnant?
Smoking in pregnancy is dangerous. Scientific evidence shows that around 30% of deaths could be avoided if mothers didn’t smoke when they were pregnant.
If you smoke 1-9 cigarettes a day during pregnancy you are more than 4 times as likely to have a baby die as a cot death than a woman who didn’t smoke at all during pregnancy.
Even if you did smoke when they were pregnant, you should still try not to expose your baby to smoke after birth as this can help reduce the risk of cot death. It’s definitely still worth making your home smoke-free.”
“How significant is the risk of cot death if I smoke at home?
The risk is very significant. Scientific evidence shows that about 30% of cot deaths could be avoided if parents didn’t smoke around their children.
Babies who are exposed to 1-2 hours of smoke a day are more than twice as likely to die as those who have no exposure to tobacco smoke, while those living in a smoky home where they are exposed to smoke all day are 8 times more likely to die.”
“I don’t smoke but my husband/partner does. Is this dangerous too?
Yes, it is. If your partner smokes then your baby is over 3 times more likely to die than if your partner doesn’t smoke.
The risk of death also rises with the number of smokers in the household. A family with one smoker has nearly 5 times the risk of a cot death of a non-smoking household, while there is 11 times the risk if two people smoke and 16 times the risk if three or more people smoke.”
The evidence is clear for our main cot death charity.
The creepy bloggers from freedom2choose and elsewhere don’t want the world to know this.
If you really love children, don’t listen to the pro-smoking lobby.
They are willing to con you into putting your child at risk just to gain the upper hand in an argument about pretty cigarette packets.
Now you are really showing your gullibility, Mike D.
Here are some figures from the ONS:
Eng & Wales death stats 2010: Infants:
SIDS…………………………………………………………..147.
Unknown……………………………………………………….75.
Other unknown………………………………………………75.
The cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is, by definition, unknown. Up-to-date opinion is that SIDS may be caused by a combination of seratonin deficiency and re-breathing carbon dioxide trapped by bedclothes – which is why it is recommended that infants should NOT be placed on their fronts to sleep.
Well, at least you’ve tried to come up with something real, but do try to avoid the propaganda. And please do not try to use these very sad events to further your persecution.
“Aren’t you an American author of pro-smoking books who makes posts like the above on websites all over the world?
Now THAT is proper OCD.”
No, Mike D, that isn’t proper OCD, that is being an author and a specialist in a particular subject with a wide ranging knowledge on said subject.
Proper OCD is a repetitive fixation on something banal, like, oh, I don’t know, “pretty packets” or something similar. As in:
“…just to gain the upper hand in an argument about pretty cigarette packets.”
for the umpteenth time.
But still, you admit to the condition, and that is an important first stage. It won’t be easy, Mike D, but one step at a time, eh? I’m sure with a bit of self-awareness you’ll be able to start on the road to recovery. Who knows, you may eventually turn into a well adjusted human being! All things are possible! Don’t give up hope! I’m sure all the guys here will be there for you if you need them. As smokers, they are tolerant and easy-going. They won’t hold your little peccadillos against you. After all, you can’t really help it.
Nice dodge on having to admit you don’t care enough about children smoking to eliminate the black market MikeD. Not so nice that you try to paint all the Free Choice folks as encouraging mothers to smoke while pregnant and around their babies. We’ve seen the sad results of such behavior of course: After World War II people smoked constantly in their homes and as a result very few babies were born. That’s why it’s called the “Baby Bust Generation,” right?
Or maybe you grew up in a parallel universe.
You also forgot that while the UK Foundation may have one opinion on cot death causes, that there are other opinions out there as well that seem to contradict them. Remember this from up above … from the National Public Affairs Director of the SIDS Alliance over on this side of the ocean? : “Your literature states that smoking ‘kills more than 2,000 infants each year from SIDS.’ Any published figures are sheer speculation, or guesses, not grounded in actual experimentation…we respectfully request that you adjust your message as far as SIDS is concerned”
In terms of how the Free Choice folks here would weigh in on the issue I would guess there’d be some degree of split, but for myself, I would recommend that women refrain from smoking heavily during pregnancy and generally try to see that their babies have an environment with a decent amount of fresh air. That does NOT mean that there can be no smoking or cooking in a home… it simply means to use common sense and not have the bassinet in the kitchen if you bake pies in a gas or wood stove all day and not keep the bassinet in the card room if the gals come over to chain smoke and play bridge every afternoon.
You however, refuse to take the one simple step that would give you your goal of plain packaging AND cut off the black market supply of cigarettes to children: simply agree to eliminate cigarette taxes (or at least equalize them to properly computed health care costs as described above) and extend the plain packaging to other harmful consumer items that are advertised or displayed in areas accessible to those under 18.
Such a simple step, so seemingly in accord with your stated goals…. yet you and Mr. Williams and the rest of your pack seem to run faster oil paint on a wet wall when you’re presented with it.
Care to explain why?
Or do you need all your breath for running?
– MJM
MJM says “You also forgot that while the UK Foundation may have one opinion on cot death causes, that there are other opinions out there as well that seem to contradict them.”
The Foundation look at ALL of the evidence because their simple aim is to help eradicate this awful, tragic phenomenon.
They believe, after looking at ALL of the evidence, that about a third of the cases could be prevented by not exposing the foetus, or the baby, to tobacco smoke. That’s 100 fewer dead babies each year in the UK, 100 fewer families suffering that most extreme of tragedies.
The fact is that about 200 cases a year would not be prevented by avoiding tobacco smoke exposure. But that doesn’t absolve smoking, it just illustrates that there may be several different mechanisms for SIDS/Cot Death.
Why a presumably intelligent man like you can allow himself to continue to manipulate the discussion to mask the contribution of smoking to the deaths of 100 UK babies a year rom your home in America is beyond me. How do you live with yourself?
THE CAUSE OF COT DEATH IS UNKNOWN.
Oh no, MJM please, I think MikeD is 100% correct with his precautionary principle that’s why I propose an annex to my previous deal :
In order to further protect the innocent, let,s make it shameful and even criminal for women to smoke even one cigarette per day during pregnancy and anyone who smokes in the same house of a new born.
In return, since we’re on precautionary measures to protect the innocent, let’s also make it shameful and even criminal:
1) For women to abort – I am sure everyone will agree that this is not just a suspected cause of death to unborn babies.
2) For young women to get pregnant since this is another suspected risk factor for SIDS
3) For obese women to get pregnant since obesity creates a greater chance of birth defects and a higher fetal death rate.
4) Women over 40 to get pregnant since they are more likely than younger women to experience gestational diabetes, placental abnormalities, high blood pressure, miscarriage and stillbirth.
5) Women that have short intervals between pregnancies since it is suspected to increase risk for SIDS
6) Women that don’t take prenatal care lessons since mothers who smoke during pregnancy and attend prenatal care more often give birth to healthier babies than those of non-smoking mothers who don’t .
7) Parents who lay their kids on their tummy (biggest suspected risk for SIDS)
8) Parents who co-sleep with their baby (another big suspected risk for SIDS)
9) Pregnant women who drink coffee since caffeine intake before and during pregnancy was associated with an increased risk of fetal loss,
10) Women who don’t renew their vaccinations before getting pregnant
11) Women who drink even a little alcohol during pregnancy
12) Pregnant women who are in the vicinity of paraffin candles since their smoke emits doses of pollutants, including benzene, toluene and ketones, that have been linked to birth defects.
13) Pregnant women who use cell phones, drink out of plastic containers, take sleeping pills, go to the SPA, use nail polish remover, have a pet, have sex although their physician has advised against it, live in a polluted city, use coal and gas stoves … since all could be very dangerous for the fetus
I’m afraid MJM, Junican, & Iro Cyr. You will never change the minds of those that support the religion of Antismoking, by reason alone. They are convinced that they are the high priests, that live on a higher plane of existence than the rest of us. In their minds we are all pagans that need converting at any cost. They are the priests of old that travelled the world to save us from sin. Reason is beyond their beliefs.
They’ll never listen to constructive arguement. They just have their fingers in their ears, whilst chanting Nah,nah, nah, nah.
PS. I wish that cheque from BAT gets into my bank account soon. Just so that I can pay my energy bills that have been inflated by that tosser Chris Huhne and his obsession with Bird Mincers.
TFE – and all the time they’re being used to create a world where their paymasters, the Pharmaceutical Industry, gain full control of all nicotine delivery. Size, shape, dosage etc and, for those who fail to adapt, they have already created drugs to affect the pleasure receptors in the brain.
But NO! Their research is impeccable. They would never introduce drugs without the fullest independent confirmation of their efficacy or clear information about side effects. Never have they introduced drugs that kill or damage the patient.
They must be above reproach for our Government to become major promoters and customers of quality products such as NRT.
Iro, don’t forget that with the “no safe level” concept, even orange juice is verboten: a quart of orange juice contains not just picograms, nanograms, or micrograms of carcinogenic ethyl alcohol, but full MILLIGRAMS (A thousand times as dangerous as micrograms!) of the poison. Obviously, any female attempting to poison her child, born, unborn, or simply contemplated, with such toxins should be jailed (Unfortunately I understand the UK does not offer the death penalty yet for these sorts of folks? Sad. But fixable: give the Antismokers some time.)
– MJM
And Formaldehyde – listed by the IARC as a “Known Human Carcinogen” – occurs naturally in many fruits and vegetables, meat and poultrey, fish and seafood, milk, coffee and soft drinks. It is also added DELIBERATELY to some medications, including flu jabs. It is emitted by many household items such as furniture and floor coverings. It is also present in many cosmetics and domestic cleaning products, such as washing up liquid and fabric conditions. Does baby’s freshly laundered bedding smell funny? It could be “lethal” formaldehyde.
All you smokers seem to be missing the point in this (currently) nearly-700 post article.
The anti-smokers hate you.
They are not interested in facts or science so you can’t reason with them. They are bigots just interested in one outcome – making smokers’ lives a misery.
To do that they’ve misrepresented science, pushed unsubstantiated scare stories about SHS, suborned our law-makers into supporting them with your tax money, and enacted vindictive and divisive legislation which has actually harmed UK businesses and communities – but because they’re bigots they are not concerned about anything other than their hate.
You can’t convince them of anything.
However, you massively outnumber them.
You also have friends and relatives throughout the UK who may not be smokers but who are reasonable, and who will be sympathetic to your troubles and the unfair way in which you have been treated.
Set out simple statements about what you think would be a fair way to have venues for smoking.
Set out simple one or two sentence rebuttals to the bigots lies, and have links to the science that supports you. You could probably make a pack of cards, one card dealing with one lie, and pass them out one card at a time, or pin them up, or leave them on tables in pubs.
Everytime you congregate with other smokers or see them in a doorway, pass the word.
Write on paper to your MPs (they are allowed to ignore emails just as this MP happily ignores any science you link to) and tell them that you will vote against them and help campaigns against them unless they openly and actively support fair treatment for smokers. Remind them how much tax you pay and how little representation you have received.
If smokers, and their friends and relatives vote in a bloc you can start removing those MPs who are, vindictively or ignorantly, acting against you.
Good luck.
Engineer and Derek: I’m sure most of us are fully aware that the problems suffered by the Antismokers here are more in need of treatment than of reason, but we’re not actually speaking to them. As I noted earlier, we’re simply using them to illustrate the lunacy and deceptions of the antismoking movement as a whole. It’s the people who are not aware of the degree of their craziness that we’re actually reaching out to — we’re just taking advantage of the help they offer us in doing so.
– MJM
Stephen, I like the occasional bet on the horse. Yes! My name is John and I’m a gambling addict. I now realise how I became addicted. When I was one of “the children”, my father used to watch the horse racing on the TV and it was the”glitzy” racing colours worn by the jockeys which lured me into my addiction. Unfortunately, my father has passed away and I cannot demand my mother to divorce him for ruining my life.
P.S. Which colours are “glitzy” and which are not? My favourite colour is khaki brown.
John S
Stephen has clearly state that older, existing smokers like you are not going to benefit from this measure.
“The primary aim of the campaign to introduce plain packs of cigarettes will be to protect children and young people from the subtle marketing techniques of the brand owners.”
You say that your favourite colour is khaki brown? That sort of sums you up.
Mike D, You completely missed my point. It was being drawn in by the jockeys’ “glitzy” racing colours when I was one of “the children” that made me an adult gambling addict. Will Champix cure me?
“nisakiman
January 27, 2012 10:15 pm
“Aren’t you an American author of pro-smoking books who makes posts like the above on websites all over the world?
Now THAT is proper OCD.”
No, Mike D, that isn’t proper OCD, that is being an author and a specialist in a particular subject with a wide ranging knowledge on said subject.”
Stephen
Nisakiman is right. You should ban the amateur lobbyists from this discussion and leave it to seasoned, professional pro-smoking campaigners like Michael J McFadden from America.
MIKE D
FEAR & HATE MONGER
FRESH bile-laden, spittle-spraying
irrational fear and hate
WHOLESALE RATES
Organizer of personalized,
sub-amateurish
SMEAR Campaigns
CHEAP MUDSLINGING
Inflammatory Drivel™,
Mindless Blather®,
and Persistent Piffling©
for all occasions
Contact for almost-free quotes
PAULIE’S
JACKBOOT SUPPLIES
Jackboots to trample all opposition.
Special discount to government agencies
MJM says “You also forgot that while the UK Foundation may have one opinion on cot death causes, that there are other opinions out there as well that seem to contradict them.”
The Foundation look at ALL of the evidence because their simple aim is to help eradicate this awful, tragic phenomenon.
They believe, after looking at ALL of the evidence, that about a third of the cases could be prevented by not exposing the foetus, or the baby, to tobacco smoke. That’s 100 fewer dead babies each year in the UK, 100 fewer families suffering that most extreme of tragedies.
The fact is that about 200 cases a year would not be prevented by avoiding tobacco smoke exposure. But that doesn’t absolve smoking, it just illustrates that there may be several different mechanisms for SIDS/Cot Death.
Why a presumably intelligent man like you can allow himself to continue to manipulate the discussion to mask the contribution of smoking to the deaths of 100 UK babies a year rom your home in America is beyond me. How do you live with yourself?
MIKE D
FEAR & HATE MONGER
Specialist antismoking services
Expert in:
* Pretentious Pomposity
* Sanctimonious Incompetence
* Misdirecting Agitation
* Rigid Fact-Denial
* Advanced Stupidity
* Feigning Care
DISCOUNT RATES
February SPECIAL
50% OFF60% OFF70% OFF80% OFF90% OFF
MIKE D –
“A Pathological Liar
You Can Trust”
offering the highest
standards in deception
BOOK NOW
Sorry MikeD, the distinction between professional and amateur is pretty clear in the English language. A professional is someone who gets paid for what he does: the way the pros in the antismoking movement get paid. E.G. one lass I’m currently tiffing with over here who pulls down a bit over $60,000 a year from her grant to make smokers miserable. An amateur ballplayer who writes a book on ballplaying does not become a professional by virtue of having written that book.
Meanwhile, as you rant and rave about SIDS and ignore the distinctions and qualifications I drew when talking about it, you’ve continued, and quite clearly for all ‘n sundry to see, to ignore the direct challenge to “save the children” by eliminating the black market in cigarettes. Are you that dependent upon the money they bring in for you MikeD? Sad.
Meanwhile though, I see that your Parliament seems to be picking up on some of my concerns about the pretty packaging of Obesity Oblators (i.e. chocolate bars). See:
http://dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com/2012/01/chocolate-oranges-and-hideous-arrogance.html
Perhaps Messrs. Cameron and Milibrand would like to step up to the plate where you and MP Williams have failed: save the children by eliminating tobacco taxes and the black market while simultaneously getting your pretty packet bans on smokes and meats and fatty foods along with the gory pictures you so enjoy.
– MJM
Actually MikeD, you’d probably prefer the real news story to the posting, so here’s that link as well:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16750583
“Sorry MikeD, the distinction between professional and amateur is pretty clear in the English language. A professional is someone who gets paid for what he does”
Do you not make money from sales of your books?
There is “no safe dose” of “glitzy” colours.
Stephen and Minder Mike, it is imperative that that we, your servants, are informed immediately which colours are “glitzy” and which are not. The longer you delay, more and more of “the children” will be lured into helpless addictions and painful premature deaths.
In the UK the tragic deaths of 100 babies could be prevented each year if their parents took the excellent advice of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.
American pro-smoking blogger MJM doesn’t want you to read their advice, so he posts a story about chocolate oranges instead to throw people off the scent.
Pretty cigarette packets are more important than childrens lives.
what inference do you draw from the most rapid growth in SIDS cases in the UK during a period when smoking rates were falling at their fastest: add http: to//www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/7530949/Fiddling-those-smoking-figures-again.html.
It says to me that SIDS cases cannot be primarily explained by secondary smoke exposure.
I trust the excellent advice of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.
They believe that there are a number of things that can come together and lead to a case.
Smoking is one of those things in some cases. It isn’t a factor in 2/3 of cases.
The role of the lobbyists (amateur and professional) is to create feelings of doubt, so nice try Belinda.
The role of charities like the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths is to prevent further tragedies.
Are you proud to be creating doubt about such an important issue?
I am not creating any feelings of doubt. The fact is that there are many risk factors in cot deaths, and one can only guess which ones are most likely to affect any particular infant. Smoking is one, but only one (and the figures suggest to me far it affects less than one-third of cases) of several factors, many of which may still not be known. Most infants don’t suffer this. The child of a parent who stops smoking (or who never smoked) may still suffer SIDS. Who is to know why? The child of a parent who doesn’t stop smoking may suffer SIDS for the same reason as the first child, yet the parent may feel blamed. But who is to know?
Any parent will want to feel they have done their best and I am not out to try and stop them.
THE CAUSE OF COT HEATH IS UNKNOWN.
“I am not creating any feelings of doubt. The fact is that there are many risk factors in cot deaths, and one can only guess which ones are most likely to affect any particular infant. Smoking is one, but only one [b](and the figures suggest to me far it affects less than one-third of cases) [/b]”
There you go Belinda, creating doubt, suggesting that you know better than the UK’s leading cot death charity.
I have not read what the UK’s leading cot death charity have to say of them. I came here to discuss plain packaging, not SIDS deaths. Your representation of what they have to say is all I have to go on. I doubt whether they are as jaundiced on the issue as you are, but if they are I do disagree with them.
Only someone with an agenda could claim smoking to be a significant ’cause’ of SIDS, as incidence correlates inversely with smoking rates.
Test: this comment has been in moderation since 25 January.
CRUK funds ASH research projects, try searching ASH, ASH Scotland, Deborah Arnott and Sheila Duffy in the funding area of their website. add http: to //search.cancerresearchuk.org/search/results.jsp?query=ash+&similarTo=&siteid=0&breadcrumb=%28~crsite~%5E%22Funding+%26amp%3B+Research%22%24%7C&pressnav=&sortBy=default&sortOrder=descending&offset=0&old_query=ash+&filter=&hlev=1
CRUK has funded Beyond Smoke Free, an ASH Scotland document covering the future of tobacco control policy in Scotland. add http: to //science.cancerresearchuk.org/research/who-and-what-we-fund/browse-by-location/edinburgh/ash-scotland/grants/13466-a-tobacco-free-scotland-delivering-%60beyond. This is on top of money that the Scottish Government gives ASH Scotland, which has 27 staff (last time I looked): CRUK is paying ASH Scotland to make policy recommendations to the Scottish government. (ASH Scotland has been successful in gaining Big Lottery money as well),
Mike D
FEAR & HATE MONGER
Cigarette “plain packaging” SPECIAL
FREE 10-day TRIAL OFFER
of the
Haughty Hogwash™ Package
Spin Management® OPTIONS
& the Confidence Trickery™ MODULE
will leave the public, media,
and politicians with the silly belief
that there is a coherent, scientific basis
to “plain packaging”
CALL NOW
1-800-MORON
Mike D’s back on the “ad hominem” attacks again. I’m disappointed. There are the host of other fallacies upon which Anti-Tobacco “science” is based which he could also use as “arguments”:
argumentum ad ignoratiam
fallacy of division
fallacy of bifurcation
Ludic fallacy
causal oversimplification
mind projection fallacy
coincidental correlation
faulty generalisations
argumentum ad populum
appeal to emotion
appeal to tradition
defininist fallacy…………
To name just a few.
Mike D January 28, 2012 6:33 am
Mike, do you have any professional position/qualification and/or publication associated with TC?
It is quite revealing of his agenda how MikeD jumps on one post that one poster made about SIDS and the latest scientific discovery and spins a big part of the conversation towards that for the one and only purpose to discredit all posts and posters. I don’t know if and how much tobacco control pays you to do this, but change tactic as I am afraid your next year’s bonus will be pretty slim. How about commenting on some of the facts that were spelled out black on white? Start with answering my question as to why there is no legal smoking age. And how about commenting on the statistics of how former smokers of no matter how long ago they quit and how much they smoked and occasional smokers of very recent are lumped into the ”smoking related morbidity and mortality” statistics to make the figures scary. Any worthwhile rebuttals on any of this and so much more from other posters that can enlighten the MP working hard at saving lives here?
You have become quite transparent and annoying MikeD and you’re doing more harm to your cause than helping it. As a matter of fact, you’re the best thing that can happen to the tobacco industry as far as discrediting your cause goes.
His posts are certainly monotonously repetitive. I brought up the OCD thing in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way, but I’m starting to think that he really does have OCD.
He hasn’t made any comment addressing the many and varied facts that have been posted here showing the anti-smoking lobby as the manipulative, untruthful charlatans that they are. I guess because it’s impossible to refute.
Just keeps repeating the same meaningless twaddle.
Mike D
FEAR & HATE MONGER
SUPER SPECIAL
Half-Price on the
FALLOUT CONTAINMENT STRATEGY™
This strategy is used when
Spin Management® OPTIONS
& the Confidence Trickery™ MODULE
have failed to achieve the required brainwashing.
The FALLOUT CONTAINMENT STRATEGY™
will attempt to convince readers that those opposing
“plain packaging” policy, or questioning the
antismoking cult at all, are baby killers. This is a
last-ditch, untested strategy that has a good likelihood
of success with those in the media, public, and politics
that are ignorant, highly gullible, and easily outraged.
It’s worth a try.
DON’T DELAY
Other Tricks & Strategies Available
CALL NOW
1-800-IMATWIT
Mi9ke D…..are you seriously trying to tell the world that if smoking was abolished altogether, 33.33% of cot deaths would never occur? Oh please, that is pathetic.What is the possible % in those couples who suffer a cot death, or SIDS, where neither smoke-will your theory apply to them as well?
Anti-Tobacco’s “research” is “required result based, evidence making”. (The SHS “studies” are the prime example). With their bottomless pot of money and total lack of integrity, you could “prove” that maternal nose-picking is responsible for 33% of deaths. They do not seem to care what the real causes are. They are obsessed with adding further items to their list of “smoking related” medical conditions to justify their existence and excessive funding.
Cervical cancer is the prime example of this.
Not forgetting the wonderfully creative, much lauded 17% fall in Scottish Heart attacks after their ban.
Expensive tosh that became science fact by press release and was, in the passage of time, revealed to be complete hogwash but it was ‘peer reviewed’ and it’s still repeated as fact by the impressionable.
Archivist, that is exactly what the national experts in SIDS/Cot Death would expect to happen in the UK. They sat that ~100 cases a year would not happen if the child wasn’t exposed to cigarette smoke in the womb or after birth.
I suppose the fact that you can’t understand this illustrates the difficulty that the pro-smoking lobby have in dealing with facts.
So well exposed here:
Click to access jillpell.pdf
Junk science at it’s worst.
Regarding the ‘glitzy’ nature of cigarette packets, I have in front of me now, a ‘John Player Special’ cigarette packet. The background colour is matt black. Here is the design (use your imagination):
THE FRONT.
(The top of the front)……………………….a small crown design.
………………………….words (in gold)……..original.
…………………………………………………….john player special.
(In the middle)………..(in gold – big script)………….JPS.
………………………………(in gold)………………………100s.
(Bottom half)……………………Health warnings.
THE BACK.
(Top quarter)…………(in gold – big script)………..JPS.
……………………………(in gold)……………………….100s.
(The rest of the back)………………….pornographic health picture.
And Mr Williams calls that ‘glitzy’?
I’ve just scoffed a bag of Peanut M&Ms. The bag is bright “glitzy” yellow with a selection of “glitzy” red, orange, green and yellow images of the sweet, some made to look even more appealing to “the children” by the addition of facial features. The name of the product covers around 25% of the front of the packet.
On the back, in very small print, is a list of the ingredients, mostly “dangerous” chemicals like fat (a generic term), starch, sugar (another generic term) and salt. Two of the other ingredients are “milk chocolate” and “covered peanuts”, which Anti-Tobacco’s state of the art analysis equipment (provided by the taxpayer and Big Pharma) would identify as a mixture of thousands of “dangerous” chemicals, including several or more suspected (or even known) carcinogens.
If these “dangerous” chemicals do not kill “the children”, they will surely die a long, lingering obesity-related death. Time for action, Mr Williams!
P.S. The only health warning on the bag is to keep it away from babies, small children to avoid suffocation! (Okay, it was a bag “to share”, but shouldn’t the size of the bag be standardised?)
John S
So you agree that pretty packaging is designed to attract child customers.
What’s your problem with removing it from cigarettes?
Mike D, Where have you been for the past few years? Unlike obesity-causing, chemically-enhanced confectionery, the sale of cigarettes to “the children” is ILLEGAL. Which raises another point. Why is it not ILLEGAL for the under-18s to attempt to buy them?
What i fail to understand is how Mr Williams can be considered by the Antismokers as some beacon of understanding of the health issues of smoking, given his history..
Education
Mountain Ash Comprehensive, Glamorgan; Bristol University (BA History)
Profession (before entering Parliament)
Tax Consultant, Member of Chartered Institute of Taxation.
Council Experience
Avon County Council 1993-96; Bristol City Council 1995-1999; Leader of Bristol Liberal Democrat Group 1995-1997.
Parliamentary Roles
June 2010 – present: Chair, Liberal Democrat Treasury Backbench Committee
June 2010 – present: Constitutional Reform Select Committee
December 2007 – May 2010: Shadow Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills
July 2007 to December 2007: Shadow Minister for Schools
March 2006 to July 2007: Shadow Minister for Higher and Further Education and Member of the Education and Skills select committee.
May 2005 to March 2006: Shadow Minister for Public Health and member of the Public Accounts Committee.
As an engineer it took me many years to be considered an expert in my field. How can he be an expert after just one year between 2005 and 2006, in which he held two posts?
I suggest the burghers of Bristol West do bit of soul searching and rid us of this turbulent priest of antismoking. I suggest Stephen you give us real facts. Not propaganda.
That cigarette packet was bought in Belgium. Half the front is health warnings. Three quarters of the back is a pornographic health picture. All that remains of brand ‘glitz’ are a few words and letters.
But ASH ET AL (including Mr Williams) are not satisfied with that – they want total control. They are leapfrogging each other. In the tobacco shop in Belgium, cigs come in a variety of shapes and sizes and packets can contain different numbers. Some (like mine) are in 19s. Some are in 25s. 19s cost €4 (about £3.60 = £4 for 20).
There is no display ban.
So the idea is to hide packets which are by no means ‘glitzy’, standardise the packets and the size of cigarettes, disable normal market operations, steal brand names, disable competition, persecute smokers and, thereby, in some mysterious way, stop youths from taking a puff on a fag ‘behind the bike sheds’. Weird how the minds of the zealots move.
It looks as if this discussion is winding down, so let’s summarise:
Mr Williams produced a statement heavy on propaganda. He stated that ‘the primary aim’ is to protect children and youths’. This is to be achieved by ASH ET AL gaining control of and standardising the size, shape, colours and wording of cigarette packs and the contents, which is the primary objective. The unstated secondary objective is then, over a period of time, to reduce these quantities. In this way, the persecution of people who enjoy tobacco can proceed unabated for several years and the salaries of ASH ET AL can be maintained ad inf. The mere fact that this objective will cost billions upon billions of pounds is irrelevant since the people who are being persecuted will be paying for their own persecution. It is also irrelevant that the people paying the most are the poor. They need the greatest ‘help’ (persecution) because they are ‘untermench’. It is also irrelevant that there is no proof whatsoever that normal, healthy children and youths are harmed by Environmental Tobacco Smoke, or are influenced by tobacco packet design to start smoking. The BHF survey is junk science. All ASH ET AL surveys are junk science. Even their studies are mostly only published if they show the required correlations. If they do not, then they are not published.
And so the confidence trick continues.
But THE PEOPLE are not fools. VIa the internet (until ASH ET AL start to censor it, if they can), more and more people are learning that our political system stinks. The three main parties are all controlled by the same kind of people – the glitterati, the ‘glitzerati’, if I may coin a word. We need a political revolution. At the moment, MPs are useless at controlling the executive because they FORM the executive. They are costing the hardworking population BILLIONS OF POUNDS.
MPs are not the important people in Government. It is the hidden ‘new aristocrats’, the ‘Chief Medical Officer’ and such for whom we should be voting, in addition to MPs.
A POLITICAL revolution is inevitable.
You may see on trackbacks that I have written a piece on tobacco and drug consumption for Australian teenagers. Basically they are nearly three times likely to buy drugs that come in plain packages than tobacco. Here is the evidence:
I found this site called http://www .betterhealth.vic.gov.au and I quote: “The Better Health Channel was established in May 1999 by the Victorian (Australia) State Government.
“Young people use drugs for similar reasons that adults do – to change how they feel because they want to feel better or different. Reasons may include:
Socialising with friends, peer pressure or the need to feel part of a group
Relaxation or fun
Boredom
Curiosity, experimentation or wanting to take risks
To escape from psychological or physiological pain.”
I cannot see plain packaging mentioned here.
“According to the National Drug Strategy Household Survey of Australians aged 14–19 years, in 2010:
67 per cent had tried alcohol and just over one in five (21.1 per cent) were drinking alcohol on a weekly basis.
One in five (21.5 per cent) had tried cannabis.
Just under 12 per cent had tried tobacco and just under seven per cent smoked on a daily basis.
Just over two per cent had tried amphetamines for non-medical reasons.
4.7 per cent had tried ecstasy.
2.1 per cent had tried inhalants – such as petrol, glue and solvents.
2.1 per cent had tried cocaine.”
ut with tobacco at 12% try rate, cannabis is at 21.5%, nearly twice as high.
If you combine ecstasy, amphetamines, cocaine et al it adds up to 34.5% nearly three times as much as tobacco.
What do all these drugs have in common that’s right, plain packaging.
I think any statistician would conclude at the very worst there is no correlation between plain packaging tobacco and drug sales and it would not be unreasonable to conclude that the forbidden fruit becomes sweeter and the allure even greater for drug use.
What ever the outcome of plain packaging it seems that sales will not decline, they may even go up. So this becomes an expensive lesson in Chapman’s narcissism and the demonisation of smokers. I also may mean that teenagers may start consuming far more dangerous substances. But hey we got plain packaging.
As Junican seems to feel that the discussion is winding down and summaries are necessary, how about this.
Pro-smoking networks have caused a lot of shouty people to be called forth to be very angry about this from all over the world.
Some of them have posted misleading stuff, and one or two porkies.
A Very Important Person from the Uk (who calls himself a Dr on other forums but isn’t a Doctor) first tried to imply that his organisation didn’t exist until late 2007, but was found to have said in an interview elsewhere that it actually existed in “2004, 2005”, at the same time as an organisation of the same name which was founded by a tobacco supplier. But they are different organisations, and I don’t doubt that.
They deny that smoking has anything to do with SIDS/Cot Death, despite the UK experts assessment that around 100/cases a year could be avoided if the baby wasn’t exposed to cigarette smoke in the womb and after it is born.
Some have said that pretty packets don’t attract people, some have said that pretty sweet packets attract children.
They’ve said that they’re persecuted, and that the smoking ban is unpopular. Yet, in April 2010, only 3 people turned out to a meeting to protest against the ban, even though it had been organised by the CHairman of Freedom2choose. 3 people! Google the following text to find a link to the article
“A defiant campaigner says he will continue his fight against the smoking ban, despite only three people turning up at a protest meeting last night.
Smoker Phil Johnson, chairman of Freedom2Choose, wants to pressurise the Government into a rethink on the smoking ban.”
So the massive persecution complexes that are so evident in many posts don’t seem to be too evident in Leicester.
But perhaps the biggest piece of common ground that the shouty people have is their belief that anyone who disagrees with them has a mental illness. Perhaps they feel that their massive paranoia gives them some sort of special insight, I don’t know.
But if they can’t say when an organisation was formed, can’t understand the advice and assessment of the UK’s SIDS experts, can’t grasp how few people actively oppose the smoking ban and can’t grasp how barmy their collective shoutiness makes them sound then I’m pretty sure they don’t understand the proposals that this blog post is about either.
In case you’ve forgotten, this was originally about plain packaging. There exists no substantial evidence of success on this matter. What this has to do with SIDS, I’ve no idea but even in that field you are operating on opinion again with no substantial proof whatsoever. Just because an ‘expert’ (who isn’t that these days) gives an opinion does not carve it in stone, raw data please, so we can analyse and decide ourselves. In all to do with smoking it seems to be sadly lacking and on the rare occasion it has been shown, has been pulled apart in seconds.
Personally, plain packaging would make no difference. As with displays bans it’s simply an inconvenience, unnecessary and will only salve the conscience of the puritan. The one thing that angers me is the public ban. I have never turned up for protest on the streets and neither have fellow smokers – a lot of us – but that doesn’t mean we agree with it and to take it, therefore, as read that we agree is childish. We don’t. There are many things we don’t agree with but we choose not to riot in the streets over them, preferring to work quietly and hope that common sense will prevail. However, having seen the way the ban was obtained, the ignoring of the majority of surveys (because that;s all there is) as ‘bad science’, the false claims of ASH ‘surveys’ that most ‘support it’ and the general way you and your like have attempted to ride roughshod over us, I wouldn’t guarantee it for much longer.
Arch troll Mike D, defender of the indefensible, has brought up the sad death of babies again. Perhaps he thinks that the babies saw ‘glitzy’ cigarette packs, and it was that which caused their deaths.
SIDS is short for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The word ‘syndrome’ means much the same as the word ‘condition’. If it was known what causes infants to die suddenly, the cause would be attributed to the appropriate category in the mortality tables, such as flu or pneumonia THE CAUSE OF SIDS IS NOT KNOWN.
Again, we see the dreadful troll attacking people from Freedom 2 Choose purely because they are members of that organisation. He accuses them of being a front group for Tobacco Companies, even though they swear that they receive no funding from those companies. This in comparison with ASH ET AL who receive massive funding from Drugs Companies. I have not seen one word from him actually in defence of ‘standardised cigarette packaging’. Nor have we seen here any defence of ‘standardised cigarette packaging’ from the Arnotts and the Duggans of this world or members of the Holy Group.
I enjoy tobacco. I want to have the choice, if I so wish, to buy cigarettes which are maybe longer and thinner that others, or shorter and fatter. I do not wish to be harassed and persecuted by the likes of ASH ET AL.
It is, perhaps a good thing that the arch troll is keeping the discussion going. The longer the discussion goes on, the more obvious it becomes that ‘standardised cigarette packaging’ is nonsense; that ‘for the children’ is a ruse to enable ASH ET AL to get their hands on the size of cigarettes and reduce that size over time. It is perfectly obvious.
The BHF survey was a complete fake. What sort of question is: “Which of these two cigarette packets looks safer?” How can a cigarette packet look safe? The question is nonsensical and anyone who actually answers it has not really thought about it. So much for science.
Keep up the good work, Mike D. Every word you say reveals the paucity of the evidence for ‘standardised cigarette packaging’.
Junican, arch defender of the tobacco industry tries to assert that he knows more about SIDS/Cot Death than the UK’s premier Cot Death Charity.
He says “SIDS is short for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The word ‘syndrome’ means much the same as the word ‘condition’. If it was known what causes infants to die suddenly, the cause would be attributed to the appropriate category in the mortality tables, such as flu or pneumonia THE CAUSE OF SIDS IS NOT KNOWN.”
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths are pretty confident that they know how these terrible tragedies can be prevented. It’s a shame that this is so inconvenient for the pro-tobacco crowd that they have to try to convince us otherwise. What sort of sick minded creep thinks that this is worth doing? I can’t say, I’m not sick, but perhaps Junican can let us in on his/her own personal motivation for trying to hide the truth from the Foundation?
Earlier today, I walked down to my local shop and bought the newspapers. If the fanatics get get their way with this legislation and that concerning display bans, how many of our local shops will survive?
Remember that these fanatics claimed that the smoking ban would INCREASE trade in pubs, etc.
There is NO coherent, compelling body of evidence to support the smoking ban. Even if there were, there are sensible alternatives to deal with the issue of ETS. A reasonable conclusion would be that the smoking ban was merely a tactic to denormalise smokers.
There is no evidence to support display bans. There is no evidence to support plain packaging. A sensible conclusion would be that both measures are designed to further the denormalisation process.
The BMA lied when it asserted, on national radio, that its proposal to ban smoking in cars was based on proper, scientific, peer-reviewed research.
There is little public support for tobacco control. ASH, for example, receives only 2% of its funding from voluntary donation. The smoking ban has resulted in a significant increase in pub closures because all those non-smokers who, ASH assured, would flock to the pubs once the filthy smokers were thrown out, have failed to materialise and smokers have decided that they will not collude in the perception that tobacco control wishes to foster: that they are social lepers whose habit endangers others.
There would be outrage if any other group were targetted as smokers are. This is not about health, this is about tobacco control engineering that tobacco use is seen as so unacceptable that smokers are forced into giving up through fear of eviction from property, feelings of shame and guilt and fear of unemployment. TC cynically uses The Children to further its agenda and is encouraging division within families and between friends. Most repugnantly, the Government enjoys huge fiscal benefits from smokers yet colludes in their demonisation and exclusion from the decision-making process. Not only does the Government fail to recognise the limits of its remit in a free society, it also fails to scrutinise a tobacco control industry for which no depth is too low to stoop to achieve its goal.
Well put, Jay, and perfectly correct in every detail.
Fran J seems to admonish me, then admits that the proposals for ending pretty packets won’t be a problem to him.
So Frank J, you’re only interested in the smoking ban? In April 2010 only 3 people in Leicester were bothered enough about it to turn up to a meeting organised by Freedom2choose’s previous chairman Phil Johnson. Here’s how it was reported at the time.
“Three people attend smoking ban protest meeting
A defiant campaigner says he will continue his fight against the smoking ban, despite only three people turning up at a protest meeting last night.
Smoker Phil Johnson, chairman of Freedom2Choose, wants to pressurise the Government into a rethink on the smoking ban.
He claims the ban has devastated the pub trade since being introduced, in July 2007.
The 59-year-old, who lives jufst off , blamed apathy on the lack of numbers at the meeting.
However, it did attract potential election candidates, and he claimed people were not turning up to voice their opinions as they feel powerless. Just three people also turned up for a similar meeting in Norwich.
However, 130 showed their support at a rally in Kidderminster.
Mr Johnson said: “Apathy is king in this country. There are a lot of passionate smokers who want to be given a choice but a lot of people have given up the fight.
“The Government has screwed freedom into the ground. People are still interested in what we say and what they can do, but they don’t think they can do anything about it.
“They feel that their views are not being listened to.
“It’s very frustrating when you organise these evenings and people stay at home because the weather isn’t great, or because Manchester United are on television.”
At the meeting, he spoke about the number of pubs going to the wall – a total of 73 in Leicestershire in the past four years alone.
He claimed allowing pubs to have smoking rooms would help ease the burden on the UK’s wounded economy.
Mr Johnson also claimed that 71% of his members were non-smokers, but were upset at the lack of choice available to pubs, clubs and bingo halls.
Sam Butler, 22, from Braunstone, said he attended the meeting to see what efforts were being made to address the issue of smoking in public places.
He said: “It would be nice to have some choice. As a smoker it feels like we’re being picked on. We used to go out every week but now it’s once every six weeks because the pubs aren’t busy anymore.
“Everyone moans about the smoking ban. It’s all we seem to talk about when we’re out in town. So it’s a shame more people weren’t here.”
Darren Lee, 42, from West Knighton, said: “I grew up going to pubs and clubs and it was a place you could go to if you wanted to smoke and enjoy yourself. It’s killing the industry and will spell the end of the local.”
Hannah Johnson, 22, who lives off Saffron Lane, said: “Smokers do care but a lot of us don’t know how you go about doing something about the ban.”
Mike D, How much does Anti-Tobacco pay you for trolling ? £30K a year? £40K? Or more?
John S
I get paid nothing at all to make posts here.
How much do you earn for protecting the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets?
I’ll rephrase the question. Ignoring your trolling activities, which you claim you provide free of charge, how much are you paid by Anti-Tobacco? £30K a year, £40K or more? Do you consider yourself providing good value to the taxpayers and Big Pharma who fund your salary or funding?
For about the fourth time, I categorically deny receiving, or having received, any form of payment or payment in kind from any tobacco company or any company, organisation or person associated with the tobacco industry.
How about changing the habit of a lifetime and responding to the points raised directly?
John S
I get paid nothing from anti tobacco. I get paid nothing from big pharma.
I do this out of sheer disgust for the tactics of the people who post misleading and downright untrue comments in an attempt to create the illusion that smoking is not that damaging.
Do you get advice on what sort of things to post from anyone who could be connected to the tobacco industry, or from pro-smoking web communities like forces or freedom2choose?
Unless you are saying that riots in the streets is the only way you and your like will accept disagreement I can’t see your point. You are simply confirming what I’m saying.
I didn’t say the display ban it wouldn’t be a problem. For the intellectually challenged I said it would make no difference to me and that the baseless ban was more annoying.
“Cot death is the sudden and unexpected death of a baby. After the post-mortem examination, the cause of death remains unexplained and may be registered as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sudden infant death, sudden unexpected death in infancy, unascertained or cot death.”
“No single cause has been identified. Researchers believe a number of different, undiscovered causes are likely,or that a combination of factors affect babies at a particularly vulnerable stage of their development.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/cotdeath2.shtml
The article then goes on to make cetain recommendations, a couple of which mention, without any foundation whatsoever, smoking.
THE CAUSE OF SUDDEN INFAND DEATH IS UNKNOWN.
Unless, in his ignorance, Mike D thinks that it is caused by the sight on ‘glitzy’ cigarette packets.
Junican seems to have missed my earlier post, so here it is again
Junican, arch defender of the tobacco industry tries to assert that he knows more about SIDS/Cot Death than the UK’s premier Cot Death Charity.
He says “SIDS is short for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The word ‘syndrome’ means much the same as the word ‘condition’. If it was known what causes infants to die suddenly, the cause would be attributed to the appropriate category in the mortality tables, such as flu or pneumonia THE CAUSE OF SIDS IS NOT KNOWN.”
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths are pretty confident that they know how these terrible tragedies can be prevented. It’s a shame that this is so inconvenient for the pro-tobacco crowd that they have to try to convince us otherwise. What sort of sick minded creep thinks that this is worth doing? I can’t say, I’m not sick, but perhaps Junican can let us in on his/her own personal motivation for trying to hide the truth from the Foundation?
MIKE D
FEAR & HATE MONGER
FEBRUARY SPECIAL
FREE SEMINAR
I am a leading Mass Debater
(Graduate of the Rollo T.
Mass Debating Academy)
All leading antismokers are exceptional
MASS DEBATERS
Let me teach you effective
antismoking Mass Debating
Mass Debating for Outrage
Mass Debating for Misdirection
Mass Debating for Ego Inflation
Mass Debating for Condescension
Mass Debating for Obfuscation
BOOK NOW
Limited Places
1-800-IMBECILE
The cigarettes that many of our youth smoke here in Quebec and Ontario come in plastic transparent bags with no brand name. I wonder how less glitzy they can get before they stop attracting kids! The strange thing is that they can smoke them anywhere in all impunity since there is no legal age to smoke. I have always wondered why but the Ontario premier has given us the convenient answer that it’s because kids are the responsibility of their parents. You don’t say! Except of course when it comes to hidden display bans, plain packaging, taxes, car bans… How much more hypocritical can one get?
So what says you, Simon, Stephen, Mike, Paul, Sweet Caroline and al? Do you all agree with the Ontario premier?
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Crime/2009/10/02/pf-11247191.html
School kids buying contraband cigarettes
”One solution would be a ban on underage possession of tobacco.
“You don’t see kids sipping on beer outside schools,” Grant argues. “If it’s illegal, if they can’t buy it, why should they be allowed to possess it?”
But Dalton McGuinty has already snuffed out that idea, saying it’s a parent’s duty to police their children, not the responsibility of the provincial government — rather an ironic stand for our typically nannyish premier.
So the kids are free to puff away and a cheap supply of contraband cigarettes is readily available just outside their schoolyards. ” in non glitzy packets I may add 🙂
All about protecting the kids eh?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/article972846.ece
”A 20-year-old Port Hope, Ont., man has been ticketed for smoking in a car in which a 15-year-old girl was one of his passengers.
While Tory Ashton was waiting for his $155 ticket, the girl — a smoker herself — got out of the car and legally lit up a cigarette of her own.
(…) There is no law prohibiting a 15-year-old from smoking. It is only illegal to purchase or sell tobacco to anyone under 19 years of age.”
I think that one of my posts has disappeared (together with MikeD’s response).
Democracy in action, eh?
John, the antismoking professionals are generally smart enough to stay away from these discussions: they realize that by providing interesting “back and forth” where FreeChoice folks have the opportunity to share information and arguments that don’t get aired in other media that they simply hurt themselves. They depend upon “controlling the microphone” — something they can’t do in this medium.
Note what MikeD has done: virtually every post plays off of one fairly transparent debating trick after another: conflating different points (such as he did just a few posts above with the usual confusion of the damage of smoking to the smoker with the claimed damage of smoking to others), generalized charges trying to hold every independent poster responsible for every other independent poster while avoiding specifics (Heh, MikeD, want to provide a few examples of any “downright untrue comments” that I’ve made?), mudslinging (Readers will note how he manages to squirrel references to “the tobacco industry” into virtually every post although there’s no one here connected to the industry that I know of.), redirection (harping eternally on debatable claims about SIDS that have nothing at all to do with the “pretty packets” topic), dodging (Again, any reader really trying to form a judgment on things will note the questions asked and unanswered throughout these comments.), flooding (trying desperately to bury information with comment under a pile of nonsensically repeated challenges and flurries of claims), etc.
The end result DOES succeed in burying some of the information we might like people to note, but the “grafitti” also serves to attract attention to the facts involved with the issue and encourage reading about it at the same time: both deadly ingredients to the antismoking stew. So that’s why you don’t see the real pros here in general.
– MJM
You are right, of course, MJM, but what really annoys me is that our elected representatives fail in their duty to hold ASH ET AL to account for their deceits by demanding to know the real facts. It really is simple. Where is the proof? It is even more annoying when we see Members of Parliament actively repeating and spreading the propaganda.
Junican, The problem is that we are increasingly filling parliament with political animals who have gained no real knowledge about the subjects that they are confronted with. My post above above showed how a little learning is a dangerous thing.
His resume:
May 2005 to March 2006: Shadow Minister for Public Health and member of the Public Accounts Committee.
So in one year he is an expert in public health? Impossible.
Engineer, “So in one year he is an expert in public health? Impossible.”
Particularly since his position as Shadow Minister there probably represents only a fraction of his total responsibilities. Given that reality it’s not really surprising that most legislators in such positions simply defer automatically to whatever “expert opinions” they are offered by “authorities in the field.” The problem arises when those “authorities” almost all share the same agenda on a subject — which is what we see with regard to using social engineering techniques to reduce smoking behavior.
Meanwhile, they have no time/attention to even LOOK at the questions raised by “non-authorities” who might oppose those policies… which is where we bump into trouble. Being able to sign our names as book authors, heads of organizations, or with letters after our names can give us a LITTLE bit of clout… but it’s miniscule compared to that Holy Writ Of Cognizant Authorities: we’re dependent on the rare Minister who actually has the skill, knowledge, drive, and time to investigate beyond what they’re told and has the political courage to stand up and stick their heads out.
It’s the old story of “No one ever got fired for quoting the opinion of the boss.” no matter how wrong it was. Quoting the opinion of the guy who cleans the washrooms will get you fired in a heartbeat though if it turns out that it was wrong!
– MJM
MikeD writes: ”I do this out of sheer disgust for the tactics of the people who post misleading and downright untrue comments in an attempt to create the illusion that smoking is not that damaging.”
Welcome to the ”disgusted people’s club”. Besides the SIDS issue that you insist is an undisputed fact and some posters think that it is a suspected risk factor out of so many others that has been politicized and distorted all out of proportion, can you please point to the readers here what other downright untrue comments have been posted here? And please substantiate your arguments of disgust with irrefutable evidence. No, the ASH website or any other anti-smoker website does not constitute evidence.
By the way the SIDS issue has been questioned by other than what you qualify as ”pro-tobacco” activists. I wonder why the authors would question it unless they have a vested interest in depopulating the planet 😉
http://ibe.sagepub.com/content/7/2/87.abstract
Review : Parental Smoking and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: A Review of the Evidence
”Although the possibility of a causal explanation of the associations observed cannot be excluded, the existence of various study weaknesses and the likelihood of residual confounding means that one cannot infer with confidence that parental smoking actually does increase the risk of SIDS.”
Dear shouty people, you can find pretty much anything on the internet. You can all go and find little bits of information that help to convince you that smoking isn’t a significant risk for SIDS. Hence Iro Cyr tries to pass off one paper from 1998 as saying that smoking isn’t linked to SIDS. It’s called cherry picking and I know Michael McFadden knows all about it.
What is much harder/impossible to do is to find a single body whose business is to consider ALL of the evidence on this that concludes that smoking isn’t linked to a pretty significant number of SIDS cases at the current time. The premier SIDS body in the UK is the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths. They conclude, from looking at ALL of the evidence, that around 100 fewer cases of SIDS/Cot Death would occur each year in the UK if babies weren’t exposed to tobacco smoke in the womb or after birth.
These babies seem to be expendable to the people who want to preserve the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packets.
“Mike D: “around 100 fewer cases of SIDS/Cot Death would occur each year in the UK if babies weren’t exposed to tobacco smoke in the womb or after birth”
The ultimate Anti-Tobacco FRAUD. Note the use of the word “would” in Mike D’s statement. The studies SUGGEST that there COULD be a link.The opinion stated in an epidemiological study, hardly the most precise, most exact and least prone to error and researcher bias of research methods. becomes FACT.
If you were in a bank with scores of other people at the time of a robbery, you could be one of the robbers. However, without further evidence to incriminate you, you are just as likely to be innocent as all the other “suspects” in the bank at the time of the robbery.
So, Mike D, where is this further evidence to suuport your “fact”?
As I keep saying John S, go and read the information, facts and evidence on the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths website and educate yourself.
And stop believing all of this pro smoking propaganda that you and your shouty mates keep posting in your pathetic efforts to obscure the truth
Where is the medical or other EVIDENCE to back up the SUGGESTION of a POSSIBLE link found in the epidemiological studies? FSID are merely quoting the “facts” they are being spoon-fed by Anti-Tobacco “scientists” and fanatics.
Four times as many men get struck by lightning than women (from the result of an epidemiological study – source RoSPA.). Is that PROOF that God is a woman and a feminist?
The epidemiological evidence SUGGESTED that smoking COULD be the major factor for cervical cancer (that is until Anti-Tobacco hyped it up as “fact”). Then along came Big Bad Tobacco who “invented” the HPV virus and bribed the WHO, other medical organisations and governments to join their conspiracy. Is that correst, Mike D?
I bet you believe every single “daily health scare” in the Daily Mail!
Iro Cyr does not try to pass off any paper as the absolute truth. Iro Cyr simply points out to those with dogmatic views that science is never settled, only dogmatists would insist that it is. Other people have questioned the SIDS link because they were not convinced of the findings and what Iro was pointing out is that they were not necessarily protecting the tobacco industry’s pretty packets . When you read that the head of the FSID supports ASH and gets involved in politics such as increasing tobacco taxes you know you have to look further and deeper because there is nothing that ASH and the main anti-tobacco organizations do not distort totally out of proportion. This is advocacy not science and Ms. Epstein would have best stayed away from fanatical organizations such as ASH if her credibility is important to her. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8553055.stm
Mike D (aka Mickey Mouse) is deluding himself. It is not Big Tobacco which wants ‘unstandardised packets’, it is we, the people who enjoy tobacco, who want unstandardised packets. There is a massive failure of understanding in our august host’s comprehension. It is a good job that he is not in charge of Defence Matters. If he was, then bows and arrows would be the order of the day. Let’s think about that for a moment. Mr Williams is appalled by wars. He therefore decides that our armed forces should be equipped with bows and arrows only, “in order to reduce the damage of war to children and youths”. The reasoning is the same as ‘standardised packaging’.
When he says:
“They’ve become adept at designing packs that might appeal to teenage girls, for instance boxes in the shape of lipstick tubes.”
he totally distorts the situation. Has anyone ever seen a cigarette packet in the shape of a lipstick tube? I haven’t. Where are they? I have been all over Europe and never seen such a thing. And in any case, why should such designs, if they exist, be exclusively designed to attract teenage girls? Might they not be to appeal to adults? Where does all this propaganda, spouted by an elected representative of the people, come from? Where are the studies that what he says is true? He speaketh excreta.
I have just read his statement again. No honest person would speak as he has in that statement. He may have written the basic ideas, but someone else had edited it. The ideas expressed are sheer, unadulterated propaganda, written by an expert (Yes, one of those ‘experts’ which ASH ET AL rely upon). From what Mr Williams says, cigarette packets are designed exclusively to appeal to children and youths. Sheer unadulterated propaganda. Oh, wait a minute, the ‘experts’ have written: “They’ve become adept at designing packs that might appeal to teenage girls, for instance boxes in the shape of lipstick tubes.” Ah! Only ‘might’ appeal to teenage girls! There again, they might not, or might appeal to Members of Parliament, Peers, cocaine addicts or aliens. Who knows? WHAT RUBBISH!
Sudden Infant Deaths are a tragedy for the parents. For a person of limited intelligence to use such deaths to promote ‘standardised packaging’ is nothing short of an assault of those bereaved parents. It is disgusting.
Does Mr Williams agree with the views of Mickey? DOES HE? Is he willing to divorce himself from the obscene view of Mickey?
I doubt it. Is he willing to admit that his statement has been gone over, and gone over, again and again, by ‘experts’ in verbiage to create maximum impact?
Of course not!
TRUTH IS IRRELEVANT.
” for instance boxes in the shape of lipstick tubes” – That has triggered a memory from way, way back. Around forty years ago, John Player used to sell their JPS brand in “gift packs” at Christmas time in “glitzy” black plastic cylindrical containers!.
This and most of Anti-Tobacco’s “facts” and “science” are so ancient that they are now totally meaningless. A prime example is that the (claimed) increased risks of smoking used to determine the number of excess (“premature”) deaths are taken from “studies” conducted decades ago. These risk factors are now obsolete because of the number of confounding factors that have since been identified. The classic example is the excess (“premature”) deaths caused by cervical cancer, which have not be adjusted to allow for the HPV virus.
Junican believes that “In 2010 there were 147 SIDS deaths. So Mickey mouse wants us to believe that 100 of these were caused by SHS”
According to the rather more trustworthy Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths “In 2009 (the latest figures available) 316 babies under one died in the UK as a result of sudden infant death”
They said this on 16 August 2011.
In 2010 there were 147 SIDS deaths. So Mickey mouse wants us to believe that 100 of these were caused by SHS. In that case, the epidemiology is unassailable. SIDS is caused by SHS.
Erm….“Cot death is the sudden and unexpected death of a baby. After the post-mortem examination, the cause of death remains unexplained and may be registered as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sudden infant death, sudden unexpected death in infancy, unascertained or cot death.”
Methinks Mickey is losing track.
“Reduce the risk of cot death”
This key publication, produced jointly by FSID and the Department of Health, outlines the key steps parents can take to reduce the risk of cot death including the advice to:
• Place your baby on the back to sleep, in a cot in a room with you
• Do not smoke in pregnancy or let anyone smoke in the same room as your baby
• Do not share a bed with your baby if you have been drinking alcohol, if you take drugs or if you are a smoker
• Never sleep with your baby on a sofa or armchair
• Do not let your baby get too hot and keep your baby’s head uncovered
• Place your baby in the “feet to foot” position
This leaflet was produced in consultation with:
Dr Helen Ball, Professor of Anthropology, Durham University
Dr Martyn Cobourne, Department of Craniofacial Development and Orthodontics, King’s College London
Children’s Health and Wellbeing, Wales Government
CPHVA – Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association
Department of Health and Social Services Northern Ireland
Professor Peter Fleming, Institute of Child Life and Health, Bristol
Royal College of Midwives
Royal College of Nurses
Scottish Cot Death Trust
Scottish Government Chief Medical Officer Directorate
Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative”
Junican’s advice is based on propaganda from pro-tobacco activists.
Michael J. McFadden PERMALINK
January 30, 2012 12:01 am
Please Note: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
::sigh:: OK… didn’t realize that three active links would make my post disappear. (If it’s in a moderating queue, please feel free to delete it. This will serve as a substitute.)
====
MikeD wrote, “It’s called cherry picking and I know Michael McFadden knows all about it.”
Quite true MikeD, and I’ve seen Antismokers engage in it for over twenty years. The term applies quite well to such things as picking out individual small towns that experience random temporary dips in heart attacks after smoking bans or picking out particular elements of smoke that sound nasty or make the overall concentrations seem greater than they are.
That’s why, in the research and research studies I’ve worked on I always explicitly address the problem’s existence and explain what verifiable safeguards have been taken to show that cherry picking doesn’t exist in those studies.
See, for example, the examination of “Toxic Elements” in smoke in the table at the end of the ETS Exposure section of Antibrains dot com (add the h and t’s and p and backslashes and w’s and dots etc.)
And the guidelines for the verifiable data selection techniques used in the heart attack study I did with Dave Kuneman (which was later corroborated by researchers at RAND, Stanford, and elsewhere) at: scribd.com/doc/9679507/bmjmanuscript
And the guidelines for the verifiable data selection techniques used in our study of the long term economic impact of bans on the hospitality industry and the general economy at: kuneman.smokersclub.com/economic.html
So yes indeed, I am VERY familiar with cherry picking and how it’s been used to spread lies by the antismoking movement, and I’m also quite careful to avoid such research practices in my own work.
Thank you for noticing. Heh, if I had any funding I’d be tempted to start paying you for your efforts here!
– MJM
No problem Michael, of course, as this discussion shows, the real masters of cherry picking are the pro-tobacco people.
Nobody has the guts to take on the assimilated knowledge and wisdom of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths because you all know you can’t argue with their conclusions, which are based on ALL the evidence.
So instead little isolated studies and reports from 14 years ago are dredged up and thrown at us to create doubt.
I have no doubt that the Foundation has got it right, and that the deaths of 100 babies in the UK could be prevented if they were protected from exposure to tobacco smoke in the womb and after birth.
I have faith that the UK public and out MPs will see through the feeble cherry pickings of the shouty minority who are trying so hard to mask the truth.
In 2010 there were 147 SIDS deaths. So Mickey mouse wants us to believe that 100 of these were caused by SHS. In that case, the epidemiology is unassailable. SIDS is caused by SHS.
Erm….“Cot death is the sudden and unexpected death of a baby. After the post-mortem examination, the cause of death remains unexplained and may be registered as sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sudden infant death, sudden unexpected death in infancy, unascertained or cot death.”
Junican believes that “In 2010 there were 147 SIDS deaths. So Mickey mouse wants us to believe that 100 of these were caused by SHS”
According to the rather more trustworthy Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths “In 2009 (the latest figures available) 316 babies under one died in the UK as a result of sudden infant death”
They said this on 16 August 2011.
Mickey, your are conflating again. Look at the mortality statistics for 2010. There were 147 infant deaths attributable to SIDS. There were also other infant deaths with unknown causes which were not classified as SIDS. Note the word ‘unknown’. Your friends at the Foundation are Zealots like you. They can say anything that they wish to say because no one is checking them. LOOK AT THE MORTALITY STATISTICS! The figure is there in black and white.
Mike D, you really enjoy Mass Debating, don’t you?
Mass Debating seems to consume you.
Mike D, you can’t help yourself. It’s the nature of the derangement
of fanaticism. As others have noted, the leading antismokers
“reason” exactly like you. But they have learned that their
pathological lying only works in a controlled environment,
e.g., lying to the “converted”. They have also learned that
if there is any hint that people are familiar with antismoking
shenanigans – with concrete examples – they are shown up
for the self-serving liars they are. Their commenting can only
make things worse because there is no justification for their
pathological lying. So they do the only thing that any liar
wanting to hang-on to their ill-gotten car, annual holidays, and the
social limelight – they disappear: They bolt for the nearest exit.
Contrasted with these professional conmen, and as you note, you
are a rank amateur, with the emphasis on “rank”. You are a genuine
disciple of the antismoking cult. Not knowing that many of the
well-worn antismoking slogans and clichés are marketing spin, you are
utterly convinced in their veracity. Believing, erroneously, that you hold
the moral high ground, you persist with the fear and hate-mongering,
and the brutalizing, the mangling, of the etiquette and rules of inference.
You obviously believe that the Piffle® and Blather© you spout are
actually pearls of wisdom that the unwashed – the “shills” of the
tobacco industry – just don’t get. You’re convinced that parroting the
trash ad nauseam will eventually get through to the “heathen”.
Well, Mike, it’s your Drivel™-fest that is showing up what the pros
try to keep from the spotlight – that antismokers are self-serving,
disturbed minds. So keep up your Mass Debating. Mass Debate away!
You seem to have found your level magnetico.
Pathetic.
Scandalous, glitzy, alarming, sweet, greasy, erm…..etc. Great debating ploy, Mickey.
Mike: “You seem to have found your level magnetico.”
Rather, I seem to have identified your level.
Now, Mickey D, tell me where you have seen toothpaste designed cigarette packets. They must exist, surely? After all, it is a well-known fact that it is claimed that tobacco is a good toothpaste. These packets are/might be designed for two year-olds, if they exist, which they might. Members of Parliament might claim that this is true. Members of Parliament are HONOURABLE MEN/WOMEN, AND WOULD NOT LIE.
God! I cannot wait for the political revolution. It must come. Things cannot go on as they are for much longer. I hope that I survive long enough to see it.
There are things which never cease to amaze me.
Mr Williams has a very good majority. Among his voters, there must be smokers, drinkers and fatties. And yet he thinks that it is his duty to harass, stigmatise and persecute the very people who elected him. Is it not rather his duty to defend them against the zealots – people like ASH ET AL? I can understand an argument which could say that there may also be murderers who voted for him, but smokers, drinkers and fatties are NOT murderers, regardless of the claims of Mickey D that they murder babies in their cots. They are decent citizens who just happen to enjoy tobacco, alcohol or food. They do no measurable harm to anyone. Why is Mr Williams going out of his way to victimise his voters?
It is all very odd.
My original comment went into moderation. Pls. copy paste the links in your browsers.
Evidence based policy making
If you were to go buy yourself a beer, would you buy this one canmuseum.com/Detail.aspx?CanID=30633 or this one epa82.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/coors-light-beer-cans-and-biker-bar-fights.jpg ?
Bets are that most adults and kids alike would choose the second one just like the studies on plain cigarette packaging vs. ‘’glitzy’’ packaging found. But. if the first one was the only beer that was sold everywhere and you couldn’t get any other type, would that make it that you would never be tempted to taste beer? If you already drink beer would the packaging turn you off from ever wanting to drink beer again? I doubt it.
Conclusion: When given the choice between something attractive and something ugly all rest being equal, human nature has it that you will pick the attractive one. But when given no choice ugly will do just fine.
Where can I cash in my 100 000 $ cheque for this study? 😉
Mike D – Are you going to respond to my posts of 27 Jan @2.34 and 28 Jan @ 1.17 in response to your posts of 27 Jan @ 2.24 and 4.19, respectively – or having stated that ACAS was one of the organisations contacted and that they said the same as the others (basically no chance) and pointed out how smokers are descriminated against in job adverts, have you abandoned that particular hobby hourse in favour of the SIDS one where you are losing ground just as fast as in the employment rights?
A message for Mr Williams.
I have just seen an advert on th TV. This advert featured a black young man and a couple of babies. The young man was begging for money to provided clean water in his African village.
12 years ago, nations of the UN passed a motion called the Millenium Goals. One goal was the eradication of of poverty and disease. For some reason concerned with the twisted motives of the unelected UN elite, this attack on poverty and disease was perverted into the persecution of smokers in the affluent EU.
Why have BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF POUNDS been spent on this persecution when clean water in Africa is still such a problem that it requires begging adverts on the TV? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH ALL THE MONEY? How much has been spent on ASH ET AL salaries during that twelve year period?
Another begging TV ad has been on, this time from some organisation called ‘Save the kids’ or similar. Much the same as the first one – soft, tragic voice, sad words, sad music, black babies.
Is it right the WHO should be wasting billions of pounds, paying the salaries of ASH ET AL, paying for the jaunts to holiday resorts for conferences, paying for all the TV ads, paying for border agency persecution of smokers, paying for the secretarial needs of the Holy Group while the real purpose of the WHO is to alleviate exactly the problems portrayed in the TV ads?
Scandalous, is the word.
You paint a lovely picture of yourself as a purple faced loon sitting shouting at the telly.
You’re just permanently angry and shouty aren’t you? Why don’t you stop soaking up and reposting propaganda and get a life?
Looks as though Mickey D must have got the message to “Shut the f*ck up” because he is just showing the sheer lack of any significant evidence that ‘standardised packaging’ will affect anything at all, much less the murdering of babies. All it will do is perpetuate the waste of resources on ASH ET AL salaries.
There seems now to be a plan to give Local Authorities six billion pounds to perpetuate the persecution of smokers. Six billion pounds! Presumably, that will be in addition to ASH ET AL salaries.
Did someone mention the word ‘recession’?
Junican believes that “In 2010 there were 147 SIDS deaths. So Mickey mouse wants us to believe that 100 of these were caused by SHS”
According to the rather more trustworthy Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths “In 2009 (the latest figures available) 316 babies under one died in the UK as a result of sudden infant death”
They said this on 16 August 2011.
You can’t trust pro-smoking activists to tell the truth about health matters (or a lot of other things)
Now he says local authorities will get six billion pounds to “perpetuate the persecution of smokers”. What’s the source of this paranoid drivel Junican?
The paranoid shouty ones want to obscure the truth. Here is good advice from an independent UK expert charity. (Pro-tobacco acivists like to post propaganda to say the second part of the advice is wrong.)
Have a look at the list of people involved in its creation – not a single paranoid activist among them. Just people who know what they’re talking about.
“Reduce the risk of cot death”
This key publication, produced jointly by FSID and the Department of Health, outlines the key steps parents can take to reduce the risk of cot death including the advice to:
• Place your baby on the back to sleep, in a cot in a room with you
• Do not smoke in pregnancy or let anyone smoke in the same room as your baby
• Do not share a bed with your baby if you have been drinking alcohol, if you take drugs or if you are a smoker
• Never sleep with your baby on a sofa or armchair
• Do not let your baby get too hot and keep your baby’s head uncovered
• Place your baby in the “feet to foot” position
This leaflet was produced in consultation with:
Dr Helen Ball, Professor of Anthropology, Durham University
Dr Martyn Cobourne, Department of Craniofacial Development and Orthodontics, King’s College London
Children’s Health and Wellbeing, Wales Government
CPHVA – Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association
Department of Health and Social Services Northern Ireland
Professor Peter Fleming, Institute of Child Life and Health, Bristol
Royal College of Midwives
Royal College of Nurses
Scottish Cot Death Trust
Scottish Government Chief Medical Officer Directorate
Unicef Baby Friendly Initiative”
And if you do smoke, smoke a brand that is not sold in a “glitzy” packet.
Mike D: perhaps you would like to ponder over this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2090685/Andrew-Lansley-health-reforms-Councils-handed-2bn-combat-obesity.html
where the 2nd paragraph states: “Councils are being handed responsibility for public health for the first time since the 1970s, to stem obesity, binge drinking and smoking.”
This is a clever move by Lansley, insomuch that he is now handing over responsibility to local busybodies all over the nation who will no doubt try and outdo each other in healthism claims in a rabid attempt to garner extreme salaries from the bottomless pit known as Big Pharma.
“Some councils will receive bonus ‘health premium’ payments if they are successful…”
More ‘legal’ bribery & corruption from the very top, it just never stops does it!
On the point of SIDS (Mike D), a very close colleague and his wife have suffered two losses in this fashion-their ‘middle’ child is a healthy 11yr old now. But, Mike D, before you go off pontificating again and producing all these ‘experts’ opinions and estimated statistics, consider this. Both adults are highly religious people, neither of whom have ever smoked, neither drink anything alcoholic, in fact I think the most dangerous activity ever undertaken was their wedding day! Now these people believe it was ‘God’s will’ that two of their three babies died and having observed their totally abstemious lifestyle I would have to agree with them so where does that leave your impressive list of so called ‘experts’ Mike D? If anyone were a true expert on the subject I would imagine it to be this lovely, homely couple-not your ‘jury of 12 just men & women’-how many babies have they lost to SIDS – between them?
Smithers
Where is Junican’s 6 billion to “perpetuate the persecution of smokers”? It is just more propaganda that you and your mates gobble up like the good little puppets you are.
With regard to your article, they seem to be transferring some NHS responsibilities to councils and this isn’t new money. Did you not bother to read it?
MikeD, I don’t know about Junican’s 6 billion source, but the American Medical Association used to put out reports on how much the US states were spending on “Tobacco Control” each year. In 2001 or 2002 the figure was $883,000,000.00 … almost a billion JUST in the US, and JUST from the Big Tobacco money laundered by the government through the MSA. The massive amounts spent on antismoking-oriented advertising by the various charities doing fundraising were not counted, nor were any of the efforts of the US Big Pharma companies and their “Foundations” in supporting the pushes for local bans in order to increase the sales of their NicoGummyPatchyProducts.
So the 6 billion is reasonably in the ballpark.
I notice you STILL have no specific, substantive criticisms of any of the research writings I’ve done that I’ve pointed you to, NOR have you come up with any examples of my cherry picking in those writings. Nor, and most to the point in this particular thread which you’ve tried to hijack into a discussion of SIDS, have you produced any sound evidence from studies showing that “pretty packets” increase “children smoking.”
As noted by me above several times: your job here is simply to drown out the more solid information being offered and to distract the general readers away from anything that might cause them to question the “Tobacco Controllers” and all their various antismoking tactics. And, as I’ve also noted before: you’re failing sadly.
– MJM
So with the £6 billion to “perpetuate the persecution of smokers” you just seem to be making it up as you go along.
No change there then.
Does anyone know where this statistic came from?
“Every year, another 340,000 children in the UK are tempted to try smoking”
and what they class as children? ie age group?
“Every year, another 340,000 children in the UK are tempted to try smoking” They make them up effectively by extrapolating the results of a rigged survey of a very small indoctrinated sample!
But how many of “the children” succumb to the “temptation” and do actually try it? How many try it and are put off for life? On the other hand, how many try it later on in life and enjoy it?
“children” is usually used for anyone up to age 18 in these statistics. But you should note the weasel wording doorway to a propaganda statistic in that particular quote: “are TEMPTED TO TRY smoking.” The number (which is purely a made up estimate out of someone’s black hole of a nanobrain probably) probably has nothing to do with the number SMOKING, but may merely represent the number who see a pack of cigarettes or a picture of a pack of cigarettes: maybe even if it’s only in an antismoking ad! LOL!
When you look at the breakdown of the “children” who start smoking every day, you’ll also find that the enormous majority of those who actually take up smoking on a daily basis are between 16 and 17 — not the cute little six year olds usually sitting near the top in a picture box. Even when you’re talking about “children taking their first puff” I believe the majority tends to be after age 15 although I’m not as certain on that. I think it’s a bit older than the age of children “taking their first sip” on the road to alcoholism though.
Whenever you read anything from an antismoking source you need to be alert to every extraneous word in any statement, and also aware of how the meanings of the words that are used may be twisted. E.G. A couple of years ago there was a highly publicized study here in the US aimed at calming bar workers fears about bans. The study title and headlines and quotes kept emphasizing how bans “do not hurt bar and restaurant employment.”
It wasn’t until I put hours of research into it that I discovered they were using the word “and” in the combinatorial sense: their data had actually indicated that bans DO hurt bar workers, but since the number of bar workers was so small compared to the number of restaurant workers they were able to combine the two and the job losses moved into the non-statistically-significant range.
Just fiddling with how people would perceive the meaning of the simple conjunction “AND” allowed the Antismokers to create a misperception that was repeated in hundreds of headlines and news stories broadcast to tens or hundreds of millions of people.
Just be careful next time you’re out on the road: it appears that the government has allowed millions of “children” to hop into cars and speed along the highways nowadays.
– MJM
P.S. The “children” label has also started moving into the “up to 21” bracket in the multi-million dollar “Smoke Free Campuses” effort in the US, and even appears to be bleeding over into the hand-wringing about smoking in the 21-34 year old child population.
this is on the plainpacksprotect.co.uk
Mike D: It seems to me that ‘Junicans £6m’ is the new toy for you to play with, that is until you pick on something else-and i wish you very well in your playground of infantilism but talking of infants, you have totally failed to answer, or even comment upon, the truth I printed for your observance where my colleague & wife lost 2 of their 3 babies to SIDS. Now why would that be Mike D?
You see, I have no interest in whether cigarettes packets are plain, patterned or even wrapped in poisoned Christmas paper (interesting idea for you I suppose) as I am a non smoker, but what does interest me is the strength of lies,fabrications & science (junk) behind all this “hoo-haa” which basically comes down to the conditioning of the masses by the few who cannot stand the aroma of cigarette smoke!
Now, can you please stop avoiding the issue and answer my previous post instead of making silly remarks upon what YOU consider easy pickings
And to think Mike D, my dear old pappy ran round muddy fields, popping of Krauts at will to preserve our human rights-it’s a good job he was cremated for he would certainly be ‘turning in his box’ at what is going on now-as would millions more!
Returning to the OP, plain packaging, I remember in the late 60s I was smoking a brand called “High Kings”, from P J Carroll. These came in a pack that was almost unadorned – just the name and a small symbol / logo. And the colour of the pack was…….drab olive green! And they entered the market as a premium brand. I smoked them because I liked American tobaccos, but not the way the tobacco was cut in American cigarettes. High Kings combined American tobacco and English (and Irish?) cut. The packet design was irrelevant to me, but reading about all this plain packaging nonsense reminded me of those packs and their colour.
“Irish “High Kings” Invade The U. K. Market
The Irish firm of P. J. Carroll & Co. – with a 50% home market share – is 40% owned by Carreras. It has been possible for many years to buy some of their brands in Britain, but until now no aggressive marketing support had been given to them.
In January HIGH KINGS appeared on the U. K. scene – a slightly Urge-than-king size filter cigarette, and (at 6/3 for 20) at a slightly higher price. The compares with BENSON & HEDGES Special Filter at 6/1, and ROTHMANS KSFT and PETER STUYVESANT at 5/9.
This top-of-the-market price category is naturally one where volume is limited, the British smoker of today, at the receiving end of a succession of price increases, tending generally to go for the smaller-sized brands often with the added incentive of coupons. Perhaps HIGH KINGS is the status- setting fore-runner of lower-priced brands to follow from Carroll’s.
The pack, a hinge-lid 20s (variously described as “Autumn Green” and Bog Brown” in color), carries a Celtic circular motif above the brand name. The introduction is being supported by a £100, 000 five-month launch advertising campaign in magazine color pages and spreads, together with weeks of cinema advertising in London, using a 15-second commercial. The advertising follows the Carreras/Rothman tradition of showing the pack on a textured background, with great care taken in photography in the specimen ad shown here (from the “Sunday Times’- color supplement) the right-hand page is in full color, facing a black-&-whit, page which tells the copy story at length – that, rare if not unique among present-day cigarettes in England, the tobaccos are all American-grown broadleaf Virginia. All the copy, whether referring to the leaf, to the history of Carrolls or the High Kings, or to the selective distribution, conveys the image of a high quality, exclusive product in a distinctive way – a real departure from the present-day trend of short copy, but arguably right for the media used.
1969”
Ah, those were the days. No drives by the Neo-Puritans to infantilise adults. We were treated to skilful and artistic advertising campaigns by the cigarette companies aimed at grown-ups able to make their own decisions.
When I think of what we have descended to under the finger-wagging busybody nanny state, I could weep.
The Mike Ds of this world are so comprehensively brainwashed that they can’t even see what has been lost.
Smithers “Mike D: It seems to me that ‘Junicans £6m’ is the new toy for you to play with”
Why can’t the pro-tobacco shouty people tell the truth? You don’t seem bothered about them posting misleading information. Yet you say that “You see, I have no interest in whether cigarettes packets are plain, patterned or even wrapped in poisoned Christmas paper (interesting idea for you I suppose) as I am a non smoker, but what does interest me is the strength of lies,fabrications & science (junk) behind all this”
You are siding with a bunch of people who are posting misinformation and propaganda.
“You are siding with a bunch of people who are posting misinformation and propaganda.”
So speaks the omniscient one. I bet you still believe in global warming, too, don’t you Mike D. (Anyone for hockey-stick graphs?) After all, they said it was true in the Daily Fail, and they were quoting experts! So that proves beyond all doubt that it must be true.
They also said (the “experts”, that is, but also reported verbatim in the Daily Fail among others) that being in a moving car with the window open when smoking was 23 times as bad (?) as a very smokey bar, so obviously that must be true, too.
Oh. Wait a minute.
Well, almost true.
Well, ok, a bit exaggerated then.
What? Total bullshit you say? Noooo – that can’t be! They were experts…
I am sure Junican will respond himself if he wants to dignify MikeD with an answer, but I now understand why MikeD takes everything he reads at face value. He is incapable of reasoning outside the box. The ‘’box’’ that caught his attention this time is that Junican posted that ‘’ There seems now to be a plan to give Local Authorities six billion pounds to perpetuate the persecution of smokers. Six billion pounds! Presumably, that will be in addition to ASH ET AL salaries.’’
But if he followed Junican’s reasoning of his last couple of ‘’boxed’’ posts, he would have realized that Junican is upset that some of the money that was supposed to be used towards the Millenium Goals for real pressing and important issues are being wasted for more propaganda against tobacco users and petty issues such as plain packaging.
But what does MikeD do? He takes that one phrase totally out of context and attempts to use it to discredit Junican’s stream of thought. I call this tunnel vision and unfortunately much of the indoctrinated sheeple in today’s society suffer from this syndrome. Either they have not been taught to use critical thinking, are too lazy to make the effort or it is convenient for them not to.
Mike, you’re the one who’s not comprehending what other people write. I never said that it was perfectly safe to smoke around a baby (or pregnant). I said that we just DON’T know. Stop making out of smoking THE cause of 1/3 SIDS deaths and even give a number of deaths that could be saved if we didn’t smoke. It is a SUSPECTED risk like many others and not the strongest one either. Which part of SUSPECTED don’t you understand? You can’t tout a certain number of lives that can be saved for something you only suspect. At least if they would put the word ”we suspect” beside the 100 death figure instead of their misleading statement “Scientific evidence shows that every year the lives of over 100 UK infants could be saved if no pregnant woman smoked” that you fell for hook line and sinker ” they might be a little more credible and so would you.
Whether the doctor wrote this in 1998 or 2012 it doesn’t make one iota of a difference since they haven’t found the cause and everything is still only at the SUSPECTED level.
As long as babies are still their parents’ responsibility they may choose to believe or not believe what the ”authorities”say for unproven ”causes”. Some parents don’t believe that laying babies on their tummies could be a strong enough ”suspicion” for deaths and if that’s the only way their baby can fall asleep they will allow it, some others don’t believe that a pacifier can help, some don’t believe that moderate smoking during pregnancy is dangerous. Who are YOU to judge these people and what decisions they make for their babies? The medical and scientific communities have lead us down so many wrong paths and especially with the passive smoking fraud, people have just stopped believing and are relying on their instinct and their mothers’ and grandmothers’ experiences which is about the only thing we can trust now for politicized issues such as smoking.
It is with this type of mentality that MikeD also takes an arbitrarily quoted figure for cot deaths that was extrapolated from SUSPECTED risk factors and thrown around by advocacy groups to gullible people like MikeD who try to pass it off as proof that maternal smoking causes SIDS.
Here’s what a doctor who also worked for a SIDS organization has to say about such SUSPECTED risk factors :
‘’It is common for the daily media to gleefully report that “the cause” for SIDS has been discovered. Over the years I have worked with SIDS, literally hundreds of such reports have appeared, and to date not one of them has passed the test of time. One of the most common causes for misunderstanding is the failure to distinguish risk factors from causes. For example, maternal smoking, viral infections, tummy sleeping, or prematurity have all been touted as “causes” for SIDS. Yet, most infants exposed to these risk factors will live, and many SIDS victims will have none of these risk factors. (….) In conclusion, I do not know the cause of SIDS, though I believe the mechanism may be a sudden internal obstruction of the upper airway during sleep. There may never be a single “cause” that can be identified.’’ kidsource.com/sids/cause.1.html
Iro Cyr
I didn’t say smoking causes SIDS, I said that the experts believe that the number of cases in the UK would fall by about 100/year if babies weren’t exposed to tobacco smoke in the womb or after birth.
You cherry pick from kidsource.com in an effort to prove your case, but you clearly don’t understand the totality of the issue. If you don’t understand this important issue you shouldn’t post about it.
Here’s what kidsource.com say
“What Can I Do To Protect My Next Baby From SIDS?
While there is nothing now that will guarantee protection of an infant from SIDS, a number of studies suggest that rates of SIDS may be decreased by some simple, inexpensive and safe changes in infant rearing habits:
Place your baby on its back or side to sleep during the SIDS age period, as now recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Populations where most infants sleep on their backs (or sides) seem to experience significantly lower SIDS rates that those where most infants sleep in the prone (tummy) position. Intervention studies in several countries suggest that a change from prone sleeping position for infants reduces SIDS rates.
Don’t expose your baby to tobacco smoke. There is now substantial evidence that SIDS rates are higher in infants whose parents or other persons in the household smoke.
Don’t let your baby get overheated during sleep. This is perhaps the most controversial recommendation, but several studies have suggested that infants who cannot get rid of body heat because of excessive clothing, blankets or unusually warm room temperature may be at higher risk of SIDS. Until this issue is settled, I feel it is prudent to avoid excessive layers and unusually warm sleeping environments for infants in the SIDS age range.”
So nobody, not even your own expert, says that smoking is safe around babies.
Will you people never stop trying to mislead?
This is important. A child’s death is a terrible tragedy.
Why can’t you stop trying to obscure the facts?
Mike D, How do your “experts” reconcile their smoking THEORY with the FACT that over 50% more male infants die from SIDS than females? Are smokers more likely to give birth to males? Could that explain why around 20% more boys than girls are born in China, a country with a high smoking prevalence? (Of course, the reports of selective abortion of female foetuses were fabricated by pro-Tobacco “shouters”.)
BTW How many thousands of deaths were caused by parents following the “expert” advice of a certain Dr Spock? Over 20,000 in the UK alone?
oh, and the Kidscape.com website was last updated on August 10, 1998, so you aren’t even able to cherry pick recent information.
kidsource.com website was last updated on August 10, 1998, so you aren’t even able to cherry pick recent information
I posted this under the wrong place. So here it goes again. Sorry for the repetition, but it’s we don’t want to confuse MikeD, I better post it where it belongs.
————————–
Mike, you’re the one who’s not comprehending what other people write. I never said that it was perfectly safe to smoke around a baby (or pregnant). I said that we just DON’T know. Stop making out of smoking THE cause of 1/3 SIDS deaths and even give a number of deaths that could be saved if we didn’t smoke. It is a SUSPECTED risk like many others and not the strongest one either. Which part of SUSPECTED don’t you understand? You can’t tout a certain number of lives that can be saved for something you only suspect. At least if they would put the word ”we suspect” beside the 100 death figure instead of their misleading statement “Scientific evidence shows that every year the lives of over 100 UK infants could be saved if no pregnant woman smoked” that you fell for hook line and sinker ” they might be a little more credible and so would you.
Whether the doctor wrote this in 1998 or 2012 it doesn’t make one iota of a difference since they haven’t found the cause and everything is still only at the SUSPECTED level.
As long as babies are still their parents’ responsibility they may choose to believe or not believe what the ”authorities”say for unproven ”causes”. Some parents don’t believe that laying babies on their tummies could be a strong enough ”suspicion” for deaths and if that’s the only way their baby can fall asleep they will allow it, some others don’t believe that a pacifier can help, some don’t believe that moderate smoking during pregnancy is dangerous. Who are YOU to judge these people and what decisions they make for their babies? The medical and scientific communities have lead us down so many wrong paths and especially with the passive smoking fraud, people have just stopped believing and are relying on their instinct and their mothers’ and grandmothers’ experiences which is about the only thing we can trust now for politicized issues such as smoking.
Mike D,
The tobacco control industry is very good at this. When they are not busy accusing smokers of mass infanticide they advise:
link HERE.
Mike d…I cannot, for the life of me, understand why my latest comment is waiting for moderation? It begins, quite simply with “No Mike d I am not siding “with a bunch of people who are posting misinformation and propaganda.” – I only have to google heart attack science and up pops the most credible of people http://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.com/2012/01/sheer-heart-attacks.html…………….”
and ends with…”
.”….. It transpires that the EU couldn’t answer this question when posed by one Godfrey Bloom MEP – how strange!”
Somewhere in between those truths is another truth that apparently needs moderating-or- the moderators approval!
I wonder why???
Some posts that contain http or www in the link posted get caught by the moderation bot, some don’t. I don’t know why. Avoid using them you’ll never have a problem.
The VGIF Sheer heart attacks link HERE
Thank you both. Iro your info & Fredrik, just how the hell did you manage the link???
Point being here of course, is that the truth is now being displayed and I still have received no explanation from Mikey-Boy about my colleagues sad double loss to SIDS! Having read many of the highly informative posts on here i don’t suppose i should expect a proper answer to my question!
Smithers,
The posts going into moderation mode have nothing to do with Stephen.
I have two posts that have been awaiting moderation for days because they have multiple embedded hyper links in them. It’s up to him whether he wants to show them but they go in automatically.
The saying is about spam filters is that they stop everything apart from spam.
I am grateful for this post. I have learnt something that I was not aware of. If you place your pointer on the scroll column (extreme right) and right click, you can jump from top to bottom with the greatest of ease.
But back to business.
I saw the figure of 6 billion somewhere, but I cannot now find it. There is another figure which is more precise in that it says 5.2 billion. Take your pick.
It seems that the announcement was sort of ‘sneaked’ out by Lansley since I have not seen the intention to devolve Tobacco Control, Alcohol Control and Obesity Control to Local Authorities trumpeted in the media.
Anyway, you will laugh at the source. You really will.
It appears in ‘Pharma News On-Line’! Honestly – the on-line newspaper of the Drugs Industry! Here is the main part of the URL:
.pharmatimes.com/Article/12-01-24/English_councils_to_get_%C2%A35_2_billion_for_public_health.aspx
You’ll need to put the http//:www dot in front of it. I,ll try it out……..
OK………paste the above and just type ‘www’ at the front. Worked twice for me.
English councils to get £5.2 billion for public health LINK HERE
Junican
You kindly confirm that this money is not all for ” “perpetuate the persecution of smokers”
In fact, very little of it is likely to be spent on smoking issues, apart from on services to help people stop smoking when they want help. And if you read the other article you’d see that this is just existing NHS money being transferred, with theNHS staff, to councils to deliver the services.
So we can notch up another lie to the pro-tobacco posse – Junican’s “There seems now to be a plan to give Local Authorities six billion pounds to perpetuate the persecution of smokers. Six billion pounds!” is totally untrue.
Oh no, dear boy. I am not wrong. The Millenium Goals’ of the WHO stated several areas where action was required being essentially disease and poverty in the third world. Tobacco was not mentioned. But when these worthy goals were actually fleshed out, every single goal was connected to tobacco. Malnutrition was due to poor people spending money of tobacco rather than food. Diseases were caused by people spending money on tobacco rather than medicines. Poverty itself, of course, occurred because money was spent on tobacco. All ills were caused by tobacco. Enter the Framework Convention ….
No, I am not wrong. We have seen too many of these ‘worthy goals’ which turn out to be just excuses to persecute smokers. And that is what we are seeing again.
You told a whopping great lie Junican. Very little of this money will make it’s way to smoking issues.
Your claim that “There seems now to be a plan to give Local Authorities six billion pounds to perpetuate the persecution of smokers. Six billion pounds!” is not true.
Now you’re wriggling like a worm to escape from such an embarrassing gaffe.
Further, in the Millenium Goals, there was mention of ‘The Environment’ with the implication of taking care of land and seas and forests. That morphed into the IPCC – Global Warming, with billions upon billions being spent on futile, dodgy studies.
MikeD continues I see. “So we can notch up another lie to the pro-tobacco posse – Junican’s “There seems now to be a plan to give Local Authorities six billion pounds to perpetuate the persecution of smokers. Six billion pounds!” is totally untrue.”
Characterizing 5.2 billion pounds as 6 billion pounds when one is quoting a remembered news source that might, actually, have REPORTED something like “over 5 billion” or even “almost 6 billion” does not fit the standard definition of “totally untrue.”
Mike, you’re probably too young to remember Baghdad Bob, but you remind me of him. He’d get on CNN and the BBC and yell about how the lying Allies were nowhere near Baghdad in Gulf War II. Then the next day CNN and the BBC would be showing live footage of the Allies rolling into Baghdad in their tanks and helping the locals pull down Saddam’s statue while Baghdad Bob STILL appeared on a split screen yelling about how the lying Allies were nowhere near Baghdad.
That kind of tactic only works when you have control of the microphone through power or money. It doesn’t work on the Internet. Which is why their true professionals stay away and all we see, aside from brief and flighty errors of judgment by Chapman, Repace, and other second-stringers, are the gullible who’ve swallowed their brainwashing and regurgitate it.
That’s what happens when an idealistic movement, which is what the antismoking movement had always been up until the 1980s and Stanton Glantz’s opening of the tax-floodgates, gets taken over by the greedy. The real strength of the Free Choicers is that, despite having no real funding, our activists are driven by their beliefs and convictions, and are more than happy to put their energies into getting their information and arguments out to people in true public debate forums.
Heh, and, as noted before, and as ignored as predicted, that only works because of people like you MikeD. Without your presence this thread would have petered out long ago: no one would be interested in reading a lengthy string of “preaching” posts .. but your persistence has provided the arena factor: and everyone loves a good fight — specially when the bad guy is getting the haggis whupped off ‘im!
:>
MJM
MJM. I DID see the figure of 6 billion. It was not an error. The trouble is that I cannot find the reference to it which drew my attention to the article in Pharma on-line.
Mickey D has said that it is not ‘new’ money, but that does not matter. The important thing is the amount involved – £5.2 BILLION! There are about 400 local authorities (I have just looked it up) in England and Wales. Dividing 5 billion among them comes to 12.5 million each on average. That is an awful lot of salaries and an awful lot of goods of one sort or another! Will this money be saved elsewhere? Recent history of ‘mission creep’ of suggests otherwise.
It was a lie and you know it. Very little of this money will end up being spent on smoking issues – you said it was all earmarked to “perpetuate the persecution of smokers”.
You just make stuff up as you go.
MJM “Characterizing 5.2 billion pounds as 6 billion pounds when one is quoting a remembered news source that might, actually, have REPORTED something like “over 5 billion” or even “almost 6 billion” does not fit the standard definition of “totally untrue.”
The figure is not what I have issue with, it was the claim that it was to “perpetuate the persecution of smokers” is what is the total lie.
You should stop defending liars from your base in the USA Michael, it damages your credibility.
Perhaps you should stop vilifying American Freedom Fighters from your base in the UK, Mickey.
The laughable thing, Mickey, is that, sooner or later, they will be coming for you, darling…………..
*sigh* If only the anti-smoker well paid lobbyists were held to the same standards of accuracy as is expected of ordinary citizens!
But that’s the point MikeDTroll — I *don’t* defend “liars.”
Junican was not “quoting a news source” : he was referring to a memory of a story he’d read. He says he remembers seeing the 6 billion figure and I believe him. BUT… *EVEN IF* he’d seen an “almost 6 billion” or something along those lines, simply casting it as a general 6 billion in a posting where the exact amount was not a major bone of contention does not render the person deserving of the title “liar” — except in the mind of a troll.j
btw… even the most casual readers through this thread will have noticed by now that you are completely unable to offer any specific, substantive criticisms or examples of cherry picking in any of my writings and research at the three sites I pointed you to, one being my major online outreach tool, “The Lies Behind The Smoking Bans,” easily reachable by Googling
V.gen5h
and clicking on “The Health Arguments”
and the other two being the research studies I did with David Kuneman.
What you fail to understand Mike, is that EVERY time you add a posting to this thread without responding to what I believe has now been three separate challenges to do so, you’ve simply reinforced the fact that there’s no cherry picking and no real criticisms available. My research is sound, its points are valid: the antismoking movement, as a standard practice, uses lies, misdirections, conflations, fallacies, and prevarications of all kinds to advance its goals…
And you’re helping to prove that in the public eye.
Again, I thank you.
– MJM
Coming back to the matter of ‘standardised packaging’, I have in my hand at this moment a packet of Pall Mall cigarettes. Half of the front of the packet is health warnings and two thirds of the back of the packet is obscene, pornographic ill-health pictures. The background colour is dark red. The name PALL MALL is in large capital letters on the front in white and there is also a sort of crown symbol. That is all that remains of the product name. The only ‘glitzy’ aspect is the obscene, pornographic pictures. ASH ET AL are describing their own obscene pictures and warnings as ‘glitzy’.
Dictators have always dirtied their opponents and then vilified their opponents as dirty.
Last thing for tonight.
I am beginning to think that Mike D is Rollo Tomassi in disguise – that is, dumbed down a bit. It certainly uses the same methods, such as producing no original thoughts but simply trying to undermine the thoughts of others.
I think that Mike D is Rollo. Come on, Rollo! Admit it! Your reputation as the master debater is at risk!
“Junican was not “quoting a news source” : he was referring to a memory of a story he’d read. ”
Rather than checking it out, he posted the lie anyway.
ps I’m not Rollo, whoever ‘Rollo’ is. You don’t seem to be able to get ANYTHING right Junican.
You’ll all be proud to know that the tobacco industry are proud to be campaigning on this with you.
“Forest is supported by British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco Limited and Gallaher Limited (a member of the Japan Tobacco Group of Companies). The tobacco companies are proud to support this campaign.”
Your puppet masters are right there behind you all.
MJM says “I *don’t* defend “liars.”” then does.
Michael’s ‘justification’ of the lie is that Junican was “referring to a memory of a story he’d read.”
Micheal neatly defines the level of accuracy that the pro-tobacco lobby movement demands of its members – “post incorrect or untrue memories as long as they make the case for preserving the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packs”
Thank you Michael, it’s nice to have an insight into how your movement works.
MikeD, I am quite content to let the casual reader examine the preceding posts and form their own judgment. My guess is that you will NOT be as content, and will, instead, seek to drown out what has gone before.
Wanna make a deal: you and I, and any of the puppets you might be tempted to create will all shut up and leave the record as it stands.
eh?
– MJM
btgw… for the FOURTH time I am asking you for specific, substantive criticisms of my writings and stances at the links above.
Still not able to offer any, eh?
Michael
I’m not a full time pro-tobacco lobbyist like you seem to be. Do you have a life or day job outside of your extensive writing and international blog posting activities?
All I can really see presented in the totality of postings on this site is a bunch of desperate people who seem to be willing to post lies and half truths to support the tobacco industry’s right to put their cigarettes in pretty packets.
The fact that freedom2choose’s chairman is willing to pass himself off as a doctor in the Guardian forum, to lie and tell us that “Smokers have no employment rights in the UK.” indicates the desperation to dispense with truth to support the industry.
Junican lies about “There seems now to be a plan to give Local Authorities six billion pounds to perpetuate the persecution of smokers. Six billion pounds!” and then you come to his support.
The deeply disgusting posts trying to draw attention away from the clear links between smoking an SIDS/Cot Death just portray you all as a bunch of sickos in my view.
All of this just comes across as evidence that you are all behaving like tobacco industry puppets, and have no conscience or shame.
If you feel you’ve posted something honest and worthwhile reading and I haven’t responded then I’m sorry. Your willingness to take part in, and support, the lying and misinformation destroys your credibility in my eyes.
If you were a decent human being, with an open but critical mind on these issues, I would expect you not to come to the aid of people caught lying.
If you were the super clever intellectual that you seem to like to portray yourself as, I think you would have guided people away from posting misleading nonsense about smoking not being a very major risk factor for SIDS/Cot Death.
In short, you have a very high opinion of yourself that I don’t share.
Questioning the status quo is called SCIENCE, Mike D. However, science has been hijacked by politicians, vested corporate interests and rabid fanatics, a.k.a. Anti-Tobacco.
The fact that freedom2choose’s chairman is willing to pass himself off as a doctor in the Guardian forum, to lie and tell us that “Smokers have no employment rights in the UK.” indicates the desperation to dispense with truth to support the industry. …..
Pot, Kettle, Black! You, Mike D have lied about this issue. I note that you have not mentioned the ‘no employment rights’ since I responded to your specific query about ACAS! In case you missed it whilst being so embroiled in repeating parrot fashion your blinkered views on SIDS etc.
I contacted everyone I could find on the internet connected with employment law and unfair dismissal and as ACAS was one of those, yes I did contact them and got the same response as from everyone else I contacted.
Neither have you responded to the posts about descrimination in job adverts, where it is perfectly acceptable to state ‘smokers need not apply’ or ‘non smokers only’. It is totally unacceptable and in fact illegal to put in a job advert that ‘Muslims need not apply’ or ‘Jews need not apply’ or ‘Whites only’, etc, etc regarding age or gender (excpet in special and specific circumstances); so why should it be acceptable to exclude smokers in this way if smokers have the same employment rights as everyone else?
I am assuming that alcoholics and drug addicts can’t be treated this way , legally, otherwise employers would be saying ‘no alcolholics’ and ‘no drug addicts’.
We are waiting for you to justify calling people here liars with some verifiable facts!
John S
“Questioning the status quo is called SCIENCE, Mike D.”
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths have assessed all of the scientific evidence to arrive at their current position, and they did this recently.
They have absolutely NO vested interest in finding that smoking is linked to a proportion of cases.
If you contrast this with the cherry picked parts of old studies posted by people on here you’ll see that in this case the science has indeed been hijacked, but by puppets fighting for the vested interests of the tobacco industry.
I’m surprised that a man with so many letters after his name is so naive.
Lyn
Smokers do have employment rights. The fact that you are unable to get compensation for your case does not prove that they don’t have any.
I repeat that the statement ““Smokers have no employment rights in the UK.” is a lie. I work with smokers and the smokers I work with have employment rights.
Mike D – compensation was never on the cards simply because no-one dealing with employment law/unfair or constructive dismissal would take the case because, in their words – ‘smoking is such a contentious issue you wouldn’t have a leg to stand on’. That tells me, loud and clear, that as a smoker I have no rights. To deny me 5 minutes a couple or three times a day is like telling staff they are not permitted to drink during working hours, only at lunch break; it takes me less time to smoke a cig than to go to the staff room and make a drink!
AND you have not yet addressed the issue of blatant discrimination permitted in job adverts.
Hey, Mike! Since your Mass Debating skills are right up there with Rollo, you can share in an Ode to Rollo presented a while ago.
The [Mis]Adventures of
RolloMike of Dim-upon-DaftAt a time when the evil King John ruled the land,
RolloMike of Dim-upon-Daft roamed from village to village debating with the ordinary folk, proclaiming that the King was only and always good, locked in battle with the “evil” tobacco empire. With the sheer volume of his “debating”, he became known asRolloMike the Mass Debater.Astride his mule,
RolloMike happened upon another village. Approaching a group of poor villagers, he quipped, “I amRolloMike, the Mass Debater”. Casting his gaze from villager to villager, he demanded, “Will you debateth me?”; “or, you?”; “or, you?”. “Who will debateth me?”,RolloMike screamed.“Dear Sir, we are but simple people, madeth poor by the excessive tobacco taxes imposed by the King. We are not familiar with this art of debate”, cometh the reply.
“Ah!! I will debateth this point with thee”,
Rollo’sMike’s beady little eyes rolling about with glee. “Ye are pitiful smokers, addicted to filth. The goode King seeketh thou redemption through obscene taxes. He taketh no delight in profiting from thou predicament. He is saddened by so much in taxes filling his chests. Speaketh no more ill of thou goode King, you brood of ingrates! …..Debate over. I win.”On approaching another village,
RolloMike could clearly see in the distance a scuffle between a villager and two of the King’s officers. As he got closer, the King’s men fled. Coming upon the disheveled, bruised villager, Rollo declared, “I amRolloMike, the Mass Debater. What transpireth here? Shalt thou debate.”“I am a villager. The King’s men robbed me of the little I had”, the beaten villager respondeth.
In a rage,
RolloMike bellowed, “I will debateth this point with thee. Thou arte a wicked man. The King’s men are goode and benevolent as the King is so. I beareth witness to the entire incident. I observeth that thee striketh one officer in the fist with thy face, and striketh the other in the knee with thy groin. Engage in folly no more and speaketh no further ill of thy goode king. ……Debate over. I win.”Weeks passeth.
RolloMike enters a new village. It is a scene of devastation. The village has been burnt to the ground.RolloMike questioneth the terrified villagers huddled together around a small fire, “What be the circumstance here?” The villagers explained that they could not afforde the high taxes on all manner of things demanded by the King. The King’s men pillaged the village and left nothing standing.RolloMike saw his opportunity for debate. “I amRolloMike, the Mass Debater, of Dim-upon-Daft. I defendeth the King’s honor through debate. What manner of detestable, conspiring people be thou that ye would set fire to thine own village so that ye may then blame the goode King? The goode King’s goode men that were helping douse the fire of thy making, ye would accuse of arsone. Doest thou not comprehende that the king is goode. If thine perception sayeth otherwise, then it must be thee that is wrong……Duh-eth! ……Debate over. I win.”In the summer,
RolloMike relaxed in Balderdash, his favorite of the King’s strongholds. He could barely contain his excitement on hearing the news that two others of the King’s chief debaters, Stanton of Hoodwink and Jonathon the III of Bellicosia, were also sojourning in Balderdash. “Finally”, acknowledgedRolloMike, “the three most noted debaters in the land – the Master Debaters and the Mass Debater – together, collaborating in honoring the goode king”.Jolly goode!
It’s interesting that unlike smoking, alcohol prevalence over 18 is not an indicator, only hospital admissions, expect St Johns buses parked outside your pub soon (if you still have a pub to go to), to patch you up and send you home.
Improving outcomes and supporting
transparency link HERE
For the benefit of Mike D. From the Daily Mail of 23rd January:
“Local government is to take back responsibility for public health for the first time since the 1970s and will be given more than £5billion a year to stem obesity, binge drinking and smoking.”
Everyone loves their grub and 90% like a beer or few or the odd few glasses of wine or single malt. There are no prizes for guessing the easy target. Remember, these are politicians who, like Stephen, want to get re-elected.
So perhaps Mike D can now stop calling everyone liars and respond rationally to the many points he has so far refused to address.
John S
For someone with a degree you seem to have a few problems with comprehension.
“Local government is to take back responsibility for public health for the first time since the 1970s and will be given more than £5billion a year to stem obesity, binge drinking and smoking.”
is not the same as the lie from Junican
“There seems now to be a plan to give Local Authorities six billion pounds to perpetuate the persecution of smokers. Six billion pounds!”
Exactly how much will be used to “perpetuate the persecution of smokers” John? Can you provide a figure?
We can say with absolute certainty that it will be £0 or up to £5.2 Billion, depending on how it is prioritised.
Clearly it will need more than St Johns buses out side pubs for this one.
Could prove expensive.
“We can say with absolute certainty that it will be £0 or up to £5.2 Billion, depending on how it is prioritised.”
Up to £5.2 Billion on “perpetuate the persecution of smokers”?
Really?
When they have to also deal with • Children in poverty
• School readiness (Placeholder)
• Pupil absence
• First time entrants to the youth justice system
• 16-18 year olds not in education, employment or training
• People with mental illness or disability in settled accommodation
• People in prison who have a mental illness or significant mental illness (Placeholder)
• Employment for those with a long-term health condition including those with a learning difficulty/disability or mental illness
• Sickness absence rate
• Killed or seriously injured casualties on England’s roads
• Domestic abuse (Placeholder)
• Violent crime (including sexual violence) (Placeholder)
• Re-offending
• The percentage of the population affected by noise (Placeholder)
• Statutory homelessness
• Utilisation of green space for exercise/health reasons
• Fuel poverty
• Social connectedness (Placeholder)
• Older people’s perception of community safety (Placeholder)
• Air pollution
• Chlamydia diagnoses (15-24 year olds)
• Population vaccination coverage
• People presenting with HIV at a late stage of infection
• Treatment completion for tuberculosis
• Public sector organisations with board-approved sustainable development management plans
• Comprehensive, agreed inter-agency plans for responding to public health incidents (Placeholder)
• Low birth weight of term babies
• Breastfeeding
• Smoking status at time of delivery
• Under 18 conceptions
• Child development at 2-2.5 years (Placeholder)
• Excess weight in 4-5 and 10-11 year olds
• Hospital admissions caused by unintentional and deliberate injuries in under 18s
• Emotional wellbeing of looked-after children (Placeholder)
• Smoking prevalence – 15 year olds (Placeholder)
• Hospital admissions as a result of self-harm
• Diet (Placeholder)
• Excess weight in adults
• Proportion of physically active and inactive adults
• Smoking prevalence – adult (over 18s)
• Successful completion of drug treatment
• People entering prison with substance dependence issues who are previously not known to community treatment
• Recorded diabetes
• Alcohol-related admissions to hospital
• Cancer diagnosed at stage 1 and 2 (Placeholder)
• Cancer screening coverage
• Access to non-cancer screening programmes
• Take up of the NHS Health Check Programme – by those eligible
• Self-reported wellbeing
• Falls and injuries in the over 65s
• Infant mortality
• Tooth decay in children aged five
• Mortality from causes considered preventable
• Mortality from all cardiovascular diseases (including heart disease and stroke)
• Mortality from cancer
• Mortality from liver disease
• Mortality from respiratory diseases
• Mortality from communicable diseases (Placeholder)
• Excess under 75 mortality in adults with serious mental illness (Placeholder)
• Suicide
• Emergency readmissions within 30 days of discharge from hospital (Placeholder)
• Preventable sight loss
• Health-related quality of life for older people (Placeholder)
• Hip fractures in over 65s
• Excess winter deaths
• Dementia and its impacts
Really, yes, in theory up to £5.2 Billion.
Extremely unlikely given the other 65 indicators, which I very helpfully took the trouble to list earlier.
It will probably be merely millions (depending on how successful the tobacco control industry is in getting a slice of the action) spent to “perpetuate the persecution of smokers” from a pot of £5.2 Billion. And being a binge drinker myself, I could find my self being sent home in a smoke-free taxi by St Johns volunteers.
I have just had a quick read through part of the stuff in the link provided by Fredrik Eich.
The whole thing reminds me a little of AGENDA 21 and The Millenium Goals – page after page of waffle about ‘outcomes’ and ‘frameworks’. But did we get a ‘Framework Convention on Poverty’? Or Malnutrition? Or Disease? NO! We got a FCTC – Tobacco Control’. And only Tobacco Control.
And we are STILL seeing begging adverts on TV for money to alleviate poverty and disease and malnutrition in Africa while the Holy WHO persecutes People Who Enjoy Tobacco in affluent, well-nourished, well-cared for Europe.
What a bunch of crooks!
I’m just going to ignore anything which Mike D says from now on.
He is simply using the Troll trick of picking bits of what you say and trying to start an argument about those bits.
The simple fact is that Tobacco Control have already covered fag packets with ‘glitzy’ health warnings. The purpose of the ‘standardised packaging’ demand is to get control of the size of cigarettes and gradually reduce them in size. That is all. The rest is propaganda.
And if what you suspect is actually true, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised that Big Tobacco is even in on the deal since they’d be selling more cigarettes to make up for the small sized ones. Not that all the anti-smoker activists know about it, but they’re very useful fools sorry I mean tools to everything that is planned at the very top. Remember the ”light” cigarette deceit that even governments were complacent with and still are in a certain way since they want to gradually remove the nicotine from the cigarettes? All removing most of the nicotine from cigarettes would do is cause people to smoke more and since it’s the smoke that is harmful NOT the nicotine which can actually be beneficial, how can they possibly think that it will be good for the health of the people?
Disclaimer : Much of the above is just my opinion. No, I cannot document it MikeD so don’t start calling me a liar for it !
Good idea Junican, ignore me pointing out when you tell a lie and you can up your rate of posting propaganda on behalf of your puppet masters.
Mike D: WHADDAYOU WANT?
Man: Well, Well, I was told outside that…
Mike D: DON’T GIVE ME THAT, YOU LIAR!
Man: What?
Mike D: SHUT YOUR FESTERING GOB, YOU PAID TOBACCO COMPANY SHILL!!! YOUR TYPE MAKES ME PUKE!!!! YOU VACUOUS, SIMPLE-MINDED, MALODOROUS PERVERT!!!
M: Yes, but I came here for an argument!!
Mike D: OH! Oh! I’m sorry! This is abuse!
(Apologies to Monty Python)
Speaking of glitzy health warnings :
From: Study Shows Carotid Artery Plaque Screening Does Not Promote Smoking Cessation; Provides Further Evidence that Graphic Warning Labels Will Not Work
tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/02/study-shows-carotid-artery-plaque.html
”Since showing smokers graphic pictures of their own blocked carotid arteries does not cause them to quit smoking, it is highly doubtful that showing them graphic pictures of other people with smoking-related diseases will work either.”
”The rest of the story is that the graphic warning labels are yet another part of the hoax that is the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This legislation was designed to make it look like politicians and health groups were fighting Big Tobacco when in fact, the legislation does virtually nothing to put a significant dent in smoking rates.”
And others think that plain packages will make a difference? What a waste of money and human resources!
The clever trick, however, Iro, is that the quacks get other people, be it Tobacco Companies or the humble smoker, to pay for the persecution. Or if not they, then Big Pharm will pay, provided that it leads to profits.
I don’t know Junican, we’d have to check how much funding Chapman’s team got to do all these studies and peddling of it in Australia. We already know that his dept. got a + or – $360,000 grant to study how popular it is with the people on the internet! nhmrc.gov.au/national_register_public_health_research/29771
But then again… I take that back. The funding comes from the extortionist taxes on tobacco which tobacco users pay.
Iro Cyr, I’ve fixed your earlier post for you.
I think you meant to say:
“All removing most of the nicotine from cigarettes would do is cause people to smoke LESS and since it’s the smoke that is harmful AND the nicotine which is the really, really addictive part that keeps us all happily hooked on the fags, how can they possibly think that it will be good for the health of the people unless it actually is?”
Are you REALLY that far into the pro-tobacco propaganda that you regurgitate that you’ve forgotten that it’s the nicotine that you’re addicted to?
So why were light cigarettes condemned? Wasn’t part of the reason that people were smoking more to get the same amount of nicotine? They even coined a term for it ”compensation”. So which is it? They’re gonna have to make up their minds, don’t ya think?
Mike D – I am sure that Iro Cyr can answer this perfectly well himself, however I wanted to say that you have now proved to just about everyone here that you really do not have a clue what you are talking about!
Yes, smokers smoke for the nicotine as well as the pure pleasure of the act of smoking, just like tea and coffee drinkers drink tea and coffee for the taste, pleasure and caffeine. Many tea and coffee drinkers are addicted to caffeine. Those who are not but still like the taste drink de-caff or weak tea/cofee, however this will not satisfy those who like the real taste of tea/coffee; some smokers like to smoke but prefer less nicotine or a weaker taste, so smoke lights. If a smoker prefers a stronger taste then they do not feel like they have had a smoke when smoking a light cigarette, therefore they smoke more and in doing so produce more smoke!
Try researching the subject before ‘correcting’ another persons post – although I do realise that you did it that way to get a reaction, which you have done, at the same time as showing yourself up to be the idiot we all know you are!
I understand that the Chamber of Commerce in the USA have come out against obscene, pornographic images on fag packets and a judge has ruled against them on the grounds of free speech. It seems that it may be against the Constitution to require Tobacco Manufacturers to bad mouth their own products.
That is correct Junican : tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2011/11/preliminary-injunction-issued-against.html
For anyone like Iro Cyr, who has forgotten that the nicotine in cigarettes is addictive, I’ve looked up this piece of information on drug addiction and being in denial.
I sincerely hope you find it helpful.
“In discussing chemical dependency, we must look at some important factors: denial, co-dependency and enabling. Denial is an integral part of the disease of chemical dependency and is usually the biggest obstacle to recovery. Each of us has defense mechanisms that are used to protect us from unpleasant realities. Generally, defense mechanisms are normal, healthy tools that we use to reduce anxiety and to motivate us to change. Often, individuals are consciously unaware that they are using a defense. Defense mechanisms become unhealthy when they allow the threatening situation to harm the person. Such is the case with someone who has chemical dependency.
What is denial?
Denial is a person’s way of coping with a painful situation by refusing to accept it or believe it. It is a common defense mechanism used to shield and protect against something perceived as threatening. By denying the existence of a problem, a person doesn’t have to deal with it or assume any responsibility for it. This is done by the mind automatically; the person is usually unaware that he/she is in denial. This is different from lying, where a person is aware of his actions but does not admit it. Someone who is in denial of his/her dependency is unable to see the logical connection between the use and the negative consequences of his/her use.
Denial can lead to use of other defense mechanisms by the alcoholic/addict. The more common defenses used include blaming, minimizing, rationalizing and comparing. Blaming is when an individual blames another for his/her use. For example, one adolescent in treatment stated that it was his mother’s fault that he used. This was not because she force-fed him the drugs, but because “she makes me so angry that I have to use.” This individual truly believed that it was his mother’s fault. He was unable to assume responsibility for his use and its consequences.
Minimizing is used frequently. A person may minimize the amount of alcohol or drugs that he/she consumes or how often he/she uses. For example, a person may say, “I don’t use that often,” when he/she may be using three or four times per week. This person does not believe that his/her use is excessive because he doesn’t use daily, like some of his/her friends. Or an individual may say, “I just had two beers,” when he/she means two forty-ounce beers. In this person’s world, two forty-ounce beers may not be a lot in comparison to how much his/her friends use.
Rationalizing is a form of making excuses or justifying why something happened. A common example is the person who says, “I drink because I’m under a lot of stress at work,” or, “Everybody does it; what’s the big deal?” People use comparisons to make themselves look better than others. An example of this is when someone says, “At least I’m not living on the street like a crackhead”–a reference to the myth that all drug addicts are street people.
Do they lie?
Yes. Denial is not an excuse for telling lies. Even though they are often in denial of their substance abuse problem, users will lie to cover up their use. Lying is different than denial, in that the person actually knows he/she isn’t telling the truth. Substance abusers will tell lies to avoid consequences and to protect their drug or alcohol use. Usually, their biggest fear is giving up the drug or alcohol. Substance abusers will lie to their friends, family, employers, counselors…everyone! Do not be fooled into believing them. A recovering addict once told me this joke: “How do you know when an alcoholic or addict is lying? His lips are moving!”
Smokers were not “addicts” until a certain Dr David A. Kessler, whose aim in life seems be to to ban just about everything, “redefined” the definition of “addiction” Under his “definition”, coffee, tea and cola drinkers and chocolate eaters would be caffeine “addicts”.
Kessler is a Juris Doctor – a Doctor of Law!
John S
If you aren’t an addict, can you give it up?
Can coffee, tea and cola drinkers and chocolate eaters give up their “addiction”?
“Addictions” are psychologically so much more difficult to give up than “habits”, aren’t they? You need “professional” help and “medications” to do so.
John S
If you aren’t an addict, can you give it up?
Mike D, If spamming, and in doing so making a complete idiot of yourself and making a mockery of the high church of Antii-Tobacco, isn’t addictive, why don’t don’t you give it up?
Most people are addicted to something, probably even you Mike D, but as you are probably in denial you don’t realise it!
There are people who are addicted to ‘healthy living’, exercise, chocolate, caffeine, sex, being pregnant, over the counter or prescribed medicines, work and a vast number of others as well as the more commonly perceived addicitions such as nicotine and alcohol. Some people have what is known as an addicitive personality, one of those things that is caused by genes, the same genes that make us individuals.
Whether an addiction to something is particularly good or bad depends, very often, on individual perceptions, likes and dislikes. Having said that, I hate tea, the taste and smell of it, but I do not castigate those that like or even love tea as that is their perogotive, the same for beer and other things I, personally, do not like, which, like tobacco, are legal products. As the saying goes, one man’s meat is another man’s poison.
Caution : Read carefully and slowly. I am not saying that smoking is harmless. I am talking about nicotine without the smoke.
Mike, one single question to all your arguments:
Exactly what is wrong with being addicted to a substance all your life if the substance you’re addicted to is mostly beneficial to you and not harmful i.e. nicotine without the smoke ?
Addiction is NOT a swear word nor does it mean that it’s necessarily harmful. Big Pharma and anti-tobacco like to tout that nicotine as in patches, gums, lozenges… is harmless. Unless of course they’re lying – d’ya think?
But to make the issue even more complicated, the latest news is that nicotine ALONE is not the addictive substance in tobacco. Go figure. Even the father of the famous ”nicotine dependence test” has renamed his test ”cigarette dependence test”. http://cagecanada.homestead.com/fagerstromfindshiswaytodamascus.html D’ya think they were lying just to peddle their nicotine replacement therapy?
Is all this too confusing for your brainwashed mind? Would you like it explained more slowly and one fact at a time? Start by answering why a person cannot be addicted to a substance that is NOT harmful? Then we can deal with the rest, such as how beneficial nicotine can be.
Iro Cyr
Smoking IS harmful. This is about cigarettes. Cigarettes are smoked.
You are very deeply in denial aren’t you.
Iro, my friend, you must stop responding to the troll directly. Go into third person.”He/she says” and not “You say”. In that way, you avoid ‘ad hominems’.
The first sentence of Mr Williams’s post:
“This morning I was pleased to help launch Europe’s first major campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of glitzy tobacco packaging to children.”
Let us examine that sentence.
In the first place, we must regard the phrase “of glitzy tobacco packaging to children” as an adjectival phrase. The phrase describes “the dangers”. You could thus re-phrase:
“….to raise awareness of ‘glitzy-tobacco-packaging-to-children dangers’. Put that way, the utter nonsense of the idea becomes obvious. ‘Glitzy-tobacco-packaging-to-children’ makes no sense at all. It can only be propaganda.
Would it make any difference if the phrasing was different? Let us see.
Re-write: “…to raise awareness of the dangers, to children, of ‘glitzy-tobacco-packaging’.” Only a little. What has happened is that the word ‘dangers’ has now become ‘dangers-to-children’, while the adjectival phrase has become ‘glitzy-tobacco-packaging’. Even put that way, the idea is obscene propaganda. There are several reasons that the idea is obscene, but the principle one is that packaging can be dangerous. Read it again this way: “The danger-to-children is the packaging”
These propaganda ploys can be difficult to see and understand. Even the question: “Which of these two cigarette packet looks safer?” is not obviously as meaningless as it is.
Just a quick further observation. “….Europe’s first major campaign….” I spoke earlier about the decoration of cigarette packets obtained from Belgium. Half of the front is health warnings. Two thirds of the back is obscene, pornographic pictures. I fear that Mr Williams is deluding himself in that he has no idea what is happening in Europe.
Who edited that statement?
Freedom2choose policy on ecigarettes and other non-smoked nicotine delivery systems for Iro Cyr
“NRT/ Alternate methods of delivery of nicotine. F2C’s policy
Postby __-Steve-__ » Sat Jul 05, 2008 11:02 am
The official position of F2C with regard to all alternate methods of delivery of nicotine is as follows;
Freedom2Choose does not support alternate methods of delivery of nicotine (including e-cigs) due to the fact that they are being used as products of coercion to replace the real choices of consenting adults.
Both ASH and The Royal College of Physicians have indicated a desire to force smokers onto such alternate methods of delivery of nicotine in order to remove all other choice entirely which is contrary to the values of Freedom2Choose.”
F2C is making a statement for civil liberties, not a statement for health. You do understand the difference don’t you Mike ? You do understand that there are different values for different people right Mike? You do understand that people are entitled to their opinion and to their freedom to express it and this is why societies have constant ethical debates on issues such as euthanasia, assisted suicide, capital punishment, etc…
As for your previous post about this issue being about cigarettes not other delivery systems, I won’t even comment it. I will let it stand out in full view of everyone as a testament of how desperate your arguments have become.
Iro, just ignore Mike D. Troll.
Here is the second sentence:
“The Coalition Government will shortly launch its consultation exercise on whether to follow the example of Australia and introduce the plain packaging of cigarettes.”
“….on whether to follow the example of Australia….” Erm…. I don’t remember seeing anything in the proposed legislation which says “Following the example of Australia..” Do you? It is failry obvious that this statement is obscene propaganda. The consultation exercise is not about following the example of Australia.
Yes Iro, don’t get worried that the UK’s pro-tobacco group freedom2choose want people to SMOKE to get their nicotine.
Iro.
And a little further down:
“These machines, which provided easy access to cigarettes, could be found in almost every pub in England until last October. Since last October they’ve been consigned to history.”
Again, we have an adjectival phrase – “which-provided-easy-access-to-cigarettes”. Read it thus: These “which-provided-easy-access-to-cigarettes machines….. Erm…They are cigarette machines, for heaven’s sake! What do you expect? They exist to provide easy access to cigarettes.
Propaganda words.
And they have not ‘been confined to history’. Many publicans who owned the machines are still using them, perfectly legally, from a back room upon request. The incidence of children using these machines must have been infinitesimally small, but it is surprising what propaganda can do the the minds of MPs. Hardly surprising really, since their whole existence depends upon propaganda.
Here’e a reminder of your totally inaccurate analysis from earlier on
“There seems now to be a plan to give Local Authorities six billion pounds to perpetuate the persecution of smokers. Six billion pounds!”
Sometimes Junican’s analysis = big fat lie
MD,
Why are you so obsessed with this? In theory the whole amount of money
could be spent on ” persecution of smokers”.
In your opinion, how quantity of this sum should be spent on the ” persecution of smokers”, to the nearest ten million. Or is it that you can not pick out a single fag box that is supposed to appeal to children LINK HERE?
Iro, and everyone, JUST IGNORE THE TROLL!
And here is, possibly, the worst paragraph of all:
“The next step on the way to comprehensive tobacco control will come in April with the ban on the open display of cigarettes at tobacco kiosks in supermarkets. So when you’re buying your Easter eggs, lottery tickets or just visiting customer services you will not be able to see the rows of branded tobacco products.”
How patronising is that? But look at it more carefully: “….the open display of cigarettes at tobacco kiosks….. Do you see the contradiction? Tobacco kiosks are not for the display of Easter eggs or lottery tickets or customer services. They are simply tobacco kiosks and have no other purpose. Another propaganda statement, totally removed from reality.
I shall continue this ‘in depth’ analysis of Mr William’s statement tomorrow. It is very revealing.
Here’e a reminder of your totally inaccurate analysis from earlier on
“There seems now to be a plan to give Local Authorities six billion pounds to perpetuate the persecution of smokers. Six billion pounds!”
Sometimes Junican’s analysis = big fat lie
Why is Big Pharma funding Anti-Tobacco?
“22nd Century Group, Inc. (OTCBB: XXII), a company focused on smoking cessation and tobacco harm reduction products, announced today that the company licensed Hercules Pharmaceuticals LLC, its wholly-owned pharmaceutical subsidiary, exclusive worldwide rights to X-22.
“X-22, a smoking cessation aid in development under an Investigational New Drug Application at the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), consists of a kit of very low nicotine (VLN) cigarettes containing 22nd Century’s proprietary tobacco. X-22 cigarettes contain 97% less nicotine than Marlboro® Gold, the U.S. cigarette market leader, formerly known as Marlboro Lights®. Results of 22nd Century’s X-22 randomized, double-blind, active-controlled, multicenter, Phase II-B clinical trial will be announced in December 2011.”
That’s right! They want smokers to smoke their cigarettes, not Big Tobacco’s, with the approval of the FDA, of course..
freedom2choose should approve of that, their policy is for people to smoke rather than feeding their addiction with other forms of addiction.
And what are Big Pharma hoping to gain from their “investment” in the Anti-Obesity and Anti-Alcohol industries?
“In our view, obesity remains the single largest opportunity for a new pharmaceutical product today. Roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population is overweight. The number is expected to grow to 75% by 2015. There is massive unmet medical need and clear pharmacoeconomic benefits to curtailing the problem.”
“The substance dependence field is transforming into a high-growth market opportunity. Supported by the success of Pfizer’s recently launched Chantix/Champix, which is on track for blockbuster status in the smoking cessation sector, pharmacotherapies in development for alcohol, narcotic, and nicotine dependencies are poised to radically change the addiction treatment landscape in this difficult-to-treat patient population. The report estimates that the current market for addiction disorders is valued at US$3.2 billion and this is forecast to increase 19% to US$3.8 billion by 2016.”
And of course the parallel on-going research on a pharmaceutical substitute for alcohol and the sober up pill that goes with it has nothing to do with the anti-alcohol propaganda 😉 :
dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1241069/Ex-drugs-tsar-creates-synthetic-alcohol-gives-buzz-hangover.html
The idea that drinking small amounts of alcohol will do you no harm is a myth, claims Professor David Nutt guardian.co.uk/science/2011/mar/07/safe-level-alcohol-consumption
And what is this “safe, non-“addictive” alcohol based on? Benzodiazepines – like Valium and Xanax!
And, of course, having been coerced into living healthier lifestyles and living longer (assuming the side-effects of their products don’t kill us before), there are even more benefits for Big Pharma:
“Researchers expect the number of people who are 65 years of age or older to increase — as a proportion of the population — in the United States from 12.9% in 2009 to 19% by 2030, and in the United Kingdom from 15.9% in 2002 to 23.5% in 2030.
“Of course, this is a potential gold mine for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device manufacturers, as the aging population creates greater demand for their products. They can also benefit from economies of scale: manufacturing more product makes it less expensive to produce, thus lowering product prices, which increases demand, thus leading to greater profits.”
As Woody Allen said, “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to be a hundred” – and have a massive shareholding in Big Pharma to pay for it.
Junican, the anti-smoker propaganda is prepared by fancy ad agencies to give the desired emotional effect. Education? Nah, pure propaganda.
http://www.anti-smoking.org/faqs.htm
”Here’s how the ads get on TV: the Tobacco Control office in the Public Health Department of each State’s capitol usually holds a competition among top regionally based advertising agencies, and they decide which one will land the prized State account to create the anti-tobacco ads for that State’s ad campaign.
These advertising agencies almost never accept creative ideas from the public. The largest such ad account is awarded by the American Legacy Foundation in Washington DC. Legacy is the national anti-tobacco foundation created with $1.45 billion from settlement funds resulting from the States’ lawsuits against Big Tobacco. The $1.5 billion set aside to create Legacy amounts to less than 1% of the States’ total $240 billion tobacco settlement.
Because ad agencies do not accept outside creative ideas, contacting them is very likely a waste of your time. If you have a degree in advertising and marketing, and are persistent enough to get employed by one of the agencies handling a tobacco education account, then you may find an ear at the advertising agency! ”
For those who have never seen Reefer Madness, watch it here : video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6696582420128930236 We never learn from history, do we?
There is a critical thing here, isn’t there? Massive, massive waste of resources.
Macro-economics dictates thus:
Once basic needs (shelter, warmth, water, food) are provided at the lowest possible cost in terms of effort, then it really does not matter what people do in addition. They can paint, write music, play golf, whatever. They can also be CEOs of huge banking operations. It does not matter. Generally speaking, the whole economy is self governing, provided that the ‘money supply’ is carefully controlled. Problems arise however when extraordinary events intervene. That is how ‘spirals’ occur. The horror, however, is that it always seems to be the poorest people who suffer. The wealthy might lose money, but it is the poor who actually suffer.
We must then ask this question:
Why is Government punishing millions of people who cannot help being unemployed while protecting the leaches of Tobacco Control? Or, better still, would it not be better to commission works which benefit the community big time than waste resources on propagandists?
Part of the idiocy of Tobacco Control is the long term certainty of failure. This is very important. It is CERTAIN. If people do not die from ‘smoking related’ diseases, they will die from other non-smoking related diseases. They will still die. Masses of very old people (over 80) die from pneumonia. Pneumonia is not a disease, it is a condition. It is death by virtue of the old age caused by the inability of the lungs to cope with invading ‘bodies’ – spores, viruses, dust, traffic fumes, and so forth. The ancient lungs fill with fluid as they try to combat the invasion. They fail to succeed. The person dies. The person’s body is old and can no longer cope. The body dies.
Given that it really does not matter what people do, would it not be better to use what resources we have to improve, say, real science education than perpetuate pseudo science education?
If I, a little old man, can see the truth, why cannot our Prime Minister?
Junican
“If I, a little old man, can see the truth, why cannot our Prime Minister?”
You are forgetting that your record on posting “the truth” is pretty poor.
Junican, while ignoring internet trolls and disruptors can be a good strategy sometimes, I think you’re overlooking the benefits that MikeD Troll offers us here. His postings are better educational tools than anything we could otherwise provide in illustrating how antismoking propagandists work to manipulate public opinion.
E.G. where he wrote this in response to you: “Good idea Junican, ignore me pointing out when you tell a lie and you can up your rate of posting propaganda on behalf of your puppet masters”
Note that he avoids the danger of a libel lawsuit: He knows he can’t say that you or I or anyone else is actually paid by Big Tobacco because he knows we’re not (You can bet your bippy he’s researched it to hell ‘n back over the last couple of weeks and/or gotten the inside word from the actual pros on the Anti side.) and he knows that despite hiding behind an anonymous handle he might still be tracked and sued. Instead he’ll use phrasing like “on behalf of your puppet masters” — which is designed to give the casual reader the IMPRESSION that you’re employed by BigT while at the same time leaving him the legal loophole of not having said so. If push came to shove he could go on to say he was merely referring to the idea that you’ve been manipulated by lies from Big Tobacco so that you’re ACTING like a puppet.
But the intent, as always in antismoking strategy, is to discredit their opponents by tying them to BigT, casting them as “addicts” whose arguments should be ignored, or insinuating that there’s some other profit motive that is the real base behind their positions/arguments.
MikeD’s use of such propaganda tools is so primitive, so amateur, that it’s easy to point them out and educate casual readers about their dangers. The real professionals use the tools a lot more subtly and it’s not always easy to point them out to newbies: Now we can simply point them back to this blog where they can see them displayed in all their primitive glory. Once people see them displayed so starkly they’ll keep an eye open for them in the future when they’re used in ways that are harder to spot — and that’s what’s needed to remove their power.
And the funniest thing is that, like all true fanatics, he’s totally unable to grasp that! I have no fear that he’ll simply stop and go away because, just like the ranting Bible-thumper raving on a street corner, he’s convinced he’s on a mission from God and should ignore all the twisted machinations of the Great Satan And His Puppets. If you go back up the thread a bit you’ll see that I’ve pointed it out before… and it didn’t slow him down by a hairsbreadth!
In a casual discussion where an adolescent troll pops in simply to be disruptive, ignoring them can often be the best response. In a situation like this however, one where the back-and-forth of conflict is essential to spur the interest of readers while encouraging them to think about the points being made and check on the references being cited, the MikeD’s are essential to the side without money for broadcast advertising, press conferences, slick multi-media websites, and multi-million-dollar international planning conferences. The best response here is to simply grateful to them and use the opportunities they offer. And, as pointed out and shown so well above, there’s no harm in being open about it: they can’t stop themselves!
– MJM
Of course, I have also helped by pointing out all of the lies and misleading statements that all of the pro-tobacco lobbyists on here have been posting.
Without me a casual reader might believe all of the lies and nonsense.
Without me, a casual reader might not know that 100 cases of SIDS/Cot Death could be avoided each year in the UK if people didn’t expose babies to the nicotine in cigarette smoke during pregnancy or after birth.
You keep being asked for the proof of these statements and you keep failing to provide it. You provide opinions and no facts, (usually somebody else’s opinion) no raw data at all. it is up to you whether you blindly accept selective opinion as fact and live your life accordingly but it is not up to you to ensure that we all follow your view.
If you want the latter, provide the data that we can all decide on or give up. Note ‘facts’ not ‘opinions’. Without facts you’ll get nowhere and are just a bore.
Frank J
“You keep being asked for the proof of these statements and you keep failing to provide it. ”
And I keep telling you tobacco trolls to go and read the sound scientific conclusions on the website of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths.
But you’re all terrified of the truth so you keep finding bits of old websites that have a few lines that agree with your prejudice and posting that instead.
The facts and the background evidence is all on the FSID website. Go and read it.
That is pure speculation, used as propaganda. Biased, “right result-driven”, imprecise, inexact, error-prone epidemiological studies are in no way proof. Where is that PROOF? How does the “smoking” theory tie in with the FACT that 50% more boys than girls are affected by SIDS?
That’s the SCIENTIST talking, not the smoker.
You don’t have a clue about arguing, Mike. It’s about coming to different conclusions about the same material and fighting it out. Telling your opponent to go and read the material really doesn’t get you any further, because they’ve already read it. It’s up to you to present it in a convincing way, that’s the whole point – not to tell your opponents to read it in the same way that you are reading it. They’ve already read it differently. That’s why we are having the argument. Besides, ‘the scientific conclusions’ is very vague. You have to direct the reader to a specific paragraph or even page. You can’t just say ‘the FSID said so and that proves I’m right’.
‘Without me, a casual reader might not know that 100 cases of SIDS/Cot Death could be avoided each year in the UK if people didn’t expose babies to the nicotine in cigarette smoke during pregnancy or after birth.’
Pure speculation. In order to save 100 deaths (fsid gave 300 cot deaths in 2010) you would have to educate (successfully) well in excess of one million people (the parents of 541,321 babies born in the UK last year, and their friends) on the merits of stopping smoking and persuade them all to stop. The smoking cessation rate among expecting parents might be better than for the general population, at least on a temporary basis. But I think we can agree that for practical purposes the argument is academic, apart from being completely unprovable.
Anyone with a real need of such ‘information’ is more likely to look for it on the FSID website.
No, there are no facts. There are ‘opinions’. There are ‘possiblies’, maybes,’ ‘leads to’. There are ‘can’t think of anything elses so it must be’
These are not facts.
Belinda
It would be a start if the tobacco trolls/puppets who post on here at least supported FSID’s advice not to smoke in pregnancy or around babies.
Instead you all just try to undermine their advice with misinformation to cast doubt in the minds of readers.
Which, in my opinion, is creepy and verging on evil.
Mike D – isn’t it strange how SIDS, asthma, cancers, heart disease and other illnesses attributed to smoking are all more prevalent today than they were in the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s when smoking was far more prevalent than it is today?
In the 50’s and 60’s when my mother was pregnant with myself and my brother, she smoked and we were both 10 pound plus babies! I smoked when pregnant with my own daughter and she was 8 pounds; she was also a very fit and healthy child, never ill and went on to work in management in the pub industry, continuing to be fit and healthy until the smoking ban came in. She had never smoked, but took it up for a while and went back to being fit and healthy. The cost, however, was prohibitive, so she stopped smoking and is back to always having colds, sore throats and other minor, but draining, ailments. She has always eaten healthily and makes all her own food rather than relying on ready meals as so many busy, single people do.
Suppose the risk associated with smoking was grossly overstated. The public would become complacent over all the other (understated) risks
The statistics back up this “complacency effect” – smoking prevalence down, obesity and alcohol abuse up.
‘It would be a start if the tobacco trolls/puppets who post on here at least supported FSID’s advice not to smoke in pregnancy or around babies.’
Nobody seriously seeking advice about smoking in pregnancy is going to come here, Mike. Get a grip. This is not a page offering advice to people. It’s supposedly an objective discussion – it was about plain packaging until someone started discussing SIDS.
In any case there is nothing evil about questioning advice. Indeed if I had never questioned medical advice I would quite possibly be dead or institutionalised by this time. There is something sinister on the other hand about insisting that advice is repeated without question in a thread that focuses on discussion and enquiry, or in other situations where advice is not being sought.
MJM.
It is true that Mickey D has enabled the continuation of the argument and the discussion. As I have shown above, lots of factors would not have been observed had it not been for MD’s intervention. That is, not a lot of people would notice the nonsense (and I mean non- sense) of Mr William’s propaganda issue. The really, really nonsensical idea that permeates Mr William’s statement is that only tobacco causes death, illness (equals death), malnutrition (equals death) and myriad other conditions (equals death) – but there is no condition which does not equal death eventually!
For myself, I will not engage with the Troll. If it raises a point, I might engage with the point, but I will not engage with the Troll.
Hmmm
Without me a casual reader might believe that there was a 3 year gap between the freedom2choose formed by a tobacco supplier in 2004 and the creation of the current freedom2choose.
None of you would have helpfully shown that the current freedom2choose actually started out in 2005 and the 2 organisations were both active in 2005.
Wow! what an astounding sea changing statement. That’ll really affect the debate. How sad are you?
Nowhere near as sad as our collection of international pro-tobacco trolls who seem to spend their entire lives trying to manipulate discussions all over the world.
Mike D,
I am English and would just like to find a restaurant I can smoke in and then maybe go to a pub I can smoke in and not risk being fined and going to prison, just like an Englishman should expect. I would like to see my cigarette boxes free of pictures of dead people,diseased bodies and all anti-smoking pornography. I want 22 centuary, 23 centuary smokers, n century smokers to enjoy the same life long pleasures that we all have free of discrimination and hate.
If the tobacco control industry would leave us alone then none of this would be a problem but sadly due to the unappeasable nature of this industry this is not possible. When all publicly owned buildings where smokers work have at the very least smoking rooms, including hospitals and schools, when private businesses are left free to decide their own smoking policies, go entirely smoke-free or not at all, then I shall go back to binge drinking in pubs 300 days a year. Until such times and so long as smokers are still free
to examine the evidence and express opinions on public forums, I shall
continue to object in a way I see fit.
Thanks.
“Iro Cyr
February 1, 2012 11:00 pm
Caution : Read carefully and slowly. I am not saying that smoking is harmless. I am talking about nicotine without the smoke.
Mike, one single question to all your arguments:
Exactly what is wrong with being addicted to a substance all your life if the substance you’re addicted to is mostly beneficial to you and not harmful i.e. nicotine without the smoke ? ”
Most addicts don’t want to be addicted to the substance that they’re addicted to. They aren’t free to choose.
Addiction also adds to financial poverty for a lot of people.
Nicotine isn’t ‘mostly beneficial’ even when not taken in through smoking. I’m not denying that some positive uses have been found for it, but it does change the addict’s neurological system and looks likely to be the active component of cigarette smoke that is a factor in some cases of SIDS/Cot Death. And, of course, it is highly addictive to many people.
Mike D:- “…..looks likely to be the active component of cigarette smoke that is a factor in some cases of SIDS/Cot Death. ”
Again, I ask my question on behalf of my still grieving colleague, heaven knows how many posts back-or would you like me to type it all out again?
“…..some cases.” is a ridiculous statement for that could apply to virtually any substance in the world-including the supposed fresh air that we breath in every few seconds. The fresh air that is so polluted that our government is fighting tooth & nail to avoid massive EU financial penalties!
If all you can do is base scientific ‘evidence’ on “…..some cases” then it is time for you to start sweeping roads and do something useful! Debate concluded.
Not all SIDS/Cot Deaths are the same. The Foundation’s science advisers reckon that 100 a year could be prevented in the UK if babies weren’t exposed to cigarette smoke in the womb and after birth. Many cases occur in non-smoking households, but that fact doesn’t absolve smoking as an important factor in the 100.
It’s interesting, and says a lot about you, that you would rather criticise me for pointing this out than actually go and read the evidence and their considered opinions on the FSID website.
If you’re interested in the truth, and in the evidence, it’s all there. None of it is hidden.
If you really are concerned, stop being creepy and arguing about it on a public forum, stop listening to propaganda from tobacco trolls/puppets, and go and educate yourself at the FSID website. It has advice on dealing with bereavement that might help your friends. I suspect you aren’t going to educate yourself, and will just return with another ignorant post. I pity your friends.
The excess deaths (or lives that COULD be saved) is calculated from the increased SUGGESTED risk, taken from biased, “required result-driven”, inexact, imprecise and highly error-prone epidmiological studies, and the proportion of the population (the statistical definition) exposed to that specific risk.
If you calculate the excess deaths for other suspected factors in the same way and add them up, the total of “lives that could be saved” far exceeds the number of actual deaths before you even get half way through the list of factors!
Try it some time – particularly on any “smoking related” illness.
1.
Hey, Mike, you first-class, gold-plated, moronic parrot, pay close attention.
The official line is that there are no benefits in smoking which is only an addiction. This is an erroneous view that was peddled by the Temperance Movement in the 1800s and that was also picked up by the Eugenics Movement of early last century. Given the unfounded belief that there are no benefits in smoking, the question then becomes why people then continue to smoke. The eugenicists (physicalists) “resolve” this question by claiming that the entire behavior is held together by “nicotine addiction”.
Post WWII, nicotine was, rightly, not considered an addiction. Nicotine was re-defined, contrary to available evidence, as “addictive” by US Surgeon-General C. Everett Koop in 1988 and very much in line with the eugenics view. The Office of the Surgeon-General had long been aligned to antismoking and a “smokefree” society (see Godber Blueprint)
It was also defined so in 1994 by an “expert panel” very much aligned to antismoking.
Add www. to newscientist.com/article/mg14319381.300-us-ruling-turns-smokers-into-junkies.html
Some of the benefits of smoking:
Add www. to ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20414766
Do NOT add www. to dengulenegl.dk/English/Nicotine.html
Just nicotine is a cognitive enhancer. It aids focus. It is not surprising that some of the more profound intellectuals, writers, musicians, artists, scientists of the last century were smokers.
The latest that smoking is a habit, not an addiction:
Add www. to sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100713144920.htm
Nicotine is not peculiar to tobacco. There are small quantities in potatoes, tomatoes, green peppers, egg plant, and black tea.:
Do NOT add www. to content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/329/6/437
2.
Even the Royal College of Physicians, officially committed to antismoking – the smokefree “utopia” – since 1971, has had to concede:
“It is now widely accepted that nicotine is the primary addictive component of tobacco smoke. In recent years, however, it has become clear that the psychobiological mechanisms which mediate the addiction are more complex than they first appeared……….However, the experimental animal data also indicate that, when compared with many other drugs of dependence, the reinforcing properties of nicotine appear relatively weak. Thus, it may be that nicotine alone does not have the powerful addictive properties necessary to account for the highly addictive nature of tobacco smoking, and that addiction to tobacco reflects complex interactions between nicotine, other stimuli associated with the inhalation of tobacco smoke, and possibly other environmental, social or behavioural stimuli associated with smoking.” (p.45, 2007)
Add www. to rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/contents/4fc74817-64c5-4105-951e-38239b09c5db.pdf
A prominent American Tobacco Control advocate recently noted that the idea of “addiction” is highly “flexible” in antismoking circles: “The anti-smoking advocates seem to change the science on whether smoking is a choice or an addiction based on the issue of the day. If the issue is a lawsuit, then smoking is an addiction. If the issue is refusing to hire smokers, then smoking is a choice. If the issue is the FDA regulating nicotine, then smoking is an addiction. If the issue is denying medical care to smokers, then smoking suddenly becomes a choice again.”
Smoking has numerous aspects – psychological, pharmacological, perceptual, behavioral, social. People smoke for different reasons at different times. Nicotine – just one aspect of smoking – is mild in effect, on a par with caffeine.
There are two main, interconnected reasons for the “nicotine addiction” myth. Firstly, it serves the deranged antismoking goal of a smokefree world legitimized by a eugenics framework. Smoking is depicted as useless, maintained only by nicotine addiction and where “addiction” is intended in the most derogatory sense of the term. This fosters the idea that smokers are reckless, “intoxicated”, irrational, irresponsible persons. And it is intended to create outrage in particularly nonsmokers. Nonsmokers who allow themselves to be brainwashed by the propaganda then demand protection from irresponsible “addicts”. Even more perverse is the claim that nicotine is “more addictive” than heroin or cocaine. Such irresponsible, agenda-driven statements trivialize what are profound differences between these substances.
Secondly, the nicotine addiction myth also serves the pharmaceutical cartel. By depicting smoking as due only to nicotine addiction, the pharmaceutical cartel has been able to peddle its nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) as the major/only means of quitting smoking. It was fully expected, according to the nicotine addiction model, that people would simply put on a nicotine patch and they would quit smoking. But it doesn’t quite work that way: The effectiveness of NRT is extremely poor.
I can’t get your link to the RCP publication to work, can you provide the title?
Here’s what they said in 2000
“Nicotine an old enemy, a new approach
08 February 2000
A new hard-hitting report from the Royal College of Physicians calls for a completely new approach to nicotine – the addictive drug in tobacco which condemns millions of people worldwide to early death and illness.
The proportion of people smoking in Britain has fallen over the the past 50 years, but now that this downward trend seems to have stopped, society needs to acknowledge nicotine addiction as a major medical and social problem, strengthen its efforts to regulate nicotine and help more people give up smoking. ‘Nicotine Addiction in Britain’, compiled by a group of international experts and edited by the RCP’s Tobacco Advisory Group, makes the following recommendations:
nicotine should be recognised as a powerfully addictive drug, similar to heroin and cocaine, and tobacco products should be recognised as nicotine delivery systems
cigarettes are nicotine delivery products and should be subject to the same regulatory controls as any other drug delivery device – tobacco products should therefore be regulated by the Medicines Control Agency or by a nicotine regulatory authority
the Government should provide universal access to evidence-based smoking cessation services
all doctors need to recognise nicotine addiction as a major medical priority:
GPs should regard it as a core function to treat nicotine addiction just as much as alcohol dependence or illicit drug addiction.
Hospitals and other health service providers should be required to provide appropriate cessation support to all smokers
Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) is a highly effective and cost-effective treatment and should be available to all smokers through reimbursable NHS prescriptions
the way tar and nicotine in cigarettes are measured at present is misleading and should be replaced with measurements that reflect the way real smokers smoke
branding such as ‘light’, ‘mild’ and other words that imply a reduced health risk should be banned unless and until convincing evidence of a significant reduction in risk is proven
warning labels on tobacco products should make it clear how addictive they are
an independent expert committee should be established to examine the institutional options for nicotine regulation and to report its findings to the Secretary of State for Health”
I can’t get your link to the RCP publication to work, can you provide the title?
Try this link:
Add www. to tobaccoprogram.org/pdf/4fc74817-64c5-4105-951e-38239b09c5db.pdf
Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) is a highly effective and cost-effective treatment and should be available to all smokers through reimbursable NHS prescriptions
In addition to receiving funding from government, antismoking groups also receive funding, directly/indirectly from pharmaceutical companies. Pressure also comes from these companies for antismoking to maintain a high media profile and pushing for smoking bans. Smoking bans/restrictions mean higher sales of nicotine replacement products (NRT) – a lucrative enterprise.
Do NOT add www. to news.scotsman.com/tobacco/Nicotine-patch-sales-rocket-in.2766561.jp
Add www. to independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/bonanza-for-nicotine-gum-and-patches-as-millions-try-to-quit-456426.html
The problem is that these products are essentially useless, the pharma companies are aware of it, and consumers are not informed of it unless they search it out for themselves. NRT a success rate at 12 months of 3+% above a 3+% placebo, i.e., they are ineffective in 97% of cases. The antismokers also peddle/recommend the products.
Add www. to bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/338/apr29_1/b1730?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=smoking&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=date&resourcetype=HWCIT
See also:
Do NOT add www. to tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/new-study-reveals-that-widespread-use.html
I tried your link Magnetic and it said this, just shows how you really don’t understand what you’re talking about
“The chemistry and pharmacology of nicotine alone qualify it as a potent and powerfully addicting drug.
Specifically, nicotine meets all established criteria for
a drug that produces addiction or, more technically, dependence and withdrawal (upon its abrupt abstinence) in the animal models used for making such determinations
and investigating the mechanisms of addicting effects (see Chapter 3).
Tobacco products are designed to enable nicotine to be readily and rapidly extracted, absorbed, and distributed to the central nervous system. The drug is five to
ten times more potent than cocaine or morphine in producing behavioural and psychic effects associated with addiction potential in humans, including measures of pleasure and liking.”
Thanks
Mike D…..and tobacco products should be recognised as nicotine delivery systems cigarettes are nicotine delivery products and should be subject to the same regulatory controls as any other drug delivery device –
Potatoes, cauliflower, tomatoes, green peppers etc, etc, all contain nicotine….best bring in regulatory controls for these too I reckon!
Mike: Addiction also adds to financial poverty for a lot of people.
Hey, Mike, you obscene, vulgar, little twit; you obviously need a little history lesson on this point too.
It is antismoking fanatics – and the politicians that pay attention to antismoking fanatics – that constantly push for hikes in tobacco taxation as a coercive measure to conformity. The fanatics then demand a cut from the extortionate taxes to further “educate” the public, keeping them in comfortable employment. The fanatics know full well that these direct taxes inordinately affect those of lower income, i.e., adding to impoverishment. But what do fanatics care; they keep demanding higher and higher taxes – and their cut.
Only more repugnant than these extortionate taxes is the fanatics’ claim that it is the “addiction” that is adding to the impoverishment of low-income smokers.
Hey, Mike, O Mass Debater, you’ve really saturated your mind with the antismoking propaganda. Here’s a useful exercise for you: Go look up “bigotry” in a dictionary (if you know how to use one); it will tell you much about yourself and the fanatics you choose to “learn” from. Then go consider destructive bigotry bandwagons produced when governments support/finance baseless agendas.
Mike, are there two Mike D’s? Why are there two different “gravatars” for Mike D?
A word of caution, Mike. Excessive Mass Debating can be detrimental to your health.
Magnetico, you need to calm down mate, you’ll burst a blood vessel.
The answer to tobacco induced poverty is for people not to take up smoking in the first place.
Or to stop smoking when they feel the time is right.
There’s only one Mike D – your paranoia is kicking in again. You really need to get some help with that (in my opinion)
The answer to tobacco induced poverty is for people not to take up smoking in the first place.
So, Mass Debater, you believe you’re in a position to tell people what they should/shouldn’t spend their money on? And, then, how smart, how sane, how “health promoting”, is it to slap baseless, compounded extortionate taxes on tobacco that disproportionately burden those of low income?
There’s only one Mike D – your paranoia is kicking in again. You really need to get some help with that (in my opinion)
You didn’t explain why there are two gravatars.
Magnetico, you need to calm down mate, you’ll burst a blood vessel.
No “bursting” here, Mass. I am only astonished at the sheer, haughty stupidity you have displayed. You parrot propaganda slogans, inflammatory trash, as if they are “self-evident truths”. You constantly appeal to “authority” failing to recognize that “authority” has been responsible for monumental disasters, particularly through the instrument of Public Health. You seem to understand little about little, making your reliance on the “authoritative” propaganda all the more acute. It should be troubling to you how easily you’ve been manipulated onto the bigotry bandwagon and how comfortable you seem to be riding it. Mike, Mass Debater, you’re just a bigot.
Magnetico1. Your statement of a quit rate through NRT is wrong, by 50%. The actual figure obtained from the NHS is actually 1.6%. I’ll supply a link on request. In all it would appear to by quite ludicrous to peddle a product that doesn’t work.
“Nowhere near as sad as our collection of international pro-tobacco trolls who seem to spend their entire lives trying to manipulate discussions all over the world.”
You’re forgetting ‘in your opinion’ again.
Happy to oblige Frank J
In my opinion the limited amount of time that I spend on this single thread posting helpful information for normal people, plus pointing out lies and misinformation from the tobacco trolls/puppets, shows that I’m nowhere near as sad as the tobacco trolls/puppets who spend far longer chunks of their lives posting lies, bitterness and misinformation on tens/hundreds/thousands of threads all over the world.
In the parts of my life when I’m not helpfully correcting the lies and misinformation from the tobacco trolls/puppets on here I have loads of time left over to hold down a full time job, raise kids and have a nice social life with friends and family.
To see how obsessive some of the tobacco trolls/puppets are it is easy just to google their name and a date and see how many posts they’ve made all around the world. Try it, it’s fun!
From doing this a few times I can see that a few of our tobacco trolls/puppets that have posted on this thread seem to spend as much time posting as I spend working. Isn’t that interesting?
Check it out for yourselves.
So don’t do much work then, about two hours a week?
Nice work if you can get it.
38 hours a week Fred
Part timer.
Magnetic – Thank you for saving me all the effort to explain about nicotine addiction its origins and its purpose.
MikeD – You are correct that I’ll jump in any discussion anywhere and everywhere I can possibly afford the time and even initiate discussions about this issue. And I can afford a LOT of time. Why? That’s none of your business, my life and what I do with it belongs to me. I will NOT rest until it has been widespread and if it has to be done one person at a time and takes all my life, so be it. That’s what good people do when they see injustices and corruption. No, to me the ends do NOT justify the means and even if many of my arguments side with the tobacco industry’s it is perhaps time to ask yourself if the tobacco industry was/is not ALL wrong. Ask yourself if its demonization as the biggest evil on this earth was not another deliberate tactic created to shame and paint anyone who dissents with the public health orthodoxy, no matter how sound their argument, with the wide tobacco shill brush. I invite anyone and everyone here to do as much research as they want to prove that I have any connection with the tobacco industry. I’ll tell you right here and now you would be wasting your time. The biggest hurdle is to get indoctrinated people such as yourself to open their eyes even a little. Obviously you take comfort in being ignorant but one day when the healthists start affecting YOUR life, you will slowly awaken from your complacent lethargy.
Mr Williams claims that cigarette packets are ‘The Silent Salesman’. Since the packets are now covered with health warning and obscene pictures, what are they selling? They also bear quit line phone numbers. Would it therefore be correct to say that they are selling Drug Company Products via quit lines?
The Mass Debater (Mike D): I tried your link Magnetic and it said this, just shows how you really don’t understand what you’re talking about
That’s it! That’s all you’ve got, Mass? That’s even lamer than your typical lame responses. You haven’t addressed anything.
I’m sure you scrambled desperately to find something – anything – to hang your bigotry on. But, Mass, you’ll notice that the piece you quote slides from “addiction” to “dependence”, and back to “addiction”. It also essentially concerns animal studies that have poor extrapolation potential to humans. You might also want to read the “conclusion” section to that chapter on p.60. There are many “hypotheticals” in the “nicotine addiction” hypothesis. You might even be shocked at how indefinite it is given how definitely the fanatics speak of it.
So, Mass Debater, ye who can deal with the “pro-tobacco lobby” with one hand tied behind your back, before anyone can even say “pro-tobacco lobby” – and before breakfast, how do you reconcile the piece you quoted with the piece that I quoted? They’re from the same publication. Then could you tell us why NRT is so ineffective, bearing in mind that NRT was a test of the “nicotine addiction” hypothesis: It was fully expected that people would simply slap on a nicotine patch and they were on their way to being “cured” of smoking. However, it doesn’t quite work that way – not remotely. Although essentially useless in cessation and based on the “nicotine addiction” myth, NRT has made Big Pharma billions of dollars.
Mass, you are way, WAY out of your depth, but you are too ignorant, too bigoted, so immersed in the [fake] “supremacy”, to even comprehend this point. As noted earlier, most of your antismoking buddies would have bailed long, LONG before this. They at least have some sense, at least a tiny inkling, of impending humiliation, something that you obviously don’t have. But, Mass, you keep Mass Debating!
I can hardly wait for your view on the “wonderful” effect of compounded extortionate taxes on smokers of low income. It is particularly anticipated from someone who is a firm believer in “nicotine addiction”. Why would YOU want to go and force “addicts” to pay INCREDIBLY more for what they are “addicted” to? Isn’t that just straight out robbery and cruelty?
Magnetico1. Your statement of a quit rate through NRT is wrong, by 50%. The actual figure obtained from the NHS is actually 1.6%. I’ll supply a link on request. In all it would appear to by quite ludicrous to peddle a product that doesn’t work.
““The chemistry and pharmacology of nicotine alone qualify it as a potent and powerfully addicting drug.
Specifically, nicotine meets all established criteria for
a drug that produces addiction or, more technically, dependence and withdrawal (upon its abrupt abstinence) in the animal models used for making such determinations
and investigating the mechanisms of addicting effects (see Chapter 3).
Tobacco products are designed to enable nicotine to be readily and rapidly extracted, absorbed, and distributed to the central nervous system. The drug is five to
ten times more potent than cocaine or morphine in producing behavioural and psychic effects associated with addiction potential in humans, including measures of pleasure and liking.”
From today’s Daily Telegraph:
“Facebook and Twitter ‘more addictive than tobacco and alcohol'”.
Band Facebook and Twitter! Think of “the children”.
It must be the Facebook’s and twitter logos that attract people to them 😉
Hey, Mike, more excellent Mass Debating!! I should have concluded the questions with the question of whether you understood the questions – which you obviously didn’t, and not surprisingly.
Still waiting on your “razzle-dazzle” angle on extortionate tobacco taxes. Come on, Mass, we can handle your extraordinary insight [giggle], your cutting-edge profundity [tee hee].
Do you like a little sugar in your tea or coffee? Take a look at this link:
dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2094812/Sugar-controlled-like-tobacco-alcohol.html
Copy and paste and then put www dot in front.
Mail On Line…..Sugar ‘is toxic and must be regulated just like cigarettes’, claim Scientists. The template is straight out of Tobacco Control.
”Mike, are there two Mike D’s? Why are there two different “gravatars” for Mike D?”
Interesting observation magnetic. I wonder whether our MikeD’s would like to attempt an explanation.
I have a wordpress blog. WordPress support says that gravatars are assigned to email addresses. So, either Mickey is using two different email addresses or there are two Mickeys. But they both sound the same, so what does it matter?
No, one Mike D, one email address.
More paranoid inaccuracy from tobacco troll junican.
Another heap of statistics has appeared today from FRESH (aka ASH ET AL North East). The ‘study’ purports to count the cost of smoking and breaks this down among the local authorities. I should think that this will be ‘the evidence’ to support the decentralisation of persecution from the Health Dept to local authorities in the new Public Health Bill. Needless to say, the only thing scientific about it will be the computer program devised by Brunel University.
Sh*t in, sh*t out.
“Sh*t in, sh*t out.” is a bit rich from Junican, originator of the lie about £6bn being given to councils to “perpetuate the persecution” of smokers.
You could be talking about your own analyical abilities there Junican.
Here’s a test for anyone bored with the usual misinformation and paranoid rants from the tobacco trolls/puppets.
How many times on this thread has Junican used the word ‘persecution’ in his posts?
Browsers offer a word search function, and mine shows that the word ‘persecution’ has been used 59 times so far in this thread. But what proportion of those 59 times have come from Junican? Come on you trolls, let’s see how big Junican’s persecution complex really is.
Only 59? Junican must be slipping. It should be at least …STOP! Do not respond to the troll….
Hey, shouty tobacco trolls/puppets
I was wondering where you get all of your nonsense from and I’ve found a website called Sourcewatch which lists all of the tobacco industry strategies and manuals.
I’ll post the link so you can all make sure you’re singing from the same songbooks!
Here you go, put www. in front of sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Category:Tobacco_industry_strategy
There’s such a lot of stuff there, I had no idea you had so much to learn to be a tobacco troll/puppet.
One thing that looks particularly interesting is the fact that the tobacco companies accepted that that nicotine was addictive a long time ago, yet some of you puppets are still trying to deny that.
And another link is about someone called Gian Turci who seems to be part of Forces, and looks like he’s offering to get FORCES and other smokers rights groups to work with the tobacco industry. See, I told you you were all puppets! I don’t yet know how much influence Mr Turci had – have any of you heard of him or is he a shady character from behind the scenes? I’ll try to google more about him tomorrow.
Here’s the link to his fax. legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/bmh97d00
MD,
If you are interested in my opinion as to whether nicotine is “addictive” and therefore needs medicalisation or not. I would guess that even if e-fags were handed out free in schools they would have a fad expectancy of the rubik’s cube. Even if e-fags were handed out free in every pub,restaurant and library in the country, I still don’t see them ever taking off. I have no evidence to back this up, but I would bet a large amount of money that I am right.
But then I could not give up recreational sex for the rest of my life, if that makes me an addict then addict I am. Maybe if you could not give up recreational sex for the rest of your life you are an addict too. Maybe, you need medicalisation for your addiction.
It is not the governments business to tell me not to have sex any more than it is the governments business to tell me that I can not smoke with a roof over my head in a restaurant or what colour my fag boxes come in when I get there
The government should butt out and so should you.
None of your business.
Gian Turci is an excellent source of information for anyone with intermediate knowledge of the corruption in tobacco control. If you’re a believer or a novice in tobacco control issues, forget it, you won’t understand a thing he says. But you can always try MikeD, it will be fun reading your attempts at debunking him 🙂
Hey, Mike, you Mass Debater extraordinaire, you’ve done it again, and with particular clarity. You’ve refused to address a number of questions raised by your own comments – let alone all the previous questions you have conveniently disregarded – and, unlike your buddies that simply disappear when posed coherent questions, you’ve degenerated back into the depravity of the attempted smear campaign, some improvised mudslinging, where you seem most comfortable, where you can wallow in your sewage-like “thinking”.
O, Omnipotent Mass Debater, caped crusader defending the world from the “evil” tobacco industry, armed with only Google, profound incompetence, and considerable mental dysfunction, you have well demonstrated who the troll/puppet/parrot/bigot is. You’re an excellent example of a thoroughly brainwashed bigot, a member of the antismoking supremacist cult. You’ve displayed – again – how disciples deal with questioning of the cult’s dogma and activity.
Come on, Mass, I’m sure that you in particular can plumb even greater depths of depravity. O Mass Debater, strive for a new record in vulgarity. Summon all of your stupidity, ignorance, and delusions of grandeur. Straighten out, adjust for action, your “superhero” garb – pull up your underwear over your tights, fling your cape over your shoulder – and free “Stupidity Man” within you with a steely determination for greater obscenity. You can do it, Mass, if you put your disturbed mind to it.
Hmm… let me try this in two pieces. I don’t think it “took” as one.
===
MikeDTroll wrote, “I’ve found a website called Sourcewatch which lists all of the tobacco industry strategies and manuals.”
Odd. Perhaps I just missed it, but I didn’t see the place where Sourcewatch showed its integrity by posting the “antismoking songbooks.” I think folks might find it interesting to compare the two sets and then consider which one is more successful today in distorting public opinion and encouraging unethical behavior among its “puppets.” As usual here, put the w’s or the h double t p thingies in front of these if you browser doesn’t do it for you:
Here’s a nice one to start off with:
smokefreeaction.org.uk/archive/pdfs/SmokefreeLegislationinEngland.pdf
Note the 90 million “audience reach” power commanded by ASH as it pushed for its ban.
And here are two from the US going all the way back to 2001:
ttac.org/new/pdfs/california_air.pdf
Unfortunately it’s been erased, but you can put that URL into the Wayback Machine at archive.org to resurrect it.
This 2003 handbook however,
dhs.cahwnet.gov/tobacco/documents/TobaccoMasterPlan2003.pdf
seems to have been more thoroughly erased as even the archival versions seem to have been burned. However, a similar 2006 version is still out there, courtesy of the SmokersClub’s preservation of it:
kuneman.smokersclub.com/PDF/CIA_Fundamentals.pdf
and a 2008 version has been hosted by someone at Scribd:
scribd.com/doc/8697061/CIA-Fundamentals
(They put these things out pretty much every year: after all, they’ve got money to burn.)
and the 2010 Canadian variation on the theme is interesting:
smoke-free.ca/pdf_1/Smoke-free%20outdoor%20spaces%20advocacy%20-sept2010.pdf
(Continued…)
(Continued)
Then of course there’s the whole set of “Tobacco Control Strategy Planning Guides” starting at:
paho.org/English/AD/SDE/RA/Guide1a_SecondhandSmoke.pdf
The WHO of course jumped in early, back in 2004 with a 300 page “Building BlocKs” guide for activists (published of course out of the University of California: wonder how much money got funneled right into the program pockets of Stanton Glantz and his buddies for this one, eh?)
escholarship.org/uc/item/8hz1726x#page-1
There’s the ever-helpful “Toolkit” from ANR:
goingsmokefree.org/
And an expert “Media Advocacy Guide” at:
stopsmokingcampaigns.org/uploads/CampaignToolkit/Chapter-9-MediaAdvocacy.pdf
with lessons that MikeD seems not to have absorbed.
And two final resources in closing, starting with the “Glitzy” guides put out by the mysterious “GlobaLink” international planning mailing list that is known for expelling members at the first signs of heretical thinking:
strategyguides.globalink.org/main_guides.htm
and a summary of thought by the UK’s own Deborah Arnott in The Guardian a while ago, talking about how they used mechanisms like “The Swarm Effect” and created a campaign that was “literally a confidence trick” :
guardian.co.uk/society/2006/jul/19/health.healthandwellbeing/print
I don’t expect even the obsessive MikeD to go to all of those links, but other readers should just pick a few, feel their overall tone, and then think about the amount of money that’s spent just on this one little corner of “Tobacco Control.” And realize that my list is by no means exhaustive. E.G. I know there’s one out there that advises their “puppets” to write multiple letters to editors under different names, make up individual heart-throbbing stories stories about how smokers are nasty to nonsmokers, etc etc. but while it made an impression when I read it, it really wasn’t “different and new” enough for me to have thought to add it to my bookmarks. Sad.
– MJM
Here you go Michael cagecanada.blogspot.com/2011/02/inside-tobacco-control-industry-and.html
Oh, MJM, you’ve done it now. Facts, they’re like a crucifix to a vampire (ahhhh!!). I suspect that the Mass Debater is currently breaking out in facial blisters, his eyes rolling uncontrollably, his cape limp, and his underpants slipping down over his tights.
Much is being asked of “Stupidity Man” to steer clear of facts (ahhhhh!!!!). The mental sewer is being agitated, his puny mind frantically searching for some smear angle. We await with great anticipation Mass’s desperate, “profound” retort [giggle]. Or maybe this time Stupidity Man has figured out that he has already exposed his pitiful and limited repertoire, that it’s time to exit with non-existent credibility, long past the point where his fanatical, supremacist buddies would have bailed.
Mickey says that he uses only one email address. Gravatars are assigned to email addresses. If there is more than one gravatar, and Mickey says that he uses only one email address, then there must be more than one Mickey. QED.
But all of this is not relevant, fun though it is.
If you Analise Mr Williams’s statement, it is meaningless. If you take out of it the adjectives and the adjectival phrases, what is left? Almost nothing. It simply says: “WE, ASH ET AL, WANT STANDARDISED PACKAGING.” That is all.
Concentrate on the statement. Double Mickey is trying to stop you concentrating on the statement. In that way, Double Mickey distracts your attention.
“This morning I was pleased to help launch Europe’s first major campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of glitzy tobacco packaging to children.”
Almost every word in that sentence is a lie.
For a start, most other European countries have already covered fag packets with obscene pictures of unrelated, nasty (glitzy?) physical conditions, like the guy with a massive growth on his neck. How often does such a condition occur? The trick is to generalise a minute possibility. That picture may be true, but the likelihood of such a growth is minuscule. Therefore, the projection of ‘this could be you!’ is a lie. The reality is that it could not possibly be you unless you also win the lottery. That is, the odds are so minute that it does not matter a bit if you combine those odds with winning the lottery. Almost zero times almost zero still equals almost zero. The obscene pictures are a lie because they imply that there is a reasonable possibility that this could be you, when there is no such truth.
Mr Williams’s statement makes no sense because the packaging, in itself, cannot harm children unless they eat it, and even then, it will probably not harm them. QED.
You guys! I post a link to all of your campaign manuals and within 3 hours there are 8 shouty rants. That’s not obsessive is it?
Let’s look at what you seem to be trying to argue in the 950+ posts in this thread:
1 You argue that pretty cigarette packets are irrelevant to children starting to smoke
2 You argue that smoking is not addictive
3 You argue that smoking in pregnancy has nothing to do with SIDS/Cot Death
4 You argue that you aren’t puppets of the tobacco industry
Have I missed anything?
Earth is flat? Moon is made of cheese?
Comparing those who question the highly dubious (maybe “corrupt” is a better word) “science” of Anti-Tobacco with “flat earthers” is a bit rich, considering his charlatan masters deliberately deceive the public using alchemy from the Middle Ages.
Mike D…”You guys! I post a link to all of your campaign manuals and within 3 hours there are 8 shouty rants”
What you STILL fail to understand Mike, is that when people feel that they’re being persecuted, they WILL fight back.
You, on the other hand, are NOT being persecuted…so what’s your excuse….apart from being a bigot?
Junican says “Mickey says that he uses only one email address. Gravatars are assigned to email addresses. If there is more than one gravatar, and Mickey says that he uses only one email address, then there must be more than one Mickey. QED.”
We have a junican and a Junican posting on this thread. A paranoid person would think there are 2 junicans. Fortunately I’m not paranoid.
Attention everyone!!
The Mass Debater, “Stupidity Man”, protector of The Children™, is up for a new day. With the effect of the tranquilizers wearing off and new Simpsons® underpants over his tights, the Mass Debater is ready to tackle the “evil” tobacco industry while trimming his nasal hairs, and before breakfast and his psychotherapy session at 9am.
I’m wondering how the Mass Debater would summarize his protracted, shameless conduct on this comments board. Let’s see.
1 Antismoking is the [mythical] good and is always right. Anyone disagreeing with antismoking is always wrong – obviously. And who else would disagree with “good” antismoking but the [mythical] “evil” tobacco empire and those “mesmerized” by said “evil” tobacco empire. “Heretics” have no accurate beliefs; they even believe the Earth is flat and the Moon is made of cheese (gorgonzola?).
2 Antismoking is the [mythical] good and is always right. Anyone disagreeing with antismoking is always wrong – obviously. And who else would disagree with “good” antismoking but the [mythical] “evil” tobacco empire and those “mesmerized” by said “evil” tobacco empire. “Heretics” have no accurate beliefs; they even believe the Earth is flat and the Moon is made of cheese (gorgonzola?).
3 Antismoking is the [mythical] good and is always right. Anyone disagreeing with antismoking is always wrong – obviously. And who else would disagree with “good” antismoking but the [mythical] “evil” tobacco empire and those “mesmerized” by said “evil” tobacco empire. “Heretics” have no accurate beliefs; they even believe the Earth is flat and the Moon is made of cheese (gorgonzola?).
Welcome to the deranged fantasy world of the antismoking fanatic.
Hey, Mass, you’re “singing” straight from Crapman’s landmark 1983 presentation – The Lung Goodbye. In addition to the Chapman Trick (see above), Crapman suggested other tricks and tactics to advance the antismoking agenda which have been greatly used since. The political activism for social-engineering purposes, often masqueraded as “science”, has been at the core of antismoking since the 1980s.
For example:
Such a list could be added to considerably, but most entries would be characterized by being somehow cast in a mythological good versus evil battle in an arena observed by mass numbers of people. The good (health/clean air/children) versus evil (cancer/uncaring, callous industry) dimension is the ineluctable bottom line in the whole issue and a rich reservoir for spawning a great deal of useful social drama, metaphor [2] and symbolic politics [3] that is the stuff of ‘news value’ and almost always to the detriment of the Industry. (p.11)
Remember that people are presented daily with a mass of news items, all potentially pressing for attention . It is largely up to you to develop a ‘sense’ for angles or emphases that are headline-grabbing, and to exploit these angles in your news releases and appearances on the media. (p.12)
It is vital to reflect on the vastness of information; social issues and news to which people are exposed and over which they are often urged to take up a position . The smoking debate is just one issue pressing for attention amongst thousands, and like almost any other issue, tends to attract media attention when its issues can be subsumed under some more fundamental mythological context [6]
Fo1lowing, are some examples, by no means exhaustive, of angles
* the mouse that roared, or David and Goliath – when little public interest groups or individuals go into battle with the tobacco industry.
* child abuse – when the industry directing advertising and promotions at children. Also shopkeepers who sell cigarettes from broken packets to children, without doubt, an unfailing standby that brings out all the usual child abuse metaphors .
* the emperor with no clothes – when some public industry extravaganza is deflated by a ‘rude’ and ‘uncivilised’ smoking health group who have the gall to point out that all the colour and pageantry- should-be seen as ‘part of the process that’ keeps cancer wards full . (p.13)
* the private lives of celebrities – the popular culture of interest in celebrities’ lives is a profound and seemingly endless source of fascination to the media . Celebrities who quit smoking or who curse it from their sick beds can be pushed into the limelight to great advantage . (p.14)
When you hold press conferences, advantage should be taken of any venues that will be a poignant reminder of the more dramatic aspects of the smoking issue . Rooms adjacent to cancer wards, forensic medicine or autopsy lecture theatres (which are often located near morgues) or general hospital locations are ideal. Someone active in smoking control will probably be connected with such a venue, and so holding a meeting there will not appear contrived or melodramatic. (p.14)
It should be read as a fine cook book – a smoking control activists’ manual that considers ways of both frustrating the Industry’s marketing efforts and shaping public and political opinion favourably towards smoking control goals . (p.3)
The reasons are nearly always political and this monograph will consider arguments and suggestions as to how smoking control may be more forcefully politicized, thereby giving politicians an imperative to act . (p.3)
Briefly, this will probably best be done by engineering public antipathy to the tobacco industry to such a point that it would become embarrassing for a government not to act . (p.3)
Do NOT add www. to legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/gjq72f00
What’s Chapman really got to do with any of this? He’s a sociologist, isn’t he? As Glantz is some form of ‘engineer’ and Anna Gilmore, I believe, is qualified in ‘Social Management’. Hardly experts on anything to do with smoking. What’s Arnott qualified in? No doubt some form of ‘social’ engagement if anything at all. Come to think of it, I see Mr. Williams has put his BA(Hist) to good use.
With mouthpieces like those, it stinks to high heaven.
Frank,
You can see in the above his sociology expertise in action. Notice the ‘signs’ and ‘symbols’ and ‘perceptions’ and ‘linguistics’. All used deliberately to confuse and distort.
No idea of the subject at all, Junican. When I was at College it was regarded as a wimps and workshy subject, only taken up by Marxists and slightly below the level of General Studies.
Yellow gravatar Mike D had the good sense to quietly leave some time ago. We appear to be left with the silly twin.
What a wonderful resource this thread has turned into. We have our very own amateur antismoker who, with every post, exposes his dogmatism to be inversely proportionate to his knowledge and critical faculties unlike his adversaries who have provided links to a wealth of material and engaged with the issues instead of indulging in ad hominem attacks. But then when you’ve no evidence to back up your arguments, name-calling is all you have left.
But back to the subject of the thread….
…Does anyone truly believe that there is going to be a genuine consultation which involves those who will be adversely affected by this measure? I know that I’m really sticking my neck out here, but I predict that the consultation will find that there is ‘overwhelming support’ despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever, nor any reason to believe, that it will have any effect on the take-up of smoking by young people whilst, on the other hand, it rides roughshod over intellectual property rights which enable manufacturers of a legal product to differentiate and consumers to make an informed choice.
One reason that tobacco control loathes branding is that it thinks that branding offers the opportunity to express identity, to make a statement. I intend to continue to express my identity by using an elegant, smart cigarette case.
Jay, you wrote, “…Does anyone truly believe that there is going to be a genuine consultation which involves those who will be adversely affected by this measure? ”
I am APPALLED! Absolutely and completely APPALLED that you would doubt for a moment the sincerity of HMG in such a regard.
After all, just look at how diligently and thoroughly they handled that “three year review” of the smoking ban! And how they opened their ears up to the people on that open call for input on what laws should be revised!
Look at the massive popular support they enjoy for capturing evil smugglers of three kg of tobacco and then stealing the miscreants’ computers! ( http://nothing-2-declare.blogspot.com/ )
How could you POSSIBLY cast any doubt on how carefully they will listen to the evidence and consider the ramifications of getting rid of all that glitzy lettering on those packs. We all know that “the children” are hungry for text: something MUST be done to stop them from doing all this evil reading of things. It might start giving them ideas…. and we know where THAT sort of thing leads!
– MJM
Oh Dear, Mr Williams, having invited Simon Clark of FOREST to rise to the debate on plain packaging, we now find that you’ve turned down HIS invitation to do just that!
Stephen Williams – the MP who refused to debate in case he won 😉
Ah, but, apparently, it’s because Mr. Williams refuses to debate in a meeting sponsored by FOREST. Simon Clark is now busy finding a separate and independent sponsor to host the very same 2 v 2 debate. It’s not thought likely he will accept even that, of course. Out of his comfort zone, you see.
Noticed the FRESH report, yesterday?. The first of the ‘swarm’ to issue prior to the so called Public (Sector?) Consultation. Preparing the ground for the already pre-determined result to be followed by the ‘next logical step’.
What a greasy and cowardly bunch they really are in tobacco Control.
Ah, well, y’see, that ‘overwhelming support’ I mentioned has to be magicked somehow.
Not only greasy and cowardly but so blatantly dodgy – but then that’s what happens when the ends justify the means and know that you can get away with it because those in power allow it.
nope. Don’t know what you’ve heard or read but I am happy to debate the full range of tobacco control issues. I will of course be doing that in the House of Commons. But if an independent forum wishes to organise a debate between me and Simon then I’m sure that could happen. A newspaper, think tank or university debating society would be good hosts.
The date is in my diary when it becomes public.
Like Paul/Saul on the Road to Damasus I am glad you have seen the light. On this new found enlightenment I look forward to appearing in front of your APPG on Smoking and Health The setting is the House of Commons, your home pitch, no back up and a hostile audience. However my agenda falls into three areas, two you may approve of, this includes:
1. The evidence of active smoking
2. A review of aids to quitting smoking some are as good as 53%.
3. A review of the evidence on passive smoking.
An email will be in your in box by Monday morning.
“I will of course be doing that in the House of Commons.”
On the basis of the ‘evidence’ submitted to you by your secretariat ASH having dismissed any contra submissions under article 5.3 FCTC. We know, already!
I have just been having another look at the ‘glitzy’ nature of cigarettes packets. I have in my hand a packet of John Player Special which I bought in Belgium a few weeks ago. I don’t think that the site would allow me to post a picture here so I have and URL to the Bolton Smokers Club where the picture can be seen:
http://boltonsmokersclub.wordpress.com/
The background colour is matt black. (Nothing ‘glitzy’ there).
The logo and JPS lettering is matt gold. (Nothing ‘glitzy’ there).
But guess what is colourful and ‘glitzy’? The obscene, pornographic health warning picture of a poor chap with a huge cancerous growth on his throat. Very ‘glitzy’.
ASH ET AL insist that children are influenced by the ‘glitzy’ packaging. Presumably, then, the glitziness that they refer to is their own obscene pictures.
But are these pictures real? Are they actually the result of smoking? How many smokers actually suffer from such growths? Should children be exposed to these disgusting, obscene pictures? I say ‘obscene’ because of the gross misuse of the subject matter. The attempt to say, “THIS COULD BE YOU!” is an obscenity.
Oh, and, Mr Williams, the heading on your blog is grammatically incorrect.
“Stephen Williams’ Blog”
should read
“Stephen Williams’s Blog”.
Should we construe something from that error? Perhaps not – a bit below the belt, I suppose, but not as far below the belt as ASH ET AL aim.
“Iro Cyr
February 3, 2012 12:32 am
Gian Turci is an excellent source of information for anyone with intermediate knowledge of the corruption in tobacco control. If you’re a believer or a novice in tobacco control issues, forget it, you won’t understand a thing he says. But you can always try MikeD, it will be fun reading your attempts at debunking him”
So is he a tobacco company employee trying to infiltrate groups like forces, or is he a grassroots campaigner who’s secretly selling out his grassroots mates by secretly becoming a tobacco company stooge? Its hard to tell from the message he sent.
For the super duper researcher that the MikeD’s are, they should have known that the man is dead, first of all. cagecanada.blogspot.com/2009/03/gian-turci-champion-and-hero.html
The answer to MikeD’s question is NO he was neither a tobacco employee nor was the organization that he presided for years, FORCES, tobacco funded. Others have tried tying him or FORCES to the tobacco industry with no success. tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2007/04/another-anti-smoking-group-accusing.html Having some common goals with the tobacco industry and attempting to discuss them with them is not indicative of any type of financial partnership. Like I told one of the MikeD’s earlier, maybe he should be reassessing his own beliefs of the tobacco industry. They might find that albeit it is true that their bottom line is profit like any other business and they have taken some unethical means to achieve it, not everything they have done or said is necessarily the way it has been portrayed by the tobacco control cartel who has also become a very lucrative business.
This been said, I am sure Gian Turci would not have hesitated nor would have been ashamed to take money from the tobacco industry had it been offered to him to fight what he called the ”bastards” aka as tobacco control. Gian always believed that this was WAR and in war anything goes. If anti-tobacco did not have the strong pharmaceutical push they got back in the 80’s when they started marketing the nicotine gum and the billions the RW Johnson Foundation (read Johnson & Johnson makers of nicorette at the time) and the Master Settlement Agreement (read a hidden tax stolen from the consumers to give to the government) they would have never reached the absurd level of advocacy we are seeing today. Fighting grassroots vs grassroots is one thing. But fighting grassroots vs corporate interests like the anti-tobacco lobby has to a great extent become, is quite another. There are some wars that aren’t equal and albeit Gian had everything to win this war, he just didn’t have the funds.
But all this is too advanced for the MikeD’s . Unless they open their mind and eyes, they will never comprehend a word Gian has pronounced or written.
Gian left us the Scientific Portal at FORCES as a legacy that even some governments have been using and consulting. http://www.forces.org/Scientific_Portal/ Years of dedicated work and passion.
Just as a side note. Both Big Tobacco and Big Anti-Tobacco are lobbying the government to do something about the huge contraband problem in Canada. Does that make Big Anti-Tobacco shills for Big Tobacco?
The late Gian Turci got involved in the pro choice movement when one of his children was in a line with other school children, where the teachers came round and sniffed them to see if they had been smoking or been exposed to smoke at home.
Dave is back! You never did explain why you call yourself “Dr” when posting on the Guardian.
Are you a Doctor Dave?
What ceases to amaze me is that Anti smoking fanatics, such as MikeD, cannot see the cost/benefits that smokers adds to society. We all are bombarded with propaganda from ASH, and the NHS, et al that we are costing the country £2.7 billion per year. What we never hear, is how we are annually adding over £11 billion to the national coffers through our extra taxes. Therefore in my mind, we are almost certainly subsidising NHS treatment for the likes of MikeD. If you also believe the statistics that smokers die on average eight years younger than non smokers, then we should also be applauded for being less of a drain on the state in our dotage.
Over to you Mike.
I have found a good link to the court judgement which is stopping the imposition of obscene pictures on USA cigarette packets. Take a look:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/02/02/us-usa-tobacco-labels-idUKTRE81100320120202
From a different article, here are a couple of Judge Leon’s comments:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5giYRP95haPMHC8Hhnvz9Py1n3Lfg?docId=a2c311eec5014becb241c45dcba926c2
”Leon found in his earlier ruling that the nine graphic images approved by the Food and Drug Administration in June go beyond conveying the facts about the health risks of smoking or go beyond that into advocacy — a critical distinction in a case over free speech.”
“It sounds like they are headed to a place where you have to watch a 10-minute video before you can even buy a pack of cigarettes”
My local Tesco has fitted doors to its tobacco display in advance of the other counter-productive legislation to protect “the children”. Far from drawing attention away from the products, it has become the centre of attraction (and a certain degree of ridicule). Of course, every time a customer is served, the doors have to be opened. Peek-a-boo, children! When I was a kid, when pubs were adult places, this very same “peek-a-boo” effect made me and every single one of my mates even more determined to sample the hidden wares.
This “peek-a-boo” effect is more commonly known as the” forbiden fruit effect”, of which Anti-Tobacco are in complete denial. Plain packaging and display bans will only augment this effect and make cigarettes more attractive to “the children”.
What effect did the smoking ban have on smoking prevalence? The steady decrease immediately flattened out and the rate is now beginning to rise again. However, what effect did it have on the pub industry? It DECIMATED it. What effect will these two pieces of legislation have on our corner shops? They will DECIMATE them.
Anti-Tobacco legislation does not “punish” smokers. It “punishes” the owners and workers of those businesses who have the audacity to allow tobacco products to be sold or consumed on their premises. In doing so, they “punish” whole communities. They callously treat it as “acceptable collateral damage” (or is it intended?).
Although Tesco “hides” the cigarettes and tobacco, cigarette papers (in those “glitzy” packets), filter tips, lighters, flints, etc are on open display. As I walked around the store, I noticed other “smoking-related” goods on open display – ashtrays, matches and smoker’s toothpaste. And, of course, practically useless NRT products!!!! Surely, these loop-holes must be plugged!
(BTW, according to a friend’s 15 year old son, the latest way of getting a “buzz” is a 4mg “tab” of nicotine gum and a can of Red Bull. Isn’t it time NRT was banned for the sake of “the children”?)
Hear,hear well said.
Dave is back! You never did explain why you call yourself “Dr” when posting on the Guardian.
Are you a Doctor Dave?
Be a good idea for you to attend the debate, Mike D, as a guest speaker in support of Mr. Williams. If not you could raise your points in Q&A’s afterwards. See what he says.
Level playing field,eh?
Gosh! Do not the recent comments make clear the problem? ASH ET AL are keyboard warriors! They get others, notably gullible MPs (like Mr Williams ), to do their bidding. ASH ET AL sit at their keyboards and produce numbers and lying propaganda. Has there ever been any march through the streets of any kind in support of ASH ET AL? Has there been one single occasion where ASH ET AL has publicly demonstrated? And yet, these people scorn and vilify those small demonstrations which committed freedom lovers try to mount.
To the best of my knowledge, there has never been any sort of demonstration of ant kind in public in support of their agenda. Not one .
Mr Williams is supporting a non-entity. ASH (ET AL) does not really exist. It is a sham. It is a collection of individuals who are feathering their own nests. They use public funds and money from commercial interests (such as Drugs Companies) to enrich themselves.
ASH, as a real grassroots organisation, does not exist. It is a massive, massive (and damned expensive) confidence trick.
A confidence trick like your attempt to pass off £6bn being given to councils to “perpetuate the persecution” of smokers as the truth?
Or a confidence trick like your attempts to convince people there is more than 1 of me because my gravatar changed colour?
<=== oops, there it goes again! Nice and blue this time
“This been said, I am sure Gian Turci would not have hesitated nor would have been ashamed to take money from the tobacco industry had it been offered to him to fight what he called the ”bastards” aka as tobacco control. ”
Surprising honesty from Iro Cyr there.
So Gian Turci “would not have hesitated nor would have been ashamed to take money from the tobacco industry” according to Iro.
According to google he was ” Founder of FORCES Canada, President of FORCES Italy, CEO of FORCES International, Member of the Executive Committ ee of Freedom2Choose, Director of TICAP.”
In 1997 he wrote to people at Rothmans and Philip Morris to say “I am sure that this will mark the beginning of a good a mutually beneficial cooperation between FORCES, other smokers’ rights groups, and the industry. However, I will keep our communications confidential for obvious reasons.”
All of the shouty tobacco puppets will shout that this is all innocent.
Had this been someone from ASH writing to a drug company what would you think?
I make no comment, but leave the facts there for others to make up their own minds.
Mass, for someone that ventures frequently to the bottom of the barrel, you might find this number useful:
Emergency Splinter Removal Service
Specializing in Facial Splinters
1-800-011-011
See MJM’s explanation below about Gian Turci having the integrity not to associate with ”strings attached” funding. This is quite contrary to the anti-tobacco pharma puppets who consistently tout the merits of virtually useless nicotine replacement therapy, and dangerous drugs such as Champix and Zyban when cold turkey has proved to be the most effective method to quit.
Read: HOW LONG WILL THIS BILLION DOLLAR CHARADE CONTINUE? – at cagecanada.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-long-will-this-billion-dollar.html
Junican/junican, (originator of the lie about £6bn being given to councils to “perpetuate the persecution” of smokers) has been getting all paranoid about there being more than one of me.
I’ve pointed out that Junican/junican seems a bit paranoid (count the number of times the words persecute and persecuted appear in his posts)
Junican/junican’s proof that I am legion is that my gravatar has had 2 different colours, and this is only possible if 2 different people are posting.
Seems he’s wrong about that (he seems to get pretty much everything wrong so we mustn’t be too surprised by this)
blue
purple
green
turquoise?
red
blue? (I know the last one I said was blue became purple as I clicked to post the comment)
The simple truth is that there’s only one of me.
But Junican/junican must think there is an army of 8 or 9 Mike D’s.
Can’t wait for his post.
“The simple truth is that there’s only one of me.But Junican/junican must think there is an army of 8 or 9 Mike D’s.”
That’s the problem, Mass. If there were a few different people, it would easily explain the inconsistent, mangled, erratic, disjointed thought that “Mike D” demonstrates through a plethora of posts. But coming from just one person, the only explanation is that Mike D, i.e., YOU, is mentally disturbed. So, thanks for clarifying that; it’s probably your most useful post.
MikeD, actually Dave *DID* quite clearly explain the origin of his handle on the Guardian … and he explained it where he should have: on the Guardian. You seem to have difficulty with reading … as is evidenced by the fact that despite four (five?) challenges now, you STILL have not been able to offer any specific, substantive criticisms of my research and writings at:
Click to access StilettoGenv5h.pdf
nor of the two studies I undertook with Dave Kuneman that were earlier cited.
Gian did indeed explore the possibility of FORCES working with tobacco companies at one point after paying his own way to go to one of their conferences to see what they were all about. FORCES however correctly realized that touching Big Tobacco money would be deadly to their effort unless the money could (A) be somehow completely publicly guaranteed to be “no-strings-attached” and (B) at a level commensurate with the Antismoking budgets. Those conditions could not be met and thus FORCES, as always, remained totally independent from Big Tobacco.
btw MikeD, I see you have still offered no explanation as to why you support the growth of black market tobacco sales to children through high taxation. You could “save” those children MikeD, simply by taxing tobacco at a fair level … but you choose not to.
– MJM
“MikeD, actually Dave *DID* quite clearly explain the origin of his handle on the Guardian”
I haven’t been able to find his explanation on the Guardian Michael, but his most recent posts as DrDaveA don’t say why he’s pretending to be a doctor.
Surely he should be posting under a handle that isn’t designed to deceive people into thinking he’s a doctor?
Mike I hear on the grapevine that the General Medial Council will be suing DJ Dr Fox and the band Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. Michael is quite right in that DaveA was taken and had to think of another name. In the meantime you will be pleased to know I wrote this this morning.
“Dear sir or madam,
I have an account with The Guardian and my user name is DrDaveA. Is it possible to change my name to a derivative of my real name Dave Atherton? Whether it is DaveAtherton 1, 2, 100, 1000 I am not bothered.
I look forward to your reply.
Regards
Dave Atherton.
You have an odd approach to names.
Freedom2choose was established in 2004 by a tobacco supplier. When ‘your’ group neede a name when they formed in 2005 they knew about this but went ahead with calling yourselves that anyway.
Looking through the tobacco industry campaigning information on sourcewatch, one of them seemed to think that grassroots groups should follow the mantra of ‘free to choose’. Is that why you couldn’t possibly think of another name for your new group in 2005?
You never did explain why you didn’t just shrug your shoulders and find another name instead of creating what looks like the continuation of the tobacco group.
And now you say you had the same problem with the Guardian. Out of all the possibilities why did you have to call yourself ‘Dr’?
Why haven’t you changed it? It is clearly misleading.
“You have an odd approach to names. Freedom2choose was established in 2004 by a tobacco supplier” – Mike D
Pubs and corner shops are also “tobacco suppliers, as were vending machine operators. Is that why Anti-Tobacco are so intent on driving them out of business (and have already been successful in the case of thousands of pubs)?.
Are black market tobacco sales growing in the UK Michael?
Is it solely because of tax levels?
Where is your proof?
I think it is just another bit of propaganda from someone in the USA who seems to spend every hour of the day posting pro-tobacco stuff on blogs and web discussions all over the world.
You would have more credibility if you didn’t:
– support people who falsely pass themselves off as Doctors
– try to excuse lies about £6bn being given to councils to perpetuate the persecution of smokers
– support the obscuring of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths advice that 100 fewer cases of SIDS/Cot Death would occur if babies weren’t exposed to tobacco smoke
and so many other things.
You try to pass yourself off as being intelligent, but you are an integral part of the propaganda movement to protect the right of tobacco companies to have pretty packets and I personally fail to detect any integrity within you.
MikeD wrote, “Are black market tobacco sales growing in the UK Michael?
Is it solely because of tax levels?
Where is your proof?”
“solely”? Cute trick word in there Mike. Of course it’s because of enforcement/prosecution/transportation/economic and other causes as well, BUT, as anyone with even half a brain realizes, there’s no black market in things that are being sold legally at the base value.
Who was it? Deb Arnott or one of her ilk a year or so ago who tried to make the argument that high tax levels had no effect on the black market? Idiocy, but her puppets read out of her playbook like it was the Bible.
MikeD, you say I’d have more credibility if I didn’t support Dave (as one of the “people who pass themselves off as Drs). And you claim that despite all of your amazing research on Dave and his postings at the Guardian that you somehow conveniently missed the one he made a year ago within a few hours of someone asking him about his name there. Here’s what he posted:
“Just to confirm one question above no I am not a doctor, DaveA was taken when I registered.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/11/tobacco-displays-encourage-smoking
I’d say he was, and is, a bit more forthcoming about his identity than a certain MikeDTroll for example.
Meanwhile your obsession about 5.2 billion not being the same as 6 billion is almost psychotic you realize: the point is that any such amounts of money, even if they were only a few percentage points of such figures, are outrageous when used by a government to target a minority group with hate propaganda.
And the only “obscuring” tag you can hang on me about SIDS was the quote I gave from the US SIDS Alliance as a counter to your UK SIDS Foundation. Your quote is newer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean its better.
“and so many other things” ? Really? Go ahead MikeDTroll: name and defend just three. You can do it while you offer those insightful, specific, substantive criticisms of my research which I’ve now asked you for SIX times if my count is correct.
– MJM
Mass, just more repetitions, more parroting, more distraction. I feel sorry for you. You demonstrate symptoms of a brainwashed cult disciple. You’ve been told, and have accepted, that it’s an “us/them” framework, which is a concoction of antismoking fanaticism. The fanatics then defined the “us” as the [mythological] good and the “them” as the [mythological] evil tobacco industry – the “devil incarnate”. This “framework” has been manufactured via inflammatory propaganda. The fanatics then declared that anyone disagreeing with them must be a “shill” for the [evil] tobacco industry or a tobacco industry “apologist”, because the fanatics are always right about everything. If anyone had any sense, they would comprehend that this is how a [deranged] cult operates.
Unfortunately, there is a significant proportion of the population, particularly the “educated”, that has lapped up the trash without question. This vile fraud has produced a lucrative antismoker industry that didn’t exist 30 years ago. It is those that have perpetrated this self-serving assault, those that constantly promote themselves as the “good”, that represent evil.
Mass, you constantly demonstrate that, in addition to many other things, you have no grasp of history, even recent history. You make asinine claims of a “persecution complex”. Well, Mass, below are some facts (ahhhh!!) for you, although it’s doubted that they’ll penetrate the extent of brainwashing you have in your mind.
1
From the Godber Blueprint, the eradication goal this time is not to ban the sale of tobacco. Rather, the goal is to ban smoking in pretty well all the paces that people would typically smoke, beginning with the indoors and then the outdoors until smoking is entirely prohibited in public. It has been a [fake] moralist, social-engineering crusade from the outset, masqueraded in the early years as just a desire to “protect” nonsmokers from secondhand smoke. Throughout, the “science’ has been conjured at every stage to fit the agenda.
Here is a brief timeline of the antismoking madness over the last few decades.
The first demand for a smoking ban was in the late-1980s concerning short-haul flights in the USA of less than 2 hours. At the time, the antismokers were asked if this was a “slippery slope” – where would it end? They ridiculed anyone suggesting such because this ban was ALL that they were after.
Then they ONLY wanted smoking bans on all flights.
Then the antismokers ONLY wanted nonsmoking sections in restaurants, bars, etc., and ensuring that this was ALL they wanted.
Then the antismokers ONLY wanted complete bans indoors. That was all they wanted. At the time, no-one was complaining about having to “endure” wisps of smoke outdoors.
While they pursued indoor bans, the antismokers were happy for smokers to be exiled to the outdoors. Having bulldozed their way into indoor bans, the antismokers then went to work on the outdoors, now declaring that momentary exposure to remnants of smoke in doorways or a whiff outdoors was a “hazard”, more than poor, “innocent” nonsmokers should have to “endure”.
Then they ONLY wanted bans within 10 feet of entranceways.
Then they ONLY wanted bans within 20 feet of entranceways.
Then they ONLY wanted bans in entire outdoor dining areas.
Then they ONLY wanted bans for entire university and hospital campuses and parks and beaches.
Then they ONLY wanted bans for apartment balconies.
Then they ONLY wanted bans for entire apartment (including individual apartments) complexes.
On top of all of this, there are now instances, particularly in the USA, where smokers are denied employment, denied housing (even the elderly), and denied medical treatment. Smokers in the UK are denied fostering/adoption. Involuntary mental patients are restrained physically or chemically (sedation) rather than allow them to have a cigarette.
At each point there was a crazed insistence that there was no more to come while they were actually planning the next ban and the brainwashing required to push it. There has been incessant (pathological) lying and deception. Many medically-aligned groups have been committed to antismoking – their smokefree “utopia” – since the 1960s. They have prostituted their medical authority to chase ideology. All of it is working to a tobacco-extermination plan run by the WHO and that most nations are now signed-up to.
2
We can see the pattern here. The concocted SHS “danger” concerned a minute statistical risk of questionable causal basis for LIFELONG (30, 40, 50, 60 years), indoor exposure to SHS from spousal smoking. Around 99.9+% of those exposed to SHS over a lifetime have NO elevated statistical risk of disease. Yet with the propaganda promoting the idea that SHS is bio-weapon-like (e.g., Chapman Trick), unlike anything else on earth, we now have many delicate and dainty nonsmokers “running the gauntlet” of smokers at entranceways, hand cupped over mouth, terrified that they might inhale a whiff. This is the promotion of mental dysfunction (e.g., anxiety reactions, hypochondria, somatization). And the irrationally terrified then demand “protection”. It is fully to be expected as a result of incessant inflammatory propaganda. And this is typically what happens when the medically-aligned Public Health goes on its social-engineering, deranged ideological crusades. The fanatics will keep pushing as far as society allows them.
This has all happened in just 20 years. If it was mentioned 20 years ago, or even 10 or 5 years ago, that smokers would be denied employment and housing and smoking bans in parks and beaches, it would have been laughed at as “crazed thinking”. Yet here we are. It’s all happened before and it has all been intentional, planned decades ago. We just don’t learn or we’re going to have to learn the very hard way because it has to do with far, far more than just smoking.
Hey, Mass, here’s a little more on the “imaginary” persecution.
This only recently from a retired doctor:
“I have looked in dismay at the degradation heaped on smokers in our hospitals in recent years. Forced to huddle under an outdoor lean-to roof for a drag on a desperately needed cigarette, often with intravenous drips in their arms and frequently wearing only pyjamas and a dressing gown on a cold, wet day, now even this solace is to be denied to them.
Lepers in the dark ages received greater care and more love than our enlightened age allows to the poor, old, ill smoker.”
Add www. to. irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2012/0114/1224310242616.html
Apart from the standard “addict” definition, this doctor’s view is what would be expected. The situation is so contrary to the medical establishment’s primary function of care, that regular outrage would be expected from doctors. Yet it is essentially non-existent in the mainstream. It takes a RETIRED doctor to make the claim, who now has no fear of reprisals for bucking the official line. It is this administrative, agenda-driven control over the establishment’s membership that should be highly disturbing. The same can be said for academia.
More “imaginary” stuff:
This concerning involuntary mental patients. Such patients, who are not criminals, were being forced for years onto the antismoking [social engineering] program. They were not permitted to have cigarettes whatsoever. They were physically or chemically restrained rather than let them have a cigarette. Finally, someone in government decided to address the sheer stupidity that was produced by an earlier government.
Add www. to perthnow.com.au/news/mental-health-smoking-ban-to-be-lifted/story-e6frg12c-1226185168316
Even more “imaginary” stuff:
Smoking bans on entire university campuses, i.e., including outdoors, are becoming a trend in the USA. Again, they have no coherent basis; it is purely social engineering. The antismoking supremacist group has declared that its will must be imposed on all.
Unfortunately, such bans are placing particularly young women in danger – not that the supremacists could care any less.
Young women are discouraged from walking across campus alone at night. Most of the University of Montana stays well-lit, but dark shadows still creep across the grass and the flashing blue lights of emergency phones can seem far apart.
With the new smoking ban, young women living in the dorms must now walk to the edge of campus for a cigarette.
Chief of Campus Security Gary Taylor said this issue has not been fully addressed yet.
“We’re forcing girls into a dangerous situation,” he said.
Freshman Emma Brunckhorst agrees. She said she’s glad she lives in Jesse Hall because it’s right beside the designated smoking area on campus.
Freshman Michelle Beckenhauer doesn’t feel so lucky. Living in Jesse Hall’s twin, Aber Hall, she’s a half-mile from where her peers smoke.
“I just end up breaking the rule and smoke right outside Aber,” Beckenhauer said.
Taylor admits the distance of some dorms from the smoking-friendly rim around campus could increase the risk for students. He plans to bring the issue up in the next Tobacco Task Force meeting.
“We’ve tried so hard to get people to smoke off campus that we never considered these girls,” Taylor said.
“The whole intent of the ban is to get people to stop smoking,” he said.
Add www. to montanakaimin.com/news/ban-places-smokers-in-dangerous-situation-1.2602457
Hey, Mass, more “imaginary” stuff still:
Here is a recent smoking ban in apartments affecting the elderly. Such bans have no coherent basis, are purely a bigoted, social-engineering bandwagon in motion, and the Yukon is a very cold place in winter.
Add www. to whitehorsestar.com/archive/story/smoking-ban-leaves-some-residents-fuming/
Since we’re talking about imaginary stuff, let me add another one:
cagecanada.blogspot.com/2011/10/principles-are-never-good-enough-excuse.html
”My mother, a recent but hopefully temporary resident of a Stratford Ontario Nursing facility is 82 years old. She has smoked for 62 years! Some idiots in the health ministry/ Stratford Ontario bylaws have decided to ban smoking within 9 meters of this facility. Also, staff are not allowed to accompany her to smoke outdoors. My mother has become slightly physically disabled and she requires assistance even to go outdoors. It matters not that a verandah of 70 ft or more is in place because that verandah (mostly unused) is off limits also. (…) Has anyone ever seen or heard an elderly person beg for a cigarette while in a nursing home? Sadly, this is the case for my mother. She quite literally begged them to let her have a cigarette. She was independent until a short time ago so begging is new to her.
I should mention she smokes 2 perhaps 3 cigarettes a day and healthwise when this is withdrawn, her last enjoyment of life is being denied. (…)
Last night in the rain I managed to push my Mom in a wheelchair outdoors. Having a slight disability myself made it next to impossible but after some effort we managed with an umbrella in tow to let her have the evening enjoyment of a cigarette. She said «thank you thank you thank you” Poor lady outside in the rain like a second class citizen but it was worth it just to see her smile.
“This ministry thought it could de-normalize smoking but what it has achieved is non other than the normalization of bigotry and intolerance. “
And another one : winnipegfreepress.com/local/hospital-smoking-bans-endanger-patients-study-132980933.html
”IT was a bitter winter night, -30 C, in December 2000, when a 54-year-old hospital patient slipped outside Seven Oaks Hospital in her hospital gown, pulling her intravenous pole behind her.
She wanted a smoke.
An hour later, she was found comatose in a snowbank. The woman had suffered hypothermia and frostbite to her hands and feet. Four fingers on her right hand had to be amputated. She was left with limited mobility in her left hand.”
But obviously plain packaging regulation is a more pressing issue for Global tobacco control!
So, Mass, where do “pretty packets” sit in the scheme of things? The “plain packaging” fiasco is just the latest in a long line of engineered assaults. It simply further demonstrates the antismoking fanatics’ claim that they should have access to everything, they “own” everything, they should be allowed to play/tinker/experiment with anything because they are always “right” and “good”. According to the fanatics, the only one that would [erroneously] question their “rightness” and “goodness” is the “evil” tobacco empire. This is all cultic derangement that has been fully supported/funded by many governments since the 1980s.
Crapman is a propagandist. He has been responsible for some of the more inflammatory antismoking propaganda over the last three decades. While Crapman, a pathological liar for the [bigoted] “cause”, blathers about “public health”, his (and his ilk) has been a long, constant assault on psychological, social, moral, physical, and ideo-political health. It is obscene, a symptom of deep underlying sickness, that these sorts of buffoons dictate public health policy.
Here’s more on Crapman and his deranged “analogies” concerning plain packaging.
Do NOT add www. to dickpuddlecote.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/tobacco-control-more-extreme-than.html
Bla bla.
And here’s another. Just signing in with different email addresses, one of them being my daughter’s.
And now back to the normal gravatar.
I see that the Scottish judges have turned down the appeal of the Tobacco Companies against the display ban. According to what I have just read (even even though the report is dated 2nd Feb), the judges believed that a perception that the sight of cigarette packets in shops is sufficient to persuade children to smoke is sufficient to justify the decimation of small shops along with their infrastructure. Note, not the actuality of such persuasion, but merely <the perception.
One wonders what other perceptions by politicians could justify laws. How about a perception by politicians that the hardships of their jobs justify a law which permits them to take their holidays at public expense?
And so the persecution, not only of smokers, but also of anyone even remotely involved with tobacco, continues apace.
Go for it, Stephen! Go for the legacy of the person who decimated the nation’s corner shops. Just think! When you’re old or have mobility problems, you’ll have to drive or get a taxi to the out-of-town supermarket everytime you run out of milk or tea-bags. And you can proudly boast of your achievement to all the other frail and old people in your predicament. Perhaps you could organise a taxi-sharing scheme for them.
Stephen, I note another recent item on your blog concerns “saving” the High Streets and local shops!
I don’t think it will ‘decimate’ most but it will, certainly, reduce their profitability and cause difficulties. To people of a certain political persuasion that’s a desirable outcome. Does Mr. Williams fit that description?
MJM said “MikeD, I see you have still offered no explanation as to why you support the growth of black market tobacco sales to children through high taxation. You could “save” those children MikeD, simply by taxing tobacco at a fair level … but you choose not to.”
‘simply by taxing at a fair level’
I replied “Are black market tobacco sales growing in the UK Michael?
Is it solely because of tax levels?
Where is your proof?”
And Michael replied
““solely”? Cute trick word in there Mike. Of course it’s because of enforcement/prosecution/transportation/economic and other causes as well, BUT, as anyone with even half a brain realizes, there’s no black market in things that are being sold legally at the base value.”
So ‘simply by taxing at a fair level’ isn’t going to work and Michael J McFadden yet again tries to weasel out of the argument.
In the UK Michael there is a very active black market in anything vaguely expensive or luxurious – perfume, hair straighteners, even DVDs which can be bought online for a few pounds are copied and sold through the black market here.
There IS a black market in things being sold legally at base value in the UK, you only have to go to a car boot fair to find it.
The ‘black market’ of cigarettes is a criminal activity. A police friend told me that a lot of drug dealers had moved into tobacco because the penalties were far less when they get caught than if they’re moving cocaine or heroin. Just like the drugs market, this is a lot to do with criminals supplying addicts.
You’re a weasel Michael. No integrity and no credibility. Just another tobacco puppet.
”In the UK Michael there is a very active black market in anything vaguely expensive or luxurious ”
So what are you telling the readers here MikeD, that cigarettes that cost about £1.00 – £1.50 (if that) a pack to produce, if they would retail at £2.50 – £3.00 per pack including the retailer’s mark-up and taxes, would still be a ”luxury” item that would not eliminate the contraband problem in the UK? I don’t know, but I can think of a thousand other things I would risk to make a criminal profit from than cigarettes at such low profit margins! When the taxes in Canada were lowered back in the 90’s to a reasonable levels, it eliminated all contraband. Contraband sky rocketed again the minute they were raised back up!
upi.com/Health_News/2010/01/13/Study-High-tobacco-taxes-not-a-deterrent/UPI-12471263412516/
As a non tobacco puppet and a white, English, born & bred native of this once fair isle, I would like to assure Mike D, who seems to know everything about market forces, that indeed there is a flourishing ‘black market’ in the UK. In fact Mike D, it has blossomed exceedingly well over the past 4 years-now why do you think that is? Most of the ex-pub goers now provide beers, fags & BBQ goodies when it is their turn to ‘host’ what would have been serious drinking sessions down the local-except that now of course…err…the ‘local, in many cases, has disappeared altogether-and so has government revenue with it!
I suggest that you talk, with some degree of certainty about only that which you have first hand knowledge of Mike D.
Now, the second point-and they always say ‘it comes to those who wait’, and here it is! Air Pollution ( http://www.thelocal.se/38930/20120205/ ) “Air pollution worse than smoking mother: study:”
As has been previously mentioned on this now rather lengthy blog, Air Pollution, which this miserable gov’t are still trying to avoid £300m in penalties is more damaging than cigarette smoke, SHS, 3rd HS & any other type of smoke you care to mention.
So Mike D, Stephen et al what is the exact point of fighting for plain packaging when, as I’ve pointed out previously, we need to fighting the massive toxicity pumped into our atmosphere on a daily basis-and this affects everyone, from newborns to centenarians.
MikeD wrote, “So ‘simply by taxing at a fair level’ isn’t going to work and Michael J McFadden yet again tries to weasel out of the argument.”
Actually MD, anyone reading my post with a reasonable command of the English language will understand clearly what was being said. “Simply taxing at a fair level” actually WILL work quite well. The black market would disappear.
The trick was in the way your phrased your question from the other end of things — so that you could try to point out that there were other ways to control the black market as well. And it’s true: double or triple the amount of spending on police, jails, the military; punish smugglers of over 5 kg with execution; put every native and tourist arriving in the UK through a strip-search; any and all of those would go a long way toward eliminating the black marketing of cigarettes to children.
But the simplest, easiest, fastest, and most acceptable to implement would be the simple fair taxing of cigarettes. To see what level of taxation that would be, simply read:
http://cantiloper.tripod.com/canti7.html
and, if you are able to understand it, feel free to offer any specific, substantive criticisms you may have of it.
We’ll be waiting Mike D … but we won’t be holding our breaths.
– MJM
Michael J McFadden spouts (from his USA base) his usual stuff.
But he weasels out of the issue I raised about £3 DVDs being illegally copied and sold for £2.
Somebody wiser than me (and much, much wiser than MJM and his fellow trolls) has said something like “the black market is supply, rather than demand driven”
I understand this. I don’t think Michael does.
Still no substantive responses in defense of your earlier allegations I see. Not surprising.
Nor does there seem to be an awareness that there would obviously be a VERY different black market situation if packs were selling at .5 pounds over base cost rather than 3 or 4 pounds over base cost. MikeD doesn’t seem to understand where ‘supply’ comes from in a black market: it is *driven* by demand.
Is there a big black market in Coca Cola over in the UK MikeD? Can you begin to understand why there might not be? Hint: it has nothing to do with rumored Coca Cola Ninja Troopers wiping out smugglers.
– MJM
More weaseling and not understanding the UK market from MJM.
You don’t understand what a supply driven market is, do you Michael? You only think markets can be demand driven. If you don’t understand how the UK’s black market works why do you insist on sticking your ignorant nose into our business?
Myself and my partner both smoke. Neither of us have purchased a single cigarette from a UK shop in over 10 years.
“Parmenion
February 5, 2012 10:39 pm
Myself and my partner both smoke. Neither of us have purchased a single cigarette from a UK shop in over 10 years.”
Nice, but totally irrelevant.
Referring to what The Archivist said about air pollution, Mr Williams has to admit:
a) That air pollution is dangerous and must be curtailed regardless of costs, including obscene pictures on petrol pumps etc, or
b) Admit that smoking is not as harmful as has been described, and that SHS harm to both children and adults is vastly exaggerated propaganda.
Which is it to be Mr Williams?
(Oh, by the way, your blog header is still grammatically incorrect. ‘Stephen Williams’ Blog’ is bad English. You can have:
“Stephen Williams’s Blog”
or, at a pinch:
“Stephen Williams Blog” (in which case, you will be using the same sort of common usage as ‘Chelsea Football Club’ rather than ‘Chelsea’s Football Club’)
I thought I’d contribute briefly to this debate. As MikeD correctly says, Michael J McFadden (and Iro Cyr for that matter) seem to spend every waking hour posting pro-tobacco propaganda on blogs and web discussions all over the world from their North American bases. Needless to say, their understanding of UK circumstances should not be trusted.
Their lack of understanding about the UK black market is a perfect case in point (this also applies to the Archivist). Actually, lost tax revenue in the UK from black market cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco has consistently FALLEN in recent years (source: “Measuring Tax Gaps 2011”, HM Revenue and Customs).
By the way Junican, your “poor little picked-on smoker” argument doesn’t work. We already have laws which are designed to protect people from vehicle emissions, home coal fire emissions, factory emissions, etc. So it’s not just tobacco emissions which the law is concerned about.
Welcome to the debate Rollo. The trolls seem to be terrified of you.
They’ve mentioned your name 24 times already.
They didn’t take me up on a competition to count the number of times Junican/junican has used the word ‘persecuted’ so I’ve used the search function and find he has mentioned persecution 27 times (and Magnetico isn’t too far behind him) That’s one massive persecution complex.
Someone should tell amnesty international.
Thanks Mke – I supposed I should be honoured Well done for making such consistently potent arguments in the face of this small number of persistent pro-smoking chums.
“We already have laws which are designed to protect people from vehicle emissions, home coal fire emissions, factory emissions, etc. So it’s not just tobacco emissions which the law is concerned about.” – Rollo Tommasi (a pseudonym taken from the character in “LA Confidential”? Mike D has very strong views on people who hide behind a pseudonym!!!)
But those laws are not protecting people. The independent Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants (COMEAP) estimated that air pollution is responsible for 200,000 premature deaths in the UK, over twice the number attributed to smoking itself. The UK is repeatedly failing to meet EU targets on air pollution.
Unbiased studies have found the risks of domestic pollution from gas and oil appliances and wood and coal fires to be the same as for SHS/ETS (without the need for cherry-picking and “last resort” meta-analyses).
P.S. Perhaps you could provide the EVIDENCE that plain packaging will reduce the number of “the children” taking up smoking.
(From my home in Greater London, UK. No connections whatsoever with the tobacco industry apart from enjoying their LEGAL products.)
John S says “Mike D has very strong views on people who hide behind a pseudonym!!!”
No I don’t. I have strong views about tobacco industry supporters who pretend to be doctors.
There you go again, Mike D. No reponse to the bulk of my post concerning air and domestic pollution, never mind presenting any evidence WHATSOEVER concerning plain packaging. But what more would you expect from a brainwashed, gullible disciple of the Anti-Tobacco gods?
John S – The laws protecting people from tobacco air pollution are the same as those protecting people from other forms of air pollution. All can lower the number of associated deaths. But none of these laws will prevent those kinds of deaths altogether. The only way to do that would be to ban the pollutants – and our governments are not doing that with cars, factories or tobacco.
So smokers are NOT being singled out.
Actually “rollo,” I spend most of my waking hours doing somewhat more productive writing and research than simply “posting pro-tobacco” information (as opposed to what you characterize as “propaganda”) on the internet. My net writing is usually done fairly quickly, as can be seen from my occasional mistakes. In your posting here just now you try to counter the black market taxation argument by reference to “Measuring Tax Gaps 2011” as though it was the final word on the matter.
If you actually look at that document however you’ll find a fatal weakness: it’s based on an ESTIMATE of how much smoking actually is going on before trying to break it down to licit/illicit consumption. How do you think such an estimate was arrived at Rollo? Did they bust down people’s doors and vampirize their blood while checking for hidden caches of cigs and NicoGummyPatchyProducts? Or did they simply survey people who, over the last few years, have probably become a lot more tight-lipped about their smoking habits: particularly if they’ve been getting their smokes illegally?
Yes, they *may* have tried to “correct” their data as best as they could… but there’s no way of knowing. Perhaps they tried to play the problem up in order to urge more funding. Perhaps they tried to play it down to discourage imitation by people who might figure “Hey, everyone ELSE is doing it…” And perhaps they did neither and are just incompetent in their estimates.
Anyone who tries to argue that increasing taxes on a product in Area A will not result in an increase of untaxed products from adjacent Area B is simply so out of touch with reality that it’s not even worth arguing with them.
– MJM
So let me get this straight MJM. You are arguing that the tobacco black market in the UK.
Even though you know nothing about UK circumstances.
Even though you offer absolutely no evidence to back up your claim.
Even though I offer long-standing official evidence which shows the contrary – a big reduction in lost tax revenue in the UK from black market cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco in recent years. Calculations are based on a long-standing model which, as far as I can tell, has been applied consistently for a number of years.
Even though you offer absolutely no meaningful critique of that evidence – just a few baseless and unsubstantiated smears.
That really sums up your position pretty well.
Smoking prevalence has remained fairly constant since the smoking ban (and is beginning to rise again) yet legal sales of cigarettes are declining (according to Mr Williams himself). I believe that the “average smoker” is also smoking more cigarettes a day. So are people growing their own? Or buying them on the black market?
I work on a building site in N.E England. As far as I’m aware, there is NO-ONE who buys their cigarettes/tobacco from UK shops. It ALL comes from abroad!
Sorry – First 2 sentences should read:
“So let me get this straight MJM. You are arguing that the tobacco black market in the UK is increasing”.
AHHHH!! We’ve been graced with the presence of the original Mass Debater, defender of the antismoking faith, proclaimer of prime Piffle™, declarer of unrivaled Drivel®, legend in his own teacup, Rollo Tommarsi……
FANFARE: Ta-Ta-TaTa … Ta-Ta-TaTa
HEAR YE! HEAR YE!
Be upstanding as Rollo of Dim-upon-Daft enters the building.
Your Mass Debating eminence, Rollo, thank you for your usual blathering participation.
Rollo, seasoned in the self-deception, befuddling, and distraction “arts”, usually rides in on his mule for “fallout containment” duties (obviously Mike D isn’t doing too well).
P.S. Accusing MJM and Iro of “posting pro-tobacco propaganda” is a good opening, Mass…… nice touch.
Magnetic, you do realise that nobody reads your drivel don’t you?
Rollo will be happy to know that he can fire away all he wants as I will not be posting much for the next 2 weeks. Before I leave it would be nice for him to point to me where I pretended to know much about UK contraband and where I have spouted pro-tobacco propaganda.
I also wonder what Rollo thinks of Simon Chapman whose home is in Australia. Did Rollo ever hear that the tobacco issue is global since it’s orchestrated and puppeteered by the WHO? He must have because although he claims that he’s an ordinary ”interested” citizen – non-smoker yet – he has been participating in far too many tobacco discussions including international ones faaaaaar away from home 🙂
What a bizarre post Iro. I noted how you seem to spend every waking hour posting pro-tobacco propaganda on blogs and web discussions all over the world. And you choose to interpret that as me saying that you should never contribute to a blog abroad! Talk about taking an argument and running with it to the most ridiculous extreme! Ah well, I suppose that sums up the pro-smoking mentality.
This discussion is about sales of tobacco in the UK. You are of course free to participate. But when you choose to make numerous contributions, which seem to amount to nothing more than (what I suspect are rather cherry-picked and partial) representations of what may or may not happen in Canada, then it is absolutely reasonable for me to point to your lack of understanding of UK circumstances. Which is what I did.
An example of pro-smoking propaganda? How about your latest claim that the tobacco issue is “orchestrated and puppeteered by the WHO”. Really??? Our smoking laws were introduced by elected politicians. The WHO has commissioned and published evidence. It has produced policy statements. It supports efforts to cut back cigarette consumption. But it has not dictated the actions of UK law makers. If you have evidence that our politicians are in fact puppets of the WHO, I’d be interested to see it.
Rollo, don’t try to pass off your inuendo as innocent. It doesn’t work with me. Try it on MikeD, he’s quite gullible 😉
And of course all these decisions had nothing to do with the UK binding themselves to the WHO FTC right Rollo? And every country being a signatory to the FTC just voted all this in the mid to late 2000’s by pure coïncidence, right Rollo?
The FCTC.
Right sorry.
“Try it on MikeD, he’s quite gullible”
Says a tobacco puppet. You guys are hilarious.
Uh oh, stop the press, get the secret service Tobacco police out, a prominent Canadian newspaper is spouting PRO-TOBACCO propaganda. How dare they? What are they thinking? Every kid out there reading this paper will think there is some good to tobacco!
Can tobacco be used to cure cancer?
theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-news/can-tobacco-be-used-to-cure-cancer/article2321906/
———–
And look at that, it seems to be an epidemic – Others are also spouting PRO-TOBACCO propaganda. Seems there are benefits to tobacco, how dare they? The evil tobacco industry will only use this to promote their smokeless tobacco and hook kids on it!
mail.com/int/sports/other/696880-nicotine-list-banned-substances.html#.696112-stage-related1-4
”The performance-enhancing effects of nicotine included increased “vigilance and cognitive function,” and reduced stress and body weight. “Interestingly, nicotine also triggers a significant increase of pulse rate, blood pressure, blood sugar and epinephrine release owing to simultaneous stimulant and relaxant properties,” the report said.
“Smokeless tobacco is a very attractive drug from a doping perspective,” researchers suggested, because it did not damage an athlete’s breathing and respiratory system. ”
———-
What? You mean there is more? Someone’s gotta put a stop to this! Kids know that nicotine comes from the tobacco plant and this IS PRO-TOBACCO propaganda masquerading as medicine anyway you slice it.
medscape.com/viewarticle/756635
Nicotine Patch Showing Promise in Mild Cognitive Impairment
———
What? That does it. A smoking ban proponent defending smokers from employment discrimination? The bloody nerve to pretend he is a ban proponent yet be sooooo PRO-TOBACCO! What if a kid was listening to that radio show?
whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2012/01/25/issues-around-bans-on-hiring-smokers/
———-
How dare all these sob’s and many more, defend tobacco when the UK is trying to implement a plain packaging legislation that has nothing to do with the WHO – giggle -. It’s got to be the ultimate insult to public health!
Good grief! The pro-smoking conspiracy theorists respond with the kneejerk “Framework Convention on Tobacco Control”!!
Pro-smokers keep referring in the vaguest of terms to the FCTC as being some kind of dark shadow on democracy Please tell me:
(a) Which legislative changes UK governments have been compelled to make to English, NI, Scots and/or Welsh laws, in order to comply with the FCTC?
(b) Which provision of the FCTC compels signatory nations to require plain packaging for cigarette packets?
In fact, while you’re at it, please READ the FCTC and point to specific provisions which you find objectionable.
Rollo, I will not bother answering to your playing dumb tactics. The objection was to your contention that smoking legislation in the UK was home born and bred when you know damn well that it has been internationally planned and followed to the T one provision at a time. Who are you trying to fool?
Try justifying this from your playing dumb position:
”The World Health Organisation (WHO) has imposed a Rs 250-crore tax on India, for non-compliance of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) by the WHO.”
business-standard.com/india/news/who-imposes-rs-250-cr-tobacco-taxindia/460284/
And here I did look up the plain packaging thingy. Of course you have to be a member to read the ”elaborated guidelines” !
Article 11 Elaborated Guidelines: Additional detail and advice on implementation
Many of the WHO recommendations are included in a set of “Elaborated Guidelines” for Article 11, passed in November 2008. The purpose of the elaborated guidelines is to provide guidance to countries on the implementation of labelling policies. Topics addressed in the elaborated guidelines include recommendations for the content, design, and layout of pictorial warnings, recommendations for “plain packaging” , as well as additional detail on what constitutes “misleading information” on packages. You can download the Elaborated Guidelines by clicking here.
The Archivist says “As a non tobacco puppet”
But you do a lot of posting Archivist. Your style is really reminiscent of freedom2choose’s last Chairman.
“Three people attend smoking ban protest meeting
A defiant campaigner says he will continue his fight against the smoking ban, despite only three people turning up at a protest meeting last night.
Smoker Phil Johnson, chairman of Freedom2Choose, wants to pressurise the Government into a rethink on the smoking ban.
He claims the ban has devastated the pub trade since being introduced, in July 2007.
The 59-year-old, who lives jufst off , blamed apathy on the lack of numbers at the meeting.
However, it did attract potential election candidates, and he claimed people were not turning up to voice their opinions as they feel powerless. Just three people also turned up for a similar meeting in Norwich.
However, 130 showed their support at a rally in Kidderminster.
Mr Johnson said: “Apathy is king in this country. There are a lot of passionate smokers who want to be given a choice but a lot of people have given up the fight.
“The Government has screwed freedom into the ground. People are still interested in what we say and what they can do, but they don’t think they can do anything about it.
“They feel that their views are not being listened to.
“It’s very frustrating when you organise these evenings and people stay at home because the weather isn’t great, or because Manchester United are on television.”
At the meeting, he spoke about the number of pubs going to the wall – a total of 73 in Leicestershire in the past four years alone.
He claimed allowing pubs to have smoking rooms would help ease the burden on the UK’s wounded economy.
Mr Johnson also claimed that 71% of his members were non-smokers, but were upset at the lack of choice available to pubs, clubs and bingo halls.
Sam Butler, 22, from Braunstone, said he attended the meeting to see what efforts were being made to address the issue of smoking in public places.
He said: “It would be nice to have some choice. As a smoker it feels like we’re being picked on. We used to go out every week but now it’s once every six weeks because the pubs aren’t busy anymore.
“Everyone moans about the smoking ban. It’s all we seem to talk about when we’re out in town. So it’s a shame more people weren’t here.”
Darren Lee, 42, from West Knighton, said: “I grew up going to pubs and clubs and it was a place you could go to if you wanted to smoke and enjoy yourself. It’s killing the industry and will spell the end of the local.”
Hannah Johnson, 22, who lives off Saffron Lane, said: “Smokers do care but a lot of us don’t know how you go about doing something about the ban.”
It’s three years since the smoking ban was introduced. It aimed to save lives and improve people’s health – but, still, a national group of pro-choice smokers are not happy. A public meeting was held in Leicester last night to try to find a way to get the ban overturned.
Let’s spend a moment, before we start, admiring the endurance of Phil Johnson’s internal organs. Take your pick which one. They’ve all performed something of a heroic task in the past 50, trying years.
Take his over-worked lungs. Or his poor heart. Or his long-suffering arteries. Today, after speaking to him on the phone from his home in Windley Road, off the Saff, we’re especially concerned about his croaking larynx.
Today, Phil sounds like Darth Vader. It’s not the fags, though, he insists, repeatedly. Of course it’s not the fags. No, no, no.
Apparently, says Phil, it’s an ear infection.
Phil is an eager smoker. He breathes so he can smoke. He started smoking when he was 10 and coughs his way through 30 tabs a day.
“I loved it then,” he says, wheezing like Fern Britton’s lilo, “and I love it now”.
“Some people, my old son, are just born to smoke.”
Phil, now 59, is one of those. In his life, Phil has puffed his way through an estimated 350,000 cigarettes.
As the recently-elected chairman of national pro-choice – but really, let’s be honest, pro-smoking – group, Freedom2Choose, Phil is never giving up.
“Never,” he repeats. “Why should I? I’ve said it before: My last smoke will be in the crematorium.”
Phil and his ostracised fag-smoking pals have had a tough time of it in the past three years. Smoking has been banned from pubs, bars and restaurants since the summer of 2007.
Overnight, the legislation – introduced by then Health Secretary and Leicester West MP, Pat Hewitt – turned Phil and his Benson and Hedges-loving buddies into social lepers.
In an interview with the Mercury last year, when she announced her retirement, Ms Hewitt hoped this single piece of legislation would be her lasting political legacy.
Maybe it will, says Phil. But he doubts it.
“Patricia Hewitt slaughtered our working men’s clubs,” he says. “Ruined them. I hate that woman with a passion.”
The looming election, however, offers Phil and his pals what they see as a glimpse of a reprieve. They’re determined to take it.
A public meeting is being held at Saffron Lane Working Men’s Club tonight at 8pm.
Everyone is welcome. They’re going to discuss ways of bringing smoking back into pubs. It’s time, says Phil.
“Five thousand profitable businesses have closed since the ban,” he says.
“Your rights – as a human being, as a publican – are being violated. Politicians who want to help us – and there’s a lot of us – will get a lot of support on May 6.”
Local Lib Dem councillor and wannabe Leicester South MP Parmjit Singh Gill will be there.
The Freedom2Choose press release about the meeting says in big, bold letters that Parmjit believes in fairness.
The insinuation is he’s also the type of politician who recognises injustice when he sees it. Injustice like the smoking ban, for instance.
So, is scrapping it Lib Dem policy?
“No, I’m just going to listen, that’s all,” Mr Gill, a non-smoker, tells the Mercury.
“I want to get a better understanding of people’s concerns and see what we can do from there.”
Phil has all sorts of facts and figures about smoking, health, the pub industry and the economy. He rattles them off with rehearsed ease, with all the over-zealous, slightly-unnerving conviction of a single cause campaigner.
The number of pubs closed, lives ruined, bankruptcies, even suicides… all because of this ban.
Really Phil? People killed themselves… because of the smoking ban?
“Four publicans have committed suicide since the ban – they put their heart and soul into running their businesses but this ban stopped them.”
I don’t know if those four publicans decided to end their lives because of the smoking ban. Neither, I suspect, does Phil.
Hasn’t the pub trade been affected by cheap supermarket booze and rising taxes just as much, if not more than, the smoking ban?
“I knew that was coming,” he sighs. “But it’s not true.”
Take the extended family that lives near him, he says. They always went to the pub.
“But not now, because they can’t smoke. So now they stay at home, buy their beer from Tesco. That’s how it works,” he says, as if The Family Who Live Near Phil are the perfect living proof of his nationwide theory.
The country wants smoking in pubs back, reckons Phil.
A Freedom2Choose survey found only 11 per cent of people objected to smoking in pubs. The rest, reckons Phil, are all fine about it.
Phil refuses to believe that smoking will kill you. He’s been smoking for nearly 50 years and he’s all right. It might be worth noting at this point that Phil is a kitchen fitter, rather than an oncologist or heart specialist.
“I wouldn’t say it was good for you,” he concedes, “but I don’t think it kills you. It’s a contributory factor. It’s in the genes. They say it’s dangerous. But so is bungee jumping.”
Five miles away from Phil’s house works Dr Mick Peake. A consultant physician at the Glenfield Hospital, Dr Peake is the country’s leading lung cancer specialist.
Dr Peake, it’s fair to say, is distinctly unmoved by Mr Johnson’s arguments.
“One in six life-long smokers will get lung cancer,” says Dr Peake. “One in three smokers will die of a smoking-related illness. An estimated 5,000 people die every year from passive smoking.
“The average smoker will die 10 years before a non-smoker. Believe me, I see the effects of smoking every day.
“My estimate is that 75 per cent of the people on my books simply would not be there if they had never smoked.
“Frankly, if this man doesn’t believe that… he is either being paid by the tobacco industry or he is being deliberately naive.”
Freedom2Chose, says Phil, is funded by its members and donations. There’s no link to the tobacco industry, he insists.
Back in Windley Road, Phil Johnson is celebrating his birthday: 59 years old. He has two sons in their early 20s; one smokes, one doesn’t. No grandchildren as yet, he says.
Would the arrival of grandchildren make him stop smoking?
“No. I’m not giving up.”
You don’t sound so good, you know Phil. That larynx… are you sure it’s not the fags?
“Oh God, why does everyone think it’s the fags. First thing my doctor said was ‘How many cigarettes do you smoke…?’ It’s not that. It’s my larynx. My throttle box. It’s these viruses.”
So definitely not the fags. It sounds like the fags…
“No, it’s a virus in my ear. That’s it. Why does everyone assume it’s the fags?”
Oh Iro – you are displaying all the characteristics of an obsessive and deluded conspiracy theorist!
I ask you or one of your cronies to tell me which legislative changes UK governments have been compelled to make to English, NI, Scots and/or Welsh laws, in order to comply with the FCTC. You can’t, and just make this crazy claim that UK governments have only introduced laws because the WHO have told them to.
You then claim that India is being fined for not complying with the FCTC. Yet, even the author of the article you cite says “Nowhere in the article have I implied that WHO is authorised to penalise governments.” In fact, India (like other countries) is only bound by the FCTC because she chose to sign up to it, and she can withdraw whenever she wants. So how is India possibly a puppet of the WHO????
Then I ask you questions which should be open goals for you if the FCTC was really as bad as you suggest. Which provision of the FCTC compels signatory nations to require plain packaging for cigarette packets? And which specific provisions in the FCTC do you find objectionable?
But you can’t even answer these questions!! All you point to is something about “guidance” and “recommendations” which touch on plain packaging. Well Iro, that says it all. Guidance and recommendations are VERY different from laws and duties. And the FCTC imposes NO laws or duties about plain packaging.
I am glad Rollo can be confident that nothing, absolutely nothing goes on behind the scenes, that there’s no bribery, or bullying, or explicit or covert deals, because I sure don’t. Not after I have seen what the H1N1 debacle was all about, nor after I have witnessed countries on the verge of bankruptcy like Greece, Spain and Portugal. when it really was NOT the right time to rock the boat with smoking bans, follow the WHO ”recommendations”. It’s too bad you came a little late in this debate for me to really get into it as I am catching a plane as early as tomorrow and I don’t have the time for back and forth ”play dumb” bull shit for too long since whether you believe it or not, I do have other things in my life that I have to look after before I go. I am confident the other lucid posters will look after your play dumb arguments quite aptly however.
Enjoy.
Yes Iro. You may be right. While you’re away, others might try to continue your arguments. Arguments which are based on conspiracy theory, smear and innuendo.
I really think that someone who objects so strongly to the FCTC and WHO ought to be able to quickly offer clear and explicit examples of provisions which are supposedly so objectionable. After all, you’ve had time to post your comment above – it would have taken haedly any more effort to justify your claims. That you can’t sums up just how vacuous your arguments are.
Well, well, we are indeed honoured with the presence of the master himself!
Right, Rollo, you said that you wanted to discuss the actual matter of ‘plain packaging’.
I contend that CHILDREN are not interest in the slightest in cigarette packets. They might occasionally pick up a cigarette packet, owned by their parent (s), and ask about it, but, since they cannot eat the packet or the contents of the packet, they lose interest completely within five minutes. I also contend that, by the time that they do get interested in cigarette packets, they have ceased to be CHILDREN, therefore the stated objective of terrifying and brainwashing children falls down. This is obvious, therefore there is either a hidden motive for ‘plain packaging’ or Mr Williams is a silly boy.
How doeth thou answer, O Master?
“I contend that CHILDREN are not interest in the slightest in cigarette packets. ”
But we know that you bring lies and your .misunderstandings to this debate so we don’t listen to you any more.
Of course you wouldn’t. Article 5.3, FCTC says you/we have a treaty obligation (sic Milton) not to. You know the FCTC, the one Mr. Tomassi reckons doesn’t exist, particularly Articles 5, 8 & 13.
Frnak J is misinterpreting the FCTC! Article 5.3 says that signatory countries should act to protect their public health policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry. That’s very different from not listening to tobacco industry or pro-smoking interests, if they’ve got something relevant to say.
Oh, and whatever steps they take should be “in accordance with national law”. So the FCCT does not require countries to impose special restrictions on pro-tobacco interests that could not be applied elsewhere under national law.
And I’m really interested in what he supposedly finds so objectionable about Artiles 8 and 13.
Mr. Tomassi would have us believe otherwise but as he well knows it does not just say that. It says that Tobacco Manufacturers, representatives and agents are to be discounted in ‘Public Health’ decisions. For the avoidance of doubt and the benefit of the intellectually challenged that means ordinary smokers. People like me, nice. I have no worthwhile opinion. I am not to be taken seriously. I’m just the milch cow who pays the taxes, part of a large group adding 11/12 billion/yr. to the exchequer.
Again, as Mr. Tomassi knows full well, It also states that signatory Govts are obliged to work towards smoke free policies regardless of health or Law, hence the attempt to ‘fine’ India for not doing so quickly enough. Mr. Tomassi would have us believe it is simply a coincidence that so many Countries are organically adopting the same policies at the same time.
Yet again, as Mr. Tomassi knows full well, It also states an obligation that advertising should be curtailed, hence display bans and plain packaging, the latter as Mr. Williams has already stated, attempted under the argument that anyone carrying a packet is ‘advertising’ the wares.
I would add that Mr. Tomassi is a person who seems to believe that if one person in 100,000 ‘may’ be at risk, the other 99,999 should be banned. Mr. Tomassi no doubt also believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden.
Frank J – I suggest you read the FCTC properly. As I said before, Article 5.3 says that signatory countries should act to protect their public health policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry. But it does NOT say that governments must not listen to tobacco industry or pro-smoking interests, if they’ve got something relevant to say.
And yes, the FCTC does call for advertising to be curtailed. I’d be very interested in your arguments if you believe that Big Tobacco should be able to advertise and promote cigarettes freely.
But from my reading of the FCTC, it does NOT demand either plain packaging or display bans. You are just inventing these nonsensical accusations.
“In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.”
What do reckon that means, then? Bearing in mind that the display ban ‘consultation’ had 25000 signatures from the National Federation of Newsagents ignored under the pretence that they were funded by the ‘Tobacco industry’. Add also that in reply to a question in the House regarding our ‘treaty obligations’ Ms Milton stated (Hansard) that she would only involve the ‘Tobacco industry’ when ‘absolutely
necessary’. Seems that Parliament agrees with my reading.
Tobacco is a legal product. Display and, as said above, plain packaging is stated as ‘advertising’ by antis like you and Mr. Williams.
You want to try reading the ‘guidelines’ that accompany this document. There are ‘guidelines’ to each Article. Even more enlightening.
Well, well, we are indeed honoured with the presence of the master himself!
Right, Rollo, you said that you wanted to discuss the actual matter of ‘plain packaging’.
I contend that CHILDREN are not interest in the slightest in cigarette packets. They might occasionally pick up a cigarette packet owned by their parent (s), and ask about it, but, since they cannot eat the packet or the contents of the packet, they lose interest completely within five minutes. I also contend that, by the time that they do get interested in cigarette packets, they have ceased to be CHILDREN, therefore the stated objective of terrifying and brainwashing children falls down. This is obvious, therefore there is either a hidden motive for ‘plain packaging’ or Mr Williams is a silly boy.
How doeth thou answer, O Master?
Since, according to Tobacco Control’s definition, anyone who enjoys tobacco is a supporter of Tobacco Companies, I shall slightly amend my nickname for the purpose of this blog. I shall add the letters PET after my name. PET means ‘Person who Enjoys Tobacco; not to be confused with the letters DR – meaning ‘Doctor of Religion’.
I shall also answer my own question on behalf of Rollo:
“Tobacco Control Operatives are good; PETS (People who Enjoy Tobacco) are naughty. Since ‘naughty’ is normally associated with children, PETS are children. ‘Plain (standardised) packaging’ is for the good of children and is therefore good for PETS.
I win – give me the money.”
PET = “Puppet or Employee of Tobacco”, I think that’s what you mean Junican
And the Troubadour of Tripe™ is off and running…..
“I ask the question and the other question and the question before that….. But you can’t even answer these questions. Well, that says it all….. Huff…Puff”
There you have it. With just a few posts, the Bringer of Bollocks© has managed to obfuscate considerable information – spanning more than a thousand comments – highlighting delinquent, fraudulent antismoking conduct in pushing for the smokefree “utopia”.
It ain’t gonna work, O Professor of Nincompoopery®. There’s too much information now known about your fanatical buddies and how they operate, and some of the recent history of fanaticism. You and the lesser Mass Debater, Mike D, are one-trick ponies. You demonstrate the standard fanatical antismoking reaction to questioning – mudslinging. Mike D has ignored/avoided ALL information that demonstrates highly-consequential antismoking delinquency. He has spent all of his efforts on this comments thread attempting one baseless smear angle after another. That’s it; nothing else. He has now deteriorated to nervous, infantile, schoolyard antics. Keep it up; we get a better look at your stupidity.
The senior Mass Debater, Rollo – a supremacist devotee, would have everyone believe that the belief that there is a tobacco extermination plan in motion is a “conspiracy theory”, although any questioning of antismoking is interpreted by the same duffer as a tobacco industry “conspiracy”. He believes that the WHO-run World Conferences on Smoking & Health that were set to the extermination plan since the late-1970s never happened. The salami-slice approach over the last few decades of instituting one phase of the plan after another is just “nonsense”. Destructive consequences of this social-engineering crusade is just more “conspiracy theory”. That, in addition to deranged ideology, there are also financial vested interests (e.g., Big Pharma) is more “conspiracy theory”. That there has been an intentional denormalizing/stigmatizing/leperizing of a significant portion of the adult population – those who smoke – through inflammatory propaganda, i.e., fear and hate-mongering, is just more “conspiracy theory”.
The great mistake that was made until recently was the attempt to reason with fanatics. It should be evident from this comments board that it is impossible to reason with fanatics, with the mentally disturbed. Yet the fanatics and their goal are now entrenched in health bureaucracies – the advisers of politicians – around the world. The only option left now is to show-up the dangerous, self-absorbed “society-fixer” fools for what they are, and the damage they have already done and can still do.
XOXOX
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
It’s certainly a strong incentive to continue if that’s the effect my comments have on the minor Mass Debater, Mike D. Unconsciousness is definitely his better state compared to his usual semi-conscious postings.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
From the Daily Telegraph, 2/1/09:
Mr Johnson boasted that the display ban was favoured by an “overwhelming majority” of 96,000 responses to a six-month public consultation on the subject.
Yet only a handful of those 96,000 respondents came from individuals submitting their personal views. Almost 70,000 came from those collected by pressure groups entirely funded by the Department for Health.
Among the groups submitting block responses were SmokeFree NorthWest, SmokeFree Liverpool and SmokeFree North East, which were all set up by the Government to lobby against the tobacco industry.
If Anti-Tobacco is so “squeaky clean”, why does it have to fix the results of “public” consultations? Will the “public” consultation for plain packaging be as fixed? Of course, it will be. Deborah Arnott predicted the result nearly a year ago!
From the Dail Mail, 10/3/11:
Ash (Action on Smoking and Health) chief executive Deborah Arnott said: ‘We are delighted that this Government is putting us on track to be the first European country to put tobacco in plain packs.
‘This is an essential next step in protecting young people from the insidious marketing tactics. Our research shows that this measure will have widespread public support.’
PET = “Puppet or Employee of Tobacco”, I think that’s what you mean Junican. If you aren’t a puppet, where are the independant thoughts?
There is a huge scam, which involves ‘macro-economics’.
Tobacco Control, one way or another, involves transferring purchasing power from the people who earn money by the sweat of there brows to people who do not. It is not easy to understand. Let us put it this way:
By taxing PETS (People who Enjoy Tobacco) more than the normal level of ‘purchase tax’ (meaning what is the equivalent of VAT), PETS are deprived of the fruits of their labour. Thus, their standard of living is depleted. The depletion of the standard of living of PETS becomes an increase in the standard of living of economically useless Tobacco Control Operatives. These Operatives produce nothing at all except words.
BUT – They have the ‘purchasing power’ which has been stolen from PETS, and so the general, overall economic effect is negligable.
Can you see it, Mr Williams? What you advocate is simply GREATER transference of wealth from PETS (People who Enjoy Tobacco) to leaches. Can you not see it? ASH ET AL are leaches, enriching themselves by stealing from PETS (and the rest of the People).
I feel sure that you, as a decent person, would not wish to be a party to such underhand, macro-economic chicanery.
More than anything, however, is that YOU MUST UNDERSTAND that the worthy objective of the Millenium Goals (the alleviation of disease and poverty in the third world) morphed into the persecution of PETS in wealthy, healthy Europe.
I fail to see how you cannot understand that you are being used. Despite what you say, it is perfectly obvious that your ‘statement’ has been ‘worked over’. How many people were involved? Who was the Master Speechwriter? It is OBVIOUS!!! The mere use of the words ‘glitzy’ and ‘children’ reveals it.
In macro-economics, it really does not matter who does what. People might as well spend their time working in Tobacco Control as in Hospitals or in Farming or in Pubs. In macro-economic terms, it really does not matter how the money is spread around.
But the sh*t hits the fan when there is an economic downturn. Which activities are going to lose out? Is it going to be Tobacco Control or Hospitals or Farming or Pubs?
You have the duty to decide. Is it your decision that Arnott is more valuable than several nurses?
PET = “Puppet or Employee of Tobacco”, I think that’s what you mean Junican. If you aren’t a puppet, where are the independant thoughts?
Junican – Are you REALLY trying to suggest that all those tobacco taxes go directly to ASH, so they can lobby the Government about restricting smoking laws further? That is such a distorted belief!
Magnetic wrote, “The only option left now is to show-up the dangerous, self-absorbed “society-fixer” fools for what they are, and the damage they have already done and can still do.” Quite true, and, fortunately for us, made easy by their compulsion to post their arguments on boards like this. They may *think* we’re actually arguing with them, but in reality we’re just taking advantage of the show they provide in order to reach out to new folks who may never really have seen that that there’s a substantial “other side” to the arguments.
There was no venue other than the internet where a true “level playing field” existed for the presentation of arguments against the multi-billion dollar media extravaganza of the Antismoking Crusade of the last few decades. But in order to get those arguments out and heard by the general public we needed fora which would actually be read and thought about by that public. Web sites and blogs weren’t enough: most neutral folks aren’t interested enough in the subject to go to a specific site where they’ll be “preached” at.
HOWEVER… thanks to the MikeDs and the Rollos and the rest of the anonymous Big Pharma “puppets” (to borrow MD’s propagandistic terminology) out there, the Free Choice folks have gotten what they never could have gotten alone: an audience for a fight! And the nice thing about a fight is that the audience gets emotionally involved, rooting for one side or the other, checking on the evidence and arguments, thinking about the points that are being made, and ultimately deciding in their own minds which evidence and arguments were sounder … and who won, and who lost.
And on a level playing field that’s always going to be in our favor.
– MJM
“HOWEVER… thanks to the MikeDs and the Rollos and the rest of the anonymous Big Pharma “puppets” (to borrow MD’s propagandistic terminology) out there, the Free Choice folks have gotten what they never could have gotten alone: an audience for a fight”
And the audience to this fight see the Tobacco Puppets bringing lies, deceit and paranoid ramblings to the debate.
All this in a misguided effort to protect the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packs.
Pretty packs that they say have no influence on children.
Pretty packs that some of them admit that aren’t important to them.
But pretty packs that they’re willing to post about day and night for approaching 3 weeks.
Mike D, I just want to take my pretty cigarettes, in their pretty, boxes, to pretty pubs, and drink pretty beer out of pretty glasses and chat to pretty women with a nice pretty ash tray in front of me, with a nice pretty ceiling over my head. Not too much to ask is it?
Mind you , what with me being a pretty fellow I could prove a poor anti-smoking role model to good clean living children, would you like me to wear a plain paper bag over my head? Because clearly the only possible reason for me not wearing a paper bag over my head is because I want to appeal to children. Yes, there can be no other explanation.
I saw a man lurking suspiciously around the local school. He was wearing a “glitzy” coloured jacket. I was about to report this blatant attempt to attract the chidren for, heaven forbid – you know what I mean – when one of the children addressed him as “Sir”.
Mike D: “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
It’s worth a try.
Little Mass Debater, let your eyes follow the swinging medallion on the chain….. back….forth….back…..forth
Your eyes are getting heavy….back….forth….back…..forth
You hear only my voice…..back….forth….back…..forth
Listen carefully……
Little Mass Debater,
you are a bagel….back….forth….back…..forth
You are a baaaagelllll….back….forth….back…..forth
You are a baaaagelllll….back….forth….back…..forth
Courtesy of Alf™
you’re just boring, live with it.
The [bigger] Mass Debater, the carrier pigeon of Subterfuge™, is again blurring the intent of the FCTC and why countries signed up to it. In addition to points raised by other posters, consider –
Introduction:
11. “……The measures recommended in these guidelines aim at protecting against interference not only by the tobacco industry but also, as appropriate, by organizations and individuals that work to further the interests of the tobacco industry.”
Add www. to who.int/fctc/guidelines/article_5_3.pdf
The Mass Debaters, both big and little, are very familiar with this point. A number of individuals have posted on this board questioning antismoking conduct, providing many links and underlying reasoning. The Mass Debaters quickly attempt to brand these individuals as “individuals that work to further the interests of the tobacco industry”; the little Mass Debater has a long series of attempted smears based on “connection” to the “evil” tobacco empire. Even though this claim has no basis, the little Mass Debater has been using the term “Tobacco Puppets” for numerous posts and insinuating “individuals that work to further the interests of the tobacco industry”, e.g.,
And the audience to this fight see the Tobacco Puppets bringing lies, deceit and paranoid ramblings to the debate. All this in a misguided effort to protect the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packs.
By so doing, the fanatics then want to conclude that nothing these individuals claim should be paid any attention. In effect, the fanatics are stating that anyone who doesn’t agree with us is wrong, and are obviously some “individuals that work to further the interests of the tobacco industry”, i.e., no-one with a contrary view should be paid any attention. The conduct is cultic and vulgar. At no point do these buffoons actually address substantive issues raised; they simply and only attempt to bulldoze proceedings with baseless mudslinging.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I have had enough of all this arguing. Why don’t we all just go down the pub and sort this out over brandy and cigars?
Little Mass: ”zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
A little hissy-fit of desperation, Little Mass? A foot-stomping tantrum?
Little Mass Debater, might I make a suggestion? Stop holding your breath, take your blood-drained hands from your blood-drained ears, and grab an extra-large tissue to wipe your dripping-with-dangly-bits, snotty nose, you brainwashed pipsqueak. You know I say this with the deepest of compassion.
you’re just boring, live with it.
Rollo writes : ”After all, you’ve had time to post your comment above – it would have taken haedly any more effort to justify your claims.”
Yes indeed, if I were to post anything without properly documenting and carefully analyzing it I would have had plenty of time but contrary to the resident troll here (read MikeD), I take seriously anything I post, I didn’t and still don’t have the time for it especially knowing your style of twisted debating tactics that go on forever in an effort to mislead the casual reader.
Just one question : If the FCTC wasn’t binding and was only a guide line giving out recommendations that countries can follow ”if the population agrees”, you’d think that the USA where anti-smoking originated would have ratified it? It is still not ratified because some of its provisions violate at least one of the USA’s valued constitutional freedoms : Freedom of speech.
You say, correctly it appears, that the USA has not ratified the FCTC. Thank you Iro for sinking your own argument!!!
This all comes back to your original claim that “the tobacco issue is global since it’s orchestrated and puppeteered by the WHO”.
How can the WHO “orchestrate and puppeteer” other countries when it is optional for nations to sign and ratify the FCTC, and when signatory nations can choose to withdraw at any time?!
Heh, I wonder how the “Big Tobacco Puppet” model would explain the following post I made to a board at the Wall St. Journal about a year ago (http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304887904576399941406482026.html?mg=reno-wsj#articleTabs%3Dcomments — now behind a paywall):
===
The entire Master Settlement Agreement was unprecedented and illegal. It brought two parties to a negotiating table. One was an illegal cartel of the Big Tobacco companies, and the other was an unConstitutional Compact of most of the State Attorney Generals. They sat down and negotiated a plan whereby, without the poltically impossible move (at that time in history) of a massive tax increase on a defenseless minority, the tobacco companies would charge smokers an extra 50 cents a pack and transfer it over to the State governments as a “protection racket” agreement against state lawsuits [and upstart little tobacco companies].
The ones actually having to pay the protection money, just as in a case where a Big Mob [The State Governments] comes into town and muscles a Small Mob [Big Tobacco], were the end customers, the smokers, who were never even given a seat at the table. And, just as in the mob analogy, the Big Mob guarantees the Small Mob protection not only from its own goons (the state lawsuits) but also from smaller upstart hoodlums (the small tobacco companies) who might try to undercut organized mobsters.
And in the end, if you [a small, new tobacco company] resist it, the men with the guns come in and shut you down. And if you resist, they’ll either haul you away to “teach you a lesson” (jail), or, if you resist strongly enough, they’ll simply shoot you.
Welcome to America as defined by the Antismokers.
Michael J. McFadden,
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains” and who’s not on the payroll of ANY of the mobsters.
[square bracketed comments are added clarifications for those who need them]
===
I don’t think I’d make it very far onstage as a Big Tobacco Puppet, eh?
– MJM
You seem to spend your entire waking life posting in support of the tobacco industry. THAT’S what shows you to be a puppet.
As I noted earlier, I probably create my posts far more quickly than you do MD. I can assure you that a good portion of my “waking life” is devoted to other, and more interesting, pursuits.
– MJM
Little Mass: You seem to spend your entire waking life posting in support of the tobacco industry. THAT’S what shows you to be a puppet.
Hey, Little Mass, listen up. Antismoking fanatics can be categorized in this sort of way. There are the upper-echelon fanatics, e.g., Crapman, the Daubster. These have played a major hand in the inflammatory propaganda that has advanced the [deranged] cause, and have also considerably benefited from the duplicity. Such fanatics made a very quick appearance on this board. As soon as some of their delinquent conduct was highlighted, they immediately disappeared – for obvious reasons.
Then there’s the type of fanatic that has been brainwashed by the propaganda, has jumped on the bigotry bandwagon. But they still have an openness of mind. If the proper information is provided, they are quite willing to review, re-consider their beliefs.
Then there’s the “completely gone” disciple or devotee. They only believe cultic dogma. No amount of contrary evidence can penetrate their internal barricade. Such fanatics, e.g., Big and Little – or Major and Minor – Mass Debaters, venture on their “smear campaigns”. Regardless of contrary information, they persist with the attempted smears, over and over and over again. Little Mass, here’s the point. It’s been noted what you’re doing, that you’re engaged in the standard antismoking reaction to contrary views. It is now highly obvious what you’re doing. We know what you’re doing. You know that we know what you’re doing. We know that you know that we know what you’re doing. You know that we know that you know that we know what you’re doing. Yet you still persist with the stupidity. How far gone is that?
How many posts do you make in the average day MJM?
Magnetico, you’re really boring. Did none of your teachers teach you about brevity?
Can anyone tell me which of these fag packets are supposed to appeal to children
Link HERE
because to me it just looks like a bunch of branding.
Here is one of the brands I smoke
Link here
What part is supposed to appeal to children, is it the “Smoking Kills” box or the green band?
Rollo, as always when I discuss the issues with anonymous internet posters, I am very careful about what I say in order to avoid having it twisted. You refer to my analysis as “baseless and unsubstantiated smears,” but anyone who reads my post will find that it offered a thoughtful analysis of why the official figures should not be taken at face value. The modeling they use may or may not be accurate for other general duty questions, but even if it *is* accurate for such analysis, there’s good reason to suspect that it would *not* be accurate in the case of tobacco due both to:
1) The general misrepresentation about one’s smoking that has been inspired by the stigmatization of smokers and which has almost certainly grown over the years studied.
and
2) A likely greater fear of personal persecution by the government for tobacco tax evasion than for such things as alcohol tax evasion.
Taken together, those two factors cast significantly more doubt upon the accuracy of a model whose numbers are likely somewhat doubtful to begin with. If you have substantive arguments or documentation that would support a contrary position feel free to offer them. Overall, I believe my belief that higher taxes increase the black market availability of cigarettes to young people holds far more water than the opposite argument. I notice for example that your figures indicate something like a 10% general black market share. Yet it’s been claimed in your Parliament that schoolyards show almost half the butts to be contraband.
If you and the other anonymous troll here *truly* “cared about the children” you’d be advocating to have those taxes reduced.
But of course you don’t, and you’re not.
– MJM
how many posts a day do you make Michael?
Mike D – It wuold seem that you have made, by far, the most comments – and not a single rational one amongst them..
MJM: Your last post says it all. I gave you the source behind my statement. If you had wanted to offer “thoughtful analysis”, you would have checked and critique the source (and the underpinning methodological annex) for yourself. You would not have resorted to kneejerk claims that the results must be wrong because of some vague and generic claim that you make.
If you had read my source, you would have known that:
a. The methodology already takes account of undeclared smokers
b. The estimated black market share of cigarette sales has not just fallen in recent years – it has fallen substantially. The mid-point estimate indicates that the black market share actually fell by almost 40% in the 4 years to 2009-10.
That is a huge fall, which cannot possibly be accounted for by a supposed increase in supposed “stigmatisation”.
You then repeat your failure to offer “thoughtful analysis” by asking me to respond to a claim which you can’t even be bothered to source. I’ve quickly googled for Parliamentary debates about cigarette butts in school grounds. I’ve not found anything, expect for possibly something in Canada (i.e. NOT my Parliament). So I’ve no idea what you’re on about. Which really shows the nastiness of your desperate and despicable position when you follow it up with a totally baseless claim that I’m not interested in children’s welfare.
Rollo, try reading this http://www.liberal-vision.org/2012/02/06/why-i-am-against-plain-packaging-of-tobacco/ by Angela Harbutt, Liberal Democrat, on Liberal Vision.
Especially this bit: “If the aim of government is to reduce the take up of smoking amongst children why not tackle the real issue – distribution. We already have laws that prevent the sale of tobacco to under 18’s. Spending money on enforcing existing laws would be much better use of public money than rushing to introduce new ones. The sale of illicit and counterfeit cigarettes is a huge problem in the UK as well as the rest of Europe. It is estimated that 190 billion are manufactured each year in China alone and 65 per cent of the cigarettes seized in the EU are counterfeit. These fake cigarettes contain eye-watering high levels of heavy metals, rodent droppings and goodness knows what else (go watch the Panorama programme). If we care about public health – then let’s get rid of these. Criminal gangs don’t care who they sell to and are offering them at half the price of legitimate cigarettes. Where do you think kids will go to get their cigarettes? And “plain” packaging will make the counterfeiter’s job easier. According to Ruth Orchard, director general of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group,
“Plain packaging represents an invitation to counterfeiting. If put into practice for the tobacco industry, this could impact on all sectors where counterfeiting is rife. It creates a trading environment where packaging is no longer distinctive and products become easy to replicate illegally.”
So why are we punishing the local community shop keeper – making it more difficult for him to ply his trade, whilst making it easier for his competitor, the criminal gang boss, to do business?”
The display ban will mean that the criminal’s customers, including kids, won’t even know what the genuine article looks like.
And perhaps (but I very much doubt it), Rollo, you could explain why it is not illegal for the under-18s to smoke.
Here is a typical rant from a zealot:
Once again you bleating smokers whinge about how persecuted you are. OK, carry on smoking in cars and make children really ill with your selfish, foul habit? As non smokers, we have been persecuted for decades by you lot, not being able to have a night out without going home stinking of stale tobacco, having to shower as soon as you get in, put your clothes right in the wash.
The smoking ban was the BEST THING EVER, and if you selfish, whining pathetic lot don’t like it then tough luck.
The smoking ban does NOT cost lives, it saves them. If you want to carry on this filthy, pathetic, life shortening habit, do it in private and shut the hell up.
How [you] can say ‘it’s a step too far to protect children by banning smoking in cars’ beggars belief. You selfish, ill informed fool. You want to step back, listen to the crap you spout, and concede that smoking is: expensive, socially obnoxious, going out of fashion faster than good manners, taking years off your life, and diminishing the quality of your last years in life.
Get a grip man and be HONEST, your argument, like your clothes and your breath, stinks.
That is in connection with the Welsh Assembly’s ‘smoking in cars’ plans.
Let us analyse:
Para 1: Why did the guy go to these vile places?
Para 2: I like the ban.
Para 3: Name ONE person whose life has been saved by the ban.
Para 4: How does this guy have any right to dictate to a parent what he does in the company of HIS OWN children in HIS OWN car?
If smoking in a car in the presence of one’s own children is ‘child abuse’ and to be banned, is ‘the next logical step’ a ban in the home? Of course it is! Children will be checked for fumes when they arrive at school, and taken away from their parents if they smell. It must logically be so.
And why? Because of the ignorance and hate-filled rantings of people like that.
Perhaps that was written by Mike D or Rollo. Having said that, it does not sound like Rollo’s methodology, but it does rather sound like Mickey’s.
Not me JunicanPET – Puppet or Employee of Tobacco.
It’s probably just another normal person fed up with lies and twisted nonsense from you and your fellow puppets.
If you stopped wallowing in persecution complexes and paranoia, stopped collectively posting stuff that is untrue or designed to mislead and stopped accusing everyone who disagrees with you of mental illness normal people might relate to you normally.
If you think you’re being persecuted, go to Amnesty International and ask them to help you. Do tell us how you get on.
What normal people see when they read a thread like this is a misguided effort to protect the tobacco industry’s right to pretty packs.
From people who say that pretty packs have no influence on children.
From people who say that pretty packs aren’t important to them.
From people who are willing to post day and night about pretty packs for 3 weeks.
From all over the world.
Mass Debater Jr.: ” From people who are willing to post day and night about pretty packs for 3 weeks.”
And what does that say for you, dear Mass Debater Jr., a person who has engaged in numerous, senseless, repetitive posts over the same period?
Don’t forget, Mass Jr., we know that you know that we know that you are being a complete ass, an intentional fool.
I’m fully expecting one of your “profound” quips, you know…. the ones where you manage to slap a few words together – that interestingly look like sentences – to sloppily convey an asinine thought, an obvious high point of your cognitive state. Or maybe you’ll opt for the dazzling “zzzzzzzzzzzz” response where you completely run out of vocabulary.
Yours in great anticipation of what form your stupidity will next take.
XOXOX
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz you aren’t funny, you aren’t clever, you’re just soooo boring
I see that the Welsh Assembly’s avoidance of a ‘Smoking Ban in Cars with Children Present’ is in the news on the BBC. In addition to the usual ‘non-sequiturs’ about this matter, there is an additional quote from a renowned professor or doctor of something or other as follows:
Dr Iolo Doull, from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health officer for Wales, who has previously called for a total ban in cars, backed the campaign.
“Infants and children exposed to tobacco smoke are more likely to have chest infections, to have ear infections, to be admitted to hospital with wheezing or asthma, and to die of cot death,” he said.
Well, that is his opinion, except that it is VISCIOUS PROPAGANDA. The first bit talks about minor infections (which, in the nature of ‘infections, cannot possibly be caused by SHS), but the last bit is BLATANTLY SCAREMONGERING.
THE CAUSE OF COT DEATH IS UNKNOWN, therefore a mere co-incidence of a very, very slight correlation between SHS and SIDS is insufficient to imply that exposure to SHS kills babies. That is nonsense. There is just as much likelihood that walking about in misty weather conditions drowns people.
But to imply that smoking in cars causes cot deaths is positively ludicrous. When are people (including MPs) going to wake up and see the mischief that ASH ET AL are up to?
More moronic lies from Junican (Puppet or Employee of Tobacco)
“”THE CAUSE OF COT DEATH IS UNKNOWN, therefore a mere co-incidence of a very, very slight correlation between SHS and SIDS is insufficient to imply that exposure to SHS kills babies. That is nonsense. There is just as much likelihood that walking about in misty weather conditions drowns people.”
The proper experts on SIDS/Cot Death all advise that smoking in pregnancy and smoking around babies significantly increases the likelihood of SIDS/Cot Death.
Junican’s claim that “There is just as much likelihood that walking about in misty weather conditions drowns people.” IS ANOTHER OF HIS LIES.
Don’t listen to the tobacco trolls, they lie.
I’m deleting the PET. It is causing problems elsewhere.
Have others realised it means Puppet or Employee of Tobacco?
Tobacco trolls can’t stick to the truth.
Here’s Junican’s latest lie. Will the other puppets disown him? Of course not, they’ll dutifully rally around him trying to obscure the lie. But the truth is, walking in misty conditions does not drown people.
“”THE CAUSE OF COT DEATH IS UNKNOWN, therefore a mere co-incidence of a very, very slight correlation between SHS and SIDS is insufficient to imply that exposure to SHS kills babies. That is nonsense. There is just as much likelihood that walking about in misty weather conditions drowns people.”
The proper experts on SIDS/Cot Death all advise that smoking in pregnancy and smoking around babies significantly increases the likelihood of SIDS/Cot Death.
Junican’s claim that “There is just as much likelihood that walking about in misty weather conditions drowns people.” IS ANOTHER OF HIS LIES.
Don’t listen to the tobacco trolls, they lie. A lot.
Mike D, SIDS is cryptogenic. Am I lying when I say every year on this planet millions of healthy
children are born in to this world by ~1.2 billion loving smoking parents but some adoption bodies consider refusing
to give children a loving home with parents that smoke, just like my parents did.
LINK HERE
What could be the cause of this blatantly insane, nasty, vindictive discrimination against a minority?
My guess is that it because of the activities of the unappeasable tobacco control industry.
An industry that is out of control and lost it’s moral compass – if it ever had one in the first place.
Don’t listen to the anti – tobacco trolls, they lie. A lot.
“SIDS is cryptogenic.” Yes, but you’d need to be an idiot to believe that this meant that the number of cases couldn’t be reduced by eliminating known risk factors.
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths aren’t idiots.
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths aren’t in the pay of the drugs companies.
The Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths aren’t affiliated to any anti-smoking groups.
All they want to do is reduce the number of cases of SIDS/Cot Death.
Don’t listen to the tobacco trolls, they lie. A lot. Or are too thick to be set loose on a discussion about a very serious issue.
And Mike D still hasn’t explained how smoking affects 50% more male infants than females ones. How does it effect twins more than single births? How does it affect second and subsequent children more than the first? Why does it affect the children of younger mothers more?
A question for Mike D. Numerically, four times as many men are struck by lightning than women. There’s no milk left and there’s a thunderstorm outside. Should you send the other half out to the corner shop (before Anti-Tobacco drives it out of business) to buy the milk as the risk of her being struck by lightning is a quarter of the risk to you?
What a couple of stupid posts from Fredrik and John.
Were FSID stupid to advise parents to sleep their babies on their backs? The evidence showed that this should reduce the numbers of cases of SIDS/Cot Deaths. It did.
I don’t think they know how it worked because, as Fredrik has said, SIDS is cryptogenic.
But they knew that getting rid of risk factors would reduce the number of cases, and it did. Just like not exposing babies to smoke in the womb and after birth could reduce the number of cases of SIDS/Cot Death in the UK by around 100/year according to the assessment of the independent charity FSID.
Do you believe in Santa Claus too, Mike D?
Why does the “smoke theory” affect 50% more boys, more twins, more second and third children, more children of mothers who suffer from either or both of pre- or post-natal depression, more children of younger mothers, more working-class children, more children of certain ethnicities………………………..
You forget that Anti-Tobacco aren’t interested in finding causes – just manufacturing evidence to support a LINK, however tenuous. to justify their self-serving existence and keep their gravy train on the tracks.
“…….according to the assessment of the independent charity FSID”………after guidance from ASH maybe?
FSID director Joyce Epstein said: “Scientific evidence shows that every year the lives of over 100 UK infants could be saved if no pregnant woman smoked.”
Forgive me for being sceptical Mike….but where and what is this scientific “evidence?” I’m sure, seeing as you are so cocksure about it, that you’ll be able to supply a link to this “evidence”
MikeD, I’d say I make between zero and a dozen or two posts on an average day, depending on what news stories I’m reading, what lies are being told, and what PEPs (Puppets or Employees of Pharmaceuticals) are posting on various boards. I do it openly from my “base in the US” unlike anonymous folks like you and Rollo. And none of my posts consist of content like “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
Rollo, you at least offer more substance to respond to. You wrote:
“MJM: Your last post says it all. I gave you the source behind my statement. If you had wanted to offer “thoughtful analysis”, you would have checked and critique the source (and the underpinning methodological annex) for yourself. You would not have resorted to kneejerk claims that the results must be wrong because of some vague and generic claim that you make.”
If you’d bothered to actually read my post Rollo, you would have noticed that I quoted a figure from your source (the “about 10% black market” thing) so I obviously checked it. And I did offer a critique: their methodology TRIES to take account of “undeclared” smokers and I offered my analysis of why I believe their efforts fall short. You may disagree, but unless you can offer specific strong evidence as to why then, aside from an “appeal to authority” argument I think you’re left lacking.
And yes indeed, your source indicates a very substantial fall: which is part of why I doubt its veracity. It’s as though I offered a source indicating that cutting the price of booze in bars by half while also offering free parking outside them resulted in cutting drunk driving deaths in half. Unless my methodology for arriving at that conclusion was VERY specific and VERY sound and VERY verifiable I’d expect most reasonable people to find my conclusions suspect.
Since, despite MkeD’s visions to the contrary, I *do* try not to “spend every waking hour” on these posts I did indeed pull the schoolyard source out of memory rather than look up a cite on it. You are partly correct: there have been several studies finding a quarter to a third of schoolyard butts in Canada being contraband. However there was a seemingly more recent study in London that found 25% of general butts being contraband while ” 35% of cigarette butts near London high schools were contraband.” Source on that btw wasn’t really hard to find if you know how to use Google properly:
http://stopcontrabandtobacco.ca/blog/
although I’ll admit I haven’t examined NCACT’s original methodology. You’re welcome to do so and offer a critique of course.
As to the “the nastiness of (my) desperate and despicable position” about your seeming lack of concern for The Children, well Rollo, all you have to do is join in with some groups like FORCES and F2C in calling for a lowering of tobacco taxes so there will be less contraband and The Children will have a harder time purchasing cigarettes. You can visit their websites if you’d like to join in with their campaigns.
– MJM
Don’t know if this helps but in a Parliamentary answer in Dublin (Dail) The Irish Revenue Commissioners gave the figures for illegal tobacco seized from just 4 areas inc. Dublin.
Cigarettes Tobacco (kgs)
2007 74,500,486 1516
2008 135,200,635 3083
2009 218,526,228 10452
2010 178,432,171 3368
2011 109,065,529 11156
Massive increase 2007- 2009, decrease (in cigs) – 2011. Maybe more investigators involved, maybe alternative routes being found, they don’t know. Most of it apparently comes from China and E. Europe but a fair chunk is people bringing it back from abroad themselves. Ireland has the highest tobacco tax in Europe. Little idea of size of markat but believed to be large.
One rather large problem, Ms Arnott and the like? or do they still believe that increased taxes don’t increase the black market. Probably, as they seem convinced that masses more people go to Pubs since the ban, no matter that @10k pubs have gone to the wall since the ban.
Not formatted well on this site but I trust you see the figures.
Michael
If you are as clever and independant as you like to believe, how come you swallow and regurgitate tobacco propaganda?
Your posts seem just an endless stream of the nonsense that they put out. You seem so gullible and unquestioning of it all which, for someone who thinks he’s an intellectual, seems odd. Do you REALLY believe everything you post?
Do you?
MJM – I’ve not gone away. This post didn’t make it past moderation, presumably because of weblinks.
Excuse me if I don’t accept your argument which, summarised, goes on the lines that your home-spun and untested claims about black market tobacco in another country is more accurate than results from an official statistical publication. Far from me appealing to authority, that is you appealing to ego and cynicism! Your critique, such as it is, is simply asking a couple of questions about the methodology and assuming (with absolutely no evidence for doing so) that the conduct of the surveys was deficient.
You have this ongoing dislike of any statistical estimates. In your world, unless a figure can be calculated to absolute precision, then it is worse than useless and worth less than homespun theories (or at least those homespun theories concocted by pro-smokers). But you either don’t know or choose to ignore that estimates are “widely used” in statistics (stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=5059). Estimates will obviously not give you a precise figure. But they will give you an understanding about the extent of a situation. And they are also useful at identifying long-term trends, especially dramatic trends – as is the case about black market share of tobacco.
You than complain that a 40% fall is reason to doubt its findings! That is even though you have no grounds for doubting the methodology used. These statistics are published every year, and so trends will have emerged over a period of time and after regular retesting.
You simply can’t dismiss a decrease as dramatic as 40% over 4 years!
And MJM, I’ll very happily offer you a critique of the NCACT study. It’s from London, CANADA – not London UK! Just a tad premature of you to make that wisecrack about the source not being “really hard to find if you know how to use Google properly”, don’t you think???
Like Mike D says, your view about the black market is very limited. You’re only taking account of the demand side, and even then it seems you are crudely assuming that government actions will not reduce demand one iota. It also seems you’re mis-assumed trends in the cost difference between UK-sourced and overseas-sourced cigarette, thinking that this has continued to increase. In fact, in the UK taxation has a % of the recommended retail price of cigarettes has been pretty steady since the mid-1990s and, if anything, has fallen slightly in the last decade:
the-tma.org.uk/tma-publications-research/facts-figures/uk-cigarette-prices/
You’re completely ignoring the demand side of things. In particular, that the UK government has become more successful at targeting illegal tobacco.
Thank you for the correction re London, Canada and London, UK! LOL! My fault entirely for the mis-assumption. So it was in Canada that they found 25% of the adult butts being contraband while 35% of the schoolyard butts being contraband. There’s no reason to expect offhand that the situation would be much different in the UK or elsewhere that taxation levels produce the easy availability of black market cigarettes to young people. Unfortunately antismoking advocates seem to care more about the money than the kids in this regard.
It’s quite true that I posted a reasoned line of argument against statistics that seem to stand in contradiction. Despite your claims to the contrary, I actually have quite a healthy respect for statistics *WHEN THEY’RE USED AND INTERPRETED PROPERLY.* Also, you may not have realized it but you’ve actually supported my point about taxation and the black market if you want to stand by your figures on reduction and also your note that “UK taxation(h)as a % of the recommended retail price of cigarettes has been pretty steady since the mid-1990s and, if anything, has fallen slightly in the last decade” A fall in the ratio would indeed, by my arguments, lead to a fall in the amount of smuggling. Do you have figures on how much the taxation ratio has fallen in relation to, e.g. France? If it’s a significant fall, then my argument is strengthened since only a portion of that 40% claimed drop would need to come from the other arguments outlined.
Thank you for the extra information on both that and on the multiplicity of Londons. I’ll have to be careful next time I go to New London, Connecticut looking for Big Ben!
– MJM
Thanks for your acknowledgement MJM. I’m tempted to rub your nose in it a bit given you made that wisecrack about it not being “really hard to find if you know how to use Google properly”. But I prefer to welcome the common ground when it’s found, even if it’s just a wee patch of grass.
I referred to the tax as % of RRP figure to show you how, even according to your logic, it is reasonable for illicit tobacco to have fallen by as much as 40% in recent years. Perhaps that’s more common ground we’ve found?
Frank J.
If I create a table such as that, I separate elements with dots (not forgetting a dot at the end of each line), like this:
Cigarettes………tobacco.
10,000……………10.
Seems to work perfectly.
Thanks, I’ll try again
Year……………….Cigarettes………………….Tobacco (kgs)
2007…………….. 74,500,486 ………………..1516
2008 ……………..135,200,635 ………………3083
2009 ……………..218,526,228 ………………10452
2010 ……………..178,432,171……………… 3368
2011 ……………..109,065,529 ………………11156
Bonanza!
Massive increase 2007- 2009, decrease (in cigs) – 2011. Maybe more investigators involved, maybe alternative routes being found, they don’t know. Most of it apparently comes from China and E. Europe but a fair chunk is people bringing it back from abroad themselves. Ireland has the highest tobacco tax in Europe. Little idea of size of markat but believed to be large.
One rather large problem, Ms Arnott and the like? or do they still believe that increased taxes don’t increase the black market. Probably, as they seem convinced that masses more people go to Pubs since the ban, no matter that @10k pubs have gone to the wall since the ban.
I have no doubt that the Irish Border Agency uses the same despicable methods as the UK Border Agency. Don’t follow legal procedures – use trickery and subterfuge to steal the EU legitimately bought goods of holiday makers and travelers.
I see that the Noble Lord Faulkner has emitted an article about the consultation. (Is that the same Lord Faulkner who messed up the Football Assn?) It looks as if the usual ASH ET AL speechwriter has been at it again (“There is good reason for this, as this is the only industry that sells products which kill when used as intended, and lead to the premature death of half all lifelong users”) Perhaps he hasn’t heard of the Armament Industry.
Oddly enough, the phrase ‘glitzy packaging’ seems to have been dropped. Here is the new phraseology:
”and I am sure they will be used again to argue against plain, standardised packaging of tobacco packs, due to be consulted on shortly by the government.”
Notice how the idea of ‘standardisation’ has been quietly introduced? No more slim fags, no fat ones, no short ones. To be followed in due course by a shortening of cigarettes, etc.
Needless to say, nearly all of his article is blatant propaganda.
More persecution, I’m afraid.
Needless to say, nearly all of his article is blatant propaganda.
Rich coming from someone who tells blatant lies.
Your “LIar!” thing is a bit old Mike. Junican characterized an article about a 5.2 billion pound expenditure as a 6 billion pound expenditure. He also generalized an expenditure that would partly go for other purposes (I believe the amounts were undefined in his source) as being aimed at smoking.
You could get away with a comment or two accusing him of some sloppiness (although on internet board postings sloppiness of that order is certainly more the norm than the exception) but constantly repeating a little kid’s refrain of “Liar! Liar!” a dozen times is no way to impress anyone with your position.
– MJM
Pointing out Junican’s lies is not stale or childish Michael, and all of the puppets (including you) would have made great play of me telling lies.
You continue to defend his lie that £6bn was being given to councils to continue the persecution of smokers, even though there is no evidence of any proposals to spend money on ‘persecution’ (using a normal person’s understanding of the word)
I’ve already told you that it was not his getting the figure wrong that I’m bothered about, but the claim that it was to be used for ‘persecution’.
Getting the figure wrong is sloppy, saying that all that money was going to be spent on persecution is a big, fat LIE.
And you continue to support him. No integrity. No credibility. Just another puppet.
I forgot to put the URL in for the article:
http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/smoke-out-tobacco-companies-influence/
Guess what? The Noble Lord Faulkner (who messed up the FA) is a member of the (UNOFFICIAL) Holy All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health.
See how the publishing of articles is following step by step? No doubt orchestrated by ASH ET AL. No doubt the 25,000 postcards are even now being written.
MikeD wrote, “Michael
If you are as clever and independant as you like to believe, how come you swallow and regurgitate tobacco propaganda? Your posts seem just an endless stream of the nonsense that they put out.”
Heh, Mike, I can’t help it if my stuff is good enough that you’ve seen it repeated by the Puppet Tobacco Companies. Unfortunately you don’t seem inclined to read anything you disagree with. It’s not the SOURCE of information that’s important: it’s the QUALITY of information. I’ve read almost all the Surgeon Generals Reports on smoking — do you consider them to be “tobacco propaganda”? I read the EPA Report when it came out (although as Rollo will tell you I have not read the SCOTH Report). I go to the medical journals or write the researchers and read the original studies that the “glitzy” press releases are based on rather than just take the word of an overworked reporter based on his/her interpretation of a fast reading of a study abstract.
You go on to say, “You seem so gullible and unquestioning of it all which, for someone who thinks he’s an intellectual, seems odd.”
I don’t know what makes you think that I think I’m an “intellectual.” I have a decent grasp of the scientific method and a respect for doing research properly. Your comment about being “gullible and unquestioning” is outright laughable for anyone who’s actually read much of what I’ve written: it COMES from questioning what I read.
And finally you ask: “Do you REALLY believe everything you post?” I most definitely do, unless I’m being clearly satirical. And I not only believe it, I offer it up for detailed criticism, and then I either accept those criticisms or defend my original stand.
You should try reading a bit of what’s on the other side and have your own try at criticizing it MikeD. Try Snowdon’s Velvet Glove Iron Fist for starters. DiPierri’s “Rampant Antismoking Mentality” might be good for a followup. Brains of course is my favorite, but I’d have to say I don’t think it quite stacks up against either of those two, although I think it’s a better outreach tool for new audiences.
Unfortunately I doubt that you’ll read any of them: they’d just make you uncomfortable.
– MJM
Michael
As I don’t have much faith in your abilities, having read how you are willing to support the other puppets on here with their misinformation, and even lies, I won’t be wasting my life reading your book or the other bits of propaganda you link to.
If you had shown some integrity and credibility I might have been inclined to give it a chance, but you keep proving you are very deeply steeped in one viewpoint and can’t even see when some of the stuff posted here is plainly untrue or misleading.
Had there been a sniff of you saying that you would advise against smoking in pregnancy because of the increased risk in SIDS/Cot Death I might have detected some integrity, but you just side with the tobacco puppets on everything, even when it’s blatant nonsense.
Pat Nurse said earlier that everyone she knows smokes. I pointed out that this might cloud her judgement. I think the amount of your life that you spend/have spent peddling a particular view on smoking and ‘antismokers brains’ clouds yours.
About what I expected, but as usual you’ve left a gift. 🙂 You say, “there is no evidence of any proposals to spend money on ‘persecution’ (using a normal person’s understanding of the word)”
No? Supporting the concepts of denying a class of people medical care, throwing them out of the only housing they have in their senior years, taking their children away from them in custody disputes, closing down their businesses, encouraging a mindset that leads to beatings, torturing, rapes, and murders …. none of that fits “a normal person’s understanding of the word” persecution?
I’m tempted to break into Monty Python’s “NO ONE expects the SPANISH INQUISITION!!!!” about now.
and you wrote, ” I won’t be wasting my life reading your book or the other bits of propaganda you link to.”
Which confirms my point about your avoiding reading things that make you uncomfortable through cognitive dissonance. That’s a prime symptom of ASDS you realize. (In case you’ve forgotten what that’s about here’s the link again: http://wispofsmoke.net/recovery.html – – – Not that I actually expect YOU to read it, but general readers who’d like to get a bit more insight into what’s going on with you might find it helpful.)
I guess I’ll just have to continue pondering your “substantive criticism” of my work ( to wit: “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” )* while I’m waiting upon those verifiable references on Norwegian and Polish black marketeering problems.
– MJM
*btw, you have a soul mate over here in the States who offered a similarly insightful analysis of my research just yesterday. He said, “”BLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAHBLAH.”
True to form, Michael J Mcfadden writes
“About what I expected, but as usual you’ve left a gift. You say, “there is no evidence of any proposals to spend money on ‘persecution’ (using a normal person’s understanding of the word)”
No? Supporting the concepts of denying a class of people medical care, throwing them out of the only housing they have in their senior years, taking their children away from them in custody disputes, closing down their businesses, encouraging a mindset that leads to beatings, torturing, rapes, and murders …. none of that fits “a normal person’s understanding of the word” persecution?”
So Michael, how much of the £6,000,000,000 that Junican claimed was being given to councils to ‘perpetuate the persecution of smokers’ will be spent on:
1 “Supporting the concepts of denying a class of people medical care”?
2 ” throwing them out of the only housing they have in their senior years”?
3 ” taking their children away from them in custody disputes”?
4 “closing down their businesses”?
5 ” encouraging a mindset that leads to beatings, torturing, rapes, and murders “?
Go on Michael, how much will be spent on those matters?
Apportion the £6,000,000,000 across those 5 areas for us poor Brits who can’t think for ourselves.
Or you could act with integrity and just admit that Junican was lying and trying to deceive.
MJM acting with integrity – that’ll be the day.
Heh, for someone who never answers questions MD, you sure do like askin’ ’em. :> Fortunately your questions are almost always simple.
How much of it will be spent on those things? Easy. I have exactly the same knowledge of the answer as you do. I.E. I have no idea. It might very well be 90% or more and Junican’s characterization may indeed be fairly accurate. I have no idea…. and neither do you.
The difference is that I know what I don’t know … something you’d be well advised to share.
– MJM
It’ll be approximately nil, and Junican’s £6bn estimate is a lie.
What are you doing over half-term. Mike D? Are Mummy and Daddy taking you to anywhere interesting, like the zoo?
MJM claims that Junican wasn’t lying when he said that £6bn was being given to councils to perpetuate the persecution of smokers.
Michael even gave some examples of what types of “persecution” this £6bn might be spent on.
I challenged Michael to apportion how much of the £6,000,000,000 that Junican claimed was being given to councils to ‘perpetuate the persecution of smokers’ would be spent on his 5 categories of persecution:
1 “Supporting the concepts of denying a class of people medical care”
2 ” throwing them out of the only housing they have in their senior years”
3 ” taking their children away from them in custody disputes”
4 “closing down their businesses”
5 ” encouraging a mindset that leads to beatings, torturing, rapes, and murders “
Michael’s answer was ” I have no idea…. and neither do you.”
Dealing first with the “I have no idea” part, how can Michael defend Junican’s lying if he has no idea what the money will be spent on?
Dealing second with the “and neither do you” – Michael is wrong there because the answer to what sort of things the £6bn will be spent on has already been posted earlier in the thread.
As usual, Michael posts misleading bluster.
JohnS
If I do visit the zoo I’ll be sure to throw you a banana.
“JohnS If I do visit the zoo I’ll be sure to throw you a banana” —— Mike D
Is it because I’m black?
From RTE news
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0131/cigarettes.html
Cigarette smuggling and the sale of illegal cigarettes is costing the State €420m in lost excise duty, according to retailers.
Retailers have said cigarette smuggling and the sale of illegal cigarettes is costing the State €420m in lost excise duty.
William Hanley of Retailers Against Smuggling said that thousands of retailers are affected by this problem.
Speaking at an Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, Mr Hanley said that 700 jobs were lost as a result of the loss of cigarettes sales.
He said one in every four cigarettes consumed in Ireland has no duty paid on it.
Benny Gilsenan of RAS told the committee that it was not calling on the Government to reduce the excise on cigarettes.
However, Mr Gilsenan said what was needed was an increase in policing on the industry and a set minimum fine on sellers.
He said the cigarette smuggling is an industry growing on a daily basis and run by sophisticated criminals.
Mr Gilsenan said they see an opportunity to make huge revenue for themselves because they can sell the cigarettes at a third of the price of what retailers sell them.
That’s what you get when you try to levy a tax too highly. Lost revenue and quality control.
In my opinion, Tobacco control might be contributing to the premature deaths of hundreds or maybe thousands.
“That’s what you get when you try to levy a tax too highly. Lost revenue and quality control.
In my opinion, Tobacco control might be contributing to the premature deaths of hundreds or maybe thousands.”
I think I read somewhere that Norway (high tax) doesn’t have much of a smuggling problem, yet Poland (low tax) has a big smuggling problem.
How does your tobacco industry fuelled bias deal with those facts?
MikeD wrote, “I think I read somewhere that Norway (high tax) doesn’t have much of a smuggling problem, yet Poland (low tax) has a big smuggling problem. How does your tobacco industry fuelled bias deal with those facts?”
Gee. Such carefully referenced material from such an indisputable source. Mike, your research level is improving, but it still has a way to go.
– MJM
How does your tobacco industry fuelled bias deal with those facts?
I’m just stating the facts as they are in Eire.
Stephen, I see this is not the first time your “liberal” views have been questioned!
http://www.liberal-vision.org/2011/11/16/stephen-williams-is-not-a-liberal/
“Gee. Such carefully referenced material from such an indisputable source. Mike, your research level is improving, but it still has a way to go.”
But no denial that smuggled tobacco is a problem in low-tax Poland and not a problem in high-tax Norway.
I’ve said before that MJM doesn’t get that tobacco smuggling is a supply led (rather than a demand led) issue. He still doesn’t get it.
In MikeD’s world, smugglers seem to be the most amazingly public spirited of citizens. Even without tax differentials providing them a profit they will, out of sheer good will, smuggle 50 cent Polish tobacco to Norway where it will be bought for the same 50 cents!
Too bad government officials don’t work at those rates.
– MJM
P.S. Mike, hate to burst your bubble, but I don’t put much effort into “denying” things that someone “thinks they’ve read somewhere.” LOL!
Michael weasels out as usual.
In Norway tobacco tax means a pack of cigarettes now costs around USD 16. The smugglers could sell it for a profit of USD 12/pack more than they sell it for in Poland.
Michael thinks it will sell for 50 cents in Norway.
They don’t because this is a supply led market, which Michael still doesn’t seem to understand.
Michael is one of the following
A) A tobacco puppet or
B) Stupid or
C) A stupid tobacco puppet
Stop embarrassing yourself, Mike D.
How is pointing out total nonsense about your fellow puppets embarrassing John.
A pack of cigarettes in Norway costs 16 Dollars and they have no problem with smuggling.
A pack of cigarettes in Poland costs 70p and smugglers sell them for 40p.
It’s a supply led market, so this makes sense.
None of the puppets seem to understand what a supply led market is, and why this undermines all of their arguments about high tax leading to smuggling.
Nicely spotted, Parmenion.
“Angela – you don’t provide any evidence for your assertion that the indoor smoking ban has caused the decline of local pubs. Many pubs have flourished since 2007 as they are now more attractive places for the majority of the population to socialise. I now eat and drink in pubs that I wouldn’t have considered entering 4 years ago. Pubs that have adapted to the change by offering good food and activities have thrived. Pubs that did not respond to changed circumstances have not. The latter are at more risk from ridiculously cheap alcohol in supermarkets….which is one reason why I am in favour of minimum pricing for units of alcohol. And yes responsible governments do have to act on obesity – rising levels of diabetes and heart disease are hardly causes for liberal celebration.”
That was in November, 2011. Is Mr Williams stark, staring mad? Heart ‘disease’ has been falling for decades. Months and months ago, the history of the closure of pubs following smoking bans was revealed. In Ireland, almost immediately consequent on the ban there and well before the recession set in, pubs started to close in droves. In Scotland, the same process occurred and again in England and Wales. The rest of it is laughable wish-think straight out of the ASH ET AL manual. But note the statement: “The latter are at more risk from ridiculously cheap alcohol in supermarkets,…” What sort of dream-world does he live in? A bottle of whiskey costing £15 (or more) is ridiculously cheap??? “Oh no”, he would say, “I don’t mean expensive whiskey, I mean cheap-muck lager” Erm…..Precisely why should supermarkets charge more than they have to make a profit? And why should people pay more than necessary?
Mr Williams IS stark, staring mad.
“Mr Williams IS stark, staring mad”
Says Junican who tells lies, and has a persecution complex
Hey, Mass Debater Jr., look around….. closely, now. The antismoking “glitterati”, the ones who have made a career out of their misdoings, caught with their pants down, disappeared from the outset – a swift exit from stage-right. The Mass Debater Sr. only made a cameo. Noticing the sensation of his strides dropping below his gluteus maximus, he quickly departed too.
Left is the Mass Debater Jr. Having had his pants down from about 600 comments ago, the dull, dense Junior has no grasp that he comments with considerable below-the-waist air-conditioning…… and between-the-ears air-conditioning too. So stupid is the Mass Debater Jr. that he has no grasp of his stupidity….. a sort of XXL Stupidity; the Mass Debater (Jr.) has no pants and no sensibility. But, notwithstanding his unrecognized predicament, the Mass Debater Jr. keeps “commenting” away.
Hey, Mass Jr., awaiting another of your “air-conditioned” comments.
Hey, Mag!
How about ‘the GLITZeratti?
Rollo and Co, it you have not already , then I suggest you read the piece from Angela Harbutt on Liberal Vision Add h t t p : forward slashes and the w’s.
liberal-vision.org/2012/02/06/why-i-am-against-plain-packaging-of-tobacco/
Particularly this bit:
“If the aim of government is to reduce the take up of smoking amongst children why not tackle the real issue – distribution. We already have laws that prevent the sale of tobacco to under 18’s. Spending money on enforcing existing laws would be much better use of public money than rushing to introduce new ones. The sale of illicit and counterfeit cigarettes is a huge problem in the UK as well as the rest of Europe. It is estimated that 190 billion are manufactured each year in China alone and 65 per cent of the cigarettes seized in the EU are counterfeit. These fake cigarettes contain eye-watering high levels of heavy metals, rodent droppings and goodness knows what else (go watch the Panorama programme). If we care about public health – then let’s get rid of these. Criminal gangs don’t care who they sell to and are offering them at half the price of legitimate cigarettes. Where do you think kids will go to get their cigarettes? And “plain” packaging will make the counterfeiter’s job easier. According to Ruth Orchard, director general of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group,
“Plain packaging represents an invitation to counterfeiting. If put into practice for the tobacco industry, this could impact on all sectors where counterfeiting is rife. It creates a trading environment where packaging is no longer distinctive and products become easy to replicate illegally.”
So why are we punishing the local community shop keeper – making it more difficult for him to ply his trade, whilst making it easier for his competitor, the criminal gang boss, to do business?”
Lyn.
They would prefer to do both.
www. and dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2098258/Who-needs-coffee-Save-time-inhaling-instead-new-shot-caffeine-hits-market.html#comments
This is 100mg of fruit-flavoured caffeine powder in a lipstick-shaped tube to inhale like a cigarette. There are no age restrictions on buying it
A tad more important than “glitzy” packaging?
An interesting article of how the science about the non effects of passive smoking by Enstrom and Kabat (2003), were suppressed by the MSM. A couple of paragraphs reproduced below.
This paper examines the silencing of science, that is, efforts to prevent the making of specific scientific claims in any or all of the arenas in which these claims are typically reported or circulated. Those trying to mute the reporting or circulation of scientific claims are termed “partisans.” The paper examines silencing through a systematic examination of the “rapid responses” to a smoking study published in the British Medical Journal claiming that second-hand smoke is not as dangerous as conventionally believed. Media
coverage of the smoking study is also examined, as is the question of whether there is self-silencing by the media regarding doubts about the negative effects of passive smoke. The results suggest that the public consensus about the negative effects of passive smoke is so strong that it has become part of a regime of truth that cannot be intelligibly questioned.
And towards the end:
Finally, we perused articles on the scientific effects of smoking. Notably, more coverage was devoted to second-hand rather than first-hand smoke. In the latter case, an interesting check of the self-silencing hypothesis comes from examining media coverage of
the possible beneficial effects of smoking. Smoking may benefit people with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia; some forms of inflammatory bowel disease also seem to improve with smoking (e.g., Doll et al., 2000). Despite raging scientific controversies
over possible benefits, there were just a few newspaper stories on the issue. Significantly, the claims about positive effects of smoke were treated in an incredulous and mocking fashion.
All of the stories on second-hand smoke were examined, and the results revealed a strikingly one-sided discourse consistent with self-silencing by the media. Specifically, out of more than 500 articles examined, fewer than 10 afforded any sense of either scientific uncertainty or of negative findings challenging the prevailing consensus. The huge remainder disregard the conventions of balancing and controversy (allowing at best a short paragraph to smoking defenders), and in place of these media staples presented a dutiful and credulous account of the dangers of passive smoke. Thus a recent British report presented at a conference of the Royal Society of Physicians in London on 17 May 2004 garnered the following headlines in the British media (New Scientist, 2004):
Passive smoking numbers shock
Passive smoking kills one bar worker a week
Passive smoking is workplace killer
Passive-smoking survey reveals startling death rate
Cost of Passive Smoking on Barmaids and Waiters
Dying for a passive cigarette
One person per week dies in British hospitality industry from . . .
There you have it. They lie by omission.
Now, whatever else could this study apply to? Hmmm?
Wind turbines and solar panels?
Alcohol?
Red meat?
Trans fats? (Obesity)
Salt?
And the latest. Sugar.
Moral of this article: Question everything you read or hear in the MSM.
Click to access silencing_science.pdf
Would you like to comment, Stephen? Or are you too important to reply to us lowlife.
….like this study
Enstrom & Kabat (2003)
177 subjects: RR = 0.97 (negative)
Of the 118,094 Californians who enrolled in the ACS’s Cancer Prevention Study in 1959, 25,942 were nonsmoking women married to a smoker and it was they who became the focus of Enstrom and Kabat’s prospective study (discussed in Chapter 10). Monitored through to 1998, the authors found no statistical link between passive smoke and lung cancer and the relative risk of 0.97 (0.90-1.05) strongly supported the null hypothesis.
…or this one
Schwartz (1996)
257 subjects: 1.1 (null)
This study of lung cancer patients in Detroit examined various possible causes of the disease but failed to support the passive smoking theory. The sample group included a minority of men and the authors did not provide relative risks for each gender, but the overall figure for people ‘exposed in the home’ supported the null hypothesis with a RR of 1.1 (0.8-1.6).
or maybe this one
Gao (1987)
246 subjects: RR = 0.9 (negative)
Another large Chinese case-control study found no association between lung cancer and exposure to secondhand smoke in adulthood; RR 0.9 (0.6-1.4). There was, however, a dose-response relationship between years spent married to a smoker and increased lung cancer risk (1.1, 1.3 and 1.7 for 20-29 years, 30-39 years and 40+ years). None of these findings achieved statistical significance, except for the relationship with the stir-frying of food (2.6 (1.3-5.0).
or what about this one
Wu (1985)
220 subjects: RR = 1.2 (null)
Anna Wu and her colleagues surveyed 220 female lung cancer patients in Los Angeles between 1981 and 1982. As they reported: “We did not observe any elevated risk associated with passive smoke exposure from either parents (RR=0.6; 95% CI= 0.2,1.7) [or] from spouse(s) (RR=1.2; 95% CI= 0.5,3.3)”
or this beauty
Garfinkel (1981)
153 subjects: RR = 1.17 (null)
Garfinkel’s paper was the first in a series of failed attempts to use the vast American Cancer Society national database to produce evidence for the passive smoking theory (see Enstrom & Kabat and Cardenas). Started by Cuyler Hammond in 1959, this survey was carried out by ACS volunteers across the United States and included 375,000 nonsmoking women. By 1981, 203 of them had contracted lung cancer. 153 had been married, 88 of them to smokers.
Comparing these rates to those expected in wives married to nonsmokers, Garfinkel found no statistically significant relationship between secondhand smoke exposure and any cancer except, perversely, that women married to smokers were less likely to suffer from cancer of the uterus.
The wives were grouped between those whose husbands smoked less than a pack and more than a pack of cigarettes a day. The former had a RR of 1.27 (0.88-1.89), the latter – those more heavily exposed to smoke – had an RR of just 1.10 (0.77-1.61). When the figures were adjusted for confounding factors, the former rose to 1.37 and the latter fell to 1.04. The ovcrall risk ratio was 1.17 (0.85-1.61). None of these figures came close to statistical significance and Garfinkel did not pretend otherwise. His own assessment was that women married to smokers had “very little, if any, increased risk of lung cancer” and that “even if the estimates from this analysis are in error and there was a slight increase in lung cancer trends in nonsmokers, it did not appear to be an important problem.”
Parmenion, in today’s climate Garfinkle would have been tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail for that interpretation!
– MJM
and this study is a real humdinger!
Wang (2000)
407 subjects: RR = 1.03 (null)
This large Chinese study apparently demonstrated that lung cancer risk was doubled by owning a colour TV and trebled by owning a refrigerator but came up empty-handed with regards to secondhand smoke. The RR of 1.03 (0.6-1.7) for passive smoke exposure in adult life was highly supportive of the null hypothesis.
“This large Chinese study apparently demonstrated that lung cancer risk was doubled by owning a colour TV and trebled by owning a refrigerator but came up empty-handed with regards to secondhand smoke.”
If SHS “killed” one bar-worker a week in England, as claimed, exposure to the colour TV in the back bar was “killing” around seven a week, with a further ten a week “killed” by exposure to the chilling cabinet.
On the bright side, the smoking ban has closed thousands of pubs and 100,000s of barworkers have lost their jobs, so the number now being “killed” by exposure to the colour TV or chilling cabinet will be considerably less!
a different kind of cancer!
Pershagen (1987)
67 subjects: RR = 1.2 (null)
This cohort study enrolled 27,409 nonsmoking women in Sweden in the early 1960s. When they were followed up in 1984, just 77 of them had contracted lung cancer. There was no significant association with smoke exposure and the risk ratio was 1.2 (0.7-2.1). The authors made much of a stronger association with squamous and small cell carcinoma where the relative risk was 3.3 (1.1-11.4). By contrast, there was a negative RR of 0.8 (0.4-1.5) for all other types of cancer. At the time of publication, this appeared to be a suggestive finding since squamous and small cell carcinomas were strongly associated with smoking and Dalager had recently found a similar association, albeit weaker. If the passive smoking theory were true, it seemed logical that smokers and passive smokers would suffer from the same types of cancer. But subsequent studies (notably Fontham’s) have not replicated these findings and adenocarcinoma has been found to be the prevalent form of the disease in nonsmokers.
I’d love Mike or Stephen to “explain away” thesestudies!
Jee (1999)
51 subjects: RR = 1.9 (null)
The relative risk found in this Korean cohort study was not statistically significant but it came close with a RR of 1.9 (1.0-3.5). If this seemed suggestive, the inverse dose-response relationship suggested otherwise. According to this paper, those who lived with a heavy smoker were substantially less likely to suffer lung cancer as those married to a light smoker (2.0 and 1.5 respectively).
There are dozens and dozens of these studies and the VAST MAJORITY of them give a negative rating.
Answers please chaps!!
and this one’s a big thumbs up for scullduggery!
Hole (1989)
9 subjects: RR = 1.25 (null)
A masterpiece of extrapolation. David Hole first reported the findings from a prospective study of 16,171 Scottish residents in 1984 (Gillis, 1984). That study yielded just 8 female lung cancer cases, and yet the authors framed their results in terms of deaths per 100,000. The 1984 paper made much of an apparent link between lung cancer and secondhand smoke in the male subjects but this finding was entirely based on four men being exposed to passive smoke compared with two who were not. This modest association looked more impressive when the authors presented the lung cancer death rate as 13 per 10,000 and 4 per 10,000 for exposed and unexposed men respectively.
Alas, the (eight) female cases failed to replicate this result. The exposed and unexposed female groups had a lung cancer risk of – as Gillis and co. put it – 4 per 10,000 each, a risk ratio of 1.0.
In the course of the next five years, just one more woman succumbed to lung cancer but as she was in the exposed category (as were most of the women), the whole paper was rewritten and published in the British Medical Journal, this time with Hole as the lead author. This one additional lung cancer case meant the team could show a positive association between passive smoke exposure and lung cancer; technically the age standardised mortality had risen from 4 per 100,000 to 5 per 100,000. This was a approximately a 25% increase (the authors don’t give a specific RR for women), but the tiny number of cases made statistical significance impossible. The male subjects still showed a stronger but nonsignificant association and with both genders grouped together, Hole gave a combined RR of 2.41 (0.45-12.83); a odds ratio with a startlingly wide confidence interval.
One wonders what purpose such small-scale studies can ever serve. In fairness, it was a cohort study and no one could have predicted how few of the nonsmoking wives would succumb to lung cancer (although perhaps that tells its own story). And yet this study has been used by the EPA, SCOTH and public health organisations around the world to estimate mortality from secondhand smoke in populations of millions. This becomes an even more ridiculous proposition when one considers that the jump from 1.0 (1984) to 1.25 (1989) shown for exposed nonsmoking wives was entirely due to the death of one woman in the space of five years. It is interesting to speculate whether the paper would have been updated and published at all, had the woman in question been classified as unexposed instead.
The male/female skulduggery is not unique. Antismokers have played this game in other research as well. I forget the author/study specifics at the moment, but there was one I ran across about a year ago that purported to find an increase of something like one point in blood pressure among boys exposed to their parents’ secondary smoke. A big point was made about the “danger” of this and how it was “essential” that such exposure be avoided.
The study had another finding as well: but one that was so played down it was rarely mentioned in the media splash: The girls exposed to secondary smoke had a REDUCTION in their blood pressure of about a point. When the researchers DID mention it they noted that the change could still be worrisome and was something “to be avoided.”
The question I asked at the time was, “If the researchers had discovered that eating an apple a day lowered the blood pressure of female children by a single blood pressure point, would they be warning parents that their research showed that apples should be avoided?”
– MJM
Parmenion, you wrote, “This becomes an even more ridiculous proposition when one considers that the jump from 1.0 (1984) to 1.25 (1989) shown for exposed nonsmoking wives was entirely due to the death of one woman in the space of five years. It is interesting to speculate whether the paper would have been updated and published at all, had the woman in question been classified as unexposed instead.”
Remember the “Great Helena Heart Miracle”? If just two or three heart attacks before and during the Helena ban had happened a few miles differently, or a few days differently, or a few “inclusion classification qualifications” differently, the Great Miracle would have been the Great Normal: duplicated by an almost equal drop a few years earlier BEFORE the “Miracle Ban.”
Did Stanton Glantz and his co-researchers know this? Well, one would be tempted to say, “Of course they did.” … but it’s always possible that they were simply grossly incompetent.
Helena had another interesting sidelight: they had the data for smokers and nonsmokers separately, and of course in all the media output the quotes made it sound like the “great drop” occurred in the nonsmokers due to secondary smoke reduction. HOWEVER… when you read the entire body of the study, you find, tucked away at the end, just a few sentence from the final period, a note indicating that there weren’t “enough subjects” to make a statement about how much of the effect came from nonsmokers as opposed to smokers.
Think about that for a moment: If there had been even the SLIGHTEST dip then they would have pointed it out. If it had stayed the SAME then they would have said so before making that excuse. Making the excuse WITHOUT any qualification had only one possible cause that I could see: heart attacks among nonsmokers may very well have gone slightly UP during the Helena ban, even with all the data juggling about who and how to include and exclude that they did along the way.
Is there any way that can be verified? Heh, probably easier to find out what was on the 18 minute gap in Nixon’s tapes that his secretary somehow “accidentally” erased a dozen times in a row.
– MJM
E/K gets criticized because they finished up the analysis of the data with a grant from Big Tobacco, but if you actually read the study and its responses at the BMJ you’ll notice something interesting: Most of the critical responses are of the same caliber as MikeD’s entries here (Well, maybe a *bit* higher, but with the same sort of “I’m so smart I don’t need to read things” attitude.)
For a good concise summary of the results of these ETS studies see the Table I put together while writing Brains:
http://www.nycclash.com/Philly.html#ETSTable
Note that with the 20 – 30 year time lag factored in for lung cancer, most of exposures occurred in the 1950s and 60s when the air was blue with smoke even in maternity wards. Yet the end result in the EPA Report was an increase of only about lung cancer per thousand lifetimes.
Grr… cut me off as I was editing that last sentence: It should end with “per thousand working lifetimes of ETS exposure.”
MJM: Yet the end result in the EPA Report was an increase of only about [one?] lung cancer per thousand working lifetimes [of ETS exposure].
And that’s only in statistical terms, not causal terms. As noted, simply breathing air that includes remnants of tobacco smoke does not resemble smoking at all. It is not a “diluted” version of smoking: The terms of the inhalation involved is entirely different. If it does not involve the inhalation of a concentrated “packet” of smoke, it is not a “variant” thereof or a “degree” thereof.
“And that’s only in statistical terms, not causal terms. ” Very true. I should remember to mention that in the future. Unfortunately most of the MikeDPublic out there has virtually no concept of the idea of correlation without causation. I use two examples to try to bring that home on a level folks can grasp:
1) The correlation between eating ice-cream and skin cancer (hint: very few Eskimos get skin cancer.)
2) The astoundlingly high correlation between roosters crowing and the sun rising. At some point in history there was probably some cult somewhere that believed the roosters woke the Sun God up every morning and that if all the roosters died we’d be locked in eternal darkness!
– MJM
Ah, another favoured pro-smoking technique. Throw up a sweeping statement, like “correlation is not the same as causation”. And use that as your basis for criticising an opposing argument. Nothing more. Just that. And hope that some mud sticks.
The statement is true enough. But the pro-smokers don’t bother to try showing that the passive smoking risks are the result of correlation without causation. So their statement is meaningless in this debate.
So how do we know if passive smoking risks are the result of causation? Well, there are well established scientific principles of causation, developed by Austin Bradford Hill. And “Except for specificity, the association between passive smoking and lung cancer fulfils all other criteria for causation outlined by Bradford Hill.” (Taylor et al, International Journal of Epidemiology, 2007)
“But the pro-smokers don’t bother to try showing that the passive smoking risks are the result of correlation without causation” – The depths of desperation, Rollo. If all else fails, use the “Argumentum ad Ignorantiam” fallacy.
Over 80% of the PUBLISHED studies did not even suggest a statistically significant CORRELATION.
MJM – That NYClash table is a wilful attempt to mislead. Nothing of what I’m about to say will be new to you. So it is particularly bad that you try to regurgigate this rubbish now.
1. The claim that relative risks need to be 2 or 3 or more to be meaningful. That is based on cynical misrepresentation and misquoting.
The truth is that a study needs to show a relative risk of 2 or 3 or more, IF you are trying to draw firm conclusions from the results of one study only. That is not the case with passive smoking, where the evidence is based on the results of scores of studies. ANY positive risk is potentially significant in this instance.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at your “quotes” a bit more closely, shall we?
The Marcia Angell & Robert Temple quotes relate to a discussion about the relative risk required before a “single epidemiologic study is persuasive by itself”, just as I have argued (nasw.org/awards/1996/96Taubesarticle.htm).
As for Ms Angell, why did you cut off her quote before she finished her sentence – “particularly if it is biologically implausible or if it’s a brand-new finding”?
If you still believe you are right and I am wrong, can you explain why, while Ms Angell was executive editor there, the New England Journal of Medicine published a report which showed that “nonsmokers exposed to environmental smoke had a relative risk of coronary heart disease of 1.25 (95 percent confidence interval, 1.17 to 1.32) as compared with nonsmokers not exposed to smoke” and concluded that “Given the high prevalence of cigarette smoking, the public health consequences of passive smoking with regard to coronary heart disease may be important”? Surely if you were right, she wouldn’t have accepted that study for publication. (content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/340/12/920)
Meanwhile, the National Cancer Institute quote comes from a press release by the National Cancer Institute about a study into the links between abortion and breast cancer. The release does say “relative risks of less than 2 are considered small and are usually difficult to interpret.” But the quote is made in the context of a single study which lacked supporting evidence. Far from stating the results of the study were irrelevant, the National Cancer Institute states “…the findings are not conclusive. Further research is needed to interpret the results”. In other words, the research was valid, but not conclusive in itself without further evidence. Here’s the release: http://tobaccodo/pm/2072055014-5016.html
You should be thoroughly ashamed of misrepresenting these people’s arguments in public so wilfully.
2. You place asterisks against “Studies indicating a NEGATIVE relationship of exposure to secondary smoke and lung cancer.” In almost all of these cases, the 95% confidence index straddles 1.0. Where results with a positive relative risk have 95% CIs which straddle 1.0, you and your fellow pro-smokers invariably conclude this means there is no meaningful difference in risk. So why does the same not also apply in your world to studies with negative relative risks? Why do you argue that they show a clearly defined negative risk just because it suits you? Total hypocrisy!!!
The idea of “passive smoking” (which originated with the Nazis, by the way) is just another baseless inflammatory term. There have even been jokes and comments made in films, for example, that a nonsmoker has “passive smoked” a pack a day.
The term “secondhand smoke” (highly diluted) is OK, but SH smokING or passive smokING are not. There are some nonsmokers who believe that when they are exposed to SHS they are being forced to smoke, that they are effectively smokING. Being exposed to SHS, which is breathing air with highly dilute remnants of smoke, is nothing like smoking. Those who believe they are passively “smoking” have obviously never smoked a cigarette. Having never smoked, and therefore unable to tell the difference, they have been manipulated into the deranged belief that SHS exposure is equivalent to smoking. The quickest way to resolve the issue is to borrow a cigarette, light it, take a drag and inhale (drawback) the concentrated “packet” of smoke. That’s smoking. It should be noticed immediately the incredible difference between smoking and simply being exposed to ETS which cannot be equated in any way with smokING. There is no active and passive smoking. There is only smoking which involves inhaling a concentrated packet of smoke.
For those not prepared to test the hypothesis, it should dawn that if smoking was simply being exposed to SHS, then why don’t smokers just leave their cigarette lit and breathe the ambient air? No. They actually take a drag on the cigarette – a concentrated packet of smoke – and inhale. That’s smokING.
For gullible nonsmokers, when you are sitting by an open fire, do you believe you’re “smoking” then? If you’re close-by to lit candles, do you believe you’re “smoking” then? If you’re close to cooking or BBQ smoke, are you “smoking” then? Etc. See the point?
The only term that has a modicum of meaning with little/no application is “involuntary smoking”. This would refer to the situation where a person is forced (e.g., at gunpoint) to take a drag on a cigarette and inhale the concentrated packet of smoke.
The most recent on “The Mechanic”, Stan Glantz. He has a PhD in mechanical engineering. He was given a professorship in cardiology (no formal training/qualifications) by the University of California, San Francisco, to add medical legitimacy to his rabid antismoking drivel. In this latest USCF press release, he is referred to as a “professor of medicine” and highlights his latest study, an economic study for which he has no advanced qualifications. His “study” advises more extortionate taxes on tobacco in California to pay for a variety of things. And, you guessed it, it advises that a cut of the tax (involving many tens of millions of dollars) should go to antismoking fanatics like him to further “educate” the public.
“The primary impact to the California economy, besides the effect on health care, is that people will smoke less and send less money out of state,’’ said study author Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, a professor of medicine at UCSF and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education based at UCSF.
Add www. to ucsf.edu/news/2012/02/11465/state-economy-get-big-jolt-proposed-new-tax-cigarettes-study-finds
Mag.
I forget. Was it you who produced evidence that never-smokers succumb to lung cancer at just the same rate as smokers? Or was it Gary K?
I seem to remember such a statement, which revolved purely around numbers per 100,000. That is, for example, if there were 10 lung cancer incidences (or lung cancer deaths) per 100,000 in smokers, there were, say, 9.9999 per 100,000 in never-smokers.
At the time, I could see the strength of the argument, but I struggled to see how it married up with the statement that the RR of lung cancer for smokers was some 10 times that of never-smokers.
But then the thought occurred to me that, perhaps, we are all being conned again. Perhaps this real reality (?) has been obscured by the claims of the zealots that smokers become afflicted by lung cancer prematurely! I shouldn’t have to spell it out, but what that means is that never-smokers get lung cancer just as much as smokers, but that there is a delay in the incidence for never-smokers – but they get it anyway. Does that make sense? It seems so to me.
This seems to me to be very, very important in that the extermination of smokers will do no more than delay the occurrence of lung cancer. I assume that much the same applies to ‘heart disease’ – the best that can be expected is A DELAY!
Junican
Apart from your lies, this post is another lovely example of why you should have your computer taken away from you and never be allowed to express an opinion again.
You seem to think that smoking isn’t that much of a risk for lung cancer. That is stupid beyond words! (although I do prefer you when you’re just being stupid rather than telling lies)
Here’s what Cancer Research UK say about smoking and lung cancer:
“Lung cancer risks and causes
Lung cancer is the 2nd most common cancer in the UK. It is one of the few cancers where there is a clear cause in many cases.
Smoking and lung cancer
In most people, lung cancer is related to cigarette smoking. Although some people who have never smoked get lung cancer, smoking causes more than 8 out of 10 cases (83%).
The more cigarettes you smoke, the more likely you are to get lung cancer. But the length of time you have been a smoker is also important. Starting smoking at a young age also greatly increases the risk. Cigarette smoking is the main cause of lung cancer.”
if you get the answer wrong, Junican, you don’t get free speech any more. Make sure you say exactly what Cancer Research UK and its disciples say, or your computer will be confiscated by the Department of Health and you will be gagged.
Telling lies and spouting stupidity isn’t ‘free speech’ Belinda,
People should get their facts about important things like killer diseases from people or bodies who have their best interests at heart, not people too stupid to understand the facts.
Or tobacco industry puppets.
No, we don’t take it from NGO’s such as CRUK. We look at the papers, e.g. Richard Doll quoting a lifetime smoking risk for LC of 7.9%, max. risk in later years e.g. 16% at age 70, lower in early years, e.g. 2% at age 30. And even that was based, essentially, on individual memory recall. Hardly what you’d call conclusive science. We also take account of recent papers, e.g. CDC that states 60% of all LC cases to be EX smokers. Equally, hardly, what you’d call conclusive science but both are indicative. As Sir Ronald Fisher, the foremost statistician of his day, said in response to Doll, the most that can be gleaned is the need for further and deeper study.
In the knowledge that some people simply ‘hate’ the whole concept of smoking and smokers for a variety of personal reasons little to do with
health, you bet your life we’re sceptical
Yes it is free speech MikeD. The whole point of free speech is that people must argue the toss between them about what is true and what is not. People have the right to say things that MikeD perceives is a lie, because of the very real possibility that he might be wrong.
Or what is your preferred method of ensuring that only people who think like you should have freedom of speech? The whole concept exists to protect minority/unfashionable views, not to enforce a majority view or consensus.
Challenging the status quo is essential for science to progress and, at the same time, to expose charlatans like Anti-Tobacco.
Nearly all of Anti-Tobacco’s “studies” on SHS were performed decades ago and are now obsolete. Numerous new suspected contributing factors have since been identified, whiich effectively “water down” the increased risks “manufactured” in these obsolete studies.
The classic example is cervical cancer and the discovery of the HPV virus.
I think that it is time to stop commenting here – my computer keeps warning me about excessive memory usage.
So goodbye, Mr Williams. Let us know when you get round to banning the practice of smoking haddock.
good riddance to your lies and misinformation
A brilliant article with some really good points
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fderhonigmannsagt.wordpress.com%2F2012%2F01%2F25%2Fjenseits-der-propaganda-nikotin-und-rauchen-ein-erster-blick-hinter-den-schleier%2F%23comment-95206
Rollo, you state, “That NYClash table is a wilful attempt to mislead.” when you know perfectly well that’s untrue. You pursue two arguments to support your statement, the discussion of RRs or 2 or 3 being necessary for statements of causation, and my use of the asterisk to highlight studies that went against the perceived norm.
I’ll tackle the RR 2/3 issue later on when I discuss the correlation/causation issue, but in terms of your asterisk criticcism…. Readers will note that at the bottom of the table I explain the asterisk use as follows:
“* = Studies indicating a NEGATIVE relationship of exposure to secondary smoke and lung cancer. In these studies, the people that WERE EXPOSED to secondary smoke averaged LOWER rates of lung cancer than those not exposed.”
Rollo claims that I have tried to mislead people by not specifying that most of those “indications” were not specifically “statistically significant.” It’s true that in the presentation on Audrey’s site the specification is not made, and I would agree with Rollo that it should have been. Audrey’s offer ten years or so ago to present the table on her site was unexpected and I should have put more thought into an expanded presentation. In the atmosphere of 2003, before the Free Choice movement had begun serious levels of outreach on the internet aside from Forces, Clash, and the Smokers Club, the overwhelmingly vast majority of the public swallowed the lie that “studies are unanimous and unequivocal in proving a connection between exposure to secondhand smoke and lung cancer.” Thus the main emphasis and raison d’être for the table was to show that such unanimity and unequivocality did NOT in fact exist. Emphasizing that point with asterisked entries in a table with hundreds of numbers was quite justified.
HOWEVER, as Rollo knows perfectly well, the real introduction to that table, as presented in Appendix A of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains” included the following:
===
As noted earlier, relative risks below 2.0 or 3.0 are generally viewed with suspicion by epidemiologists because of the risk of contamination of the studies by confounding variables or biases, quite aside from simple statistical error. An additional point of importance is the notation in the Confidence Interval column that indicates whether the CI includes the value of 1.0 between its low and high points. If it does include 1.0, then the study is not statistically significant and is viewed by statisticians as affirming the hypothesis that there is no connection between the hypothesized cause and the speculated effect.
Note: statistical significance in and of itself is never considered by scientists to be sufficient evidence to determine cause and effect: it’s merely a minimum standard used to determine if the results of a study merit further examination and analysis for such things as bias and confounding variables.
As you go through these figures, even superficially, you will find two points that stand out strongly as contradictions to Crusaders’ oft-repeated claims that ETS studies are “unanimous and unequivocal” in their condemnation of secondary tobacco smoke. First of all, the vast majority of the studies are not statistically significant, thus in reality supporting the hypothesis that there is no connection between ETS and lung cancer. Secondly, and even more amazing given the publicity to the contrary, each of the studies marked by an asterisk in the Relative Risk column actually indicated tendencies of ETS exposure to protect against lung cancer! Of course most of those asterisked studies are also non-significant statistically, but as noted in the finishing abstract, at least one very important study actually came up with the unexpected significant finding that early contact with secondary smoke might protect children from future lung cancers!
====
Rollo most certainly knows this, as he and I (or perhaps she and I since we now know “Rollo Tomassi” is simply a pseudonym for an unknown advocate) have debated this subject in great detail for five years or so now on UK boards and it would have been grossly irresponsible of him not to have bothered with basic source material over all that time. And yet he accuses me of intentionally seeking to “mislead” my readers.
I think the “misleading” comes more from your side of the aisle, “Rollo.”
– MJM
Given the long text, I should have added an emphasis in the above excerpt to the relevant point I’d clearly made in the book: “Of course MOST OF THOSE ASTERISKED STUDIES ARE ALSO NON-SIGNIFICANT STATISTICALLY.”
– MJM
MJM
I’m afraid that Rollo has since left the building. People like him run away when confronted with facts. The person we should be challenging is the author of this blog. However he seems to have run away as well. Of course as a member of the government elite he is far too busy to reply to the comments here. When did it change from MP’s listening to the electorate, to MP’s dictating to the electorate? IMHO democracy is in it’s death throws in the UK. Therein lies the seeds of violence against the state.
TFE said “IMHO democracy is in it’s death throws in the UK.”
IMHO democracy died in this country years ago; Either that or successive governments have changed the meaning of ‘democracy’ and omitted to tell us!
MD,
Nothing stupid about my post at all.
One can not assume that the elimination of a risk will eliminate the outcomes associated with the risk. If one were to compare current analgesics users with non-analgesics users and former analgesics users one might find clear dose response relationship between use and .morbidity/mortality. Some of these analgesics will be branded, glitzy packets and not in plain packaging.
The elimination of analgesics use and therefore users would probably not, I would guess, eliminate the morbidity/mortality associated with analgesics use.
Pointing out that vaccinations help eliminate risks of infection has no relevance to the relationship between analgesics and poor outcomes.
You don’t know if any measured risk of SIDS for non-smoking parents is due to the exposure to smoke-free homes or to exposure to non-smoking parents. You don’t know that any measured risk for smoking parents is caused by the smoke or by exposure to smoking parents.
You can’t know, so , you don’t know.
Nothing is “stupid” about that.
Fredrik
Were you inebriated when you wrote this? It is total tripe.
You will continue to post this sort of rubbish until you visit the website of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths and read the evidence that has led them to their assessment. It is logical and far removed from the rambling stupidity that you have posted.
You can only maintain your position by keeping ignorant of the facts.
In doing this you mislead people and increase the risk that someone will lose a child by following your ignorant assessment.
Are pretty packs so important to you that you’re willing to put a child’s life at risk with your misunderstanding of the facts?
MikeD, you, as well as your fellow anon poster, Rollo, continue to amaze and please by equating “pretty packs” with children’s lives.
I’d be tempted to ask if you and Rollo are actually being paid by Big Tobacco to offer those of us on the Free Choice side an opportunity to present our arguments to a wider public than we’d otherwise have, but a response from what amounts to internet graffiti artists wouldn’t be worth the pixels they were printed on.
– MJM
I would never put a child’s life at risk or any persons life at risk.
.
Please explain to me what ‘facts’ have I misunderstood.
Golleegeewhillikersgumdrops Bowser! I gotta show MikeD the pikchure of the roase I got a A on four sciense in my kindagartin clas!
Fredrik
Have you even read the FSID evidence that is presented on their website.?
You misunderstand the facts on the issue because you wont read the UK’s most significant authorities on the condition.
MJM
Happy to keep giving you and your fellow puppets a chance to post your nonsense.
Normal people will be laughing at your collective inability to understand anything vaguely scientific.
I don’t think you have a single science A level to share amongst you, and you get it wrong all the time.
Normal people will have noticed your extreme bias and your habit of defending liars.
The UK public will have your measure.
Yes.
What facts do I misunderstand ?
Exactly which of the research reports, which FSID expert advisers have used to evidence their advice, do you take issue with?
Please explain to me what facts I misunderstand.
in response to Mike D:
Fredrik Have you even read the FSID evidence that is presented on their website.? You misunderstand the facts on the issue because you wont read the UK’s most significant authorities on the condition.
Can you define “facts”, Mike D. Any misinformation fabricated by the charlatans at Anti-Tobacco?
Fredrik
You say you have read the FSID evidence that is presented on their website.
Exactly which of the research reports, which FSID expert advisers have used to evidence their advice, do you take issue with?
Be specific.
MJM – I look forward to reading your response about the cynical misrepresentation and misquoting of Marcia Angell, Robert Temple and the National Cancer Institute.
As for your remarks about statistical significance, what I’m interested in is PROPER scientific principles, not the corrupt interpretation of these principles on which pro-smokers’ arguments are based.
It doesn’t matter to me if the NYClash table was produced in 2003 and some misunderstandings may have been involved. It does matter to me that you are trying to pass this table off as “fact” in 2012.
I’ve also not read DAB so don’t know what the introduction to Appendix A there says. But, if your latest post is anything to go by, it is riddled with inaccuracies.
1. Your claim: “As noted earlier, relative risks below 2.0 or 3.0 are generally viewed with suspicion by epidemiologists”.
– Really? Or just in order to draw a firm conclusion based on the results of one study?
2. Your claim: “If it [the Confidence Interval] does include 1.0, then the study is not statistically significant and is viewed by statisticians as affirming the hypothesis that there is no connection between the hypothesized cause and the speculated effect.”
– Wrong. A statistically insignificant result is not a “null result”. The reality is that the result DOES NOT RULE OUT a null result within the confidence interval selected. But other results are also possible. As a result, a connection between cause and effect REMAINS POSSIBLE.
“If the 95% confidence interval contains zero (more precisely, the parameter value specified in the null hypothesis), then the effect will not be significant at the 0.05 level. Looking at non-significant effects in terms of confidence intervals makes clear why the null hypothesis should not be accepted when it is not rejected: Every value in the confidence interval is a plausible value of the parameter. Since zero is in the interval, it cannot be rejected. However, there is an infinite number of values in the interval (assuming continuous measurement), and none of them can be rejected either.” (onlinestatbook.com/chapter9/sign_conf.html)
3. Your claim: “Statistical significance in and of itself is never considered by scientists to be sufficient evidence to determine cause and effect: it’s merely a minimum standard used to determine if the results of a study merit further examination and analysis for such things as bias and confounding variables”.
– Partly right. Statistical significance is no sufficient in itself to determine cause and effect.
– BUT statistical significance is NOT a “minimum standard”. It is simply “a measure of how confidently an observed difference between two or more groups can be attributed to the study interventions.” (ebem.org/definitions.html#sectS)
– A statistically significant result will not necessarily be clinically significant. But a result can be clinically significant even where results are not statistically significant.
“Non-significance does not mean ‘no effect’. Small studies will often report non-significance even when there are important, real effects which a large study would have detected.” (medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/painres/download/whatis/What_are_Conf_Inter.pdf)
“Failure to reject the null hypothesis does not mean that no true difference exists between the test and control groups. Chance or too few subjects being enrolled in the study can prevent the finding of a statistically significant difference when one exists.” (jada.ada.org/cgi/content/full/134/5/583)
4. Your claim: “the vast majority of the studies are not statistically significant, thus in reality supporting the hypothesis that there is no connection between ETS and lung cancer.”
– Wrong. As I say above, it is wrong to favour a null result over any other result in the confidence interval. Since both the relative risk and distribution of confidence intervals in most of the studies are above 1.0, this suggests (but does not in itself prove) the presence of an additional risk, because the real risk figure is more likely than not to lie above 1.0.
So MJM, PLEASE stop trying to BUTCHER proper scientific principle.
=================
By the way, if you think I’ve misled, I’d be interested in your explanation of what, complete with evidence for it being misleading.
Rollo, Over 80% of the PUBLISHED SHS studies did not even suggest a statistically significant CORRELATION. How can Anti-Tobacco claim a CAUSAL link?
In less than a hundred words, please. I can explain it in four – “They lied to us”.
John S – I’ve already explained in my reply to MJM – see my responses to points 2 and 3 in particular.
Pro-smokers have invented their own rules for the interpretation of studies which butcher proper scientific principles. The truth is that the large majority of studies show an increased risk, so there is clear correlation.
As for causation, again as I’ve said in a previous post, there are established criteria for determining causation. “Except for specificity, the association between passive smoking and lung cancer fulfils all other criteria for causation outlined by Bradford Hill.” (Taylor et al, 2007)
Rollo, The studies prove absolutely NOTHING. By CONVENTIONAL epidemiological and statistical standards, the only conclusion would be the “null hypothesis”. However,the misrepresentation of the results have achieved Anti-Tobacco’s clearly stated objective:
“To FOSTER an atmosphere where it was PERCEIVED that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily” – Sir George Godber.
Anti-Tobacco are CON ARTISTS, who exploit the prejudices, gullibility and ignorance of the public, like Mike D, and the ultruism of equally gullible and ignorant politicians.
John S: Yourself and Mr. Tomassi seem to be on two different levels. It is statistical practice to require a minimum value of 2 (preferred 3) to eradicate any possibilities of error and even at 2 it is as likely to be as not to be. That is statistical view. However, Mr. Tomassi seems not to hold this view. If a result is 1.1, it is a proven case to him.
Ne’er the twain shall meet.
This is from the “Reference Guide on Epidemiology” contributors include:
“Linda A. Bailey , M.H.S., J.D., is Program Director, Institute for Injury Reduction, Crofton, Maryland. Leon Gordis, M.D., Dr.P.H., is Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, and Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Michael Green , J.D., is Professor of Law, University of Iowa College of Law, Iowa City, Iowa. Paul Rothstein, J.D., is Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, D.C.”
“The threshold for concluding that an agent was more likely the cause of a disease than not is a relative risk greater than 2.0. Recall that a relative risk of 1.0 means that the agent has no effect on the incidence of disease. When the relative risk reaches 2.0, the agent is responsible for an equal number of cases of disease as all other background causes. Thus, a relative risk of 2.0 implies a 50% likelihood that an exposed individual’s disease was caused by the agent.”
An RR of 1.25 therefore implies that there is an 80% that passive smoking was not the cause of lung cancer.
http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/fjc/sciam.6.epide.pdf
Not that I agree with your viewpoint Rollo, unlike most of the anti-smoking zealots at least you have the balls to discuss the facts.
Respect for that.
Rollo, you wrote, “I look forward to reading your response about the cynical misrepresentation and misquoting of Marcia Angell, Robert Temple and the National Cancer Institute.”
I was planning to respond to that as I sat down here, but now see I need to first finish up regarding your immediate challenges below so they don’t get lost in your mishmash. When we’re done with this feel free to remind me of the above if I forget.
You wrote: “As for your remarks about statistical significance, what I’m interested in is PROPER scientific principles, not the corrupt interpretation of these principles on which pro-smokers’ arguments are based.”
Mud.
And wrote, “It doesn’t matter to me if the NYClash table was produced in 2003 and some misunderstandings may have been involved. It does matter to me that you are trying to pass this table off as “fact” in 2012.”
Send me some funding for a website and webmeister and I’ll be happy to update my 2003 work. Since Audrey hosted that as a favor I haven’t pushed her to add expansions / corrections. However, the point *is* important enough that perhaps I will ask her to add the expansion when she gets the chance.
And wrote, “I’ve also not read DAB so don’t know what the introduction to Appendix A there says. But, if your latest post is anything to go by, it is riddled with inaccuracies.”
Sad. A bit closed minded are we Rollo? You’ve written tens of thousands of words in posts debating me directly and trying to find weaknesses in my arguments and position, and yet you’ve never bothered to consult the single largest gold mine of possibilities — 400 pages of “inaccuracies”? I may not have read the SCOTH report Rollo, but I *DID* read a dozen or so of the Surgeon Generals’ Reports, the EPA Report, hundreds of studies, and extensive writings from ASH, GASP, and other antismoking advocates. If you want to understand the field Rollo you need to read material that disagrees with your position.
And you then tried to describe the “inaccuracies” in DAB’s Appendix A:
“1. Your claim: “As noted earlier, relative risks below 2.0 or 3.0 are generally viewed with suspicion by epidemiologists”.
– Really? Or just in order to draw a firm conclusion based on the results of one study?”
As you know perfectly well, it’s not the number of studies or even the number of subjects in those studies that count: it’s the likelihood of there being unknown confounders or either conscious or unconscious bias that can nudge the results of studies slightly in a uniform direction. When the RR is large, the likelihood of such undetected nudging is reduced. That’s the reason for the caution in interpretation, and it’s a good reason. In a perfect world with perfect scientists designing perfect studies with perfect control over all confounders while results were gathered and interpreted with a perfect double-blind-type lack of bias… then even very small RRs should be given attention. Unfortunately Rollo, most of us live in the real world instead.
2. (I won’t quote your entire argument here. It’s up above for consultation.) Basically Rollo, it is YOU who seem to have a lack of understanding of how statistics work in this regard. Even if all else is golden, a CI that does or does not include the null value at 95 or even 99% proves nothing: there’s always that 5% or 1% chance that the result is pure chance. As an explanation to the non-statistically-trained wide popular target audience of DAB, my explanations were an accurate representation of how such things work. No hypothesis can ever be rejected or accepted with absolute certainty based merely upon inclusion/exclusion of the null in the CI. And once you add in the real world factors of confounding and bias as I noted above, the absolutism becomes even less justified.
3. When I used the term “minimum standard” in my description of the meaning of statistical significance it was meant to convey, accurately, that a correlation not meeting that standard was unlikely, in the long run, to be strengthened enough to pass the test of actual causality.
Now, the one part of your argument that I might actually agree with to some extent: You quote me and say:
“4. Your claim: “the vast majority of the studies are not statistically significant, thus in reality supporting the hypothesis that there is no connection between ETS and lung cancer.”
– Wrong. As I say above, it is wrong to favour a null result over any other result in the confidence interval. Since both the relative risk and distribution of confidence intervals in most of the studies are above 1.0, this suggests (but does not in itself prove) the presence of an additional risk, because the real risk figure is more likely than not to lie above 1.0.”
A failure to meet statistical significance is generally seen as supporting the null hypothesis since that failure increases the likelihood that any observed tendency is the result of chance, confounding, or bias. HOWEVER… you ARE partly correct in noting that a collection of findings tending in a particular direction DOES at least lend some support to the likelihood that the hypothesis is actually meaningful.
But that’s all it does. If I toss a coin four times and it turns up heads three times, my findings “lend some support” to the hypothesis that it is a biased coin. But to take that as a basis for shooting the dirty cheatin’ gambler who used the coin for a bet would be somewhat jumping the gun. If the coin had a ferrous composition and we were tossing it on a table set up by the gambler there’d also be the possibility of confounding due to the possible magnets under the table. And if I was somewhat drunk during the coin tossing and knew the gambler had been sleepin’ with my gal and was itching for an excuse to shoot him, I might simply, in my bias, mistake tails for heads. And finally, three heads out of four tosses, despite giving me a fairly nice RR simply doesn’t even come near to passing the test of statistical significance.
Rollo, your charge that I am “trying to BUTCHER proper scientific principle” is unfounded… as your charges against me generally are.
Re my note about misleading: Read what I wrote again: I was speaking of “those on your side of the aisle” rather than you in particular, so I feel no strong obligation to produce evidence against you on that count. HOWEVER… I could say, just from the contents of these two postings, that I feel you are trying to mislead people about my scientific care and integrity.
– MJM
I can see why the trolls/puppets are so terrified of you Rollo!
You clearly have a science qualification, which they so clearly lack.
Plus integrity, which is a concept I don’t think they comprehend.
Rollo is not terrifying.
A hoard of man eating sea otters is terrifying.
Fredrik says “Rollo is not terrifying.”
I think you puppets are terrified of his integrity, and of his understanding of the subject.
You are terrified of things you don’t understand, which seems to be most things.
Heh.. looky looky! I no longer have a funky generic icon! Maybe Rollo and MikeD will post pics of themselves now too!
– MJM
Can we have your gravatar back?
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
you aren’t funny, you aren’t clever,
you’re just soooo boring
[sound familiar]
🙂
With very low relative risks for SHS and lung cancer exposure, the reason why 1.25 should not be taken as evidence is mainly because of misclassification of smoking status. Anecdotally how many people have you met that are in denial about their smoking habit? Whether they smoker and/OR when they quit. Only 2.5% of people have to fib about smoking and 1.25 becomes 1.00.
“As smokers tend to marry smokers, relative risk estimates will be biased if some current or former smokers are misclassified as lifelong non-smokers . This paper shows how various factors affect the magnitude of the bias and describes a method for obtaining misclassification-adjusted relative risk estimates. Application of the method to US and Asian data for women suggests misclassification is an important determinant of the slight excess risk observed in non-smokers married to smokers . Reasons why our conclusions differ from those of others are discussed, as are other difficulties in interpreting the association between spousal smoking and lung cancer.”
” With the misclassification rate of 1.75 and concordance ratio of 3.0, a marginally significant unadjusted meta-analysis RR of 1.13 drops to a non-significant 1.05 . In fact the misclassification rate could well be higher than 1.75 per cent, further reducing the RR estimate . Though there is some doubt as to the appropriate rate, misclassification can certainly explain most of the observed association of spousal smoking with lung cancer.”
legacy.library.ucsf.edu/documentStore/m/i/d/mid32d00/Smid32d00.pdf
A pack of cigarettes in Norway costs 16 Dollars and they have no problem with smuggling.
A pack of cigarettes in Poland costs 70p and smugglers sell them for 40p.
It’s a supply led market, so this makes sense.
None of the puppets seem to understand what a supply led market is, and why this undermines all of their arguments about high tax leading to smuggling.
Mike you are not very bright. A simple Google of “cigarette smuggling Norway” produced this paper. About 25% of cigarettes are illegally imported into Norway.
“The scale of border trade, tax-free import and tobacco smuggling to Norway”
“Abstract
BACKGROUND:
There are no studies of the relative significance in Norway of registered sales, tax-free import, border trade or smuggling of tobacco.
MATERIAL AND METHODS:
The estimated registered sales of tobacco are based on data from the Norwegian customs and excise authorities. The border trade and tax-free import estimates were based on nation-wide, representative surveys of daily smokers aged 16-74 carried out by Statistics Norway for the years 1990-1993 and 1997-2001. There are no detailed data on the scale of smuggling other than confiscation statistics compiled by the customs and excise authorities. It is assumed that confiscations amount to about a tenth of the total amount smuggled into the country.
RESULTS:
The unregistered consumption of cigarettes and tobacco has been on the rise since the early 1990s; in the years 1997-2001 it accounted for about a quarter of total consumption. Broken down, the figures are as follows: 11% was purchased in Sweden, 5% in Denmark, 9% in other foreign countries; 1% was smuggled into the country.
INTERPRETATION:
The rise in unregistered tobacco consumption is putting further pressure on the high Norwegian taxes on tobacco.”
.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14716390
Dave (he’s not a Doctor) Atherton says
“Mike you are not very bright. A simple Google of “cigarette smuggling Norway” produced this [8 YEAR OLD] paper.”
I would never try to pass myself off as a Doctor David (unlike you did on the Guardian) but I’m bright enough to check your source and see it is 8 years old.
Poland has a problem with smuggling NOW.
If smugglers in Poland can supply a packet of cigarettes at 40p and still make a profit, where does that leave the tobacco industry’s propaganda claims that the UK should reduce its tobacco tax level to prevent smuggling?
The causal simplification FALLACY, Mike D. Norway has the highest standard of living in the world (GDP share per capita). It also has one of the lowest smoking prevalencies. Smokeless tobacco products are freely available. Black market activity in Norway in general is very low (try looking on the havocscope.com website). Many Norwegians cross the border into Sweden to shop (and the Swedes do similarly in Finland). And Norway is too concerned about butter smuggling!
40p instead of 70p in Poland still equates to a saving of over 40%. I always stock up whenever I travel to Europe at around 20% discount.
John S
The tobacco industry propaganda spouted readily by the puppets on this site is that the UK Government should reduce taxation to stop smuggling.
Smugglers in Poland are making a profit by selling at 40p/pack.
Reducing tax won’t make them go away.
Stop spreading propaganda for tobacco companies.
Still only the “causal oversimplification” fallacy to argue with, Mike D? Did the Moonies take pity on you, being so gullible and ignorant and Anti-Tobacco grabbed you for “conversion” before the Spherical Earth Society stepped in?
Robin Murray is an eminent psychiatrist. On ‘The Life Scientific’ earlier this week on R4 he said, “Epidemiology cannot prove causation” which rather suggests that, if the ETS studies are epidemiological in nature, then the interpretation of their results and the presentation of those results is playing fast and loose with what most people regard as ‘the truth’ ie what is reasonable and proportionate. In short the charlatans present weak correlation as akin to causation.
So Jay, what’s your take on the propaganda that is spread by tobacco puppets about the UK government needing to reduce tobacco tax to prevent smuggling in the light of smugglers being able to make a profit on selling for 40p/pack in Poland?
Mass Debater Jr., O well-ventilated one, representative of the daft with a draft,
many thanks for your constant contrivances, your incessant smears, your “air-conditioned” Drivel™, your naked (literally) nitwittery, your repetitious raving, and your manic mendacity.
XOXOX
Magnetico1
i’ve posted several individual posts on this blog. All backed up with links to valid research.
It’s interesting that Mike D doesn’t seem interested in questioning my posts.
it seems to me that he is like the school bully who when confronted with someone who stands up to him, just slinks away into the corner. All he is able to do is Ad Hominem attacks.
Mike D. A challenge. Prove your case with valid research. Not just lobbying hearsay.
And for God’s sake, lets not have any of ASH’s propoganda.
Mike D has been trolling on for some time about the price of a packet of “legal” cigarettes in Poland being 70p. However, according to the European Commission’s publication, “Excise Duty Tables. Part III – Manufactured Tobacco, July 2011”, the cost of a packet of the “Most Popular Price Category (MPPC” is around £2.80. The amount of tax paid on a packet in Poland, as a percentage of the retail price, is the same as in the UK (78%).
If Mike D did some more background research, he would also discover that tobacco smuggling is prevalent in Poland because it is the main transit route for smuggling tobacco into the EU (not just Poland) from outside of the EU.
I could resort to Mike D’s tactics of calling him a “liar” but it’s quite obvious that he’s just an extreme example of the gullible, indoctrinated “sheeple”, who actually believe the misinformation regurgitated out by the professional Anti-Tobacco propagandists, like Rollo.
It would appear that Stephen Williams, MP, is also one of the gullible, indoctrinated “sheeple”
John! Do you really think that the EC’s official publication can stand up to the anonymous MikeD’s “I think I read somewhere” reference?
– MJM
So MJM, what’s your take on the propaganda that is spread by tobacco puppets about the UK government needing to reduce tobacco tax to prevent smuggling in the light of smugglers being able to make a profit on selling for 40p/pack in Poland?
“So MJM, what’s your take on the propaganda that is spread by tobacco puppets about the UK government needing to reduce tobacco tax to prevent smuggling in the light of smugglers being able to make a profit on selling for 40p/pack in Poland?”
Mike D — Just how much credibility can be given to this pathetic claim when your previous claim of “legal” cigarettes costing 70p/pack (aginst the ACTUAL figure of £2.80) was exposed as total bo**ox? Stop making a fool of yourself and get back to your knitting.
Interesting that John quotes the MPPC price for Poland, even though the source he gives lists this as n/a.
He says the ACTUAL figure is £2.80.
The source gives the weighted average price at £1.94/20 cigarettes, a little over a third of what we pay in the UK, but still undercut by smugglers.
I may have been mistaken in accepting the source I found that gave the Polish price as 70p/20, and I’m sorry to have brought bad data to the discussion, but these official figures, plus the Nigerian prices, still destroy the argument that cutting duty will eliminate smuggling.
Mike D -“Interesting that John quotes the MPPC price for Poland, even though the source he gives lists this as n/a. He says the ACTUAL figure is £2.80. The source gives the weighted average price at £1.94/20 cigarettes, a little over a third of what we pay in the UK, but still undercut by smugglers. I may have been mistaken in accepting the source I found that gave the Polish price as 70p/20, and I’m sorry to have brought bad data to the discussion,”
You “may have been mistaken”? Didn’t you accuse someone of being a “liar” over a rounding error? Whatever measure is taken, the price of cigarettes in Poland is considerably more than double the price you were GULLIBLY LED to believe it was. This is how Anti-Tobacco work.
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it”
“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach (Mike D and politicians).”
“Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise.”
“The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.”
Funny that the tobacco companies keep getting caught telling lies but you don’t have a problem with that.
I repeat ad nauseum that I didn’t accuse Junican of lying over the money to be spent on ‘perpetuating the persecution of smokers’ because he said £6bn instead of £5.2bn, The lie was that most of it was going to be spent on persecuting smokers, when it is actually earmarked for a myriad of things, most of which have nothing to do with smoking.
Nobody from the puppet group has ever managed to quantify how much would be spent on perpetuating the persecution of smoking. It’s probably £0 or thereabouts but I’m still waiting to hear the evidence to the contrary.
And, of course, Mike D, you lead everyone to believe that “legal” cigarettes cost 70p a pack in Poland – until you got caught out and were proved to be spreading Anti-Tobacco “facts”. Has the fire brigade put out that raging inferno in your pants yet?
MJM. Where do I start in picking the “holes” of your arguments?! You found a good word in your last post – “mishmash”. But it applies to your post, not mine.
First of all, a gentle reminder that you’ve promised to respond about the cynical misrepresentation and misquoting of Marcia Angell, Robert Temple and the National Cancer Institute.”
Why do you need funding to update your 2003 table? I can present arguments without the need for any funding. If I consider another source accurate, then I’ll cite it. If not, I won’t. You chose to try to convey an argument by encouraging readers to read that NYClash table from 2003. It’s not my fault you chose to refer to a flawed statement.
As for not reading DAB, I can assure you my mind is not closed. I read a fair bit of pro-smoking material from the web – including your website. But I’d have to pay to read DAB (unless I’m missing something?) and I’m not prepared to do that.
So let’s take your responses to my criticisms of your Appendix A.
1. You claim “it’s not the number of studies or even the number of subjects in those studies that count: it’s the likelihood of there being unknown confounders or either conscious or unconscious bias that can nudge the results of studies slightly in a uniform direction”.
I don’t accept that, and I don’t know of any proper scientist who would agree with you. In fact, all 3 elements are relevant – the number of studies, the number of subjects in those studies and the presence of confounders. The number of studies gives a sense of context. Moreover, if there more studies there are pointing in a similar direction, the greater the likelihood of a causal link (although other factors will also need to be considered). The more subjects there are in a study, the more statistically robust the finding is likely to be (although again, other factors will also need to be considered).
You still cling to the importance of high RR thresholds, even though you offer no evidence for so doing. Your comments suggest you expect studies to be interpreted according to a hard set of rules (“In a perfect world with perfect scientists designing perfect studies with perfect control over all confounders while results were gathered and interpreted with a perfect double-blind-type lack of bias… then even very small RRs should be given attention“). Well that is not how studies are assessed – and rightly so too. Interpretation requires account to be taken of a number of factors – as set out in Bradford Hill’s causation criteria – and judgment to be used in making an overall assessment based on those factors. So, on the one hand, causation depends on more than the strength of the relative risk or the presence of confounders. But it also means that small increased risks can still be clinically significant if on balance they satisfy these criteria overall.
2. You’re arguing against yourself! You previously claimed that a result with a CI which includes 1.0 is viewed by statisticians as affirming no connection between cause and effect. I said (with supporting evidence) that your claim was wrong and that this is not viewed by proper scientists as a null result because other results are also possible. Note the “absolutism” as you now describe it then came entirely from your side – trying to draw a unreasonably definitive link between a CI with 1.0 and a null result – and without any supporting evidence either.
But you’re now arguing “a CI that does or does not include the null value at 95 or even 99% proves nothing” and that “No hypothesis can ever be rejected or accepted with absolute certainty based merely upon inclusion/exclusion of the null in the CI.” That’s the point I was making – that you cannot conclude that a result is null just because the CI includes 1.0. So what point are you trying to make?
3. Again, I don’t know what point you’re trying to make! Are you claiming there is a “minimum standard” or not? If you are, then you’re wrong (I’ve already offered backing evidence for this – you’ve offered nothing in response). If you’re not, then you’re accepting that results do not have to be statistically significant in order to be clinically significant. In which case you need to argue why it is not appropriate for studies into passive smoking to be considered clinically significant (a vague, generic and unsubstantiated comment that such results are “unlikely” does not cut it).
4. Your claim that “failure to meet statistical significance is generally seen as supporting the null hypothesis” is just wrong! I’ve already given you evidence in supporting my position. It’s simply not enough for you to continue an argument just by repeating what you said before.
MJM – it still seems to me that you are trying to butcher proper scientific principle. You’re trying to apply a form of scientific interpretation which, for the most part, is only used by pro-smokers. The fact that you continue to make the same claims, when you cannot point to expert and objective third party sources to back up your version of scientific principle, does raise genuine questions about your scientific care and integrity.
Rollo, Michael doesn’t handle cognitive dissonance very well.
I think this is why he’s written books that characterise people who don’t agree with him as having some sort of brain condition called ‘antismokers brains’ or similar.
I thought of writing a book about the paranoid conspiracy nuts who have swamped this discussion, but Francis Wheen is there before me with “How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions”, available for only £6 from a large internet bookseller
“Rollo, Michael doesn’t handle cognitive dissonance very well.”
LOL! MikeD has learned a new term! Excellent! At least it shows he’s been reading at least a few of my postings. If he goes on to write a 400 page book with 600 or so specific references about his “Mumbo-Jumbo” topic I might even buy it…. or at least find a copy in a library in some big city nearby.
– MJM
You should just buy a copy of “How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions” from Amazon.
It’ll probably read like a biography of you and your mates.
{Rollo’s comment excerpts in quotes}
“MJM. Where do I start in picking the “holes” of your arguments?!”
Anywhere you like Rollo.
“You found a good word in your last post – “mishmash”. But it applies to your post, not mine.”
Not at all: I’m simply responding to your attempts at ‘hole picking’ before moving on to other arguments.
“Why do you need funding to update your 2003 table? I can present arguments without the need for any funding. If I consider another source accurate, then I’ll cite it. If not, I won’t. You chose to try to convey an argument by encouraging readers to read that NYClash table from 2003. It’s not my fault you chose to refer to a flawed statement.”
I’d need to hire someone to set up a proper website and add corrections, expansions and updates as I discovered and developed them. It’s not a skill I’ve had time to learn. Meanwhile, I have no qualms about referring to a site with a single flaw as minor as the one you focused on, particularly not when I’m so happy to admit the flaw and correct it whenever someone actually happens to read the material and think about it deeply enough to question that particular point.
“As for not reading DAB, I can assure you my mind is not closed. I read a fair bit of pro-smoking material from the web – including your website. But I’d have to pay to read DAB (unless I’m missing something?) and I’m not prepared to do that.”
Sorry to hear you’re having economic difficulties, but over here in the US we have things called “libraries” where people can read books on all sides of various issues for free. I thought they had them over in the UK as well, but it’s possible I’m incorrect or it may simply be that you live in a somewhat deprived area.
“So let’s take your responses to my criticisms of your Appendix A.
1. You claim “it’s not the number of studies or even the number of subjects in those studies that count: it’s the likelihood of there being unknown confounders or either conscious or unconscious bias that can nudge the results of studies slightly in a uniform direction”. I don’t accept that, and I don’t know of any proper scientist who would agree with you. In fact, all 3 elements are relevant – the number of studies, the number of subjects in those studies and the presence of confounders. The number of studies gives a sense of context. Moreover, if there more studies there are pointing in a similar direction, the greater the likelihood of a causal link (although other factors will also need to be considered). The more subjects there are in a study, the more statistically robust the finding is likely to be (although again, other factors will also need to be considered).”
You are partly correct. My phrasing indicated a relative importance that seemed incorrect without context. All three factors are important. In the area of ETS research the first two, number of subjects and number of studies, are both well attended to. The third factor, bias and confounders, are not so well attended to — at least in my opinion AND as has been illustrated by some of my previous arguments (e.g. my Hirayama analysis). And you are correct that increased numbers of studies and subjects make the likelihood of the direction of the findings being a true representation greater — but not necessarily greater enough to overshadow the third factor.
“You still cling to the importance of high RR thresholds, even though you offer no evidence for so doing.”
True. I offer “no evidence.” I simply offered a reasonable argument: i.e. that when the RR is large, the likelihood of such undetected nudging is reduced. It’s a sound, reasonable, and, I believe, powerful argument … and one that you’re free to disagree with.
Skipping a bit, you note that “small increased risks can still be clinically significant if on balance they satisfy these (Bradford-Hill) criteria overall.” True. They *CAN* be. They also might not be. And they also may be so even when they do not fulfill the criteria. In the area of ETS research, where you not only have the usual strong fraud motivation that’s present in any research sponsored by a sponsor desiring a particular result, but you have three other motivators at work as well:
(1) The fact that the sponsoring “direction” of such research is strongly tilted to the antismoking side. In an average month there are probably about a dozen ETS type studies that are make headlines that are funded by antismoking-oriented interests. How many do you see funded by Big Tobacco and their interests? Now if you’re a researcher with a family depending on your income, which “side” are you likely to tilt your research toward if indeed you’re going to have a tilt? And I remind you: we don’t live in a “perfect” world… How much outright fruadulent research has been done for no motive other than money for pharmaceutical firms? I don’t know the answer, but I think there are many who believe it’s a significant amount. And that’s without the following two motivators in play at all:
(2) The value of the esteem of one’s colleagues and community. How much such esteem would one gather if one conducted research that consistently supported the argument that, for example, it was fine to smoke in cars with children (particularly if the research funding was traced to a supermarket chain or vending machine company that had cigarettes as one of its products or somesuch, much less to BigT itself)? I believe that at least at some universities in Canada nowadays you’d be told to cut it out or pack your bags.
(3) Pure idealism. Those who consciously or unconsciously “nudge” their research in a direction favoring their Big Pharma sponsor generally do so purely out of financial considerations: Greed. Those who do the same for their Big Antismoking sponsors are also often driven by core beliefs that they’re producing research whose results will advance “the greater good” of reducing smoking prevalence.
I believe that those three factors introduce an element that is at least as important as any satisfaction of the Bradford Hill criteria, the first of which, at least as noted at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradford-Hill_criteria , is indeed the RR: the “Strength of association.”
“You’re arguing against yourself! You previously claimed that a result with a CI which includes 1.0 is viewed by statisticians as affirming no connection between cause and effect. … But you’re now arguing “a CI that does or does not include the null value at 95 or even 99% proves nothing”
There’s a difference between viewing a result as confirming nothing and viewing a result as “proof” of something — either negative or positive. Even a strongly significant statistical finding is not proof of a true correlative relationship overall, much less a causal relationship. Similarly the lack of a statistically significant finding does not prove a lack of such a causal relationship. I stand by that.
“4.Your claim that “failure to meet statistical significance is generally seen as supporting the null hypothesis” is just wrong!”
We disagree. When the finding is going to be used to implement a potentially disruptive or destructive social change, then a failure to give a strong indication of signficance for a reason to implement that change would “generally support” the position that the change should NOT be implemented.
– MJM, who will try to get back to your secondary RR point later today or early next week if the current aspect of our discussion is concluded.
John S
“If Mike D did some more background research, he would also discover that tobacco smuggling is prevalent in Poland because it is the main transit route for smuggling tobacco into the EU (not just Poland) from outside of the EU.”
Nigeria isn’t on the way though is it? Cigarettes are 65p pack there, yet smuggled tobacco still has a large market share. Smuggled tobacco is more of a problem there than in the UK.
.tobaccoatlas.org/downloads/maps/Chap16_IllegalCigarettes.pdf
If the UK Government removed all duty and tax from cigarettes and allowed them to be sold for 70p/packet smuggling would still be a problem because they can clearly undercut that elsewhere and still make a profit.
Mike D, I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re a complete and utter lemon!
Are you seriously trying to tell me that 70p for a packet of fags would be undercut? Can you really see a smuggler going abroad to buy thousands of fags, (with the threat of prison) just to make a measley 20p profit per pack!…hahaha!!…get in the real world man!…it wouldn’t even cover his ferry fare!!!
To put it another way…IT WOULDN’T BE WORTH THE RISK!!
I think it is now safe to assume that when someone claims that reducing tax on cigarettes will lead to a reduction in smuggling they are spreading propaganda for the tobacco industry and, in effect, lying on their behalf.
Puppets do that.
You are truly amazing MikeD. You repeatedly make a claim that no one with any common sense at all is going to accept, and you seem to have no concept of how that makes your overall position look. At least Rollo, although no one knows his background, motivations, or training, seems to have at least some degree of understanding about how science and economics works, you seem to have absolutely none, nor any real desire to try to acquire such understanding. John S provides solid government documentation countering your repeated claims about Poland, so what do you do? Simply switch over to making the same sort of claims about NIGERIA as though they had real relevance to the situation of cross channel ferrying for the UK!
Amazing. Hmmm…. unless you yourself are a smuggler! Hadn’t thought of that one… might well explain the motivation for keeping those taxes high, eh?
– MJM
John S found an EU document giving the MPPC price for Poland as n/a.
John then states that this is £2.80/20
The source gives the weighted average price at £1.94/20 cigarettes, a little over a third of what we pay in the UK, but still undercut by smugglers in Poland.
I may have been mistaken in accepting the source I found that gave the Polish price as 70p/20, and I’m sorry to have brought bad data to the discussion, but these official figures, plus the Nigerian prices, still destroy the propagandists’ myth that cutting UK duty will eliminate smuggling.
Ahh, ’tis a sight – a marvel, the Mass Debaters, Senior and Junior, working in tandem, synchronized shenanigans, con-artistry in motion. With not a point of sensibility between them, this is indeed an accomplishment even for Piffle™ merchants.
Rollo & Mike – well done, guys. Mass Debate away.
and you, keep posting your boring, childish nonsense so we can all catch up on our zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzs
I take it from your comment that you don’t actually disagree that lowering tax will not chase the smugglers away.
MJM – Thank you for that illuminating post.
It’s clear from the post that your views are based on your own interpretation of science rather than proper scientific principle. Not offering any supporting evidence for your claims (as you do in placing such a strong weight on large RRs) is the least of it.
No, you go further and actually start inventing your own scientific laws, which should apply only to studies you happen not to like!!
So what do your laws amount to, MJM? A vague and unspecified assumption that passive smoking studies are supposedly tainted by fraud and 3 other factors you list. All 4 factors are smears, pure and simple. No evidence, let alone proof, that the results of passive smoking studies have been contaminated in any of these ways. No, all you do is throw some mud at the wall and hope that some sinks.
These studies have been scrutinised closely. Given the behaviour of Big Tobacco in the 1980s and 1990s, if they could find grounds to ruin the reputation of these studies, they would have done so. They didn’t. Any legitimate criticisms of these studies would already be taken into account as part of the consideration of standard causation criteria.
Then, towards the end of your post, you go inventing some more new scientific laws! That is that a different interpretation should be given to statistically non-significant findings when the study concerns something you personally object to.
And you wonder why I say you’re trying to butcher proper scientific standards??!!!
By the way, your 2003 table was not flawed in one way only. And you STILL haven’t addressed the big issue of why you so cynically misrepresented and misquoted of Marcia Angell, Robert Temple and the National Cancer Institute. You’ve had plenty of time, and you seem to have free time to get involved in other discussions on this thread and possibly others besides. Do you have an answer???
Anti-Tobacco make up their own “science”:-
a)They redefine “addiction” for political and propaganda purposes;
b) They resurrect the Middle Ages science of alchemy – “no safe dose!”;
c) They cynically ignore established, fundamental epidemiological and statistical standards and criteria.
They are charlatans, cheats and FRAUDSTERS. They have debased science. They have devalued the public’s trust in science. Anti-Tobacco are a cancer, slowly killing science.
I couldn’t agree more John S. For years now there has been spurious ‘science’ about all sorts of things, mostly, it seems, on a whim or the very flimsiest of ‘evidence’. Some have been gullible enough to believe and then came the tobacco scam, which once picked up by big pharma, gathered momentum and the scam has escalated.
All of this amounts to the story of the boy who cried wolf! Many people now disregard so called scientific evidence of whatever as nothing more than scare stories, which does a disservice to genuine and ethical scientists. Even my own doctor is more than skeptical!
It worries me greatly what will happen when the focus is really turned to obesity – how will those who are overweight due to prescribed medication cope? What taunts and abuse will they have to endure?
tobacco trolls just lie or pass on propaganda.
Junican told this thread that £6bn was being given to councils to ‘perpetuate the persecution of smokers’. Looking at what the money will actually be spent on it looks like none of it would go on anything that even the most paranoid person would describe as ‘persecution’, indeed relatively little will be spent on services to help smokers quit when they want help in doing so.
DrDaveA is not a real doctor, but is the chairman of freedom2choose. But on the Guardian forum he has an extensive array of posts in his ‘Dr’ identity.
And the tobacco trolls faithfully try to perpetuate the myth that the UK government needs to cut duty and tax here to eliminate smuggling, when smugglers elsewhere can clearly make a profit from undercutting tobacco at rock bottom prices, like in Nigeria where legal tobacco costs around 68p a pack.
Mike D…..what you fail to realise though, is that the average family annual income in Nigeria is only £570 a year, and that.70% of Nigerians live below the poverty line!
comprendé?
I understand perfectly Parmenion
What is it that you don’t understand about smugglers being able to sell fags cheaper than 68p a pack and still making a profit?
If smugglers can make a profit selling fags at 50p/20 they are presumably buying them at around 30p/pack.
How much effect would halving UK tax on cigarettes have on smuggling?
None.
It’s a supply led market. The suppliers keep supplying until it gets too cheap for them to profit.
And they can clearly make a profit selling at 50p/pack.
I stand by my arguments and reasoning Rollo, and am, as usual, quite content to let the readers make their own judgments … on what’s presented, and not on who can yell the loudest accusations.
You say the table was flawed in other ways, eh? Sorry: didn’t notice you pointing them out: did I miss something? Please remind me of a couple (or just point me up to the post where you’ve already explained them.
As for Angell, Temple, and the NCI, I think most readers will also feel that I’ve perforce been a bit preoccupied in chasing down all the other things you’ve brought up or contended since that original request. I said I would get to it later this evening or early next week. And I will.
btw, if you’d bothered to read the other material at the link where that table was, you’d have noticed that it actually was created prior to my City Council testimony in May of the year 2000 : not 2003.
– MJM
MJM – I’ve really not sure what your last post is trying to say. Are you denying that your approach involves applying your own created rules which have nothing to do with proper scientific standards? Because that’s exactly what you are doing – by your own admission. Or are you acknowledging that you do this and hoping that “other readers” (your usual retreat position) might consider your approach somehow more reasonable than professional scientific practice, because you don’t like passive smoking studies?
My post of 6.37pm on 9 February set out 2 distinct criticisms of the table you produced. You acknowledged the second, about how statistically non-significant results were labelled depending on if the results were negative or positive.
But you’ve said nothing yet about the first, which was about the blatant misrepresentation of statements by Marcia Angell, Robert Temple and the NCI. Which is why I’m still asking about it.
“MJM – I’ve really not sure what your last post is trying to say. Are you denying that your approach involves applying your own created rules which have nothing to do with proper scientific standards? Because that’s exactly what you are doing – by your own admission.”
Rollo, that is very rich coming from an Anti-Tobacco charlatan and FRAUDSTER! It is Anti-Tobacco who create their own rules which have absolutely NOTHING to do with proper scientific standards.
tobacco puppets just make everything up.
Junican said that £6bn was being given to councils to ‘perpetrate the persecution of smokers’ which is demonstrably not true.
DrDaveA on the Guardian forum is David Atherton of Freedom2choose who is not a Doctor
They’ll freely repeat the myth that cutting UK tobacco duty would eliminate smuggling, despite smugglers making a profit in Nigeria by undercutting the market price there of about 68p/pack.
OK, it looks like I’ve got time this evening after all. Rollo, I am involved in a number of different internet discussions at most times, trying to help senior citizens who are being thrown out of their homes, seeking to put some of the fear people like you have sown to good use by alerting teens to the dangers of texting while driving, explaining basic concepts of toxicology to people who have no information beyond what they’ve heard repeated in antismoking propaganda, fighting open air campus bans being pushed by millions of dollars in grants, helping efforts to overturn bans in towns and cities all over the US before local bars are destroyed, and more. And that’s not even touching the number of emails I respond to every day from people asking questions or asking for help.
So the amount of time I can devote to debating with anonymous posters at the tail end of a thousand-post-long discussion board is somewhat limited. Forgive me if I do not rank you at the very top of my list of what I need to pay attention to.
That being said, you *do* at least show the merit of trying to make serious points and you have at least some grasp of basic science and research, so I *do* enjoy responding to you when I have the time.
You’ve asked me about the Angell, Temple, and NCI quotes that were used in my introduction to the table of 124 study results I compiled.
My quotes were accurate, although it could be argued that the second half of Angell’s quote should have been included; however, that second half does NOT fundamentally alter the point she was making, and the publication of the lower RR study you pointed out shows that she does not use the standard as an ironclad rule. The words she used were as I quoted: “As a general rule of thumb…”
You also noted that both the Angell and Temple quotes related to a discussion about “a single epidemiologic study” and implied that it was incorrect for me to mention their concerns with regard to a table of a number of single epidemiologic studies. You are wrong. Until those studies are formally pulled together through carefully structured meta-analytical techniques that correct for their disparities and other failings the correct standard to use for each of them IS the “single study standard.” You can “eyeball” the batch and say, “Hey, if three quarters of them lean in one direction that should mean something!” and I’d agree: it means that, if there were no other confounding factors or source of bias out there then the correlation — not necessarily a causal correlation — is more likely than not to be real. But that’s *ALL* it says.
The extension of the NCI quote is a similar situation. They specifically say that RRs “less than 2 are considered small and are usually difficult to interpret.” and when they looked at the breast cancer study in question they said “the findings are not conclusive.” Antismokers all too often present their supporting research as BEING conclusive.
It is not, and nothing you can come up with, at least at the present time, will change that.
– MJM
MJM – “OK, it looks like I’ve got time this evening after all.”
What a surprise!
Stop being silly and try and realise what’s being said. In short, it appears that Mr. Tomassi is saying that 30 studies with a value of 1.1 is the same as 1 study with a value of 3.
Frank J
Michael McFadden has written a 5 star review on Amazon for a book that claims that ‘In fact, even though smokers are statistically more likely to get lung cancer than non smokers, the increase is very small’
The increase is 25 fold for heavy smokers.
That’s not ‘very small’ by any measure.
But Michael still gives it 5 stars.
If Michael had credibility, integrity and knew his stuff he would have given it no stars and told people it was the biggest pile of nonsense ever printed.
But, like the man who wrote the foreword and the former chairman of freedom2choose he put reality aside and gave it 5 stars.
MJM: Thank you for your response. But it is bizarre.
You recognise (rightly) that a pattern where most of a series of studies show positive risk, even at low levels, can be suggestive (but not conclusive evidence) of harm. You also recognise (rightly) that properly conducted meta-analyses will confirm whether or not it is reasonable to conclude that there is an underpinning clinical risk.
So far, we seem to be agreeing on a fair bit. Only….why does your NYClash article / table not say any of this?
There was a clear pattern of positive risk from the very study your table listed. But nothing is said about that. And some good meta-analyses had already been conducted on the subject, including Hackshaw et al (1997) and the He et al report from Marcia Angell’s NEJM. But nothing is said about that either.
Instead, your article and table simply gives the strongest of inferences that Angell, Temple and the NCI said that there is never any meaningful risk unless the studies’ RR exceeds 2 or 3. With no ifs or buts. And that is both thoroughly misleading and a misrepresentation of their positions.
As for your glib statement that “Antismokers all too often present their supporting research as BEING conclusive”, once again I don’t know who you mean by anti-smokers. You like to use that term as an Aunt Sally on which to heap derision. But I can tell you that the medical community has been cautious about concluding harm from passive smoking. It took several years and many studies before they became settled that passive smoking is a cause of lung cancer and heart disease. And, if you look at reports like the 2006 US Surgeon General’s report, they are cautious about concluding that passive smoking can cause diseases such as breast cancer and COPD, despite a lot of evidence suggesting a causal link.
tobacco puppets just make everything up.
Junican said that £6bn was being given to councils to ‘perpetrate the persecution of smokers’ which is demonstrably not true.
DrDaveA on the Guardian forum is David Atherton of Freedom2choose who is not a Doctor
They’ll freely repeat the myth that cutting UK tobacco duty would eliminate smuggling, despite smugglers making a profit in Nigeria by undercutting the market price there of about 68p/pack.
And, as has been pointed out to MikeD quite clearly earlier in this blog, DaveA explained his attempts to sign up there under his regular name, his clearly tongue-in-cheek “DrDave” choice of names in the meantime, and made a very clear declaration on the blogs there that he was *NOT* actually a “Dr.” for all to see.
Of course MikeD makes his hay here by just constantly repeating things even if he knows they’re untrue: the trick is that he hopes people will simply see his charges and not the defenses against them.
What he does NOT seem to realize is the damage he does to his own side of the issue with these tactics. People are NOT so stupid as to be unaware of what he’s doing, and when they recognize his tactics they’ll also recognize that if he had anything to really support his arguments he’d be using that information instead.
MikeD shows general readers, more clearly than anyone on our side of the aisle ever could, just how empty their ammunition box is. They have no hard evidence to back up most of their claims, so instead they have to resort to such things.
– MJM
MJM kindly shoots his credibility and integrity in both feet with this 5 star review of a book on Amazon.
This wasn’t the only 5 star review of the book. Another came from Ian Dunbar, who someone subsequently spotted had actually written the book’s introduction. And another came from Freedom2choose former chairman Phil Johnson (the Archivist).
Helpfully, Amazon has put a significant part of the book into their ‘look inside’ facility an it makes some really bizarre claims, eg ‘In fact, even though smokers are statistically more likely to get lung cancer than non smokers, the increase is very small’
In fact the increase in risk is 25 fold in heavy smokers. According to Cancer Research Uk “Recently, a 50-year follow-up study of smoking and lung cancer in British doctors showed a similar 25-fold increase in lung cancer risk in men smoking 25 cigarettes a day or more, compared to lifelong non-smokers”
Here is MJM’s 5 star endorsement of this bizarre book:
“Rich White has charted himself a difficult road to walk in Smoke Screens: The Truth About Tobacco, but he walks it well and if you join him you’ll learn a lot as you go along.
Most of those who have fought the 800 million dollar a year “Tobacco Control Lobby” in recent years have done so on the basis of their wildly spurious claims about the “deadly risks” of wisps of secondary smoke in the air. It’s a relatively easy fight to win if you can find an audience with minds open enough to listen because the lies are so easily exposed and the nonsense so easily swept aside. The only thing keeping the smoke-banners ahead of the game is the enormous money-pot they can dip into and the non-existent financial resources of their opposition. Those opposing smoking bans are “forbidden” to even touch support from Big Tobacco or face the risk that their arguments will be simply dismissed without a hearing. Unfortunately, without that support they never even get to grab the microphone and so the only ones generally heard from are the ban supporters. Meanwhile Big T. itself is so terrified of lawsuits in a highly charged negative environment that they’re usually afraid to voice the mildest squeak of protest against even the wildest medical accusations.
In Smoke Screens Rich White has entered territory that many Free-Choice advocates have avoided: taking up the challenge of fighting the Antismokers at their strongest point — their claims of the harm of smoking to smokers themselves. His dedication and hard work in gathering and organizing evidence has paid off and while he may not convince every reader he’ll certainly spur them to think a bit more about what they’ve basically been hearing since they’ve been in the cradle. The author reminds his audience that while the cute little sound bite, “You Smoke: You Die.” may be true, that “You Don’t Smoke: You Die.” is also true. Medicine has gotten caught up in witch hunts and beliefs in its omniscience in the past and Rich puts forth the argument that its crusade against smoking will eventually be shown to be largely built of the same material that predicted millions of deaths from Mad Cow Disease and warned us of the deadliness of butter.
He writes clearly and in an engaging style, presenting facts to support his arguments and presenting those arguments in a straightforward way while avoiding the tedium of simply citing reams of numbers and blocks of repetitive references. He makes an argument that’s very hard to make and not all will agree with it, but it’s an argument that *does* need to be made. Even those with the most rock-solid belief in the concept that “Smoking Equals Death!” should walk away after his book with at least a little doubt in their minds: things are not always what we are told they are.”
I think that it is time to stop commenting here – my computer keeps warning me about excessive memory usage.
So goodbye, Mr Williams. Let us know when you get round to banning the practice of smoking haddock.
I’ve just popped over to see what is going on. I see that Mike D is still playing the TROLL – constantly changing the subject matter – first, the price of fags in Poland, and when statement is found to be false, change to the price of fags in Nigeria.
And then Rollo arrives – full of complex arguments about trivia. His remind me of some of the arguments which the warmists employ in Global Warming. Constantly discussing the minutiae of exactly what wavelength of radiation is absorbed carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and deducing the precise level of re-radiation.
I believe that Rollo and Mike D are playing ‘good cop’, ‘bad cop’. While Rollo cogitates, Mike D continues to fling the mud.
MJM, Frank, Frederik, and others. May I suggest something? While Rollo is around, concentrate on him – TOTALLY IGNORE Mike D.
“MJM, Frank, Frederik, and others. May I suggest something? While Rollo is around, concentrate on him – TOTALLY IGNORE Mike D”
See Rollo, I told you they were terrified of you!
Are you trying to get away with telling lies somewhere else Junican?
Let me know where and I might come and join you.
“Junican
February 9, 2012 6:49 pm
I think that it is time to stop commenting here – my computer keeps warning me about excessive memory usage.
So goodbye, Mr Williams. Let us know when you get round to banning the practice of smoking haddock.”
The haddock ‘joke’ wasn’t funny when you left for the first time on the 9th. Are you going to keep coming back until someone types ‘LOL’?
You cannot debate with a particular mindset. Mr. Tomassi seems to be saying that, as said above, 30 (or even 20) papers achieving a value of 1.1 is the same as 1 paper with a value of 3. He also believes, as said further above, that if there exists a 1 in 100k chance that something ‘may’ happen, the other 99,999 should be banned for the sake of the 1. He is an Absolutist. There is no scope for debate within that mindset. It’s Religious. Admittedly this is only related to smoking. He may well be open minded about the rest of life.
“See Rollo, I told you they were terrified of you!”
With silly remarks such as this, you make yourself look desperate.
I’m not desperate at all Frank. I’d trust Rollo to be both correct and truthful.
Michael gave a 5 star review to a totally presposterous book about smoking and has never had any credibility to assess the science in my opinion anyway.
I’d suggest that you don’t understand what Rollo is talking about, but I’ll let him try to explain it to you in terms you might be able to understand.
Junican: You’re correct about ‘minutiae’. I look to see serious points from the pro banners and SHS believers in this debate and I’m not seeing them. Just the usual ‘appeals to authority’ from the likes of Mike D and lots of he said/she said from Mr. Tomassi, none of which alters the fundamentals. SHS really is a major scam.
Mr. Williams must be laughing at all this. As far as he’s concerned, it doesn’t matter a jot.
“In essence, HSE cannot produce epidemiological evidence to link levels of exposure to SHS to the raised risk of contracting specific diseases and it is therefore difficult to prove health-related breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act.”
From HSE Operational Cirsular 255/15, issued 07/08/2006, less than a year before the smoking ban was imposed. The OC was ordered to be withdrawn and all copies, including electronic ones, to be destroyed (but thanks to internet archives, it’s still available).
The smoking ban was imposed “to protect the workers” yet the HSE could not find any evidence to suggest that workers needed protection from SHS. Are the HSE so incompetent that their judgement cannot be trusted? If so, can any of their recommended acceptable workplace levels of potentially toxic chemicals (including carcinogens) be relied upon?
Or is the whole SHS issue a FRAUD?
Hey, Mass Debaters, some good news. The World Antismoking Council will be holding a get together next weekend. Make sure you show up. Don’t forget your white robes – with the big antismoking symbol on the chest and back, and the white pointy hood (remember to cut out holes in the hood this time so you can see). There’ll be a ceremonial burning of a very large cigarette on a smoker’s lawn.
And here is the HSE advice without the cherry picking
“There is no completely effective way of protecting employees from the
effects of SHS, short of a total smoking ban. However, employers may take
some relatively simple measures to mitigate the effects of SHS. Examples of
such measures include the following:
• Asking occupiers of domestic premises not to smoke during visits. • Arranging meetings at exempted premises to take place in the open air
or a non-enclosed shelter.
• The Scottish Executive guidance suggests that, where care homes
have two lounges, one could be designated as a smoking area, while
the other remains smoke free.
• Providing suitable ventilation in exempted premises, consistent with
maintaining the comfort and functionality of the premises.
• Minimising the time spent by individual non-smokers in designated
smoking rooms.
• Health promotion campaigns on smoking cessation.
The evidential link between individual circumstances of exposure to risk in
exempted premises will be hard to establish. In essence, HSE cannot
produce epidemiological evidence to link levels of exposure to SHS to the
raised risk of contracting specific diseases and it is therefore difficult to prove
health-related breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act. Inspectors
are therefore urged to exercise caution in considering any formal
enforcement action in relation to SHS (with one exception – see below).
However, the full impact of the smoking ban is difficult to foresee
completely, and if serious circumstances emerge where inspectors
believe they must consider enforcement, then they should consult
Health Unit and the Policy Team (see Annex 2 for contacts) before taking
action. The exception to this guidance relates to pre-existing health
conditions of employees which can be made worse by exposure to second
hand smoke e.g. respiratory or cardiovascular disease, or to pregnancy. In
such circumstances, specialist and medical advice may be necessary to
secure support for enforcement action. “
Mike D, it does not detract from the FACT that, even in 2006 years after the first bans were imposed on the strength of this “evidence”, the HSE effectively stated that there was no SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE to warrant the ban in England.
Are you challenging the competence and INTEGRITY of the HSE? Their professional and unbiased opinion was CENSORED.
Remember what Sir George Godber said in 1975? To “FOSTER an atmosphere where it was PERCEIVED that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily” to secondhand smoke.
The whole SHS issue is a SHAM, a FRAUD.
this is cherry picked too miked, since you omitted the part that says there is no evidence to link shs exposure to specific diseases.
Perhaps one can’t blame you since you are obviously reading the purged edition, OC 255/16.
(Is it a case of ‘I quote, you cherry-pick?’)
The evidential link between individual circumstances of exposure to risk in exempted premises will be hard to establish. In essence, HSE cannot produce epidemiological evidence to link levels of exposure to SHS to the raised risk of contracting specific diseases and it is therefore difficult to prove health-related breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act. – HSE
LINK HERE
You puppets are rubbish at understanding stuff. I don’t know whether you’re all a bit underqualified to be unleashed on the world or whether you all suffer from the same sort of intrinsic bias that blinds Michael McFadden to the truth.
(Here’s Michael talking about Rich White’s book again “Excellent points by Rich White (whose book by the way is excellent!)”
guardian.co.uk/discussion/comment-permalink/12508877
Rich White’s book is actually full of nonsense – go and get if for your Kindle – Amazon has reduced it to 77p)
Does the totality of the HSE document say there is no risk from SHS? No.
It says “There is no completely effective way of protecting employees from the effects of SHS, short of a total smoking ban. However, employers may take some relatively simple measures to mitigate the effects of SHS.”
That doesn’t mean that SHS is safe, far from it.
It also says “The exception to this guidance relates to pre-existing health conditions of employees which can be made worse by exposure to second hand smoke e.g. respiratory or cardiovascular disease, or to pregnancy.”
That doesn’t mean that SHS is safe, far from it.
The bit that you’re all getting excited about doesn’t mean that SHS is safe either. It just highlights that (apart from pre-existing health conditions of employees which can be made worse by exposure to second hand smoke e.g. respiratory or cardiovascular disease, or to pregnancy.) it is difficult to predict how an individual will respond in the long term to specific SHS conditions in their workplace.
That’s why you puppets have to keep cherry picking and leaving off the preceding sentence “The evidential link between individual circumstances of exposure to risk in
exempted premises will be hard to establish.”
Without omitting that sentence you can’t twist the meaning of the sentence that follows it to suit your purposes.
Do any of you have the intelligence to see this?
I very much doubt it.
You’re all too deeply entrenched in your views, which is inevitable as you all spend massive portions of your lives on blogs and forums agreeing with each other.
I defy anyone with an open mind and a knowledge of science to read Rich White’s book and come to the conclusion, as Michael McFadden has done, that it is “excellent!”.
“Does the totality of the HSE document say there is no risk from SHS?” – Back to the “argumentum ad ignorantiam” fallacy yet again, Mike D!
Ethanol (that stuff in alcoholic beverages like beer and wine) has been classified as a “known human carcinogen” by the IARC, part of the WHO (although I suspect as a result of political interference rather than based on scientific evidence). Ethanol is volatile. How do we know that the amount which evaporates is not harmful to the barworkers and the customers drinking non-alcoholic drinks, including “THE CHILDREN”? Even if they aren’t all at risk of developing cancer, some people are allergic to alcohol and for some it’s a trigger for their asthma. Hadn’t we better ban all alcoholic drinks in pubs?
The HSE bases all its unbiased, SCIENTIFIC decisions on evidence of no harm. It is impossible to prove that anything is 100% safe. Every chemical, including water and oxygen, has the potential to be harmful in the appropriate DOSE. If the “no safe dose” criteria was applied by the HSE to all chemicals, every single workplace (indoor and outdoor), pub, public building, school, church, etc. would have to be closed down.
“The evidential link between individual circumstances of exposure to risk in
exempted premises will be hard to establish.”
Seems pretty clear to me. It will be hard to establish.
“Frank J
February 14, 2012 7:20 am
“The evidential link between individual circumstances of exposure to risk in
exempted premises will be hard to establish.”
Seems pretty clear to me. It will be hard to establish”
Poor Frank, you fail to grasp why this sentence is missed out by cherry pickers.
This sentence is the Achilles heel of attempts by puppets to pretend that the sentence that follows it in the guidance is talking about HSE’s attitude to SHS as a whole.
It isn’t. It is about individual exposures in individual circumstances.
Eh? It says evidence will be hard to establish. End of. Perhaps you can see words that nobody else can.
If something isn’t there, it’s not there.
Frank J
More cherry picking “Eh? It says evidence will be hard to establish. End of.”
You just don’t get it do you? Your inability to comprehend is amazing!
Mike D – you anti-smoking puppet – perhaps your posts would have a little (very little) more credence if you were to answer points made in response to your queries! Instead you make arbitrary statements and totally ignore any response to them – presumably because you are unable to back up your statements with facts!
Example: Your statement that smokers have employment rights. Since I confirmed that I had contacted ACAS you have not responded! Neither have you responded to the point I raised about job adverts stating “Non smokers only”, etc. There are many other points from others that you have not responded to as well. We can only assume it is because you cannot back up your statements with FACTS! Until you can, stop repeating yourself ad infinitum , in your reponses to others – it is boring!!!
“You just don’t get it do you?”
No, I don’t. Evidence is ‘hard to establish’. Whatever qualification it attempts to apply to becomes an unsupported opinion. What people may think, inc. HSE, becomes irrelevant as a basis. One of the reasons that individual attempts at legal actions over the issue have failed and definitely the reason that the HSE has brought no actions. I repeat it’s ‘hard to establish’, diplomatic language for no proof.
I’ve no idea what planet you live on.
John S Cherry picking is fun.
I found this admission by a freedom2choose official which, at face value. looks like a confession.
“We are tobacco industry puppets”
Of course, it is just taken out of context, like you attempted to do with the HSE guidance
Don’t forget to cut out the holes in the pointy white hood.
Mike D,
Do you believe smoke-free pubs and smoke-free restaurants should close during the evenings and weekends in order to any eliminate risk of heart disease
that comes from working irregular hours?
LINK HERE
Why should bar staff get heart disease just so people can drink when ever they want?
I believe that the amount of gibberish and derailing attempts by tobacco puppets on this thread is terrific evidence that the tobacco industry are terrified that plain packets will turn off the supply of child smokers.
I don’t think you’d all be here if it wasn’t going to work.
Mike D,
Why should someone die an early death just so you can eat in restaurants when ever you feel like it?
I think that Frank J hit the nail on the head a couple of posts ago when he said that Rollo is an absolutist. In fact, isn’t all Tobacco Control absolutist? They take small, statistically unsound increases in risk and inflate the absolute risk out of all proportion. A minuscule, possible increased risk of near zero is palpably of no significance whatsoever. Their clever trick is to imply that the original risk can have numbers put on it, as with SHS. They put the numbers on by using computer programs. Not a single person can be proven to have suffered any harm whatsoever from SHS. Having arrived at this utterly spurious number, they then broadcast is as though it was a real figure, and demand absolutist measures.
Do you know how it came to be that the US Surgeon General came to say that ‘there is no safe level of SHS’? I have looked into it. The reality is NOT that there is no safe level. It is simply that no one has ever been able to examine the possibility because of the virtually impossibility of knowing one way or the other.
Or maybe the US Surgeon General was an alchemist in a previous life half a millenium ago!
You can’t stay away can you Junican. Being a puppet must be as addictive as smoking to you.
What’s your excuse?
What causes your addiction to Stephen Williams MP‘s blog?
“……must be as addictive as smoking to you.”
Mike D’s like a kid who’s just learnt a new “naughty” word in the school playground.
Just doing a Rollo.
My, lots of action here over the last day or two.
Let me respond to some of MikeD’s nonsense first.
Re Rich White’s book: Thank you for reprinting the review: maybe it will throw some sales his way! LOL! You seem to have missed noting however the substance of what I said in the last two paragraphs:
===
In Smoke Screens Rich White has entered territory that many Free-Choice advocates have avoided: taking up the challenge of fighting the Antismokers at their strongest point — their claims of the harm of smoking to smokers themselves. His dedication and hard work in gathering and organizing evidence has paid off and while he may not convince every reader he’ll certainly spur them to think a bit more about what they’ve basically been hearing since they’ve been in the cradle. The author reminds his audience that while the cute little sound bite, “You Smoke: You Die.” may be true, that “You Don’t Smoke: You Die.” is also true.
Medicine has gotten caught up in witch hunts and beliefs in its omniscience in the past and Rich puts forth the argument that its crusade against smoking will eventually be shown to be largely built of the same material that predicted millions of deaths from Mad Cow Disease and warned us of the deadliness of butter.
He writes clearly and in an engaging style, presenting facts to support his arguments and presenting those arguments in a straightforward way while avoiding the tedium of simply citing reams of numbers and blocks of repetitive references. He makes an argument that’s very hard to make and not all will agree with it, but it’s an argument that *does* need to be made. Even those with the most rock-solid belief in the concept that “Smoking Equals Death!” should walk away after his book with at least a little doubt in their minds: things are not always what we are told they are.”
===
I said he presented his argument well: I didn’t say I agreed with all of it or that I endorsed all of it. As Rollo can testify (unless he wants to hunt for nonexistent samples of the contrary) I’ve never tried to argue that smoking isn’t generally bad for the health of the smoker. That’s the argument Rich White tried to support, and as noted, I think he did an excellent job in his effort and there’s a lot of good material in his book. THAT is what he deserved five stars for — not for agreeing with everything I happen to believe myself.
Junican: Yes, the Antismokers are indeed almost always “Absolutist.” That’s the hallmark of any religion based upon fanaticism. Take that absolutism away and their entire structure begins to crumble. That’s why people like Dr. Siegel, Drs. Enstrom and Kabat, and Dr. Kamal Chiouchi, among others, have been attacked so strongly.
MikeD, if I may return to your smuggling argument for a moment: the base cost of a pack of smokes in Nigeria seems to be about $1.90 in international dollars (Huge URL. Just Google the phrase, “The Nigeria Report card on the WHO FCTC provides” in quotes for the reference) or at least double what you’ve claimed at 70p. Additionally, the GDP/capita in Nigeria is $2,589 as compared to Norway’s 53,376 : a factor of about 20x. So counterfeit/blackmarket cigarettes selling at 30p less would be highly significant both in terms of a market existing and in terms of the profit-drive of the local smugglers — probably far more so than in wealthier Norway — and that’s not even taking into account the likelihood of firmer control measures in Norway.
Will we be seeing an additional apology and claim that you didn’t “lie” like the “tobacco companies”? (btw… which tobacco companies have you seen telling any lies here? Somehow I must have missed their postings. Can you point me to them?)
– MJM
MJM writes “I said he presented his argument well: I didn’t say I agreed with all of it or that I endorsed all of it.”
The 5 stars you gave it implies that you think it is near perfect Michael.
You also said it was ‘excellent’ on the Guardian.
But now you’re back to your usual weaseling. I know it’s a load of rubbish, but you’re again willing to shred your credibility and integrity by agreeing with any old tosh that supports your deeply prejudiced position. Like a puppet.
Mike D,
Excellent point’s ******.
Mike D,
Why should someone die just so you can eat in restaurants when ever you feel like it?
“The 5 stars you gave it implies that you think it is near perfect Michael.” – Mike D.
This says just about everything about the an anti-smokers mindset. Someone can read a book and thoroughly enjoy reading it but not totally agree with all the arguments made in it. However thought provoking it may be, it’s cr*p.
Prejudiced, bigoted and indoctrinated are words that spring to mind immediately.
John S and Fredrik leap to support Michael’s attempt to weasel out of his 5 star review of that ridiculous book.
Remember that Michael has destroyed his credibility, and shown he has no regard for scientific integrity, with his 5 star review of a book that claims ‘In fact, even though smokers are statistically more likely to get lung cancer than non smokers, the increase is very small’
In fact the increase in risk is 25 fold in heavy smokers. According to Cancer Research Uk “Recently, a 50-year follow-up study of smoking and lung cancer in British doctors showed a similar 25-fold increase in lung cancer risk in men smoking 25 cigarettes a day or more, compared to lifelong non-smokers”
Michael has tried to weasel out of this, but he also says of the book “Excellent points by Rich White (whose book by the way is excellent!)”
The book is a joke.
Michael J McFadden has a very high regard for his abilities and a lot of time to spend online. But he still gives a piece of shockingly bad tobacco propaganda 5 stars and describes it as ‘excellent’.
Just another puppet in my view. Fredrik and John S destroy their own credibility by leaping to his defence.
Mike D…many thanks for bringing this book to my attention!
I’ve just read the chapter “The Black Lung Myth”, and I have to say, it’s quite excellent! I just learned that my black, tar-covered lungs are in fact as pink as yours are Mike!
Again, many thanks….I’ve just ordered the book!!
Did you fall for the “smoker’s lung” con at school, Mike D? The photos are usually of the DISEASED lung of a pig.
Mike D, Look who’s cherry-picking now by quoting propaganda relating to only “heavy smokers”.
Something interesting for you! Go to the CRUK website and have a look at figure 6.1 (info.cancerresearchuk.org/cancerstats/types/lung/smoking/). Since 1975, smoking prevalence in women has halved, yet incidence of lung cancer has DOUBLED. And look what has happened to smoking prevalence since the smoking ban was imposed. Didn’t your masters tell us that half a million lives would be saved by people being coerced into “quitting” because of the ban?
Mike D….”In fact the increase in risk is 25 fold in heavy smokers”
I’ll tell you what Mike…Instead of buying a lottery ticket this weekend, go and buy yourself 25 tickets….you’re bound to hit the jackpot….NOT!!!
If you don’t understand statistics, don’t quote them.
No weaseling at all MikeD. I explained my comment and review, but as usual, you’re not happy. So what else is new?
Meanwhile, how about your bogus Nigeria argument following on top of your bogus Poland argument? You’ll note that I rarely lead off my points by saying “I think I read somewhere that….” My work tends to lean heavily upon referenced citations, particularly since my experience in writing Brains and tracking such citations down to their sources.
If you go to college someday MikeD you’ll find that the professors there can be pretty tight about such things. I wish you luck: you’ll need either that or a lot of hard work to get a degree.
– MJM
Excellent, more puppets shooting their credibility in the foot by failing to realise that Rich White’s book is a major fail.
You really are a credulous lot when it comes to believing nonsense that supports your prejudices.
In the chapter about the Black Lung myth he says that there isn’t any tar in cigarette smoke.
Do any of you dimwits agree with that?
I presume that MJM does, because he gave it a 5 star review and described it as an excellent book.
But what of the other puppets? Do you think that cigarette smoke contains no tar?
Mike D, define, in chemical terms, “tar”. Cons regularly used by Anti-Tobacco include the “dangerous chemical” deception and exploitation of the layperson’s definition of a word as opposed to its scientific definition.
P.S. I recently read a biography of Hitler. I would recommend others read it but I have no plans to invade Poland.
John S
“define, in chemical terms, “tar”. ”
You’re just another weasel. Do you think that cigarette smoke contains no tar?
Do you agree with Rich when he says in his book “Thus, it is obvious that smoking cannot and does not leave tar in the lungs”?
Or do you think that is just plain stupid?
John S “define, in chemical terms, “tar”. ” You’re just another weasel. Do you think that cigarette smoke contains no tar? – Mike D
It’s a straightforward enough question. Who’s weaseling out of replying to it? Break the habit of a lifetime and stop the petty, infantile name-calling and answer the question for once.
Mike D Mass Debater Jr. writes:
-“If you stopped wallowing in persecution complexes and paranoia…”-
I always get a chuckle when I read or hear these ANTI-smokers accuse others of being “paranoid”.
Do they have to be so obvious with their hypocrisy?
Who is all worried about the odor of tobacco (real or imagined) coming through cracks in walls and electrical outlets? Who runs around like Chicken Little at the sight of a smoker on a beach, or in a park? Who came out with the idea of “third hand smoke”? Who is it all worried that all “the children” are going to start smoking if cigarette packs might have a few colors on them?
Who is REALLY being paranoid here? Smokers, or the ANTI-smoker mass debaters from the smokercontrol league?
I think the answer to THAT question is quite obvious.
Surely I will find more comedy GOLD from these characters as I read on.
Ciao for nao.
OK, now on to the other poster hiding his identity and interests behind a cute anonymous moniker.
Rollo, Whether my response was “bizarre” or not can be left to the readers to decide. You’ve noted that I like leaving such judgments to them, and it’s quite true: it makes a lot more sense than continuing what become almost frivolous debates about minutia and the exact meanings of words.
However, you still are raising some valid questions here, so I will address them. The NYC CLASH table was prepared, as earlier noted, in the late 1990s. It is possible at that point that I was not even aware of he Hackshaw or He meta-studies, and it is also possible that simply felt it was more valid to present the nuts and bolts of the conclusions of the individual studies themselves than to get into discussions of the validity of the styles of meta-analysis and form judgments over how valid the meta-analytic work was at that point in history.
You may then ask why don’t I update and expand the table and its argument. And indeed I may do so at some point in the future. At the moment, and for the next several months at least, I have other projects that I am working on.
As far as my “misleading and misrepresentation” of Angell, Temple, and NCI, I don’t feel I misled at all: I did not say that they claimed “there is never any meaningful risk unless the studies’ RR exceeds 2 or 3.” I quoted what they said without really expanding upon it. The way I would INTERPRET what they said has to do with corrections for biases and confounders, a greater problem in individual studies with low RRs than in well-done meta-analyses, but still a problem even IN those meta-analyses. I believe I asked you this once before, can you produce a few examples of other areas producing similar general RRs (1.1 to 1.4) after lifetime exposures that have been pushed to result in societal changes (and I would call them “societal damages”) as extensive as what we’ve seen in Tobacco Control? If not, why not? Is it partly because it’s recognized that basing such public policy decisions on that level of evidence is questionable?
You then say, ” I can tell you that the medical community has been cautious about concluding harm from passive smoking.” Really? They seemed to have concluded rather rashly and almost universally that the “Helena Effect” was real, yet there are now at least three or four major large-scale studies indicating strongly that it is not. They also seem to have hopped rather thoroughly on the “Third Hand Smoke” bandwagon … and you call that “cautious”?
You then try to show their “caution” by looking at breast cancer while affirming that there’s “a lot of evidence suggesting a causal link.” “A lot of evidence”? The last I looked at the question (though I’ll admit not to have examined it in depth) the bulk of the general studies that have been done have been unable to show a link (although “Dr.” Stanton Glantz, the PhD in mechanical engineering, likes to focus on a subset of younger women where the limited studies seem to be stronger.)
As for COPD, I haven’t looked enough at those studies to say anything at all at this point.
– MJM
John S. There are many ‘definitions’ of tar. How about “total particulate matter…less nicotine and water”, or ““the complex of
particulate matter in the smoke that is left behind on a filter after
subtracting all the nicotine and moisture.”
Or how about “dark, sticky substance produced by the pyrolysis of organic matter”
Do you agree with Rich when he says in his book “Thus, it is obvious that smoking cannot and does not leave tar in the lungs”?
Mke D: There are many ‘definitions’ of tar. How about “total particulate matter…less nicotine and water”, or ““the complex of particulate matter in the smoke that is left behind on a filter after subtracting all the nicotine and moisture.” Or how about “dark, sticky substance produced by the pyrolysis of organic matter”
Do you mean do say it’s not the black stuff used to surface roads with, which is the deliberate deception used by Anti-Tobacco to exploit the gullibility and scientific ignorant “sheeple” like yourself? (I bet you thought it was until you looked it up!)
As for your definitions, the “definitions” made up by Anti-Tobacco are hardly consistent with the half-scientific defintion. “Particulate matter” hardly describes a viscous fluid. (And it’s very difficult to inhale a viscous liquid!)
We are ALL breathing in “tar” (SCIENTIFIC definition,) produced from the burning (combustion, pyrolysis or destructive distillation) of carboniferous fuels – coal, wood, domestic gas, petrol, diesel, candle wax, BBQ fuel……….,
In Rich White’s book* he tries to suggest that nicotine isn’t addictive, and that people giving up smoking don’t experience withdrawal symptoms.
Michael McFadden gives the book 5 Stars on Amazon and describes the book on the Guardian forum as ‘excellent’
The book quotes a very old version of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Search for Nicotine Addiction within the current online edition of Britannica and you’ll find “People who begin daily smoking at an early age are at greater risk of long-term nicotine addiction. We tested the hypothesis that associations between nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) genetic variants and nicotine dependence assessed in adulthood will be stronger among smokers who began daily nicotine exposure during adolescence. We compared nicotine addiction—measured by the Fagerstrom Test of Nicotine Dependence—in three cohorts of long-term smokers recruited in Utah, Wisconsin, and by the NHLBI Lung Health Study, using a candidate-gene approach with the neuronal nAChR subunit genes. This SNP panel included common coding variants and haplotypes detected in eight a and three b nAChR subunit genes found in European American populations. In the 2,827 long-term smokers examined, common susceptibility and protective haplotypes at the CHRNA5-A3-B4 locus were associated with nicotine dependence severity (p = 2.0×10<sup>-5</sup>; odds ratio = 1.82; 95% confidence interval 1.39-2.39) in subjects who began daily smoking at or before the age of 16, an exposure period that results in a more severe form of adult nicotine dependence. A substantial shift in susceptibility versus protective diplotype frequency (AA versus BC = 17%, AA versus CC = 27%) was observed in the group that began smoking by age 16.
This genetic effect was not observed in subjects who began daily nicotine use after the age of 16.
These results establish a strong mechanistic link among early nicotine exposure, common CHRNA5-A3-B4 haplotypes, and adult nicotine addiction in three independent populations of European origins. The identification of an age-dependent susceptibility haplotype reinforces the importance of preventing early exposure to tobacco through public health policies. ”
Doesn’t this up to date information indicate that the end of pretty packs, and the resulting reductions in children being attracted into smoking, should lead to less people becoming seriously dependent upon nicotine?
The puppets will probably say no. The puppets will probably try to decry this piece of research.
The puppets think Rich White’s book is excellent and worth 5 Stars.
Again, Mike D, I would rate the biography of Hitler I have recently read as “five star” but I’m not a Nazi. Was the last book you read “Mr Ridiculous” from the Mister Men series?
“Doesn’t this up to date information indicate that the end of pretty packs, and the resulting reductions in children being attracted into smoking, should lead to less people becoming seriously dependent upon nicotine?” – Mike D
Not at all. Does the study suggest in any way that the colour of the packaging attracts “the children”? Just where is the EVIDENCE that “pretty packs” attract “the children”? Just where is the evidence is the EVIDENCE that “unpretty” packaging will not augment the “forbidden fruit effect”?
Around twenty years ago, there was a brand of cigarettes called “Death” The packet was black with a large skull and cross-bones on the front. Their advertising slogans were on the lines of “the Grim Reaper don’t come cheaper” and “Make Death you favourite cancer stick”. Guess what! Anti-Tobacco nutters wanted them banned because they claimed “the children” found the marketing technique attractive.
Mike D ******,
Why not buy e-fags and see if you can get your self addicted to them? I would bet that no matter how hard you tried, you would end up throwing them into the bin. I doubt you could get >1 billion +e-fag users
even if you handed them out for free in every school on the planet.
1 billion smokers can’t be wrong.
Why should someone die just so Mike D can dine in smoke-free restaurants when ever he feels like it?
Why should someone die just so Mike D can drink in smoke-free pubs when ever he feels like it?
Well, to use MikeD’s terminology, I see the other “BigPharma puppet,” Rollo, hasn’t come back in the last four or five days, so I guess I’ll just address the latest from the “Book Review Critic.”
MIke, you question RIch’s thoughts on addictiveness, but you should realize that even some high-profile Antismokers also downplay the whole craziness of “most addictive drug in the world” that some of the fanatics spin up in their pipe dreams. Several years ago NY’s Mayor Bloomberg was talking about smoking in the shadow of Germany’s Brandenburg Gate and he told his audience how he had been a lifetime moderately heavy smoker and then simply decided one day to give it up. Did he go through thrashing withdrawals on the floor? Was he confined to a padded cell, alternately sitting upon and then worshipping the porcelain throne? Did he need detoxification in a special hospital unit?
Not quite.
Here’s what he had to say about battling his way tor freedom from nicotine addiction:
” It’s relatively easy to quit.”
The problem with the MikeD’s of the world is that they don’t realize that many smokers actually ENJOY smoking and don’t WANT to quit. Yes, they might wish it weren’t so bad for their health. And yes, they may enjoy it less than they used to now that the Antismokers are trying to “condition” them out of the habit by making them stand out in alleyways to indulge. And yes, when questioned about it by questioners who they know will harangue them if they say anything different, they will SAY “Oh yes, don’t worry about me! I know it’s bad and I want to quit, and now you can go bother someone ELSE, OK?”
But in reality, for most smokers, smoking is pleasurable: it’s an addition to their life that makes their life better in some ways even if it makes it worse in other ways. And as free human beings people have the right to make choices about such things on their own unless they live in dictatorial countries.
::shudder:: Can you picture if MikeD was “King MikeD The First” ?
btw Mike, you might also enjoy reading my review of Christopher Snowdon’s “Velvet Glove, Iron Fist: A History of Antismoking.” You can find THAT review at:
– MJM
Good post as usual MJM.
That exposé on “nicotine addiction” is far more in-line with the REAL world than the League’s version of it.
“And yes, when questioned about it by questioners who they know will harangue them if they say anything different, they will SAY “Oh yes, don’t worry about me! I know it’s bad and I want to quit, and now you can go bother someone ELSE, OK?””
Which is unfortunate.
Personally, I would have much more to say than that and would not be questioned about it again, but not everyone would bother.
That is how the League claims all their “support” and come out with their “statistics” about how all smokers “want to quit”.
I understand why people would swat at such pesky flies to get rid of them as quick as possible so they can go about their business peacefully, but sometimes complacency can come back and bite them anyway.
“This morning I was pleased to help launch Europe’s first major campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of glitzy tobacco packaging to children.”
After the discussions on this thread, how hollow does that statement now sound?
It is hard not to be totally dismissive. I mean that the sentence is utter nonsense.
I mean, of what importance is the time of the day? If one removes the ‘this morning’, the sentence reads:
“I was pleased to help launch Europe’s first major campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of glitzy tobacco packaging to children.”
But, surely, the fact that the campaign is the ‘first in Europe’ is irrelevant. Why should ‘firstness’ be important? What does it matter whether or not ‘the campaign’ is the ‘first in Europe’?
We can now adjust the sentence again, but we need to adjust the tense:
“I am pleased to help launch the campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of glitzy tobacco packaging to children.”
But, uno momento, what is the meaning of the phrase ‘dangers of glitzy’? What does the word ‘glitzy’ refer to? Is it the obscene, airbrushed, unattributable pictures or the simple words on the packet? Surely the ‘words’ cannot be ‘glitzy’, for heavens sake? No…we must rid the sentence of ‘glitzy’. After all, it is just a meaningless adjective.
So the sentence now reads:
I am pleased to help launch the campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of tobacco packaging to children”.
But, again, we must ask why he uses the word ‘help’. Why is he not launching the campaign himself? Who is he helping? If he was honest, he would say, “I am pleased to launch…”
So the sentence now reads:
“I am pleased to launch the campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of tobacco packaging to children”.
But, again, we must ask what is the meaning of ‘raise awareness’? The need to ‘raise awareness’ can only apply if there is an already accepted ‘danger’. There is no such consensus.
So the sentence now reads:
“I am pleased to launch the campaign about tobacco packaging to children”.
But what is the need to have a ‘campaign’? Who cares?
So the sentence now reads:
“I am pleased to launch some ideas about tobacco packaging to children.” But why does the word ‘launch’ appear? Why not the word ‘state’?
So the sentence now reads:
“I am pleased to state some ideas about tobacco packaging to children”. But why only children? Why not adults?
So the sentence now reads:
“I am pleased to state some ideas about tobacco packaging.”
But what is there to be pleased about? What does it matter?
So the sentence now reads:
“I state some ideas about tobacco packaging.”
Thus, if you strip out the emotive words, you end up with almost nothing at all. Is that what MPs are paid for?
Well said Junican. If one boils it down to it’s simplest, there is nothing left.
The fact that the smokercontrol league and their faithful followers have to use emotive words, “glitzy” adjectives and blow everything out of perspective is very telling…
Then they will accuse the tobacco industry of deceiving, “marketing to children”, advertising, etc… despite the FACT that they have been BANNED from doing any such thing since the 80s (at least in Canada). It’s incredible that they will harp on about what tobacco industry might have done 40-50-60 years ago, but they will not acknowledge that they are doing the exact same thing – AND THEN SOME. What these ANTIS are doing PRESENT DAY makes the tobacco industry look like a Saint in comparison.
If these ANTI-smoker nutters (fitting description) were for real and were to be trusted, why the fancy wordplay and distractions?
Wouldn’t their incredible claims be observable by sight alone without the need for all their fancy “campaigns”?
I don’t think laws should be written on account of a few people’s opinion on odors, or dislike of certain colors.
These politicians should just tell the smokercontrol league to do like everyone else and not buy something if they don’t like it. Easy peasy, nice and easy. Besides, aren’t there more important things that should be dealt with, or legislated on than this foolishness?
It still mystifies me how NO OTHER PRODUCT but tobacco and/or it’s packaging somehow have these magical properties.
Still sounds to me like they are quite full of it and their increasing desperation is so pathetic it’s almost sad.
Junican wrote, ” you end up with almost nothing at all. Is that what MPs are paid for?”
Yep. Although you might want to delete the word “almost.”
– MJM
John S wrote, “Did you fall for the “smoker’s lung” con at school, Mike D? The photos are usually of the DISEASED lung of a pig.”
Actually, they’ve gone beyond photos John. Here’s a passage from Brains on the subject:
===
Fear and disgust work just as well in the hands of a skilled manipulator. One Crusader, a feeder at the public trough of Delaware National Guard’s Counterdrug Task Force, likes to scare impressionable children by holding up a blackened, bloody, and diseased looking lung in classrooms while explaining that the cancerous thing came from a man who had smoked for just 15 years.
In reality, it is simply a pig’s lung shot full of carcinogens and prepared carefully to look disgusting, gruesome, and scary… not a human lung at all. The National Guard Captain explained to the reporter covering the story that his lesson was made stronger “by not passing along that tidbit of truth” (James Merriweather. Delaware News Journal. 04/05/01).
===
Just like the situation here with the Rollos and MikeDs, these antismoking “educators” don’t realize that as the kids grow a bit older and wiser and realize how they’ve been lied to they’ll just become MORE likely to throw ALL the information they’re given about smoking out the door.
– MJM
I see that this discussion went on for quite a while after my departure albeit our two main antis seem to have now left the building. But I still have some unfinished business with the one with the brain – you know, the one that has perfectly mastered the art of twisting and diverting the discussion any which way but with integrity!
Sir Rollo, the ‘’I’m only a concerned non-smoker citizen’’ but who nevertheless spends long hours on the internet antagonizing those who are genuinely affected by this issue, says:
‘’You say, correctly it appears, that the USA has not ratified the FCTC. Thank you Iro for sinking your own argument!!!
(…)
How can the WHO “orchestrate and puppeteer” other countries when it is optional for nations to sign and ratify the FCTC, and when signatory nations can choose to withdraw at any time?!’’
I never said that the WHO held a gun to the temple of the politicians of the countries to get them to sign this intrusive treaty but I repeat: God help the countries that don’t. It would be political suicide for the ones in office. And it is not as if countries had conducted fair and honest consultations or polls to get the true feeling of their people in regards to the various clauses in the treaty before selling their people to the FCTC and it’s not as if any government that wishes to withdraw from it or parts of it would freely and inconsequentially withdraw without being bribed and shamed for the decision they have made for THEIR country. Just read how the international smoker control pundits openly characterized the Dutch government for doing what they thought was right for its economy and people:
‘’ It would be a matter of no little shame to a country that prides itself on a compassionate and inclusive ethos if its government were to abandon smokers to their fate. Every death that ensued would not just be the responsibility of the tobacco industry, which continues to promote its lethal product, but also of every politician in the Dutch Government who chose to look the other way and allow it to happen.’’ Add www. to thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2811%2961855-2/fulltext?rss=yes
And here is what the smoke-free partnership writes about the Netherlands health minister. Is she a tobacco industry puppet? Is she not? I have no idea, but those accusing her don’t seem to be sure either. They seem to be basing their allegations only because what she’s doing is going against the accepted international anti-smoker dogma and how a country that ratified the FCTC can possibly be allowed such heresy? Add www to smokefreepartnership.eu/Minister-of-Tobacco-Netherlands .
And here’s another example. The Canadian government (one of the most rabid in anti-tobacco issues) had simply postponed their decision to change the gory images on packets to even gorier ones. Lo and behold, they were accused of bending to tobacco industry’s lobbying in no time flat to a point that they had to kowtow to the anti-tobacco cartel’s wishes almost immediately. Add www to theglobeandmail.com/life/health/did-ottawa-bow-to-tobacco-industry-on-warning-labels/article1790616/
Governments and politicians are openly shamed and demonized should they slightly disagree with all or some clauses of the FCTC and God only knows what bribes, penalties and boycotts the countries without as much wealth and influence as the USA (that did not ratify the treaty) get from the back door – the door you never get to see or hear about.
Iro,
There is clearly no level to which Tobacco Control will not sink in order to achieve totalitarian control. Persecution, demonisation, stigmatization will continue until a genuine STATESMAN stands up and shouts. Alternatively, the medical aristocrats must be excluded by a movement from the bottom of the medical profession upwards. Preferably, both.
Mike D,
Why should someone die just so Mike D can dine in smoke-free restaurants when ever he feels like it?
Why should someone die just so Mike D can drink in smoke-free pubs when ever he feels like it?
This obsession with attacking the smoker illustrates a growing cynical intolerance of our fellow humans that is alarming and pernicious. What has happened to ‘liberalism’? The philosophy needs to be reexamined. The biggest danger is always pollution of the mind. Let us hope our elected leaders start taking their responsibilities seriously.
I totally agree Richard. However, I think your last sentence is very optimistic – “Let us hope our elected leaders start taking their responsibilities seriously.” It is a nice idea, but sadly extremely unlikely to happen as they are little more than idealistic morons who want everyone to fit their idea of the ‘perfect’ mould! Just like Hitler, control means power and that is what they desire the most! It failed for Hitler and hopefully it will fail these our current morons, albeit they are a little more subtle than Hitler!
Unfortunately, whilst on this quest for power they are losing sight of the fact that the country is heading for financial ruin and their ‘mantra’ to protect lives is backfiring abissmally in the face of ever increasing poverty for a large portion of the population!
How agreeable that you concur Lyn. It’s grimly ironic that intolerance is usually fanned by those ideologies that are the most puritanical. ‘Common sense’ must surely be the rarest and most valuable of all human virtues. Perhaps if we could all try and manifest it in our personal lives, then even the politicians would pay some heed. After all they still seem to require our votes. But we are so uncertain and so easily lead by the deluded. So you may well be right. Sigh….
Great video here, the truth about plain packs
You are SO gullible, Mike D. The “White Album” by the Beatles was probably their worst but did the plain packaging prevent it from going straight to No 1 in charts all over the world and selling millions?
I think this tobacco control movie is one of the worst and most predictable i’ve seen. What it does do however, is show the mindset of its proponents which is head in the sand and refuse to listen properly, or think through, anything said to oppose it. Note too, the thin
glassy essence of the acting. Does that actor have false teeth?
Nicola Roxon, the former Aussie Health Minister, the insister on ‘PP’ has admitted that there is no evidence that “plain cigarette packaging reduces smoking rates”. Well, surprise surprise on that one folks! I haven’t found ‘a kid’ yet that admits that he/she started smoking because of a red/green/blue, single colour/multi-colour packet. It is all ‘pie in the sky’ codswallop dreamt up by the likes of ASH, CRUK et al to try and force our government to go one unreasonable step further with prohibition.
Perhaps Mr Wiliams would like to produce HIS evidence to the contrary!
I’m extremely disappointed to see you support such nonsense Stephen. I’ve not read any other comments but considering how far I had to scroll down to write this, I presume somebody else has pointed out why you shouldn’t.
For info, as I know several people are still tracking comments to this post:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/the-pm-his-prosmoking-aide-and-a-dirty-war-over-cigarette-packaging-7563261.html
A barrister once defended a man accused of rape. Does that make the barrister pro-rape?
The tobacco companies once sponsored Formula One. Does that make the whole Formula One organisation and anyone ever involved with it pro-smoking?
Stephen, you qualified as a Chartered Tax Advisor. Does that make you pro-tax avoidance?
And those with no ties or funding from the tobacco industry who dare speak against any anti-tobacco measure no matter how absurd such measure is, are accused of ”intellectual passion” competing interests like I was. It seems the only ones allowed to get grants from corporations and/or publicly express their ”intellectual passion” are the ones tied to the ideological anti-smoker dogma and/or the pharmaceutical industry. How convenient for those advancing the anti-smoking prohibitionist agenda. I wonder how far they want to take anti-smoking , short of executing people who refuse to quit smoking, before allowing people to call them out on their shenanigans. Disgustingly pathetic!
cagecanada.blogspot.com/2012/01/compassion-for-fellow-citizens-and.html
The most heinous of the IEA’s pro-smoking “crimes” was to question the effectiveness of Anti-Tobacco’s policies and subsequent government regulation. They analyse the empirical evidence, from a SCIENTIFIC point of view, and make UNBIASED evidence-based conclusions, for example:
“Despite UK display ban advocates’ repeated assertions, the empirical evidence does not demonstrate that tobacco display bans have reduced smoking prevalence or consumption in the four countries where they have been instituted: Canada, Iceland, Ireland, and Thailand. In this sense, display bans appear to be – like so many other tobacco control policies – highly ineffective.
“A powerful and growing body of research evidence suggests that each country that implements a new tobacco display ban risks significant economic damage and a deterioration in public health.”
Their opinion on plain packaging? Basically, there is no empirical evidence to suggest it will not be just as ineffective as the display ban and there is the very same risk that it will cause further economic damage. Their recommendation? Evaluate the empirical data from Australia after a suitable time period, assuming the courts do not judge plain packaging to be illegal.
P.S. I admit to having a “competing interest”. Over forty years ago, I was employed by Courtaulds for around eight months, researching flame retardents for viscose rayon. That very same company manufactured cellulose acetate used to produce cigarette filters.
P.P.S. My other “competing interest” is that I am a passionate scientist.
And I confess that some 40 years ago I worked for a transportation company that used to have Imperial Tobacco as a customer. I don’t remember, but I must have spoken to a tobacco employee a few times on the phone to dispatch their vans full of cigarettes. That’s got to be a competing interest in the anti-smoker deranged mentality!
I wonder if Mr. Williams has read the McTear judgement, issued 2005. You know, the one where Mr/Mrs. McTear tried to sue Imp. Tob. Interesting reading, Mr. Williams.
After cross examination of ‘expert’ witnesses inc. Doll, Friend and Hastings, Lord Nimmo Smith dismissed the case in its entirety. He said that that Doll was dismissive, failing to answer the many criticisms of his work, that the ‘experts’ appeared to have done no work themselves on the subject, gleaning their information from journals and medical textbooks and nicotine as an addictive substance had not been proved.
In other words, a pile of tripe.
I suggest you give the Judgement a good read, Mr. Williams, and pass it round amongst the rest of those clowns in the House.
I thought I’d come back and add something that I’ve seen on another discussion.
Freedom2choose repeatedly deny links to the freedom2choose set up in 2004 by tobacco supplier Rod Bullough, here’s an example from John Gray of TICAP.
“However, it still doesn’t alter that fact that the the Ron Bulloch organisation and the the Freedom the Choose everyone knows today are completely different organisations – always have been and always will be.
How do I know all these things? Because I was there when they happened.
John Gray
(Director – TICAP)”
Heya i am for the first time here. I came
across this board and I find It really useful & it helped me out much.
I hope to give something back and aid others like you aided me.
John Stuart Mill who, in his essay On Liberty, said:
“Neither one person, nor any number of persons, is warranted in saying to another human creature of ripe years that he shall not do with his life for his own benefit what he chooses to do with it. All errors he is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to do what they deem his good.”
These lifestyle Laws are MORALLY REPUGNANT
I was wondering if you ever thought of changing the page layout of your website?
Its very well written; I love what youve got to say.
But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better.
Youve got an awful lot of text for only having
one or 2 pictures. Maybe you could space it out better?
Hmm… perhaps pictures of pigs’ lungs with black spray paint on them that we could tell students were pictures of smokers’ lungs? Or maybe some pictures of cute little blond-haired blue-eyed five year olds so that we could remind people why it’s important to vote for people who will make laws banning smoking in strip clubs and gambling parlors and houses of ill repute? Or how about some computer graphics pics of fetuses sucking on cigarettes inside of wombs? Hey, yeah, there’s a whole WEALTH of propaganda images you could pull up here to twig the little spaces in people’s emotional vulnerabilities on this issue!
On the other hand, I doubt that “agency web design” really had such things in mind in when making their spam posting.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of “Dissecting Antismokers’ Brains”
sad
Try Googling “UKCTCS dirty tricks” to discover how Anti-Tobacco operate and how “democratic” the public consulations regarding anti-tobacco legislation are.
Hi there mates, its enormous paragraph on the topic of educationand entirely defined, keep it up all the time.
I like the valuable information you provide in your articles.
I’ll bookmark your weblog and check again here regularly. I’m
quite certain I will learn a lot of new stuff right here!
Good luck for the next!
Terrific paintings! This is the kind of info that are supposed to be shared around the web. Disgrace on Google for now not positioning this post higher! Come on over and seek advice from my web site . Thanks =)
Great news for the counterfeiters!
“Stranger in a Strange Land” is also good, with a catchy melody.
Repeat Celine handbag handbags and several individuals could
be suitable for their style. In the first round Natalie, Parvati and Erik hit their bottles giving them a point.
It all began where the last left off and that is with James’ finger. http://www.k1100rs.de/index.php5?title=Benutzer:JanaMock
Decision of this large product is really best and shows long life businesses.
You can decide on to have along some thing captivating.
That this button-work and similar ‘hardware’ bits on
bag are manufactured from brass. Just Americanized Posh Piquancy (a/k/a Victoria Beckham) is also a major
fan. https://cicerone.org/users/randallblancocyqy
Hey there! Do you use Twitter? I’d like to follow you if that would be ok. I’m definitely
enjoying your blog and look forward to new posts.
Hello! Quick question that’s totally off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My web site looks weird when browsing from my iphone. I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to
resolve this issue. If you have any suggestions, please share.
Thanks!
Howdy! It appears as though we both have a interest for the same
thing. Your blog, “Tobacco plain packs” and mine are very
similar. Have you ever thought about authoring a guest article for a related blog?
It will surely help gain exposure to your website (my website recieves a lot
of traffic). If you might be interested, e-mail me
at: dirk-hetrick@gmail.com. Appreciate it
When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added
I get four e-mails with the same comment. Is
there any way you can remove people from that service?
Many thanks!
Hi colleagues, its fantastic article concerning cultureand completely defined, keep it up
all the time.
please bring plain packaging to the rest of the EU! Sick of the second hand smoke everywhere, also ban it in parks/beaches/5 yards from buildings.
It’s time europe gets its rates down to america/aus/nz levels. Smoking in europe is disgusting compared to the rest of the world.
Jon, do you mean like compared to China, Japan, and the Middle East? Hmm… I guess in terms of catching up with the Middle East, Europe *could* stand to see an increase in hookah bars. Would you approve of that?
As for Japan and China though the smoking rate would have to increase a lot among males. Perhaps a simple 100% tax rate on cigarettes instead of the current 300% type tax rate might help with that.
Maybe we should support the idea of a “level playing field” and just put 100% tax on everything? That would be fair I guess, but I think you’ll have a hard time finding support for it: people tend to prefer to persecute helpless minorities that they’re not part of.
– MJM
Couldn’t “healthy” fresh fruit and veg be dyed these glitzy colours? “The children” would refuse to eat anything else!
I always spent my half an hour to read this website’s articles or reviews daily along with a cup of coffee.
My programmer is trying to persuade me to move to .
net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the
expenses. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using
Movable-type on several websites for about a year
and am nervous about switching to another platform.
I have heard great things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can import all my
wordpress content into it? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make
your point. You definitely know what youre talking about, why waste your intelligence on just posting videos to your site
when you could be giving us something informative to read?
I visited various websites however the audio feature for audio songs existing at this web site is in fact marvelous.
Great items from you, man. I’ve consider your stuff prior to and you’re just extremely wonderful.
I really like what you’ve received right here, really like what you are saying and the way in which you say it. You’re making it
enjoyable and you continue to care for to stay it sensible.
I can’t wait to read much more from you. That is really a great website.
I used to be recommended this blog by means of my cousin.
I’m not certain whether or not this submit is written by means of him as nobody else recognise such distinct about my difficulty. You’re amazing!
Thank you!
No matter if some one searches for his vital thing,
so he/she desires to be available that in detail, therefore that thing is maintained over here.
It’s remarkable to go to see this web page and reading the views of all mates about this piece of writing, while I am also eager of getting know-how.
I’m more than happy to uncover this great site. I want to to thank you for ones time for this particularly wonderful read!! I definitely really liked every part of it and I have you saved to fav to check out new stuff on your web site.
Hi, i think that i saw you visited my weblog thus
i came to “return the favor”.I’m attempting to find things to enhance my web site!I suppose its ok to use a few of your ideas!!
Hello, I enjoy reading aall of your article. I like to write
a little conment to support you.
Pretty! This was an incredibly wonderful article.
Thanks for providing this information.
you’re really a excellent webmaster. The web site loading speed is amazing.
It kind of feels that you’re doing any unique trick.
In addition, The contents are masterpiece. you have performed a
magnificent activity in this subject!
Undeniably believe that which you stated. Your favorite reason seemed to be
on the net the simplest thing to be aware of.
I say to you, I certainly get annoyed while people think about worries
that they plainly don’t know about. You managed to hit the nail upon the top
and also defined out the whole thing without having side effect , people could take a signal.
Will likely be back to get more. Thanks
I’ve seen a lot of packaging that would let the people think before they smoke is it part of these campaign?
Wow, amazing blog layout! How long have you been blogging for?
you made blogging look easy. The overall look of your web site is excellent, as
well as the content!
The purpose of Paper Cigarette Boxes is just not to pack cigarettes but also keep them well aligned saving from interacting with each other and causing damage.
one of the best blog ever. Bookmarked for future read .
I agree with you
If you dont like smoking then dont smoke and mind your own business fuk i mean its like if they like a stake and vegetarian sew and stakes are now 3 times the price fuk i like smoking and i know the risk but i like to smoke now with this dumb bitch i pay 7.00 a pack instead of 1.50