Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Reporting tobacco use by ballplayers is now just an easy online form away

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/reporting-tobacco-ballplayers-now-just-easy-online-form-181244662.html


And lest you think that policing over 700 ballplayers a day in 15 different cities is an impossible challenge, Hardball Talk writes about a group that's planning to remain vigilant in pressuring Major League Baseball to enforce its own rules.
Yup, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kidshopes that fans clicking turnstiles and watching from home will report any violations they see during the season. They've even created a handy-dandy online form that includes fields for the player's name, the game they attended or watch and even a place to submit pictures or screenshots of the tobacco use.

Oh For God's sake.
Too upset to even waste my time with sarcasm.

The Philibuster: Culture of cigarette acceptance different

http://www.lsureveille.com/opinion/the-philibuster-culture-of-cigarette-acceptance-different-1.2723796#.T3uDjKum_E0


And to do so is, quite plainly, an affront to Americans’ freedom of choice.
Americans have been educated. Americans have been informed. Butt out, in other words. Let Americans choose for themselves.
Whereas the decades-long decline in American tobacco consumption has leveled since 2007, the percentage of University undergraduate smokers has actually increased, according to Sylvester.
Given Americans’ — and Louisianians’ — notorious aversion to arm-twisting and coercion, anti-smoking zealotry might thus be the problem, not the solution.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Hmm,tobacco control surely hasn't failed in their ever so far reaching goals have they?
Because every ban protects someone so surely people must be quitting smoking if it is banned.
Right?

Criminologist: Crime will flow from tobacco rules

http://www.euractiv.com/health/criminologist-crime-flow-tobacco-rules-interview-511919


"The crime proofing exercise we have conducted has shown that some of the policy options envisaged by the European Commission carry significant risks of creating unintended opportunities for the illicit trade in tobacco products.  In particular, there is a high risk that a measure such as generic packaging may increase the counterfeiting of tobacco products and make it difficult for consumers to distinguish legitimate products from illegitimate ones," said the report's author, Professor Ernesto Savona.
Available information on the currently on-going impact assessment for the revision of the TPD indicates that the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection (DG SANCO) paid almost no attention to the potential impacts on the illegal trade in tobacco products.
"Contrary to their own guidelines, European policymakers rarely consider the crime risk implications when drafting new legislation and the revision of the Tobacco Products Directive by DG SANCO seems to confirm this," continued Professor Savona.

Surely that's not possible,since every single thing they do is for our own good?
Makes me wonder if they truly have any sort of grasp on what could happen if they go ahead with their plan.