Wednesday, December 4, 2013

True Faith/Anthem The Tobacco Control Cult





  On “public health” activists and true belief

Contrast that with “public health” causes, where none of the activists are willing to give up their comfort or take any risks.  The closest they come to doing anything other than chattering and trying to use personally-risk-free force (government) to impose their will on people is occasionally vandalizing a piece of outdoor advertising.  If they were to chain themselves to their handiwork and call the press and police to come see them, I might have some respect for such actions.  But as practiced it is just adolescent vandalism, hiding in the shadows so they can brag about it to their friends and pretend they are similar to truly dedicated activists for important causes.


NYC eyes electronic cigarette ban in public spaces



" He added that the city's measures to ban smoking from outdoor public areas under Mayor Michael Bloomberg were more about public acceptance of smoking than science.
"Those second set of measures were more about sociology and denormalizing than they were hard medical science," Gennaro said on "Squawk on the Street." "We thought it was important to make sure smoking was completely denormalized."
But there’s a second strand to this anti-smoking legislation which makes me take a step back and question whether the politicians are really concerned about our health (something, incidentally, I think adults should be able to decide for themselves) or for their political positions.It is when the plans for anti-smoking campaigns sink to the levels of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive that I am once again reminded about how easy it is for politicians and political establishments to become cozy with big businesses.
This can be seen clearly with this latest piece of proposed legislation which will limit people’s access to e-cigarettes. Of course the EU won’t come straight out and say that it wants to “ban” e-cigarettes – merely turn them into pharmaceutical products. This means they will only be available in chemists, instead of over the counter where people go to if they will buy real cigarettes. We already know from government reports about impulse buying at counters. That’s why supermarkets are supposed to remove all chocolate and sweets from around the queuing area and replace them with carrots or Brussels sprouts and all manner of items children are never going to reach for, unless it’s to bash a sibling over the head with.
End of letter
 I am absolutely certain that MEPs are clever enough to realize the games played behind the back of vapers and smokers. We are dedicated in our efforts to reveal the truth concerning this sensitive public health issue, without hiding any facts, whether positive or negative for e-cigarettes. This is how we have proceeded so far, and this is how we will continue.
In case the news media ask for the name of the pharma company and the PR firm, i have no problem giving them all details.
Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Farley said the cultural shift away from smoking as socially acceptable has been a key effect of the smoke-free ban. He said the indoor smoking ban has been the single most effective policy at cutting smoking in the city. Now indoor e-cigarette use is complicating enforcement of that ban, Farley said.
He said allowing use of e-cigarettes in restaurants and other public places is challenging enforcement of that law because now waiters and business owners have to make sure customers are using an e-cigarette and not lighting up a combustible cigarette.
Further, allowing e-cigarettes to become socially acceptable by allowing their use in restaurants and public places could affect social acceptance of conventional cigarettes, “undermining the enormous progress of tobacco control over the last decades,” Farley said
But the continuation of Hammond’s work, with its demonstrated faulty methodology, was used by the Australian authors to deduce that smoking causes premature death to the extent of 17,800 per year in Australia. Their conclusions should be compared with the results of a survey by the Australian Statistician in 1991 of 22,200 households, chosen at random. This showed "long term conditions", including cancer and heart disease, to be more common in non-smokers than smokers.
Hah.


It is good that the court dismissed the allegations, but the Zealots will be back using some obscure complexity in the law, as has been the case here. The idea of equating ecigs with actual tobacco is really silly, which is the foundation for the court judgement. But note below the weirdness of TC thinking.
Data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the US recently showed the number of middle and high school students who used e-cigarettes more than doubled from 2011 to 2012.
Mr Slevin said the Tobacco Products Control Act was due for a review and could help ban e-cigarettes as well as address issues such as the need to reduce the number of licensed tobacco retailers. This incident of a failed attempt to prosecute points to the fact that the current provisions are not adequate,” he said.


Annual cigarette production in the world's most populous country has jumped 50 percent across the decade, with about 2.175 trillion cigarettes produced in the 12 months to October, showed "Tobacco Control in China from a Civil Society Perspective 2013" on Tuesday, Xinhua reports.


 I watched.

All I saw, was some shrieking blonde yelling everyone down with all the old anti smoking drivel we hear over and over again. There was hardly a moment for proper discussion about anything sensible. No time for smokers allowed. The shrieking blonde turns out to be Andrea Crossfield Director of Tobacco Free FuturesI live in the Northwest and I've never heard of her! The interviewer should have put her in place - but of course he didn't.










 There is a crack in everything,that's how the light gets in.........