Sticking to my normal tradition of being so far behind the times I’m permanently retro I thought I should probably direct you all towards Octabber before it actually arrives. As is so often the case the existence of this excellent idea came across my path via the ever erudite LegIron. It seems that “no smoking day” is no longer enough and October is to be declared non-smoking month. Now we can all look forward to being bombarded by irritating smug adverts trying to encourage people who don’t want to stop smoking to stop smoking. I can but assume that the year end figures for ASH and the pharmaceutical companies that make nicotine replacement products need a boost. I know a few smokers and a few ex-smokers I don’t know a single person who’s given up because of a “give up smoking” campaign*, as far as I can make out people that want to stop smoking do so for numerous reasons but government ad campaigns aren’t one of them. Though of course I may not know enough people with children who will pester them into stopping because the adverts said to. In Wales they’ve started early with a Government funded anti-smoking group paying for trailers before the weather a snip at £18K a month, good job we’re not strapped for cash or anything. If you read LegIron and Dick Puddlecote you’ll not find much new here as I’m going to link to them a lot.
I don’t smoke but as I use an e-cig, drink, like salt on my food, meat and the odd fry up I’m in the same firing line as the smokers so like Long Rider I’ll be supporting this push back against the interfering nonsense the government and their favored puritans try to foist on us. As I don’t smoke I’m going to just have to make sure my e-cig gets out and about a lot. It’s normally loaded with coffee so no smell of tobacco but that seems to not stop people from telling me I can’t smoke. But then again perhaps those people are worried about Thirdhand e-cig vapour, I’m more worried about first hand stupidity myself but there you go.
It would seem the nicotine inhaler type things made by large pharmaceuticals are fine but e-cigs which smokers actually like (and needn’t contain nicotine) are bad and should be banned. Why that sort of thing could start to make you suspect that this didn’t actually have all that much to do with health, and more with vested interest. I best stock up on more e-cig bits at this rate. Of course there are other reason to stand up against this nonsense even if you don’t like the smell of tobacco.
There’s the way that anti-smoking groups try to use methods to skew consultations that they object to others using.
There’s the fact that the paranoia about tobacco causes medical uses to be ignored, hell it might even save you from nerve gas.
Because to stop people smoking they want to make in un-enjoyable by removing pleasure from everything
There’s the way the slippery slope of tobacco control has been repeatedly proven to apply for use against anything fun. With plain packs for cigarettes well under way they’ve got their sites on branded beer glasses already.
If tobacco was as dangerous as they say why not campaign for an outright ban, why not make it another war on drugs? Again I’d suggest vested interest, there’s a lot of money to be made helping people quit and campaigning for slow reductions and more controls over everything.** Given they’re pushing plain packs for everything else before it’s even come into force; I’d assume that if they get to control who can buy tobacco then controlling the sale of everything else shouldn’t be a problem.
All of these policies of course don’t care about what wider impact they might have on peoples livelihoods, in fact they won’t talk to the bits of government responsible for related industries. The closure of corner shops will no doubt be blamed on anything else, whilst a big cry goes up about how the government must do more to protect them and how vital they are to the community. Much like pubs though nothing will be done to actually address the government caused problems preventing such establishments from prospering.
If we carry on at this rate and the puritans get their way we’ll soon be as bad as Australia!!
* This is of course anecdote not data
** There’s a lot of money in selling cigarettes as well but I’m not forced to pay for that.
