Mainly a load of links to other peoples stuff today by way of plugging an event over in Stony Stratford. Smoking or rather stopping people enjoying smoking has been much in the news of late with Australia being the first country to adopt plain packaging laws (H/T Dick Puddlecote), a move which Leg Iron has observed previously will just make counterfeit smokes all the easier to make. So serious are the famously relaxed and chilled Ozzies about the use of plain packing that an individual daring to sell packs in anything other than drab green will face fines of up to £146.700 which seems a tad excessive. The health warnings will also now have to take up 75% of the pack – death cigarettes were so ahead of the game here. We are of course considering the same sort of thing based on lots of suspect surveys Not to be outdone Iceland is considering classifying smokers as addicts and making cigarettes prescription only. Though apparently despite the majority of smokers wanting to quit bits of the anti-smoking lobby want to ban e-cigs. You know the things which don’t have to contain any tobacco, release only water vapour, and which can be legally used inside, almost makes you suspect that they don’t really care about health issues.
So what has this got to do with Stony Stratford, well a councillor there has had the wizard idea of banning smoking in all out door areas*. Whilst obviously this is just a single councillor in a small town, it would from past expereince seem likely that if it happens there it’ll spread like wildfire to other councils. So rather than wait for that to happen there is a plan to gather in Stony Stratford and protest. I’ll be attending as whilst I’ve never smoked this sort of banning of a legal activity across a whole town seems really rather excessive. It’s already been done in lots of places with the public consumption of alcohol and that was allowed unhindered, to tackle problems already dealt with by existing laws. If this sort of smoking ban goes ahead (and you can bet “outdoor areas” includes in your car) then I’d give odds that the puritans will turn their attention back to alchohol again probably followed by dancing and having fun. If you think that such thin end of the wedge arguments are far fetched I’d observe that somewhere along the line “health experts” have decided that 2 pints of not average beer is now “heavy drinking” (and that’s 3.5% beer so not even decent ale).
So as smoking and smokers get more and more pushed out attentions seem to be returning once more to alcohol, and the methods used are probably going to be the same. The hordes of non-smokers didn’t flock to the newly smoke free pubs as the health officials claimed, so pubs continue to close at an alarming rate – with CAMRA seemingly happy to ignore this as long as their very strict version of “real ale” isn’t punished too much. Quite where they think we’ll be able to buy this once the pubs are all shut, or only allowed to sell beer from unmarked generic taps – I’ve no idea. So to save my favourite way of having beer served (in a pub) it’s way past time to take a stand with those that smoke, and suggest to the health puritans that they perhaps leave us all alone and spend all that lobbying money on something more useful like finding a cure for puritanism perhaps?
* Because obviously the fumes from a cigarette are so dangerous once mixed in with all those engine fumes you get along a main road, or perhaps the mere sight of some one smoking will turn the children into hopelessly addicted nicotine heads, killing their granny so they can sell her body for the next hit of tobacco. Or soemthing I really don’t know what they’re thinking.
