Oh! The Inhumanity in Bolton!

With apologies, I'm a week or so late on covering this -- I am still playing catch-up with all that's happened since I went on holiday.

About a month and some change ago, the Royal Bolton Hospital (Bolton NHS Foundation Trust) asked the Bolton News to run a poll on its website asking whether smoking shelters should be rebuilt on site at the hospital. I wrote about that here.  The Bolton News unequivocally stated that "Trust bosses have promised they will abide by the result of the vote."

When the on-line poll was over, a small majority of 53% wanted the smoking shelters to rebuilt -- 1,522 people for and 1,327 against -- this doesn't include the postal ballots received. The total tally was 1,629 for rebuilding the shelters, and 1,580 truly hateful people against building them. It was a close vote, certainly. But a promise is a promise. Right?

So what are NHS Trust promises worth?  Absolutely nothing, the Bolton News reports:

HOSPITAL bosses have made a dramatic U-turn — and will NOT build smoking shelters at the Royal Bolton.

And why has the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust broken its promise to the good people of Bolton?  Because they hate you, smokers. They despise you. Oh, they'll never say that much, none of them will ever admit how much they despise you, so instead they'll say something about being obligated to protect you from yourselves. But really, for the Trust, it's all about standing "shoulder to shoulder" with evil. For instance, the article in the Bolton News said this:

It comes following weeks of pressure from council chiefs and outraged people over the hospital’s decision to reinstate the shelters following a public vote.

Dr Bene said the reverse decision was made in order for the trust to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with public health — despite 1,629 people voting in favour of the shelters in a poll held last month.

[...]

“We have just undertaken the exercise but having reflected on that and heard a lot of views, we feel perhaps we need to look at this in a different way and stand shoulder to shoulder with our public health colleagues.”

In other words, the Public Health crusaders demanded (perhaps even threatened, although there is no evidence of that) that the Trust break its promise to the fine, upstanding citizens of Bolton. And the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust capitulated to the demands of Public Health. Because in Bolton, it is plainly evident that smokers don't deserve to be treated like human beings, and that if you make a promise to smokers, you don't have to keep that promise, because smokers aren't worth your time or attention.  In Bolton, smokers do not matter, all thanks to the Bolton NHS Foundation Trust's comrades in Public Health. Welcome, Bolton, to the New Inquisition.

If you live in Bolton, you might be tempted to contact your councillors. This would be an error, because your councillors hate you, too, smokers.  The Bolton News article said (emphases added):

The decision [to not build the shelters] has been welcomed by Town Hall bosses.

Cllr Sufrana Bashir-Ismail, cabinet member for public health said: “We are grateful they have listened to concerns raised.

“As a council with responsibilities for promoting healthier lifestyles we were concerned the decision would send out the wrong message and felt the hospital could instead offer advice and support on stopping smoking."

Sufrana Bashir-Ismail (centre)
Source: Bolton News
She's not going to listen to you, smokers.

Well, councillor Sufrana Bashir-Ismail supports Public Health. She is no friend of any smoker in Bolton, that's for certain, and she cannot be trusted to support the will of the public, evidently.

Another Bolton councillor regrets that we live in a representative democracy, possibly. Meet "Conservative" Cllr Andy Morgan, who is disappointed that the public was asked to vote on the smoking shelters (emphases added):

Cllr Andy Morgan, who sits on Bolton Council's health scrutiny, said the shelters should never have gone to a public vote.

[...]

“We have all got a part to play in public health and the hospital is no different. This has been a complete and utter waste of every body’s time and resources."

Bolton Councillor Andy Morgan
Source: Twitter 
"We have all got a part to play in public health..." Andy says.
Jay says, Well, don't let 'em see that beer, Andy. I'm confident that's over the Public Health nutters' recommended daily limit.

Thanks, Andy, for looking out for Bolton's citizens. They're all so very lucky to have you. Your Italian holiday pics look fab, by the way.

Clearly, in Bolton, your councillors do not work for you, instead they choose to work for Public Health or perhaps for their own personal gain -- some, like Andy Morgan, don't even want to let you vote on issues that matter to you, or maybe that's just the issues that matters to smokers. Is there any real difference? I suppose public opinion is irrelevant in Bolton, thanks to the insidious nature of Public Health's denormalisation programme against smokers, and thanks to town hall bosses who support anti-smokers.

Well, I feel bad for Bolton's smokers, who don't deserve compassion, who don't deserve to be treated like human beings by those you voted for, or by those who are supposed to treat you when you are ill.  You cannot trust your doctors, and you cannot trust your councillors, and you must never trust anybody who works for or supports Public Health. They all despise you and want you to shiver in the cold, wet weather, unsheltered from the elements.

There is no humanity left in Bolton. Evidently.

Class Warfare and Saving Lives

Over the next few days, weeks, and months (hell, possibly years) you're going to see a lot of people say stupid shit just like this:

Rebecca Taylor MEP:
"Congratulations to all those #ENVI MEPs who voted in favour of #medicines route for #ecigs; you did what #tobacco industry wanted : (

Or (perhaps unintended, perhaps intentional) asinine things like this:

Chris Davies MEP:
"Key e-cigs vote lost 45-25. People will die unnecessarily as a result unless this can be changed. #e-cigs"

And more than a bit of this hysterics from some vapers, evidently learned from tobacco control and their sheep minions of hate:

g james:
".@LindaMcAvanMEP how does it feel to advance your career on the backs of 1,000s of deaths? #ecigs #EuEcigBan #SWOF #BBJ"

But what you won't see very much of is this, which is absolutely spot-on and true (note: I don't know this MEP, or what she stands for, but I like the wording of this tweet -- I'm certainly not endorsing this MEP):

Marina Yannakoudakis MEP:
"E-cigarette users let down as MEPs reject @ecrgroup amendment & instead support Socialist & Green plan to classify #ecigs as medical devices"

I believe that last tweet really just sums up the situation with MEPs choosing to (effectively) ban e-cigs, along with a total ban on menthol cigarettes, and a total ban on slim cigarettes, and new 75% graphic health warnings, and whatever other evil things the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) is meant to control. I think MEP Yannakoudakis could have said "E-cigarette users failed by MEPs" but you know, wording choices aside, she's nailed it in a single tweet.

Because this is about class warfare first and foremost. Socialists want only one class of people -- that is to say everybody should be poor and dependent upon the State. The same goes for the Green party, which is really just an off-shoot of the Socialist party when you inspect them a bit more closely.

So why a menthol ban and why a slim cigarette ban?  Because a) poorer people and women tend to smoke menthol cigarettes in much greater numbers than other groups of people*, and b) because women smoke slim cigarettes. The goal of these bans is not to protect anybody's health but instead to take away your choices, to force you to conform to the will of the State along with the eradication of dozens of brands from the market, the latter being particularly important as it's part and parcel with plain packaging.

This is exactly what the Tobacco Control Industry (TCI) has been demanding for years, because TCI has always viewed women and the poor as weak and unable to think for themselves. Indeed, most of your elected representatives feel precisely the same way. The ruling class, which always thrives in a socialist state, will have you believe that all women, but particularly young, poor and/or pregnant women, are too gullible, too stupid, and too weak to be able to make their own choices, so MPs and MEPs choose to make women's choices for them.

(*Some of you might want to include racism as a reason for banning menthol cigarettes -- I don't know whether that's the case here. If it is, I would hardly be surprised, but I'm not going to make that claim, because I simply cannot say whether race is a factor.)

This is class warfare, people. This is all about controlling the poor, who (if the statistics are correct) smoke more cigarettes than the middle class or the upper class. Of course, it's also about making the poor even poorer. Because that's also an effective control tactic. If you have no money, if you spend more and more of your time working for the State to survive, then you are less able to rebel against your masters. It is also about hurting the tobacco industry, which, in the opinions of the socialists, tobacco control academics and many of your MPs and MEPs, is making too much money. Ultimately, it's about controlling all of us eventually, poor or rich.

I just thought I'd point all of that out, in case you didn't already know.

Now, back to the tweets shown above. Rebecca Taylor MEP's tweet indicates that the tobacco industry (presumably all of it) wanted this to happen. I have no doubt that some tobacco companies certainly did want e-cigs to be regulated as medical devices. Larger tobacco companies who are interested in developing their own e-cigs can afford any licensing and medical regulation schemes the Socialists can throw at 'em.  But  Taylor left it there -- she forgot who else would also benefit. So I called her out on that:

Rebecca Taylor MEP

All right, so she's only casually mentioning that the tobacco industry will benefit, not assigning blame. She also sent this tweet:

Rebecca Taylor MEP

Well, she did tweet a few times to the WHO's Twitter account. Was she "very critical"?  I don't think so. Here's one of them:

Rebecca Taylor MEP:
"@WHO do you want to encourage #ecig users to return #tobacco after stopping smoking? That would not be in the interests of #publichealth"

Oooh. You showed 'em, Rebecca.  I'd bet the WHO is absolutely smarting from that critical tweet! Like they care. But the point of selecting this tweet (and there were a couple of others) is to show you that Rebecca Taylor MEP supports Public Health primarily. And those who support Public Health are not your friends -- they never will be, even when they say or do things you agree with.  Rebecca Taylor is also anti-smoking and anti-tobacco, including using snus.  It took a lot of people commenting on her blog post and sending her evidence about vaping to get her on board to support e-cigs, but she wilfully turns her back on tobacco consumers. If you can get her to do what you want, vapers, great -- but trusting her, thinking that she's a friend ...?  That would be a huge mistake.  You've been warned.

As for Chris Davies MEP's tweet, well... I find statements such as his to be unnecessary hyperbole and I put it this way to him:

That's right. People will die regardless if they vape. Vaping isn't going to make you immortal, folks. No matter how much you think it might. Perhaps vapers think that they won't get cancer -- because, you know, cancer is that "bad death" that only smokers get. Think again. Any of us, smoker, non-smoker or vaper could get some kind of cancer, eventually. And apart from suicide, if any of us could choose what we die from, we would. But we cannot. So all of the "unnecessary deaths" will still happen, one way or another, by some cause or another. And if you eliminate one cause, there's another waiting for you.

So I have real difficult time understanding Chris Davies MEP's tweet that "people will die unnecessarily as a result" if they cannot vape. It's poor and sensationalised wording designed to inflame opinion, not inform. It's not even remotely true. E-cigarettes aren't going to save anybody's life. It's disingenuous to say they will. Statements like that are utter bullshit, actually.

At best, e-cigarettes "might" help to extend your life by a few years if you don't get lung or any other kind cancer (because, as we all know and have been told endlessly for decades, smoking causes all diseases and cancers and deaths, right? yeah?), but there's no guarantee that would ever happen. You might die from a stroke or a heart attack or getting hit by a bus, train, or a meteorite; you might die from a snake bite, or from a bee sting, or from a nasty virus or the common cold; you might freeze to death or burn in a fire; you might die in a plane crash or a terrorist attack; you might suffocate on your own vomit or your spouse might suffocate you with a pillow some night; you might get Alzheimer's or some other form of brain disease or dementia and forget who you are, forget where you are and maybe, just maybe, on a bad day, when somebody forgets to look after you, you could come to a sticky end by accidentally walking off a cliff or something...

Are any of those particularly good deaths?  What? You're hoping you'll die in your sleep?  That would be great. Wouldn't it? Doesn't happen that often, though. Nope. I know this, because my mother works as a nurse, in a care home for the elderly. We rarely go quiet into that good night... so, pleasant dreams, people.

It's time vapers abandoned the line of thought that suggests e-cigs will save your life. You are all -- all of you vapers and every last human on this planet -- going to die. Regardless. It is only a question of when -- you can spend the rest of your life, however long that may be, worrying about the "how" if you so desire. It's your life. Do what you like.

So. If you think that e-cigs are likely to extend your potential lifespan, then say that.

But stop fucking saying e-cigs will save lives, because they sure as hell won't.

I can guarantee that much.

Back in Black

Just about everybody knows by now that the UK is not planning to proceed with plain packaging (or standardised packs, as the anti-smokers are now calling them) for tobacco products.  And while it looks we've finally had some success after over a decade of being denormalised and tortured by public health zealots, I'm not holding my breath that this is the end of it. It is possible, perhaps you could say very likely, that plain packs will be mandated through back door EU legislation at some point in the future.  But for now, I'm pleased to say that it appears, as of today anyway, that common sense has prevailed for once.

Naturally, the anti-smoker rhetoric from the True Believers on Twitter has reached hyper-hysterical proportions. You know it's bad for the anti-smokers when they tweet to random celebrities, who were never part of a conversation on Twitter, in a sad, desperate attempt to find someone -- anyone -- famous to support their cause. Like this one from Nick Hopkinson (@COPDdoc) trying to drag Owen Jones into the plain packaging debate:

Twitter

If the name Nick Hopkinson sounds familiar, he's that ... er... annoying twat? ... hopeless lunatic? ... let's just say "that guy" who incessantly tweets about Tesco's tobacco displays.  I admit that I had great fun winding him up with the following petty tweet on Twitter yesterday:

Twitter

Well, I don't really want to spend more time writing about anti-smoker morons on Twitter.  No, there's something far more serious to blog about.

I would like to tell you a story.

This is a story about deception, about lies through omission, about mainstream media propaganda, and at the heart of this torrid tale both the evil villains known as The Dreadful, and her faithful minion, the Department of Health's Tobacco Programme Manager, Mr Andrew Black.

Without further ado, let us don our tin-foil hats and travel Back in Black.

Back in Black

A Tale of Deception

by Jay

Once upon a time there was a journalist named Sam Masters who wrote an article for The Independent.  He titled this shabby piece of anti-smoker propaganda "Tobacco lobby told Government: branding ban will cost you millions."  The article Sam Masters wrote began with:

"Department of Health civil servants met lobbyists from the cigarette manufacturer Imperial Tobacco before the Government shelved proposals to introduce plain packaging laws this week, it can be revealed."

The journalist's use of the word "lobbyists" to describe two representatives from Imperial Tobacco was an inaccuracy. One might be tempted to say it was a bald-faced lie. But let us not quibble over semantics, for we only need to read a bit more of the article to understand why journalist Sam Masters used the term lobbyists instead of representatives.  

From a top-floor office in Hatton Garden in central London, the headquarters of the New Inquisition in England, the evil queen of propaganda known colloquially as The Dreadful opened her gob, revealing her dangerous, pointy fangs, and let out the most horrible, ear-piercing scream anyone in the world had ever heard. Children up to fifty miles away suffered The Dreadful's wails and cried for help, but there was no help to give. Some have said that The Dreadful's scream caused several signal failures on the Tube's Central Line, and chalk cliffs to crumble and fall into the sea on the Jurassic coast in Dorset, but these claims cannot be substantiated. And when the scream finally died out, The Dreadful, still hysterical and drenched with her venomous spittle, said, "The tobacco industry clearly tried to use this meeting with officials to lobby against standard packaging rather than provide any hard evidence."

This was also inaccurate.  Yet hardly surprising, for no person can remember the last time The Dreadful spoke the truth.  Indeed, it was always The Dreadful's job to lie or distort the truth to support her wicked agenda of denormalisation.

An artist's stylised depiction of The Dreadful, presumably in happier days

The truth was that The Dreadful's minion, who is a friend of fellow Australian, The Root of All Evil, had invited the representatives of Imperial to his lair at Wellington House near Waterloo Station. Because The Dreadful's minion, Andrew Black, had to do this as part of the Impact Assessment of the so-called public consultation on plain packaging of tobacco products, a process by which everyone knew was always designed to destroy tobacco companies' ability to distinguish their brands from their competitors' brands.  So to see the truth, one must be willing to look at the actual freedom of information release:

How strange that journalist Sam Masters failed to mention this information. Stranger still is this anonymous minister's quote in Sam Master's propaganda piece:

"[a] minister familiar with the consultation process, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Independent: “My concern is that the tobacco companies have inveigled their way into persuading a number of important players to reject standardised packaging.”

Which minister said that and why would he or she choose to be anonymous?  This was suspicious. Some had claimed that it came from a member of a secretive cabal hell-bent on eradicating a quarter of the British population, a nasty and vile group called the APPG on Smoking on Health. Alas, no evidence was to be found that the quote did come from that cabal.

And even stranger than all of what has already been written is the Department of Health's decision to once again selectively release a sole freedom of information request ("FOI") when almost all other FOIs are not published on-line and kept hidden from the public's view, unless a brave warrior knows the precise magic words and means to release the FOI from the Department of Health's information repository.

There can be only one reason for the Department of Health to do this (we can never know if Andrew Black is responsible, however, but it does seem possible):

To deceive the public with false propaganda.

But it came too late. Because good people like you thwarted the anti-smokers' New Inquisition by writing to your MPs and telling them to oppose plain packs. You and countless others won the battles on Facebook and Twitter, too! You are heroes, all of you. Yes, you, dear readers! Your herculean efforts foiled the New Inquisition's dastardly plans for control and domination. The world is a safer place. The world thanks you.

And so the Dreadful and her minions have lost the war for plain packaging and they have grown most desperate. Everything that the New Inquisition will spew forth now and in the future will be woeful pleas and hateful deceptions designed to fool the unwary and unthinking.

Beware! Beware all Britons! Beware world! These are dark, Black days and you must remain vigilant. The Dreadful and her sheep-minions from hell will stop at nothing to make you believe in their fairy tales and sorrowful conspiracy theories. Armed with brainwashing ray guns, they will use slogans obtained from the darkest pits of the anti-smoker underworld that say "Put Our Kids First" and "Put Kids First," which are designed to make you feel, not think.  Do not be fooled by these powerful deceptions. Know that only the evillest of all evil beings will invoke the "protect the children" incantations to sway opinion.

There is nothing to fear, however. In the fullness of time, in a more enlightened era, it will come to pass that the world will not look kindly upon The Dreadful and Andrew Black and the others who belong to the New Inquisition. These evil creatures who believe in censorship, bans and prohibition, and those who give them quarter will be despised for all eternity.

And the world will once again be a happy place full of sunshine and bunnies, with freedom and civil liberties for all.

The End

Update (Sunday, 5 May 2013):  Simon Clark also writes about the Independent article here.  I wonder if he saw the above?  And the Guardian also covers the story with another nasty quote from The Dreadful:

"It looks as if the noxious mix of rightwing Australian populism, as represented by Crosby and his lobbying firm, and English saloon bar reactionaries, as embodied by [Nigel] Farage and Ukip, may succeed in preventing this government from proceeding with standardised cigarette packs, despite their popularity with the public."

Translation:  Toys. Thrown. From. Pram.

The Criminal Scum Who Supports Plain Packs

Whilst we are all not reeling from the not-at-all-shocking revelation that Chris Huhne is a lying, cheating, criminal scumbag, I feel it's worth reminding you that Huhne was also an ardent supporter of plain packs.

Lynne Denham posing with Eastleigh's disgraced ex-MP and criminal scum, Chris Huhne.
I'd bet Denham is very proud.

Naturally, Huhne's web site has been taken down, but for the time being, Google's cache of his site will let you see what he said:

"I wholeheartedly support The answer is plain campaign and I’ll be taking up this vitally important issue with the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley MP."

Despite yesterday's resignation, Huhne's photo and comments will remain on my Sheep Minions page forever. Of course, Huhne is exactly the type of person that CRUK would gladly use to further their deceitful hate campaign against smokers, so can we expect that CRUK will offer him a job?

Anyway, my Sheep Minions page lists all MPs who have come out in support of plain packaging, but it is in dire need of an update, which I will be doing over the next few days.

For an incomplete list of MPs who oppose plain packaging, you might wish to see this page, also in need of an update.

Black Seoul Days

In these uncertain times of austerity, this dark fiscal age where every taxpayer's penny spent is rightly scrutinised, is it reasonable to ask whether the Department of Health has shown financial prudence by sending not one but two junior civil servants 5,510 miles (8,876 kilometers), as the crow flies, to attend the Fifth Convention of the Parties for the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in Seoul, Korea?

From London to Seoul -- a really, really long way to travel

According to this document (PDF pg 18) posted up on the WHO's FCTC documents page (site link here), we learn that both Andrew Black, DH Tobacco Programme Manager, and Sarah Restarick, DH Tobacco Policy Manager, are listed as official United Kingdom and Northern Ireland delegates to COP5.  In fact, UK taxpayers have paid for return flights, meals and accommodation of at least five people that we know of at present:

Money well spent? You decide.

So while the NHS has seen its budgets dramatically cut over the past few years under the coalition of Tories and LibDems, and there are real concerns that the standard of care will be reduced as a result, is it really an acceptable expenditure of the public's money to send two Department of Health representatives to Seoul?  Was this really necessary?  And even if we concede that perhaps only one DH employee should be allowed to travel thousands of miles to the heady delights of Seoul, should that person in attendance be a mere junior civil servant or should it be someone a bit higher up in the Department?

These are serious matters.  The DH must be held to account and answer for this clearly frivolous spending of taxpayers' money at a time when the public's money is clearly in short supply to those organisations that desperately need it in order to provide even the most basic services to the citizens of the United Kingdom.

Of course, we don't know yet how much the DH spent on sending Black and Restarick to Seoul.  We don't even know if our government provided money to other NGOs or charities for them to attend COP5, too. One can only suspect that the money must be rolling in hand-over-fist at ASH London, because pictures found on-line show that Deborah Arnott was having a huge laugh in Korea.

Arnott and spouse - Photo credit G.Fong

Photo credit G.Fong

Photo Credit G.Fong

Yep. It was one huge party at COP5, replete with the finest wines and bubbly the taxpayers all over the world can buy.

Cheers! - Photo credit G.Fong

Let's all raise a glass to a relentless campaign of hate against smokers!
Photo credit G.Fong

And finally, I provide one last photo that indicates that those Pictorial Health Warnings (PHWs) are not really up to scratch and the anti-smokers know it.  This is a slide from somebody's presentation that clearly shows that PHWs cease to have much effect shortly after their introduction, which is what we've all been saying all along, but somehow making them larger and larger and introducing plain packaging will magically alter their effects on smokers:

PHWs do not work, but we must press on anyway! Photo Credit G.Fong

Good to know.

There are more documents that I must comb through, so if I find anything else of interest, I will blog about it.

I, Drone (Special Cannabis Edition)

If the name Daniel Clayton doesn't ring any tobacco control industry bells, do not be concerned.  In comparison to the Root of All Evil, The Dreadful, Anna Gilmore, Stanton Glantz, or other well-known tobacco control industry names, nobody would consider to list Daniel Clayton among them. He used to work for ASH Wales as their Youth Health Specialist (which is, in my humble opinion, more than bit frightening that people like this have had access to our kids, especially after you've read through the contents of his tweet history), before moving on to some other Public Health job in Cardiff. He's nobody, really. It would be difficult to even class him as a "useful idiot."  No, do not be alarmed if you've not heard about this rugby-loving, fan of Pink Floyd, and generally mouthy prohibitionist before; he is just another one of Public Health's True Believers, blindly following and parroting whatever propaganda the tobacco control industry machine can produce.

Mr Daniel Clayton
There is a YouTube vid of him here, but I don't recommend watching it

But I bring him up today because Daniel Clayton likes to tweet absurdities on a regular basis. In other words, his moronic and often overtly socialist and sometimes communistic tweets entertain me.  Indeed, it was enormously entertaining to see him get all worked up over a union asking it members to oppose plain packaging.  In his mind, unions are socialist "for the greater public good" constructs, much like he views the whole of the NHS and every other taxpayer-funded group you can think of, and therefore unions should also toe the tobacco control line. But when unions don't toe the line, Daniel Clayton does not forget nor forgive.  He's kind of like a little terrier set loose from its lead, padding through the estate, nipping at the ankles of the postman who dares to stray into the little mutt's territory:  Harmless? Not too bright? A nuisance, perhaps? Well, it's amusing to me.

I could go on, but I'll get to the point.  Mr Clayton posted this tweet today:

Now, OK, think about this for a moment.  Mr Clayton isn't sure whether cannabis should be legalised, but if it is made legal, so long as people who smoke weed don't use tobacco in their spliffs, then that's fine by him.  You see, in his view, only the evil tobacco plant kills people. Or perhaps his view is simpler than that: Tobacco companies kill people.  It should be noted that Mr Clayton does not like capitalism, big business, or indeed much of anything but socialised taxpayer-funded quangos and government bodies.  But the above tweet is absurd in its hypocrisy, and I point it out today because it illustrates the next big movement in the tobacco control industry.

The tobacco control industry won't necessarily come out in support of cannabis use, but they will aggressively campaign for people to smoke their weed without using tobacco.  If you're in America, this is no big deal.  Most pot-smoking Americans smoke a J neat -- that is, no tobacco is used when rolling it up.  Bong lovers do not use tobacco either, and of course the ever favourite easy-to-carry pot pipe is also smoked with only cannabis in the bowl ... in the States.  But here in the UK and within Europe, a lot of cannabis smokers prefer to roll up a fatty with a bit of tobacco mixed in.  Every culture and region goes about smoking cannabis their own way.

But shame on you Europeans and Britons who use tobacco whilst getting high! The tobacco control industry does not approve! Don't you realise that the magical tobacco plant is a billion times more dangerous than cannabis?  Does it not matter to you that that very same potentially cancer-causing chemicals present in tobacco smoke are also present in cannabis smoke? You may as well give up cooking food and attending bonfire parties or enjoying the warmth of a log-burning fireplace.  The same potentially cancer-causing chemical constituents of any burning plant material are present in all of these things. The same ones. Including cannabis.

The tobacco control industry won't tell you that. Their agenda is to destroy tobacco companies and make smokers' lives as miserable as possible in the process. So if you mix tobacco in with your spliff, you are funding the tobacco industry, and they do not like it one bit.

It's not about health. It's about controlling your  choices whilst promoting their agenda against an industry they do not like.  Daniel Clayton cannot see the wood for the trees. He is blinded by the tobacco control industry's hateful campaigns against consumers of tobacco products and the companies and farmers who supply the consumers.  Destroy them all, no matter the costs to society.

I can only imagine a similar fate happening to a legal Big Cannabis industry, should something like that ever occur.

Just so we're all clear about what is and is not acceptable when it comes to smoking cannabis, a demonstration using pictures for your viewing pleasure:

This is fine:

Rolling a fatty neat - no tobacco

This is also [extremely] fine:

Hitting a bong, whilst naked and wearing only stockings is acceptable behaviour - no tobacco
Propane torch, optional

This is completely unacceptable:

Rolling a spliff with hand rolling tobacco -- this is very, very bad

And this is also right out:

Rolling a spliff with tobacco from a cigarette is also very bad

Update: Thanks to DP for the link to the ASH 2012 conference tweet (see comments).

The Paranoia of Stephen Williams MP

I'm just a blogger. I don't work for a tobacco company. I'm not paid to write this blog. I am no different or better than any of you who come to read this blog -- however you got here, either accidentally or regularly, whether you followed a link from another's blogroll or clicked a link on someone's page. I'm just a guy who gets by, like you, but perhaps with a little more time than you have to sit down and write about the insanity we all see every day.

So it's always hilarious to see someone accuse me of being a paid campaigner for Big Tobacco. It's even more funny when it's an elected member of Parliament that accuses me of this. I mean, seriously, this is a guy who was elected to represent his constituents, somebody who should be able to see things for what they are and take a reasoned stance on behalf of those he represents.

The story begins a bit earlier.  Bear with me.

Yesterday, the gloriously paranoid Stephen Williams MP representing Bristol West tweeted thusly:

Now stop to think about this for a moment.  Here's a supposedly respected and supposedly honourable member of Parliament tweeting a conspiracy that anyone who disagrees with plain packs is under the employ or guidance of Big Tobacco. Remember: THIS IS AN ELECTED MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT. So much for the honourable and respected bits.

Does Stephen Williams have any evidence that the Rural Shops Alliance is a front for Big Tobacco?

No, he does not. So, lacking any proper evidence and being a petty and sad bastard , it seems because someone would dare to do a proper study on the effects that plain packs will have on British shopkeepers, retailers and consumers, and declare that the tobacco company who funded the study had no influence at all on how it was carried out nor the results, then the only logical conclusion in Stephen Williams's petty, tiny, anti-smoker brain is: Big Tobacco rigged the study; that the Rural Shops Alliance is being used by Big Tobacco.

Seriously.  This near-brainless stooge of the tobacco control industry, who gets paid with your money it must be said, tweets a rubbish conspiracy theory like this just because real people who don't sponge off of the taxpayer say plain packs will hurt businesses...?  Really?  C'mon, really?  Is this what we pay our elected politicians to do? Tweet shite like this?  Apparently. How sad is our government?  (You don't have to answer that, it's rhetorical.)

One must suppose that only Big Pharma or the Department of Health is allowed to fund research, because yeah there's no conflict of interest there. Ahem. One must also suppose that the real employers and businesses out there (not the people who work in the public sector), you know the ones who actually pay taxes and contribute real jobs to the economy ... well, one supposes that their research and opinions do not count in this country, and that every last one of them is being played by Big Tobacco.

Right now, there must be thousands of Big Tobacco execs sitting outside every rural shop in Britain and telling the owners how to run their businesses. Yep. That's how big the conspiracy is.  Indeed, look outside your windows now, and Big T execs are there, telling you to read this blog.  They are! They've tapped into the hard line and are sending these words to your screen!  Just look! It's those guys hiding in the shadows and wearing the fedoras. Don't you see them? Stephen Williams MP must clearly believe in them. 

These guys are right outside your door!

You know, I've written about Stephen Williams before.  He is this blog's inaugural Super Twat of the Month. I don't desire to rehash old matters, though. Let's focus on the now.

After Stephen Williams MP tweeted his rubbish conspiracy theory to his adoring and faithful 2000+ followers, the lovely and erudite Angela Harbutt responded as follows:

This is true. The public, police and a host of others have said plain packaging is stupid and will cause a great deal of problems without actually addressing the issue of whether anyone on the planet (or even in the universe) smokes because of a shiny trade mark on a packet of cigarettes.

This is where I come in.  I saw Angela's tweet and replied to her with this:

Did you note who retweeted it?  Blog favourite Stephen Williams MP.  Why would he do that?  Are there really such things as passive aggressive retweets on Twitter?  Did Stephen Williams MP hope that his legions of adoring followers would rise up and attack me for my views?  Is that the reason why Stephen Williams MP of Bristol West retweeted my response to him, or was he -- and this is being generous I admit -- hoping to engage a fellow citizen in a rational debate?

I think we all know the answers to those questions.

Turns out, there are no legions for Stephen Williams MP.  No. Stephen Williams has only one (just one) fan in Britain who would even mention my tweet, and this guy called me a simpleton and didn't even have the courage to say it directly to me.  OK. I can live with that. Most of us, myself included, don't wish to engage in petty goings-on via Twitter.  Still, I admit, it entertained me for 34.7 seconds (a generous estimate that includes the amount of time it took me to read the tweet and write my own.)

I told you that Stephen Williams is a member of Parliament. Didn't I?  I hope so. I just wanted to ensure everyone remembers that he's supposed to be a grown-up.

Right. So where was I?

Ah, yes.  This gormless MP, who believes that everything on the planet that he doesn't like is a Big Tobacco conspiracy, had a little more to say on the matter.  Except, Stephen Williams, like his one true fan in all of Britain, lacks the courage to say it to me directly. Indeed, this elected, respected, honourable member of Parliament insinuates that this blog's author and what I write is paid for by Big Tobacco companies.

So, there you have it. Stephen Williams MP has falsely accused me, without evidence -- and let's remember that this guy is a grown-up Minister of Parliament who should be above such unfounded accusations (ahem, ahem)  -- that I'm am a paid campaigner for the tobacco industry. 

Stephen Williams MP is wrong.  I'm not paid to write this blog. I'm not paid to have the views I hold, by anyone, and certainly not any tobacco companies.  I am just an ordinary person like any of you. No better than you, not special, not working for anybody ... just a guy who makes time to research and write about ignorant, petty bastards like Stephen Williams MP who represent Bristol West.

Because I want to do it.

Since Stephen Williams is the Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health, which is administered to by hate groups such as ASH, I can only logically conclude that, given the evidence, Stephen Williams is a delusional, paranoid, anti-smoker stooge of the tobacco control industry.

How about you prove me wrong, sir? Do you have the courage for that?  What say you? 

. . .

. . .

Yeah, that's what I thought.


** UPDATE:  Angela Harbutt has more on this at the Hands Off Our Packs blog. **

Dangerous Pro-Smoking Smartphones

The arrogance of the tobacco control industry is stunning and it shines through magnificently in this piece in the Conversation (the favoured op-ed for prohibitionists down under) called "No more cigarette advertising? Never mind, there’s an app for that."

Co-authored by The Root of All Evil's minion Becky Freeman, this short article -- that required three people to write a paltry 628 words between them -- complains about smartphone applications that let users decorate their screens with images of cigarette brand logos.  Since tobacco companies are no longer able to put their logos and shiny trade marks on a packet of fags in Australia, or indeed on anything these days, Mrs Freeman et al are worried that the iPhone has become the next dangerous weapon wielded by the ever-clever marketing executives in tobacco companies:

Public health officials and governments have never been able to keep up with determined and inspired cigarette advertising executives.

This bold statement feigning helplessness is certainly untrue.  The WHO, Public Health zealots and vapid politicians the world over have been busier than ever in closing any so-called advertising loopholes that the Big Bad Tobacco companies have insidiously exploited to ensnare unsuspecting seven-year-olds, including but not limited to tiny letters on a cigarette paper that read "ESC."  So something must be done.

Many countries which have enacted tobacco advertising bans state that they also include all forms of Internet-based advertising. But, there is very little evidence on whether or how well these sorts of provisions are actually being enforced. Australia’s recently enacted ban of online tobacco advertising has yet to be tested.

Given the nature of the Internet, the ability for users to surf via proxies that easily bypass any state-controlled censorship measures and blacklists, it is nigh impossible to regulate the content that appears on the web.  How do you stop people from visiting an American web site that has a gorgeous and temptation-laden iconic image of a packet of Marlboro Reds on display?  How do you stop ordinary smartphone users from downloading or sharing smartphone applications over peer-to-peer file sharing networks?  How best can you can control what you do not want people to see in the digital age?

Equally important, how do you define "advertising"?

Because the anti-smoker True Believers have legislated that any kind of trade mark or logo is de facto advertising. To them, this must mean that anything that is capable of displaying a wicked cigarette brand logo is a de facto advertising medium that must be controlled in order to save billions of lives from the "tobacco epidemic." And who should be the ones in control? Yep, that's right: Public Health nutjobs.

Research on internet content regulation has failed to address the global nature of the online world, so international collaboration on internet regulation is imperative. The World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control is an ideal mechanism to exchange analysis and information on emerging technologies and best practices for online tobacco advertising bans.

Well that's a nice plug for the FCTC.  In fact, it occurs to me that this article by Freeman et al is nothing more than advertising their hate campaign to like-minded prohibitionist zealots. For they also write: "Indeed, app stores can also be a fantastic resource for health promoting activities."

I like to imagine that Becky Freeman and Simon Chapman come up with these ideas whilst sitting in their office at Sydney University, drinking cheap Oyster Bay wine and musing how clever they all are that they alone can save the world from itself. The all important save the world routine in order to garner more funds for your research.  I suppose that compared to Chapman's record-breaking 55-page Curriculum Vitae, Mrs Freeman has a bit more work to do to catch up.  Don't forget to add how many Twitter followers you have, Becky.

Are you fucking kidding me? Seriously?

The article makes one very interesting point, though.  If indeed the smartphone applications are not authorised by tobacco companies, then why haven't the tobacco companies "taken any steps to prevent app developers from abusing their trademark?"  It's a good and fair question to ask.

I suspect that the answers to that are likely to be:

A) The companies did not know about them until about a week ago when Twitter was alight with "OMG!!!! There are pro-smoking smartphone apps which will make our children try smoking! Call the POLICE!!!!" tweets;

B) Tobacco companies are taking action against them but nobody bothered to ask them if they were;

C) Nobody considers that legal actions, such as defending against trade mark infringements, take an extraordinary amount of time to resolve. They do not happen overnight.  Nor has anyone asked the tobacco companies how many cases of improper trade mark use and infringement they have already dealt with this year.  I would bet the figure is quite substantial.

Just so we're all clear, particularly for those in Australia, this is advertising:

An example of advertising for your ease of reference
Source: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1973-Sexy-Redhead-Woman-Camel-Cigarettes-Print-Ad-/390335579635

And this is a phone with an image of a cigarette, which is not advertising:

Is this really a pro-smoking picture? If you're Australian, you bet it is! Source: theage.com.au

For an alternate viewpoint on this matter, feel free to check out this article by Annabel Crabb.

I suppose we can take small comfort in the knowledge that Freeman et al have said "There is no suggestion that anyone be prevented from distributing pro-smoking content online [...]," except when you read between the lines of that rhetoric, we see most clearly that the evil machinations of the WHO by dint of the FCTC will do precisely that ... if we let them.

Do Sheep Dream of Non-Smoking Androids?

Last month I wrote about D-MYST and its creator Helen Casstles. That post was quite long, so I had to leave out a few things. Today, I'd like to return to Councillor Casstles, particularly her fantasy world where smoking should never be depicted in movies past and present.

UPDATE: Many of the below links are now broken. Read this post to find out why.

Take this example of a comment she left on D-MYST's Facebook page:

Just watching an old sci-fi film - Blade Runner. Set in the future, 2019 - the amount of smoking in it is outrageous!

Blade Runner, one of my favourite films of all time, was released in 1982.  It won 6 awards and was nominated for more than twice that number.  The film regularly appears on all-time best film lists.  Wikipedia states that in "1993 the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being 'culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.'"   Oh, and Sean Young and others smoke in this film.

Sean Young in Blade Runner.  And she's smoking.

Here's a tip for you, Helen.  Smoking was normal in 1982; it is normal now in 2012; and I know it will still be normal in 2019 despite your best efforts.

Helen is so blinded by her belief system, her faith in Public Health, that she obviously doesn't get the reasons why smoking is important in this film.  The androids or "replicants" believed they were human, particularly the character Rachel. The main premise of the film was that it was nearly impossible to determine if someone was a replicant or human, thus the use of the empathy test. Since many humans do smoke then by logical extension, some (but not all) androids will smoke. It makes them seem more human.  "More human than human" was the Tyrell Corporation's motto after all.

The Voight-Kampff empathy test scene with Sean Young was so beautifully acted, filmed and edited that it is legendary in the world of film-making. It is iconic. Photos and images of Sean Young in that scene are also iconic. People make artworks based on that scene to this day. I take great joy knowing that people like Helen Casstles never will be able to airbrush that scene or stills out of history. Never.  All they can do is bitch about it.

Still, such a shame that Helen's view of acceptable fictional entertainment is so utterly warped and deluded that she cannot enjoy a classic, much-loved film because people are smoking in it. Did she even notice the severe class division between the rich and poor in that film?  I wonder if she thought that it was normal and acceptable for most of the population to be living on the fringe of society, barely surviving, while the rich were safe in their penthouses protected from the riff-raff below. This woman is fucking insane to be worried whether people (or androids) are smoking in a film.

Another example then -- one she wrote today:

Went to see Looper yesterday. How disappointing to see smoking being promoted in new movie and even more disappointing that the director's vision of our future still includes smoking.

What about the Olympic ceremony? you ask:

So, why exactly does Kenneth Brannagh have to have a cigar in his mouth during the Olympic opening ceremony? Even if it's historical for the character - I bet no one would miss it. 

That cigar is not even lit, for fuck's sake! Might as well be chocolate biscuit curl from M&S.

 And to round it all off, she shared this old anti-smoker propaganda video with her D-MYST kiddies:

Thought you'd like this Health Education circa 1976

People like Helen Casstles have no business infecting our children's minds with their brand of hate against a significant percentage of the population, and ultimately it seems the kids are unable to separate fiction from reality.

Yes, him too. His name is Daniel, by the way, kids.

Coincidentally, there's more here on D-MYST's latest hijinks, which I just noticed.  Just bizarre.

The Tasmanian Endgame

Sometimes I try to imagine what the world might be like if the tobacco control industry succeeds in eradicating smokers.  My mind races with various scenarios and possibilities, almost all of them negative, totalitarian, and tyrannical -- a Public Health dictatorship, evil and unforgiving. These imagined scenarios are always followed by more questions, and some of the obvious ones that come to my mind are:

Would it be like Nazi Germany's failed quest to create its genetically-superior race of people by exterminating everyone who failed to live up to their standards of eugenics?  Every time I see some hateful motherfucker from the hell on earth that is the Public Health movement say that smokers cost the NHS or other health services money, I think of this Nazi propaganda like this:

Propaganda for Nazi Germany's T-4 Euthanasia Program: "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too." from the Office of Racial Policy's Neues Volk.
Source: Wikipedia (image now deleted from Wikipedia)

You need only substitute "suffering from hereditary defects" for "suffering from nicotine addiction" in the caption above. Socialised healthcare, to a large extent, ultimately fosters the misguided belief that some people are simply not worth treating because it costs society money.  But eugenics, which was conceived by Charles Darwin's cousin, Sir Francis Galton, first took root in American universities before finally being warmly embraced by Nazi Germany, believes that some people are genetically inferior and not worth treating at all.  We are not quite at the eugenics stage yet -- or are we?


But if the world does not end up like Nazi Germany, then would it be more like the failed War On Drugs, a world where people are arrested for the mere possession of tobacco products for personal use and jailed with truly dangerous criminals?  After all, if nicotine is equally dangerous as other drugs like heroin, then surely it's only a matter of time before tobacco is added to the list of illegal drugs (or made available only from a pharmacist to licensed smokers) with laws enforced by a paramilitary SWAT team, which is only too happy to invade your private residence and gleefully shoot your spaniel.

"A neighbour smelled tobacco smoke, Bob.  Grab the dog and lock and load."

Of course, many in the tobacco control industry know that proposing outright prohibition of tobacco will lead to a backlash of negative opinion and hurt the industry's cause.  Prohibition will cause the industry's public health funds to dry up too. Musn't allow that to happen! Livelihoods are stake. So the plan is to introduce piecemeal legislation over time and whittle away at the public's resolve whilst the tobacco control industry continues to suck taxpayers dry in order to create new invidious ventures into public health advocacy.

If ever attempted, prohibition will fail, as it always does. But abolition of all tobacco products is another matter entirely.  If tobacco does not exist, then it cannot be used by anyone. Abolition is the endgame (or end-date thinking).  Where better to test the murky waters of abolition than down under in Tasmania?

The endgame of abolition begins with age-based selective prohibition: anyone born in the year 2000 or later will not be able to purchase cigarettes. It simultaneously aims to re-engineer cigarettes to make them unpalatable.  It further aims to make cigarettes more difficult to obtain. And finally, it aims to indoctrinate an entire generation with as much government-controlled anti-smoker propaganda that taxpayer money can buy.

Read all about this sinister plan here in the BMJ's Tobacco Control blog.  Here's an excerpt:

The proposal forecasts a reduction in retail outlets or other mechanisms for reducing availability. As Tasmania already has a licensing system, and effective enforcement for retail sales, this can be tackled.

The great novelty of Mr Dean’s proposal is that it incorporates two key elements that have been proposed as elements of planning for a tobacco end-game. These are mandated product modification to make cigarettes less addictive and/or palatable and the birth-date bases proscription of tobacco purchase and use that would forever prohibit the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after the year 2000.

To make this happen, you need a majority of public support. To get that support (or at least soften people up a bit) you need the mainstream media on your side. As we already know, the media cannot be trusted to be fair and impartial. The media is content to provide only one viewpoint to its viewers and readers, as evidenced by the following Al Jazeera broadcast.  Not a single voice of opposition is presented here (WARNING! Contains brief but horrible graphic imagery of super nanny NYC Mayor Bloomberg):

There's a problem, though. This campaign of hate doesn't abolish tobacco, although that is certainly its goal. It's a confidence trick: Give some people the illusion of fairness with a built-in grandfather clause whilst claiming you are protecting the young children. It's a ruse evilly designed to appear utterly reasonable to the closed-minded, so long as they wilfully fail to consider that other things, say, cannabis and other drugs, have been illegal for decades and the kids are still using those despite the laws.

They know damned well that kids are going to have access to tobacco somehow, whether it is given to them, or whether they work in shops that sell tobacco, or whether the kids simply steal it or seek out the illicit market.  The tobacco control industry is counting on it.

In order to move a little closer to the abolition stage, the tobacco control industry only needs to show that A) Tasmanian kids are still able to get tobacco products from older people or by travelling to other Australian states, and B) that tobacco availability elsewhere in the world is harming Tasmanian children.  And that will kick off a further chain of events leading to abolition, and the WHO will be leading the charge insisting that every child must be vaccinated against nicotine addiction.

The only way to keep everyone from smoking is to make tobacco wholly unavailable.  This is the endgame, but they know that it can never happen voluntarily. They will force their lifestyle rules upon all of us relentlessly and tirelessly.

They will attack the hard-working tobacco farmers and through regressive taxation and penalties force the farmers to stop growing tobacco, ultimately stealing the farmer's land.

They will attack retailers, big, medium and small, and insist that the retailers are responsible for killing babies.

They will attack and accuse celebrities, athletes and anyone in the public spotlight who smokes for glamourising smoking.

They will attack every institution, organisation and group that advocate for personal choice. For your body belongs only the the state, and you must do only what the government tells you to do.

Always dissatisfied that nothing ever works, tobacco control will muster its armies and come for the individuals next.

They will not let smokers have children (nor adopt children) if you smoke.

They will not let you smoke in your own home, which you own, because smoke-drift will enter the house's electrics, travel down the wires and kill people up to five miles away.

They will not let you work, and certainly never let you become a teacher, or a nurse, or a doctor because your smoking could harm and infect the children's minds. Companies will test their employees for tobacco use and those caught will be sacked and may never be able to find suitable employment again.  Suicide rates will increase dramatically.

If a hapless child ever sees any adult smoking, in real life, on the Internet or even in a film on TV, that child will be deemed tainted and taken away to be reprogrammed by the state.

Any parent who smokes in their car (or even dares to smoke outside their homes) might be violently arrested for child abuse -- a happy idealised world full of kids who are ripped from their mother's bosom and their father's arms by balaclava-wearing paramilitary tobacco-enforcement teams.

Endgame. What does it really mean? How can it be achieved?  The endgame might lead to all of the above, for evidently some people will not conform, so it can only be enforced by a dictatorial and totalitarian state.

Despite all of the hate and violence that the tobacco abolition endgame will certainly bring into the world, if the endgame happens then someone, somewhere will light up a cigarette anyway. 

Havin' a fag break during the endgame's War on Smokers