For those of you that follow the tobacco control debate, you’ll be - painfully - aware that the UK’s resident antismoking sock-puppet charity are always banging on about one of a few items. Of course, each item they champion - for whatever misguided reason - never goes “far enough”. This leech of a charity will never rest until smoking - and probably any reduced risk alternative - is completely eradicated.
When Theresa May became Prime Minister it was thought that the downward spiral of anti-lifestyle policies wouldn’t accelerate. Fast forward three years and we now have this:
Smoking must be stamped out in the UK within 11 years, according to timeline set out in ambitious new Government plan
Daily Mail headline July 8th 2019
The release of this plan was delayed, for various reasons, but is now published as Mrs May’s lasting “legacy”.
Introduced on May 20th, 2017, the Standardised Packaging of Tobacco Products Regulations (2015) was meant to strike another blow to the smoking prevalence rate. Except that it hasn’t.
Dubbed a “major victory” by tobacco control loons ASH the removal of “glitzy packaging” has done the sum total of fuck all on the smoking prevalence in the UK. Nor has it had any significant impact in Australia. Or France.
Y’see, wherever plain packaging has been enforced, smoking rates have actually increased.
After weeks of posing the same question in Parliament and being told, repeatedly, that the new tobacco control plan will be published soon, it’s finally happened.
The Government have released their new tobacco control plan - “Towards a Smokefree Generation” - which says it all really.
I’ve read the thing. I tweeted my immediate thoughts as I was reading. Let’s just say I was less than impressed. I’m not going to dissect it line by line, it’d take far too long for one, and I doubt my blood pressure could handle it.
Now that we’re into the 11th year of the most spiteful and damaging social engineering exercise England has ever seen - otherwise known as the smoking ban - I found myself rather bemused by how innocuous the anniversary was.
I wrote about the impending anniversary ahead of time, planning to write another piece on the day; but as these things go, that never happened. It was unsurprising to see the usual cobblers being spouted by various social media accounts using the hashtag #smokefree10.
As with any tobacco control milestone, you’ll hear all kinds of shenanigans bullshit from the usual suspects. But before we get into that, let’s rewind a bit. 10 years in fact.
At the tender and innocent age of 27 (snark), at (oddly enough) this exact time of year I was on the usual lads holiday. A week of sun, sand and lots and lots of beer. Well, it’d be rude not to.
I know, it’s been awhile since I last put finger to key. Far too much going on outside the twitter- & blog-spheres for me to put aside time to regularly post. Real life eh?
It seems the hypocritical vapers friend ASH have been up to their old tricks. Again. I’m not at all surprised, after all this time last year they said the 250,000 vapers that use 20mg/ml and above don’t matter.
Among many things, this really does boggle the mind. Y’see, whenever ASH or their sock-puppet ilk wave their “statistics” under the noses of our ruling elite, they claim that it is “without bias” and of course “entirely independent” - among many other platitudes.
Y’see, ASH et al are entirely free of conflicts of interest aren’t they? So their surveys must be the Holy Grail. No question about it. When it comes to knowing the smoker, ASH has all the answers.
If there’s one thing that public health like to do, it’s to provide advice on how we, the Proles, live our day to day lives. This advice, which always ranges from the “no shit sherlock” to the “what the hell are you thinking” type. The vast majority of such “advice” is pretty much common bloody sense. Thing is, nanny seems to think us Proles don’t have any, so they have to spoon-feed us guidance on a regular basis, just so we don’t forget who’s in charge.
Hard to believe it’s been a year since the sock-puppet charity ASH got their way with the ridiculous legislation on smoking in cars (with kids). Yet, a year it has been. I’m sure you’ll remember how ASH considered the passing of the legislation a “success” and how it would “drive down” smoking rates and all the usual platitudes when a state-funded charity imposes its authoritarian will by lobbying the government (with their own cash mind).
