A New Confidence Trick

As noted in 2006, ahead of the free vote to ban smoking in public spaces:

They “knew” they were going to win, and thus were confident in securing the votes for their “next logical step” in the war on smokers.

ASH was very keen to see smoking banned in cars but were content (at the time) to only settle for banning smoking in cars with kids under the age of 18. Even after the first year, nothing much happened.

There weren’t any notable prosecutions, indeed, neither the police or local authorities knew for certain who could start such a process.

As I noted on the anniversary of the ban:

Even then, the sour-faced crone wanted to immediately extend the ban to include all vehicles. I can, to an extent understand why smoking in company vehicles was banned. I disagreed with it, and I even flouted such a ban on numerous occasions. Before that ban was imposed, it was entirely at the discretion of the company management.

Now, however, with police officers in Cambridge taking a “non-confrontational approach” to the ban, the likes of Dame Silly Davies, and of course the harridan herself, have called for a total ban on smoking in cars.

What kind of mentalist jizzweasel thinks it appropriate to dictate what we can, or can not do, in our private spaces? The fact is most smokers are so downtrodden that any spark of resistance to intrusive prodnosery simply doesn’t exist and the intrusion merely accepted.

This’ll be the result of one of your usual, self-selecting, surveys eh Debs? Despite the fact that there is a lot of evidence that utterly derails your bullshit argument about second-hand smoke.

Introducing the ban on smoking in cars with children was a pointless exercise, but it allowed ASH to keep their collective snout on the DoH money teat. No doubt that they’ll be lobbying Government again to extend the ban, once they’ve been automatically approved for the grant, natch.

My response to that is simple: “yes sir, no sir, three-bags-full sir”. While it is ‘illegal’ to smoke in a car with a youth, it is most certainly not illegal to smoke. Most smokers are considerate and generally don’t smoke around their kids. But then, it’s a sign of a thoroughly degraded and demoralised society when adults need the state to tell them how to behave around their own children.

Except that’s not the end of it.

Of course, this is merely common-bloody-sense. If you vape in your car, either exhale out the window or away from your direct line of sight. The thing with smoking in a car is that there isn’t a large cloud that can obscure your vision so the authoritarian fuckwits at ASH couldn’t call for a total ban on those grounds, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they turn their attention to vaping in cars at some point. If only to be seen to be “doing the right thing” for safety.

This latest call from ASH is the next in the line of confidence tricks against a thoroughly demoralised and stigmatised group of people.

Maybe one-day vapers will realise what is happening, ‘cos one day, it’ll be vapers in their sights.

(image credit @aecferranco via Twenty20)