Monday, October 05, 2009

A classic of its type: The health dictatorship

The current campaign to ban point of sale advertising for tabacco is a classic of its sort. Here in the South Shields Gazette we see a rage of aspects.
PEOPLE in North East England are calling on the region's MPs to vote in favour of putting cigarettes out of sight in shops.
Here we see it is popular pressure. "People" see...

But wait who are these people?
Ailsa Rutter, director of Fresh – Smoke Free North East, said: "This is not about penalising smokers. "We have spoken with countless people who, although
they smoke themselves, want more to be done to stop their children or grandchildren from starting.
So that is a taxpayer funded harridan and her dreams. No real people. What is more she has five years enjoy this job. A wodeful position where she can reel of dubioous statistics such as,
"35 of the deaths in the North East are due to secondhand smoke in the workplace."
As she well knows there is not and has never been any evidence that is scientifically proven to show that anybody has ever died of second hand smoke.
"Cigarette displays have got larger, brighter and more colourful since advertising was banned and these have a major impact on children and young people.
Evidence? Nope none of that.
Research has revealed that moving tobacco out of sight can help to reduce teenage smoking, after it was seen to have dropped in Iceland and some provinces in Canada after displays were removed.
How about this, can we look at this research? Well it all seems pretty shakey with wide differences of opinion on the efficacy of tobacco bans. But no question of the damage that display bans will do to smaller tobacco manufacturers (which is why big tobacco supports the ban) and on small retailers (which is why supermarkets are in favour of the ban).

This is an anti-competitive measure which will do little if anything to cut youth smoking but will, due to its associated coasts damege the independent retailers and small manufacturers.

5 comments:

Dick Puddlecote said...

"Evidence? Nope none of that."

That could be because parliamentarians have now stated that they don't need evidence anymore.

It's such a chore collecting it before they can get what they want, d'you see?

Anonymous said...

SECOND HAND SMOKE IS A JOKE. Ask the anti-tobacco folks to tell you what truly is in second hand smoke...when it burns from the coal its oxygenated and everything is burned and turned into water vapor..................thats right water..........you ever burned leaves in the fall...know how the heavy smoke bellows off.......thats the organic material releasing the moisture in the leaves the greener the leaves/organic material the more smoke thats made......thats why second hand smoke is classified as a class 3 irritant by osha and epa as of 2006........after that time EPA decided to change the listing of shs as a carcinogen for political reasons.......because it contained a trace amount of 6 chemicals so small even sophisticated scientific equipment can hardly detect it ........they didnt however use the normal dose makes the poison computation when they made this political decision. However osha still maintains shs/ets as an irritant only and maintains the dose makes the poison position.......as osha is in charge of indoor air quality its decisions are based on science not political agendas as epa's is. We can see this is true after a federal judge threw out the epa's study on shs as junk science......... Wednesday, March 12, 2008 British Medical Journal & WHO conclude secondhand smoke "health hazard" claims are greatly exaggerated The BMJ published report at:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057

concludes that "The results do not support a causal relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. The association between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and coronary heart disease and lung cancer are considerably weaker than generally believed." What makes this study so significant is that it took place over a 39 year period, and studied the results of non-smokers who lived with smokers.....

meaning these non-smokers were exposed to secondhand smoke up to 24 hours per day; 365 days per year for 39 years. And there was still no relation between environmental tobacco smoke and tobacco related mortality. In light of the damage to business, jobs, and the economy from smoking bans the BMJ report should be revisited by lawmakers as a reference tool and justification to repeal the now unnecessary and very damaging smoking ban laws. Also significant is the World Health Organization (WHO) study:


Passive smoking doesn't cause cancer-official By Victoria Macdonald, Health Correspondent " The results are consistent with their being no additional risk for a person living or working with a smoker and could be consistent with passive smoke having a protective effect against lung cancer. The summary, seen by The Telegraph, also states: 'There was no association between lung cancer risk and ETS exposure during childhood.' " And if lawmakers need additional real world data to further highlight the need to eliminate these onerous and arbitrary laws, air quality testing by Johns Hopkins University proves that secondhand smoke is up to 25,000 times SAFER than occupational (OSHA) workplace regulations.

Anonymous said...

The Chemistry of Secondary Smoke About 94% of secondary smoke is composed of water vapor and ordinary air with a slight excess of carbon dioxide. Another 3 % is carbon monoxide. The last 3 % contains the rest of the 4,000 or so chemicals supposedly to be found in smoke… but found, obviously, in very small quantities if at all.This is because most of the assumed chemicals have never actually been found in secondhand smoke. (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80). Most of these chemicals can only be found in quantities measured in nanograms, picograms and femtograms. Many cannot even be detected in these amounts: their presence is simply theorized rather than measured. To bring those quantities into a real world perspective, take a saltshaker and shake out a few grains of salt. A single grain of that salt will weigh in the ballpark of 100 million picograms! (Allen Blackman. Chemistry Magazine 10/08/01). - (Excerpted from "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains" with permission of the author.)The Myth of the Smoking Ban ‘Miracle’ Restrictions on smoking around the world are claimed to have had a dramatic effect on heart attack rates. It's not true. http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/7451/ As for secondhand smoke in the air, OSHA has stated outright that: "Field studies of environmental tobacco smoke indicate that under normal conditions, the components in tobacco smoke are diluted below existing Permissible Exposure Levels (PELS.) as referenced in the Air Contaminant Standard (29 CFR 1910.1000)...It would be very rare to find a workplace with so much smoking that any individual PEL would be exceeded." -Letter From Greg Watchman, Acting Sec'y, OSHA, To Leroy J Pletten, PHD, July 8, 1997
-harleyrider1978

banned said...

Nevr seen much Point Of Sale promotional material for cocain, smack or skunk, does not seem to harm drug dealers unduly.

Anonymous said...

Consumers choosing any other totally legal product, can see the choice of what is available before they buy. Alcohol kills thousands yet lagers and beers are not going to be hidden from view in our shops.

The hiding of displays has nothing at all to do with children. If newsagents are selling to those that are underage, then they should be prosecuted its as simple as that.
It is a move intended to make adults feel intimidated when asking for cigarettes. Another swipe by the anti smoking movement that will not rest until all smoking and smokers are eliminated.
All backed by the taxpayer and our smoker persecuting Labour government. Such a ban would lead to the closure of thousands of corner shops.A display ban makes absolutely no sense.

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