Wednesday
Dec102008
The truth about youth smoking rates
Wednesday, December 10, 2008 Repeatedly yesterday I found myself having to respond to the government claim that youth smoking rates in Iceland have fallen by ten per cent since the introduction of a tobacco display ban. Likewise, I was told that similar bans have been just as successful in Canada and Thailand.
Chris Snowdon, author of Velvet Glove Iron Fist: A History of Anti-Smoking (available online), has written a very good response to these claims HERE.
Reader Comments (18)
Simon. I have been using the Iceland case to show that Alan Johnson lied. Another point, is that if cigarette are hidden under the counter, how can we see the health warnings? They may as well take the warnings off.
I always say this ( and will keep on saying it ). Government statistics are usually grossly misinterpreted by the antis / media and that you CAN NOT measure the number of underrage smokers who you DO NOT know about. There has to be some buffer either side, so say 20% of teenagers under 18 smoke, then you could argue that 20% plus 10% ( we are not sure about, an educated guess ) smoke. So that would be 30%. Also I believe there must be MORE underrage smokers as the smoking age went up to 18 so all them smokers aged 16 were underrage. Bet they don't consider that though!
I am not sure that some of these politicians like Johnson are deliberately lying. These statistics are manipulated, (as Chris Snowdon once again brilliantly shows us), and decision makers take them on face value, fully trusting those who deliver them, ASH, CRUK, BHF etc etc. Have you noticed that the passive smoking fraud has been swept under the carpet lately. The despots got a blanket ban on the back of that, but since then, many of us have been wising up to it. Only last night I heard a radio DJ say that he was against smoking, but was getting fed up with the way smokers were coming under attack non stop.
It's good to hear non smokers start to say "Hang on, this is getting ridiculous", I had heard some say that when the smoking ban was enacted. But my growing fear is now it seems they have gone as far with smoking as they can, drink will be ( and has been already ) targeted, then food ( same again, it 's been already ), etc... When will the madness stop! Or when will England wake up and say STOP! In the name of.... :P
Of course they're all lying, Ash/CRUK/BHF etc with the compliance of govt, about the statistics on smoking, how elso could they hold on to their govt appointed big salaried jobs in compliance with eu directives.
Remember the eu plan is to have a blanket ban and cig price harmonisation all over europe. They're not at all happy about the cheaper fags available on the continent and the smuggling that they're loosing out on. The false concern about our health is just a smokescreen the real bottom line is the filthy lucre.
So its the british isles today and who knows what struggling small country in europe will be next until it spreads to the bigger players.
Thats why I hope ireland will stand doubly firm on round 2 on the Lisbon treaty that they're forcing us to have again.
What sort of an outfit are they that overrides a country's democratic vote by saying we were too stupid to understand it and not allow other countries to have a vote at all.
In my opinion the eu should be disbanded in its present form and allow all countries in europe to have a say about who is elected and held accountable in Brussels.
Thank god for Declan Ganley of Libertas who championed the no vote last June and is now setting up offices in Brussels this week to set up a pan european organisation against them.
I would add that he is not anti european.
Should any statistics be believed?
In my experience, statistics can be manipulated to come out with the answer that is required by whoever is paying for the report!
Again, a classic example of corruption in the offices of those who are supposed to running our country on our behalf! We are being conned left, right and centre!
'We are being conned left, right and centre!'
We certainly are Lyn.
You've said it there Lyn, 'whoever is paying for the report', then it becomes anything you want it to be.
The really sickening thing is, they are using our money to con us with!
If things do not start to level out soon and a stop put to all this nannying and victimisation then with the credit crunch as well and the GB Pound becoming more and more worthless by the day, I can seriously see a revolution happening. We have joked about it before, but I believe it is now becoming a real possibility!
If this does happen, hopefully we will have the French, Dutch, Belgians, Germans and any others who have had cretinous smoking bans forced upon them joining forces with us and it will end up as a Europe wide revolution, on one topic, at any rate. Nothing more than this whining puppet of a government deserves; the other 2 main parties are just as bad and also deserve to be discredited in any action taken.
Hopefully, the time is coming sooner than perhaps we thought.
Carl asks 'When will the madness stop! Or when will England wake up and say STOP! In the name of.... :P'
It took 14 years to end the madness of prohibition in the USA. It took a world war to end the madness of Hitler's Germany. It took the cold war and threats of world inhalation, to end Stalin's, satanic rule in the Soviet Union.
Once upon a time, we were led by great leaders who stood up for freedom and the rights of the common man. Leaders, like Winston Churchill, and Margaret Thatcher, who were not afraid to speak out against tyranny.
I am sorry to say, that today, the average Britain, does not possess the intelligence to understand what is happening to him or her, and politics is something from another planet. The average Britain would rather sit at home with a six pack, watching crass reality shows on TV, than read the newspaper, or watch something like Question Time. Gordon Brown is their celebrity host, dishing out supposed prizes, which the fools do not realise they have already paid for, and own anyway.
No other country in the world would put up with what the people of our country are putting up with. We pay the highest rates of income tax, the highest duty on fuel, the highest duty on tobacco goods. We pay huge amounts in Council Tax, only to then be told that we need to pay even more if we want our bins emptied once a week. Once a week? Other countries in Europe have them emptied on a daily basis, for less than half what we have to pay. We pay tax to use the road, but we cannot use it unless we pay more, in tolls, parking and fees, and fines. As for the way smokers are treated, there isn't another country anywhere, which treats them as bad as they are treated here. Thrown out into the streets, like vermin, and publicans and restaurant owners, threatened with enormous fines if they do not act as unofficial policemen, and physically eject people from their premises for the heinous crime of smoking a cigarette, which our Government blatantly lie about, by telling the gullible public that they will die if they inhale the second-hand smoke.
Look what is happening in France, they do not sit back and take everything which is thrown at them, like the average Brit does. They are still smoking as much as ever, in fact, from what I hear, they are smoking even more. Britain might have helped save the French, during the last war, but only because we had the perfect leader, Winston Churchill, to tell us what to do. The French, if you remember rightly, had their own resistance, and there were pockets of them all over France, actively fighting back at the Germans, for the whole duration of the war, just as they are doing now, with the smoking ban.
Can you imagine the British in the same situation? It's not difficult to imagine, all you have to do is take a look at the way we accept anything our Government throws at us, from the high taxes to the smoking ban.
I'm afraid that unless we all suddenly turn French, or find the likes of Churchill, once again, we are going to be in for a terribly long wait before this country finally wakes up.
Peter, extremely well said!
It is shameful that those who fought for our freedoms and our democracy are now turning in their graves and wondering why! It is criminal that those who fought for the same thing and are still with us have to now risk dying from the cold because the government are more concerned about a mythical killer that a bunch of vindictive morons have been clever enough (not that clever) to dupe them over, never mind the fact that they may also die of the cold because they cannot afford to heat their homes!
Apparently 3,000 (just under, I believe) die on our roads every year (a 12 month period), but 24,000 elderly die of the cold every year (that is in a 3 to 4 month period); how many die of SHS each year or, for that matter, smoking? Certainly nowhere near these figures; in fact no-one can produce any evidence that smoking alone has been the sole cause of death in anyone! Yet who are persecuted the most? Smokers and Drivers!
Isn't it time this government was persecuted for allowing 8 times as many elderly people die of the cold in a third of the time that 3,000 die on our roads?
I presume they are hoping that we will all concentrate solely on the smoking ban and costs of transport - the annoying things that they throw at us to deflect us from the real things that are going on and the real underhanded deals they are doing, whilst in the process of ruining this country which, sadly, has not been Great for a long, long time!
SO true Peter. Wanna grab some AK's and hit the streets? Goold ole times :P
Hello Peter. I missed you, you say things which are mentally stimulating, and at the same time, make us realise that we are not alone.
You mentioned that people don't realise what is happening, and sit at home with cheap supermarket booze and watch shite on television. Do you know what, you are right. There are also people like me who have to take time out sometimes, and do the same thing, yea, drink some Bulgarian red wine, less than £12 a carton and 13% proof, and watch Les Dennis doing an old Family Fortunes on a cable channel, not because we don't know what is happening, just that we need to blot it out now and again.
You also mentioned the French Resistance in the last war. You also mentioned Churchill. It is true that Churchill brought out the fighting spirit in the British people. It is unfortunate that we no longer have a Churchill (I wonder what he would have said about Brown). We don't have the 1940's British people either.
It is true what you say Peter, us British people don't have the backbone of the French or the Russian dissidents, the Solzenitskin or the Mandela, the Luther-King. Us British have not had to form groups to oppose those who victimise us for a long time, the Romans? the aristocracy? That's right, protest against the landed gentry which eventually formed the trade unions which eventually formed the Labour Party which eventually destroyed the Country.
Very well said Peter T. You ought to be a politician.
Anyway on a lighter note, anybody one to swap a pair of lungs for a syringe.. I,m missing a syringe in my collection. Might put the lungs on international e bay yet. One never knows.
Keep the pictures coming u anti guys the're boring already.
Nice one Peter, although once all displays are hidden, there won't be much point in the childish and unrealistic pictures, never mind the verbal warnings!
No Carl, I don't want to grab some AKs and hit the streets, I want to grab some decent politicians and get them to hit the streets for us. The problem we seem to have at the moment, is that our politicians seem to have forgotten who they are working for.
We are constantly being told that it is a crime to treat so called minority groups, any differently to the way we would treat others in our society. If someone was turned down for a job, based upon their skin colour or their sex, the firm could be prosecuted for it, but firms are now allowed to turn people down for a job, if they find out they are a smoker, they can even advertise for "non smoking staff only".
Can you imagine what would happen if you tried to put an advert in a paper, for a "white person only", or a "young woman, must be slim and pretty"?
Where is the "Human Rights Act" when we need it? Where is the Discrimination act? Where is the Equality act?
Smokers are probably the biggest minority group in this country, yet we are treated like lepers, like second class citizens, no, even worst, we are probably more like third or fourth class citizens, and absolutely no one will stand up for us. Not only will no one stand up for smokers, there is a constant war being waged against us, with more lies and propaganda being released on an almost daily basis.
In all probability, there will be a General Election very soon into the new year, and do you know what, the smokers of this country could decide who the next Government will be. The two major parties are so close in the polls at the moment, that if, and this is a big "if", we could get the smokers of this country, organised enough, to send a message to both Labour and the Conservatives, that unless they are prepared to give some ground on the smoking ban, we will not vote for them.
The politicians are supposed work for us, for all members of society in this country. We pay their wages, and we elect them. We should make them start thinking, that we can also un-elect them.
Peter you're going to have a tough time to find decent politicians. They are all as bad as each other and just do it for the money. Even if they seem to be "decent", there is still only one thing that makes this world go round and that's MONEY.
Peter, you are so right about government - and it is local government/councils too - forgetting, or more likely ignoring, who it is they work for and who pays their wages and expenses!
They will be all over you whilst trying to win your vote, but you won't exist once they are voted into power - then the ego takes over and the greed and the I'll scratch your back, and you scratch mine, favours start. Where does that leave the everyday, ordinary person? Up the creek without a paddle! We have no voice, no opinion that is sought, so long as they have our money to spend on any and every stupid idea they can come up with, usually for their own prestige and glory, they are happy. The fact that we are not is neither here not there!
Sorry to disillusion you!