Tuesday
Mar182008
Battleground moves to Europe
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
This time tomorrow I shall be in Brussels for a "consultation meeting" with "EU experts, civil liberty and social partners" (whoever they are). The purpose of the meeting is to assess the impact of smoke-free environments.
No doubt we will hear how "successful" smoking bans have been in Ireland and the UK. My job - as I see it - is to put this "success" in perspective and highlight the negative impact. I also want to make the point that you don't have to introduce a comprehensive ban to offer a "smoke-free" environment to the majority of the population.
The momentum is with the anti-smoking movement but if we can persuade the EU to adopt one of several options short of a draconian, UK-style ban, such a policy could yet filter back to Britain and Ireland. If that means we have to fight our corner in Brussels - that's what we'll do.
Reader Comments (12)
The very best of luck Simon. No doubt you will tell them about the success in Spain, Belgium etc.
Yes! Good luck on this one. Lets hope they have the common sense to listen to reason.
Simon, how many sides will be debating on this, and who are they?
As you know, assessing the impact of a smoke-free environment, depends entirely, on who exactly is going to produce the figures in the first place.
If you are going to be battling with a set of "facts & figures" which have been produced by the likes of ASH, for instance, you might just as well save your train fare now, and not bother to go.
If, on the other hand, you will be allowed to show your own "facts & figures", and if you will be allowed to challange theirs, then there just might be a ray of hope on the horizon.
Meanwhile, I have heard that the restaurants there are very good!
Please remember to let them know how many pubs have closed in the UK since the ban.
I have had the document that will be presented for over a week. If any of you want a copy, please drop me a line at colin@freedom2choose.info and I will get it to you.
Actually, I can save us all some trouble.
Our friends at FORCES have already done an expose:
http://forces.org/News_Portal/news_viewer.php?id=926
We are about to get shafted again.
Thank you Colin, it is exactly what I expected it to be......
In addition, it is important to point out, the document concerned was designed not to be read up front by many of the "stakeholders" such as MEPs. This is beceause it was deliberately sent to their home addresses in the UK (for example) when it was known they were either in or travelling to Brussels. Huh-huh, subterfuge par excellence and there are more revelations yet to come from F2C thanks to our now well placed colleagues.
This just in from Michael J McFadden. Yes, good news, real cracks in the bans are starting and there are more to come!
"On March 19th, 2008, The Peoria Journal-Star reported a story ( http://www.pjstar.com/stories/031908/REG_BG3IPNK3.033.php ) that will have wide ranging repercussions for smoking bans all around the country. Prosecutors for the State of Illinois admitted to the courts that " the statute does not put any onus on the bar employee or bar owner to prohibit smoking," and that they had no authority to file a formal charge against a bar that failed to stop its customers from lighting up.
While this ruling applies just to the state of Illinois, it can't fail to be heard in their neighboring state of Iowa, in the troubled bars of nearby Ohio (where health investigators entering bars to check for smoking have refused to tell customers to stop smoking during their visits with the defense of "We can't make them stop. We're not police.") and in many other states where government has tried to indenture hospitality employees to act as Junior G-Men without badges.
Bartenders themselves might still get fined if they smoke while on duty, and a bar might be fined if they fail to display "No Smoking" signs or if they provide fire-safety devices (ashtrays) for customers, but it has now been made crystal clear that the days of "Undercover Secret Smoking Police" in Illinois are over. And whether the state has the guts to enforce an ashtray ban that might leave them liable for fire deaths and damages seems unlikely.
As news of this event spreads it's likely that most small bars and probably even a good number of restaurants will go back to turning a blind eye to smoking customers who make up a sizeable percentage of their trade. They may seek to cover themselves legally by "informing" customers of the law, and they may take special pains to display the proper signage, but the days of Illinois' smoking customers universally being grabbed by the scruff of the neck and tossed to the gutter are over.
Spring Valley's Family Tavern, bartender Karla Carrington, and Peoria legal eagle Dan O'Day have fired a puff of smoke into the air that will be seen around the world! Wherever else bans may have played in the past, they flopped big time when they tried to take center stage in Peoria!"
That's very interesting Blad, and very promissing too. Especially as Italy has already stated that it is illegal to ask bar staff/owners, to enforce this law, and as Italian law has accepted it, it also means that the EU in general should abide by it.
Simon et al -
Apologies if this is the wrong part of the forum to mention it, but - in the (admittedly somewhat mischevous) spirit of 'Let's-Get-A-Straight-Answer-From-The-Buggers-And-Make-Them-Earn-Their-Money-For-Once', I sent the following e-mail to Shadow Health Spokesman Andrew Lansley on February 20th
(with a follow-up on March 6th), and have yet to receive an answer:
"Dear Mr Lansley,
As Shadow Spokesman on Health, you will naturally be aware of the latest piece of crypto-fascist absurdity emanating from yet another 'senior government adviser' - who would, one feels, benefit greatly from trying to get out a little more, and possibly renewing contact with the rest of the Human Race that dwells in that strange land outside the Whitehall Astrodome: I refer, of course, to the proposed plan to 'license' smokers !
As a Conservative you will, naturally, be appalled at this attempt to place further curbs on a sociable activity which - like alcohol consumption (but without the appalling social costs relating to that source of 'abuse') brings pleasure and comfort to millions, provides the Exchequer with billions of pounds in revenue (net of any 'costs-to-the-NHS'), and harms no-one but its practitioner (at least, according to all the credible scientific evidence produced to date).
Hard to imagine, isn't it, that lighting up a cigarette on a RAILWAY PLATFORM (for example) has quite the same
'health impact' on one's fellow man as (say) dropping high explosive bombs on civilians (even if they are brown-skinned) ? And one hesitates even to contemplate how many 'needless' deaths occur yearly as a result of incompetence and mis-management on the part of our once-revered NHS.............
But, I digress.
This is neither the time nor the place to enter into a discussion upon the merits (few, and dubious) or the iniquities
(many, and cruel) of the current Smoking Ban (which the Conservative Party will amend once it achieves office - will it not ?), but I just need you to reassure me on two points:
a) That - both as the current Health Spokesman and as a Freedom-loving Conservative - you will oppose this proposal totally.
And,
b) That if by chance such a ghastly piece of legislation should ever come into force, the Party will repeal it at the first available opportunity.
Perhaps you would also care to enlighten me as to why it now seems to be the case that a middle-aged tobacconist can legitimately have sex with a 16-year-old schoolboy, but risks prosecution for selling him a pack of cigarettes ? Presumably, said schoolboy is deemed adult enough to make a 'lifestyle choice' with regard to the former, but not the latter. Does the Health Lobby (and the 'changed' Conservative Party ) now consider buggery more desirable than nicotine-inhalation ? If so, I should like to know why..............................perhaps I'm missing something.
I trust that you will not insult my intelligence (or test my patience) with any of the tendentious Civil Service prose and we-know-what's-best-for-you attitudinising that all too frequently issues on such occasions from the offices of MPs - or from the impoverished imaginations of their 'correspondence secretaries'.
In short, I nurture the hope that I am writing - at last - to a live Human Being, possessed of a functioning intelligence, a capacity for critical thinking unhampered by Political Correctness (in all its devious forms), and a breathing Humanity - and not to just another political Euro-bot intent upon turning us all into a homogenised nation of compliant goody-goodies .
In the meantime, I thank you for your kind attention, and greatly look forward to your response - which I, and many, many others craving succour in these dispiriting times, will doubtless enjoy reading.
Kindest regards
Etc "
I wonder whether any members of the Bookmaking Fraternity ('community' ?) out there would care to offer me odds on the chances of:
a) Getting a SENSIBLE reply, or
b) Getting ANY reply at all......?
When I write to the gentleman again, I shall take the opportunity of attaching this latest piece of Euro-Nonsense by way of an addendum, and seeking his response to THAT.
Holding my breath, and counting...............
I think this smoking ban is just a 'smoke screen' so while we're getting upset about it and watching the right hand the left hand is up to something else, don't trust them!