Health Bill: letters to The Times
Monday, April 20, 2009 
Next week the House of Lords will debate the Health Bill which includes proposals to ban the display of tobacco in shops and outlaw cigarette vending machines.
Today some of the leading lights in the anti-smoking movement (including Cancer Research, British Lung Foundation, British Heart Foundation and the British Medical Association) called on peers to vote for these proposals and to consider plain packaging.
In a letter to The Times they argue that:
Removing glossy tobacco displays - designed to attract youngsters - from sight doesn't infringe "smokers' rights: to choose their favourite brand ... The UK has led the way in tobacco control: the smoking ban now enjoys huge public support. But Ireland and Scotland are ahead of the game with plans to put tobacco out of sight and ban vending machines. We urge Parliament to follow suit by ensuring that health - not the financial interests of the tobacco industry - is at the heart of the Health Bill.
Full letter HERE. My response, published HERE, reads:
Sir, The proposals to ban the display of tobacco in shops and outlaw vending machines are less about reducing youth smoking rates and more about the “denormalisation” of smokers. It is designed to shame adults into changing their behaviour. When a smoker has to ask for a packet of cigarettes to be taken from its hiding place beneath the counter, campaigners hope that he or she will suffer a sense of shame and social embarrassment, as if they are asking for a pornographic magazine.
In a free society adult smokers are entitled to purchase and consume a legal product without being made to feel guilty or embarrassed. Smoking may not be the healthiest choice an individual can make, but that is the nature of freedom. Individual freedom is about having the ability to choose how you want to live your life as long as you do not force that choice on to other people.
The Health Bill, to be debated by members of the House of Lords later this month, represents a disturbing and particularly aggressive form of social engineering.
Note: you can comment on The Times website.
Reader Comments (28)
Well all they would really do is exacerbate the problem already created by unreasonably high taxaction = smuggling.
Canada and now Ireland as well as any particular nation that prohibits via high taxation display or usage of Tobbacco is now experiencing = smuggling.
Smuggling = Organised Crime.
Organised crimes = Corruption.
Corruption = ?
Sound Familiar ?
The irish anti smoking wankers were pressurising the govt before the recent hair shirt budget to put the price of fags up by 2 euro per packet.
But they didnt succumb, not through generosity or anything like that.
They put them up by 25 cent per packet instead. They knew that if they put on the 2euro charge the cross border shopping would only increase more. They are tearing their hair out in rage as it is with people grocery shopping in northern ireland as prices are much lower than the rip off south.
As it is, most smokers including myself, buy our fags on the black market at certain street corners.
I personally will have no problem or embarrassment asking in a loud voice for 20 fags when they ban their display.
I will also make it difficult for them when fags are not on display by changing my mind and asking for a different brand (sorry I could not see them) so that they will be left with an escaped packet from their regimintated cigarette machines.
It just gets worse, doesn't it?
Not just the smoking issue but speed limits too! The government want more 20mph limits to save 1,000 lives a year - how many more will die because of the excessive toxins that vehicles spew out at these low, uneconimcal speeds? And, where are these speeds to be introduced? Around schools and residential areas!
In my view, this is a plot by the government to continue to claim that smoking is the one thing that is doing the harm, when all along we know darn well that vehicle fumes are far more toxic!
Apart from this, of course, it is just further control of our lives instead of basic education on how to stay safe when out in the big wide world!
Back to the smoking and the comment from Specky - all of these illegal ways of getting hold of cigarettes also contributes greatly to terrorism as cigarettes are becoming more popular to sell than illegal drugs for these people. Does this mean that government are actually perpetuating terrorism?
I have just posted the following into The Times Comment section. I wonder if it will be allowed to stay?
"It is good that you published the comment from Australia. So often only one side of the smoking debate is heard. I am 75 and have smoked all my life. I have also rarely needed doctors and prescription drugs. I know many healthy people like myself. True science shows that there are many benefits to smoking, including maintaining an immune system, preventing obesity, lowering blood pressure and many other advantages. None of these help sell pharmaceutical products.
Up until the 1960’s the majority of the world smoked. Smoking has been popular in the civilised world for over 400 years and much longer than that in the uncivilised world. If there were any truth in the bogus science that “smoking kills”, there would be no population left by now.
The war against smokers was started by, and funded by, the pharmaceutical companies over forty years ago when they first introduced “research” into the possibility that smoking was harmful. Their campaign has been relentless and, to date, extremely successful. I think it was Hitler who said, “If you are going to tell a lie, tell a big one. It is more likely to be believed,”
Pharmaceutical companies know the value to health of nicotine. It has always been the basis of so many of their drugs. They call it, “Niacin”, “Nicotinic Acid” or Vitamin B3. However, people who smoked brought no profit to them. Now they are the richest industry in the world and finance all anti-smoking “charities” and even the BMA.
Children who have not grown up within the benefit of smoking environments are now being prescribed Nicotine patches to combat the growing rise in respiratory and other diseases. Our hospitals and airports are the unhealthiest places on earth. Within them germs can mutate unhindered."
Of course govts are perpetuating terrorism by banning smoking but they wont be told will they? and its not as if they havent 'learned lessons' on this score like when america banned booze in the 20's that caused the rise of the italian mafia.
Now we have the rise of the eastern european mafia instigated this time by the european stupid blockhead govts.
One wonders how when european govts love to tell the prolatariat that 'we can learn lessons from this' every time they fowl up, its amazing how prohibition doesent come into this equation.
One would begin to wonder are they getting a backhander of some kind in the way of votes or donations from drug companies like suppliers of nicorette etc.
What else are people to think or is it just down to plain stupidity and too many unelected unaccountable big salaried greedy bastards in the eu parliament that are only interested in keeping the gravy train running for their own ends now that the world economy has gone pear shaped.
There seems to be nothing like bans to bring in the dosh and to give us the impression they're governing us and looking after our welfare.
Nice work if you can get it.
Has anyone noticed the increase in the amount of chuggers for overseas aid on pavements since the recession, this is another venue that needs looking into.
These over educated pests, who are the interns of future quangos and a stepping stone to govt jobs, have obviously been sent back to base to annoy us again as they obviously have been made redundant abroad due to the recession.
God help us all!
Wouldn't you think that by now, this disaster, that calls itself our government, would try to use what is left of their pulped brains? They are distancing themselves from us on a daily basis, and when I say us, I don't mean just the smokers, I mean everyone!
Can't they see, can't they read, can't they understand common sense? Rhetorical questions of course, because we all know that they can do none of these things.
In Spain, where they treat smokers as people who like to smoke, (as opposed to here, where they treat smokers as social outcasts and murderers), they have cigarette vending machines in all bars, cafes and restaurants, and when anyone wants to purchase cigarettes from it, the guy behind the bar has to activate it before they can complete their purchase. This completely rules out any chances of underage people being able to buy cigarettes. But that would be far too easy to implement here wouldn't it? We need to be bullied and cajoled, and as Simon says, made to feel "abnormal" for wanting to buy a product from which the government takes more tax from than any other country in the world, and a tax which also keeps our Health Service afloat. Try telling that to Gordon and his gang....Doh...
In this morning's paper I read an article by a Russian journalist, who says that Big Brother Britain is worse than Russia during the Soviet era, for spying and undercover surveillance on our citizens, she also goes onto say "as for smokers, they are treated like lepers here".
I can read it, you can read it, we can all see it happening around us, yet this bunch of morons led by a one eyed man, who would be king, cannot see it.
Another poster mentions speed limits, saying that the government want more 20mph limits to save 1,000 lives a year. What absolute rubbish this is, and how did they test it and come up with these figures? Did they put a child in the middle of a main road and see what happened to it as vehicles hit it at 30mph, and then put another child in the road and drive over the poor kid at just 20mph and all shout hooray as the second child only suffered brain damage? What absolute crap! A vehicle hitting a child at twenty miles an hour will kill it just the same as one travelling at 30mph. So why do they want to do this you might ask? The simple reason it is another money earner, "pull over sunshine, you're nicked, you were doing 23 mph in a 20 mile zone". Have you ever tried driving at 20mph in a busy city? it is almost impossible, you look in your mirror and there is some great juggernaut behind you, so close that if you so much as touched your brakes, he would flatten you.
This government think they are so clever, just throw in the line about saving kiddies lives and we will all fall for it, and I must admit, there are a hell of a lot of people who actually have. But there are also a lot of people who have 20-20 vision and can see right through their nasty little tricks, and those people are now fighting back.
David Cameron has challenged Cyclops Brown to call a general election at the same time as the European elections which are on June 4th. We know he won't do it, he wouldn't even do it when he had a slight lead over the Tories, so it's as sure as hell he won't do it now, but time is running out for this bunch of miscreants, and unless they change the rules completely (which I wouldn't be surprised at) they must succumb to the people's wishes within the next year.
In the meantime of course, they will foist everything they can possibly think of onto us which will boost their coffers and leave the next government (an us as usual) to foot the bill. Will the House of Lords save us next week from yet more idiotic rules and laws, will they save the corner shop from almost total extinction in the same manner as the pubs, or will they see the light, wake up, and start trying to save Britain before it is completely too late?
Margot that is a brilliant letter you have written to The Times. It will be interesting to see if they publish it.
Of course they may decide that the truth damages brainwashed minds!
@Peter - my theory about the proposed lowering of speed limits is to soften us up for electric cars....
Maybe Joyce, but by the lack of success so far with electric cars, not many can do much more than 20mph anyhow and won't take you far either! It is likely to be many years yet before electric cars develop into anything like what we term 'cars' today.
On another aspect of the lowering of speed limits and following on from Peter's point - reaction time is very much reduced when the driver is concentrating on the speedo, so as not to be caught out by the gestapo, be they in the guise of people or cameras! How can a driver concentrate on what is happening around him if he can't keep his eyes on the road and surroundings?
Stupid people in their ivory towers, who are paid far too much for doing very little of any worth and who definitely do not live in the real world, do not think of obvious things like this!
Electric cars? It's a thought Joyce, but where, I wonder would we get all the electricity from to power all these cars? Maybe Brownie and the boys would bring out a new law where every house has to have a wind turbine on the roof? Blocks of flats would need at least 50 of them I suppose, and anyone who didn't have one would be fined up to £5000. Nice little money spinner that one!
The people involved in the big protests in London the other week were threatening to go round to every building which was burning electricity, and break in and switch it off. With electric cars I wonder if they would come round and nick all our plugs or stick chewing gum in the wall sockets or something similar?
I did see a review of some electric cars the other day, and they can do reasonable speeds, 60 to 80 I believe, so cutting down the speed limit to soften us up for them wouldn't quite work if they can do that would it?
I still believe the proposed speed limit cut, is collect yet more fines from us.
Much as we have to provide opposition to Bills like this, self-deprocating comments ("Smoking may not be the healthiest choice an individual can make")are surely counter-productive.
Its typical of tobacco companies apologist approach, which can only serve to further demonise smokers and ultimately prohibition or state control of tobacco supply.
My comment on electric cars was tongue in cheek, although this government is so crazy I wouldn't put it past them to come up with such a 'strategy'! In response to a news report about the lowering of limits I heard the novel suggestion that the money might be better spent encouraging better driving but, of course, this wouldn't set the tills ringing!
As HMG panics at the thought of servicing the debt it's got the country into, expect, I think, more such wheezes as well as huge increases in alcohol/tobacco taxation.
I'm running a book on tomorrow's hike...
Joyce wrote: @Peter - my theory about the proposed lowering of speed limits is to soften us up for electric cars....
That's rather optimistic. It seems to me more likely that they're softening people up to walk to work. Or - more likely - run to work. That's what all these 'fun runs' are probably about. They will of course become compulsory in due course. It'll probably happen when the Olympic Games comes to London. Everyone will have to run 26 miles to work in the morning, and then run 26 miles back home in the evening. And they'll all be so much healthier, leaner, and fitter because of it, won't they? Because, well, running keeps people fit and healthy and productive, doesn't it? Doesn't it? We do want people to be productive, don't we? You know, producing.. things. That, and not smoking, or drinking, or having unproductive holidays abroad.
What a wizard idea Idlex, I mean, you know it makes sense doesn't it, as our old friend, (the one who started all this) used to say. "I'm a pretty straight sort of guy", and like me, I guess you all want to be fit and healthy and go to church every Sunday, and what better way to do it than by running there.
There is of course one little drawback to this theory, and that is the new tax which would have to be implemented on trainers and running shoes, but hey... whose counting the costs when our children's lives are at stake?
You mentioned holidays abroad? Surely that's yesterday's news man...I mean, in today's caring, cleaner, feely touchy world, who needs such things? I would like to say so much more on this subject but I'm afraid I have a plane to catch, another American speech I'm afraid, they just can't get enough of me....by guys, see you all soon....
LOL You've been reading leaked documents, again, Idlex, haven't you?
Is it true that, once they introduce compulsory running, you can offset it against your carbon footprint? I heard that you can have one mile of car travel for every mile of running (of course, allowances for the elderly are built into the system and those who drive electric cars are exempt and can use their running miles for air travel).
I'm entering into the spirit of all this. It's beginning to sound very jolly indeed. Mind you, at least one man dropped dead from exhaustion in the last marathon, so maybe walking to work would also be acceptable. We'd have to leave home very early in the morning in order to walk the children to their various schools first and pay for them to be minded for the several hours until the teachers arrived. I can see us all blocking all the roads and streets in a happy chatting laughing crowd. It would be very healthy because no vehicles would be able to drive through the massed crowds, so no petrol fumes. We would have time for several enjoyable cigarettes before arrival at work. We would have blocked all deliveries to supermarkets, etc., so very little food on sale. This wouldn't matter because we couldn't walk, or run, home after work weighed down with family shopping. So there'd be very little food for the family to eat at home and we would all get very slim. Of course, when we finally got to work during the day, we would have to leave almost immediately for the return journey in order to be on time to pick the children up from school. Our wages, therefore, would be tiny. This wouldn't matter because without production of goods and vehicle deliveries, there would be nothing to spend money on anyway. We'd soon run out of washing powder, soap & toilet rolls, so might have to revert to being a bit dirty. That wouldn't matter because we would all be very healthy and slim. Some might get a bit too hungry and start attacking each other and robbing houses for what food there was. We might end up being secret human meat eaters, even. But that wouldn't matter because it would be one way of culling excessive population.
The main thing is that we would be reducing our carbon footprints and saving the world [on behalf of the children.]
Now let's see what our glorious wise government has in store for us in tomorrow's bud-jet.
This is what I like to hear, a little bit more joviality instead of that griping and moaning which I picked up on another thread here.
I was shouted down for going off thread, but look what's happening here, off thread for sure, but getting together without all the showing off and telling who should be taking part and who shouldn't.
Once we are a group and all working together, hether it's for fun or being serious, then we are halfway there.
A person would be crazy to even think about buying an electric car, they're a load of rubbish. My neighbour bought one recently, electric/petrol. Seemingly you switch to petrol on a long journey. Also the damn things are lethal in that they're so silent you cannot hear them coming.
Anyway, said car has spent more time in the garage than on the road since my neighbour bought it and she rue's the day she ever got one.
This is typically just another gimmick thought up by the useless crazy cultist greens as in save the planet and kill pedestrians.
As if this little effort would make a difference to our so called carbon footprint when the likes of India and China are gobbling up planet earth with industrial destruction and over population at a gallop.
Maybe the agenda is to go so totally green it will embarrass them to stop producing cheaper goods.
As the immortal Peter Simple complained many years ago, life overtakes satire all the time. I began listening during the middle of an interview this morning with a teacher who had been arrested at gun point over the naming of a Teddy Bear. The bear had been called Barnabas but I learned that, for teaching purposes, he was given a different name. I won't report what that was. It really doesn't matter. He could have been renamed Smoky. But the result was that the head was arrested at gunpoint. I thought: what is this country coming to? Then I realised that all this had happened in Sudan. It's worrying that I should have thought it possible that a head could be arrested at gunpoint here over the renaming of a Teddy bear but it seemed quite possible at first.
Halfway where? Sally G. We still await your fresh new ideas.
Age before beauty Margot
There is of course one little drawback to this theory, and that is the new tax which would have to be implemented on trainers and running shoes,
Oh, do wake up and smell the coffee, Peter. They'll be running barefoot, of course! It's so much healthier than wearing sweaty little trainers infested with athlete's foot. Or should that be athlete's feet?
Is it true that, once they introduce compulsory running, you can offset it against your carbon footprint?
Only if you can show them your actual footprints in the mud, I'm afraid, Joyce. And it will be good, thick, healthy mud once the roads cease to need to be covered in tarmac for the use of all those noxious, polluting cars and lorries.
Did I mention that you'll be carrying all your shopping on your back on the run home? You know, the next day's supply of muesli and tofu, the logs for the kitchen fire, the application forms for permission to have a second child. That sort of thing.
and go to church every Sunday
Yes, of course. Everyone must worship Gord. He saved the world, didn't he?
The crime here is not smoking or providing tobacco. It is instead the crime done by most cigarette makers, their many adulterant suppliers, and the compromised government officials that let them get away with it for years...and who now, with the "wholesome" smoke ban pretense, hope to evade indictments and significant liabilities.
A typical cigarette is no more tobacco than the London Times is a Pine Tree...though the newsprint may come from tree pulp.
A Typical (VERY non-organic) cigarette may not even contain any tobacco in some cases (at least in the USA), and is contaminated with hosts of pesticide residues, with radiation from use of certain phosphate fertilizers, with dioxin-producing chlorine (pesticides and the bleached paper), any number of untested and often toxic and carcinogenic additives, burn accelerants, addiction-enhancing additives, and kid-attracting sweets and flavorings galore.
To even think of blaming...scapegoating... the tobacco plant for the effects of all that is absurd, a frightening indication of how complicit much of our medical system is...not to mention the callous government regulators.
To blame, demonize, ostracize and legally-burden the unwitting, unprotected, insufficiently-warned and uncompensated smokers is another level of cruelty and injustice.
If there is to be a new Prohibition, it must be on the adulteration and contamination of smoking products with any untested or known deadly substances.
A site called "Fauxbacco" contains reference material for points made above.
WATCHDOG.
I found this very interesting indeed and well worth following up. I have two immediate reactions:-
1] Most commercially grown food is subject to the same pesticide chemicals?
2] Where, exactly, could one find and purchase totally organic tobacco seed?
Thanks for all the information.
2] Where, exactly, could one find and purchase totally organic tobacco seed?
Rose, who posts regularly on Michael Siegel's blog comments, would probably know. She grows tobacco in her garden. Try asking her.
Many thanks, idlex.
How do you do… FAGS
"We want to help you"
What? If vilifying large groups of society for no reason, ostracising them to the cold climate, bombarding them with nightmarish obscene imagery of cancerous lungs and diseases while already threatening them with death, illness and deformed babies and, AND charging those people more and more money for the privilege of doing that sounds, like a heap of help. Sounds like an invasion of our civil liberties to live, without judgment. Considering the smoking masses make up 1.1 billion of us or 17% of the worlds population. I think that makes a pretty strong, probably not healthy, minority.
more at www.lifetyleguides.blogspot.com