The British Heart Foundation Is Out Of Order

The well-respected lobbying organisation charity, the BHF, are campaigning hard to ban cigarette vending machines with the tagline "Cigarette machines are totally out of order".

Their motive is classified in the 'thinkus ofthechiiildrenicus' order of the 'puritannicae' family. It follows thus: children have been known to access vending machines, cigarettes are bad, thus all vending machines are evil and should be despatched to the nearest incinerator.

As usual with bansturbators, options which would afford choice for adults while still protecting the chiiildren are not considered, or indeed, even mentioned, to their twinkly-eyed readers.

Options such as this, for example.

A BLACKPOOL company hit by the smoking ban is to trial a "state-of-the-art" cigarette machine.

When a customer wants to buy cigarettes they will have to ask bar staff, who will check for ID before unlocking the machine remotely.

It will remain on stand-by until a remote control device is used to allow it to sell a packet.

The machines are already used across mainland Europe and come as a number of landmark cases across the UK aim to ban cigarette machines from pubs and clubs due to an increase in children buying them from machines to avoid ID checks.

Note the highlighted part above. These machines are already in use all over Europe and work perfectly well. Other options are machines that can only be operated with a token that must be purchased over the bar on production of ID.

So how would this tackle the concerns of the BHF? Let's see.

The BHF wants to reduce the number of young people who are putting their health at risk. To help do this, we want to see an immediate ban on the sale of cigarettes from vending machines.

-In Scotland one in ten 13 to 15 year olds who smoke get cigarettes from vending machines

... not with these machines they wouldn't.

-In England and Wales we estimate that as many as 46,000 children get their cigarettes from vending machines in England and Wales.*

... not with these machines they wouldn't. (the asterisk was to explain that this wasn't a real figure, but a made up one).

-In Northern Ireland we estimate that there could be over 1,500 11-15 year olds accessing their cigarettes through vending machines.

... not with these machines they wouldn't.

I wonder why a company charity with a turnover of £185m has managed to miss this potential solution to the problem. Did not one of their 1,717 staff or 16,183 volunteers stumble across such a possibility when researching the issue of vending machines?

Shhhh ... come closer, I'll whisper ... listen, it's only a hunch, but I reckon they did. And when they did, you know what I think happened? I think they might have buried it, as their focus isn't really on the children, is it?

In an ideal world, righteous meddlers like the BHF would be honest about their busybodying. They would come out and say quite clearly that they just want smokers to suffer as they don't approve of their lifestyle choice. However, that wouldn't get them very far, would it? It might also lose them public donations from the 9 million people in the UK who enjoy smoking. That just wouldn't do, would it.

So, yet again, the chiiildren are brought into play. And even then, alternatives, which wouldn't adversely affect the way adults wish to lead their lives, are purposely ignored.

The BHF, Cancer Research UK, and world-leading fake charity ASH, are also urging their ill-informed readers to e-mail their MP to make them sign Early Day Motion 768 about this issue. Perhaps not too astoundingly, 69 equally ill-informed fucktard MPs have signed it.

If your MP is on that list (incredibly, my ban-happy MP isn't ... yet), perhaps you might like to ask why they don't look further into an issue before jumping to kneejerk reaction on subjects about which they obviously have no real clue.

Have I ever mentioned that there were alternatives to the blanket smoking ban that were likewise swept under the nearest righteous carpet by the likes of the BHF?