Sunday 18 March 2012

It's All In Your Imagination

If you thought creationists or flat earthers were a bit barmy, you have quite obviously never read ASH press briefings. I've mentioned this particular fantasy pronouncement before, but it's worth revisiting it now and again just to emphasise their hilarious employment of the term "patently false".
[...] the “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false.
Well, ASH started calling for age restrictions on films which contain smoking scenes back in 2001. They still have the same daft view now.
Films depicting people smoking should be given an 18 certificate, according to a report.

The study by the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies and published by the British Medical Journal, said the cinema glamorises cigarettes and encourages young people to smoke.

It wants smoking to be treated like sex and violence.

Anti-smoking group Ash agreed, with chief executive Deborah Arnott saying: "Smoking in films encourages children to take up smoking. And that's no surprise.

"That is why tobacco advertising was banned, because showing images of people, particularly glamorous young people, smoking encourages children to smoke."
It's OK though because, according to ASH, the idea that the same measure "will be applied to other consumer products is patently false".

So this doesn't actually exist. Patently.
OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study was to investigate whether the association between exposure to images of alcohol use in movies and binge drinking among adolescents is independent of cultural context.

[...] our findings raise concern about the role popular movies may play in Europe and beyond in the early experimentation with patterns of alcohol consumption in adolescents. These patterns have the potential to have a detrimental influence on individual health and future drinking trajectories and to be costly at a societal level.
It's kinda worrying to think where they might be going with that, isn't it?

However, worry not. You see, ASH have stated categorically that there is no chance of campaigners against other consumer products following tobacco control's lead, which is why anti-food campaigners haven't today been demanding the next logical step for HFSS food advertising.
Television adverts for food high in fat, sugar and salt should not be shown before the 9pm watershed, according to Scotland's public health minister.

It follows recent research which suggests children are still exposed to the same level of junk food advertising despite tighter regulations.

Health groups say further action is needed to tackle the problem.
Which, of course, is completely different to the way tobacco packs were banned from being seen firstly on TV, then in magazines, at sports events, and now in supermarkets.

It's all simply an amazing coincidence.

Those drums are getting closer for many a consumer product. But there is still no domino effect. Oh no, that idea is "patently false".


8 comments:

Look back in anger said...

ASH and similar fanatics employ the same methods perfected by the NAZI
party when they first took power in 1933,gently develope a dislike for
a minority,pretend it wont go any further,then promote a general intolerance followed by a Government funded incitement of hatred.
Friend against freind, relative against relative,neighbour against neighbour
a divided society under the sham of health concern.
A society softened up to accept any injustice or denial of liberty.
The end product needs thinking about.
Before any con artist mentions smoke free pubs is about passive smoking
explain to me ,why a pub back yard shelter cant have 3 sides
Accepted ,most state educated dummies will believe anything poured
into their unquestioning switched of brains,but, total idiocy is beyond the Pale.

Jaxthefirst said...

Perhaps the most amazing thing, though, is that people still don’t make the connection.  They’ll moan and groan about “the nanny state” and complain that they’re fed up with these constant Healthist inroads into their own choices as adults, but mention “smoking” and the instant response is that smoking is “different” because it “hurts other people.”  It never ceases to amaze me that they don’t see how all those other activities will similarly be shown to “hurt other people” too (the alcohol equivalent of “passive drinking” is already primed and ready to go – electronic anti-drinking tag, anyone?). 
 
Faced on a regular basis with such wilful blindness, I’m fast coming round to the “bring it on” approach – because the more other groups are targeted, the more it takes the burden off the shoulders of us beleaguered smokers.  After all, they can’t vilify everyone at the same time, can they?  Not really.  Not successfully.  It really only works if it’s a big group of “us” (the good guys) against a small number of “them” (the bad guys). 
 
And after all, I don’t remember hearing any loud choruses of disapproval from huge swathes of non-smoking drinkers or chubbies in the run up to the smoking ban (with a few notable exceptions on here and elsewhere, of course), and apart from a general reaction of “Oh – didn’t expect that” with regard to the downfall in their own social lives since the ban (where several of them do seem to be making the connection, at last), I really haven’t heard a great deal of protest about it from non-smoking drinkers or chubbies since. 
 
“Sauce for the goose,” as they say …

Lyn Ladds said...

Two very valid posts above.

The question is, just where will it all stop?  After all, there is NOTHING that is safe in excess, is there!  So, what will follow the alcohol and 'fatty' and 'unhealthy' foods?

Driving, for example?  Let's face it, that apparently kills over 3,000 people a year and injures many more; drining water, maybe - in excess it can apparently kill you;  what about sleeping?  Apparently too much sleep can kill you too.

So, who is going to run a book on what crazy ideas these perverse idiots (that includes government) will come up with next?

As for the TV and film thing, well, if it were true then everyone around in the 50's, 60's and 70's should be avid smokers and heavy boozers, shouldn't they?

harleyrider1989 said...

The Vetting – Holder 1995: We Must ‘Brainwash’ People on Guns like we did on cigarettes
Breitbart.com has uncovered video from 1995 of then-U.S. Attorney Eric Holder announcing a public campaign to “really brainwash people into thinking about guns in a vastly different way.”Holder was addressing the Woman’s National Democratic Club. In his remarks, broadcast by CSPAN 2, he explained that he intended to use anti-smoking campaigns as his model to “change the hearts and minds of people in Washington, DC” about guns.http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/03/18/Holder-Outlines-How-To-Change-Public-Opinion-On-Guns
“What we need to do is change the way in which people think about guns, especially young people, and make it something that’s not cool, that it’s not acceptable, it’s not hip to carry a gun anymore, in the way in which we changed our attitudes about cigarettes.”
Holder added that he had asked advertising agencies in the nation’s capital to assist by making anti-gun ads rather than commercials “that make me buy things that I don’t really need.” He had also approached local newspapers and television stations, he said, asking them to devote prime space and time, respectively, to his anti-gun campaign.
Local political leaders and celebrities, Holder said, including Mayor Marion Barry and Jesse Jackson, had been asked to help. In addition, he reported, he had asked the local school board to make the anti-gun message a part of “every day, every school, and every level.”
Despite strict gun control efforts, Washington, DC was and remains one of the nation’s most dangerous cities for gun violence, though crime has abated somewhat since the 1990s.
Holder went on to become Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration, and currently serves as Attorney General in the Obama Administration.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/03/18/Holder-Fight-Guns-Like-Cigarettes
The video of Holder’s remarks was uncovered by Breitbart.com contributor Charles C. Johnson.

English Pensioner said...

For many youngsters their ambition is to own a car (or perhaps steal one), an attitude which can only have been brought about by seeing cars on television. But cars kill and there are also "green" considerations. So perhaps we should ban all films with cars in them to discourage the car ownership dream.
Incidentally, why do experts claim that all the violence in films and video games has no effect on behaviour? I'd have thought that this would have more effect than all the other causes put together.
But, of course I'm not an expert, self appointed or otherwise!

Little Black Censored said...

"...the cinema glamorises cigarettes and encourages young people to smoke.
"It wants smoking to be treated like sex and violence."

That should work.

The Travelling Toper said...

Is a drinking trajectory the smooth motion from table to lip?

Sam Duncan said...

Do these people not have access to the internet or something? I won't post links, but if they think they've deglamourized smoking, they need to do some googling for smoking porn.

As predicted by many, state censorship has made it more glamourous and exciting, not less. Morons.

('Course, it might be better if they didn't notice. They'll only start putting people on registers for looking at it.)