Sod The Truth, Greed Must Be Satisfied

It was only a couple of weeks ago when I urged you - on behalf of Big Tobacco Control - to forget everything you thought you knew about economics.

It has all been changed, you see. Lies are truth now; and what is actually happening in the world is a fantasy, apparently.

"Well, it's very interesting because [...] the tobacco companies always say that. If the tax goes up, this is going to increase smuggling. And they say it, it's one of their many deceits as it's not true."

Yeah, course not, love.

But they really seem to believe this barking nonsense. The Framework Convention Alliance - a grand name for an illiberal collection of tax-leeching tosspots - recently held a big beano in Geneva on the issue of illicit tobacco trade and came to this startling conclusion [pdf].

"it is important to point out that the blame for the present contraband problem lies with the tobacco industry"

Yep, that's right. It is bugger all to do with eye-watering duties imposed by governments as a result of nagging from career prohibitionists like the FCA, instead it is entirely down to those who would - in an ideal world - prefer to pitch their prices to match affordability for those who consume their products. You know, like traders have done for millions of years.

This is self-delusion on a superlative scale. There are primary school children in this country with a better grasp of market forces than these morons, yet governments listen to them.

They get worse too.

The tobacco industry, which in the past has been complicit in the illicit tobacco trade, has been working relentlessly to insert itself into the fight against the trade, by signing deals with governments to train their Customs officials, for example. Such agreements open the door to industry interference with public health policy, a violation of FCTC Article 5.3 and its Guidelines.

"How mad is that?", they say, that a manufacturer of a consumer product would want to actually get involved with stopping their goods being ripped off.

If anyone suggested that Nike should butt out of ensuring their trainers aren't counterfeited, and leave the job instead to people ideologically opposed to trainers, we'd call them a crank. Yet here anti-smoking lunatics are insisting that the businesses most harmed by such shenanigans have a damned cheek attempting to protect themselves from counterfeiters.

Where do they recruit tobacco controllers? From the funny farm?

No they're not mad, of course - well, not all of them - just lying ... again. As in the example above, deliberately conflating legally tax-paid genuine tobacco with what most people would term 'illicit'. And, just to drive the whole tax-funded exercise further into farce, they quote a supra-national edict written by the WHO on which no-one on the face of the planet has ever been afforded a democratic vote.

Absurd? Yes, of course, but you have to understand that these people don't want to curb illicit supply at all. Their only goal is feathering their own nest, as this telling segment proves conclusively.

"Quite a number of Parties pushed hard to amend language to ensure that obligations to protect tobacco companies’ intellectual property do not make their way into this public health protocol. In the end, Parties agreed on references to “illicit manufacturing”, with a proposed preambular paragraph clarifying that the protocol “does not seek to address issues concerning intellectual property rights”."

A perfect opportunity to lock in the incorrect use of brands and trademarks as a brilliant tool for prosecuting counterfeiters, but they argued against it.

Tobacco companies are currently engaged in fighting through the courts to protect their intellectual property from government thieves advocating plain packaging. Why, then, would the tobacco control industry be bothered to protect the public comprehensively when it might interfere with their future grants to usher in plain packaging?

It seems that these people really care about 'saving lives' only to the point at which it might threaten their own finances. Once that benchmark has been reached, public health can go screw itself as far as they are concerned. They claim to be thinking of the children, but not if it might stop them from trousering more cash. The children or that new conservatory the missus has her heart set on? Hmmm. Call the glazier and book him in Darling, sod the kids.

Greed is good for the tobacco control community. The proof is how they do and say the most ridiculous things to protect it.