Tuesday 24 September 2013

The Pussy State

From the BBC on Friday:
A ban on smoking in all areas of jails in England and Wales is being considered by the Prison Service. 
It is thought the move is linked to potential legal action by staff and inmates who have suffered the effects of passive smoking.
In which case, this makes the Prison Service rather lame. This 'legal action' stuff has already been tested at the European Court. It's called the Labate case.

Faced with a court case brought by the wife of an employee who was exposed to "passive smoking" during 29 years of his employment, the EU - who have themselves been pumping the second-hand smoke myth for quite a while - vigorously fought the compensation claim. The judgement in 2009 was crystal clear.
"The Tribunal rejected as manifestly unfounded the claims for compensation submitted by the applicant."
I'm surprised a UK government agency isn't aware of this. They are massive fans of everything European, yet this precedent seems to be completely off their radar.

Snowdon calls it very accurately.
As usual, secondhand smoke is being used as the excuse for more draconian rules, but the fact that smoking will also be banned in outdoor areas and exercise yards - and that smokeless tobacco will also be included - shows that it's not really about passive smoke and it's not really about health. But then, it never is.
Quite.

Y'see, the problem with the judicial system is that - unlike gullible politicians - it demands proof beyond reasonable doubt on the balance of probabilities. The fact that passive smoking studies are just a load of corrupt nonsense cobbled together by the tobacco control industry in order to achieve a pre-determined policy goal means that proving any prison condition as being caused - beyond reasonable doubt on the balance of probabilities - by inmates' smoke is quite impossible.

This is why anti-smoking parasites solely lobby governments. If it were possible to gather passive smoke 'victims'; issue a class action law suit; and inflict punitive damages on just a few small businesses, they would have done so long ago and smoking would have been banned by property owners overnight without the state having to do anything at all.

Now, tell me. How safe do you feel knowing that spineless pillocks are in charge of our prison system?


10 comments:

FatBigot said...

Balance of probabilities not beyond reasonable doubt.

Legiron said...

Spineless pillocks are in charge of everything now. If someone wants to invade, we're done for.

richard said...

Wants to invade? Who do you think is running the show? Krauts, that's who.

The22yardstare said...

Of course the EU fought it. Had they lost, they'd have been hammered by a huge number of similar claims. Even if they hadn't had to pay out to those launching the claims you're still talking considerable expenditure on legal serivces.


By banning smoking in prisons means you then won't face any future claims against cancer caused by passive smoking. That reduces legal expenditure. In budget sheets it means you don't have to keep over a certain sum for compensation/legal issues.


And whaddya know! Once you ban smoking and remove those sections of the budget held over for legal and compensation issues, then that total expenditure for the year is reduced, meaning politicians can then say that they've succeeded in maintaining prison services at their previous level whilst reducing the overall expenditure. Makes for good electoral sloganeering, yes?

Junican said...

Just a couple of notes:

1. "Beyond reasonable doubt" applies to criminal cases. Claims for passive smoking injuries would be civil cases where the level of proof is "On the balance of probabilities"

2. Such claims have already been tested re actually smoking for many years in the McTear Case (you can read about in my summary of the case at):

http://boltonsmokersclub.wordpress.com/



The claims were rejected totally since Tobacco Control could not prove "on the balance of probabilities" that:
a. Smoking causes lung cancer.
b. Smoking caused McTear's LC.
c. JPS cigs caused M's lung cancer.
d. Can't remember the last one off hand.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

I stand corrected by FB and yourself, Junican, edited above.


I had a hope you'd chip in with the McTear case, it was in my mind as I wrote the article. If it can't be proved with active smoking, there's not a chance for something mythical.

Junican said...

You're welcome.
There were two additional items. Both were concerned with the question of whether or not JPS would have had a 'duty of care'.

truckerlyn said...

Smiffy01 mentioned, in his post, of unrest. This was, indeed, my immediate thought, which was along the lines of: If they go ahead then more prison officers and other prisoners will most definitely be harmed by the riots this stupid idea would cause. Therefore, they would be in far more danger than ANYONE ever would be from any amount of SHS!


Wonder if any would then sue for injuries or death caused by such riots that were the result of stupid laws? Might just come back to bite the Prison Service and the government on the bum, big time!


Regarding Richard's comment about whose running the country, the Krauts - I often ask nowadays, who did actually win the war? Looking at today, it sure as hell wasn't us! Just shows which country was the smarter!

John Davidson Jr said...

This pretty well destroys the Myth of second hand smoke:

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/28/16741714-lungs-from-pack-a-day-smokers-safe-for-transplant-study-finds?lite

Lungs from pack-a-day smokers safe for transplant, study finds.

By JoNel Aleccia, Staff Writer, NBC News.

Using lung transplants from heavy smokers may sound like a cruel joke, but a new study finds that organs taken from people who puffed a pack a day for more than 20 years are likely safe.

What’s more, the analysis of lung transplant data from the U.S. between 2005 and 2011 confirms what transplant experts say they already know: For some patients on a crowded organ waiting list, lungs from smokers are better than none.

“I think people are grateful just to have a shot at getting lungs,” said Dr. Sharven Taghavi, a cardiovascular surgical resident at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, who led the new study...........................

Ive done the math here and this is how it works out with second ahnd smoke and people inhaling it!

The 16 cities study conducted by the U.S. DEPT OF ENERGY and later by Oakridge National laboratories discovered:

Cigarette smoke, bartenders annual exposure to smoke rises, at most, to the equivalent of 6 cigarettes/year.

146,000 CIGARETTES SMOKED IN 20 YEARS AT 1 PACK A DAY.

A bartender would have to work in second hand smoke for 2433 years to get an equivalent dose.

Then the average non-smoker in a ventilated restaurant for an hour would have to go back and forth each day for 119,000 years to get an equivalent 20 years of smoking a pack a day! Pretty well impossible ehh!

John Davidson Jr said...

Manufacturing the science to meet the agenda, in black on white. Does anyone still have doubts?

”Bal laughs when asked about the role of scientific evidence in guiding policy decisions. “There was no science on how to do a community intervention on something of this global dimension,” he says. “Where there is no science, you have to go and be venturesome—you can’t use the paucity of science as an excuse to do nothing. We created the science, we did the interventions and then all the scientists came in behind us and analyzed what we did.”

Read under the title :
Tobacco Control: The Long War—When the Evidence Has to Be Created.

http://www.milbank.org/uploads/documents/0712populationhealth/0712populationhealth.html#tabacco