Monday 28 October 2013

13 Years On ...

Back in 2000, the Economist reported on a new initiative from the World Health Organisation. We now know it as the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC).

It decided that health was the only concern any citizen (or politician) should care about; that objections should be ignored entirely if from industry; and discarded as merely inconvenient noise if from the public. The debate, they declared, was over.
But critics of the convention charge that the WHO is not concerned with such debate. Rather, it is latching on to tobacco to foist a western agenda on to developing countries, and to advance a campaign of political self-aggrandisement. It is, they point out, spending its scarce resources on tobacco, which kills in later life people who have chosen to smoke, rather than concentrating on the infectious diseases that kill innocents in the developing world in their youth. They warn of “mission creep”, and say that once the WHO has corralled member states into regulating tobacco, then alcohol and fatty foods will be next. 
The WHO denies these charges but has itself noted: “The success or failure of this approach provides a test case for the more active involvement of the public-health community in international law-making.” Would more active involvement of that kind be such a good thing?
Just over a decade later, Chris Snowdon has written at Spiked about how this approach has now morphed into 'the disease of public health'. And yes, mission creep - as predicted - is now a reality.
An abridged list of policies that have been proposed in the name of ‘public health’ in recent months includes: minimum pricing for alcohol, plain packaging for tobacco, a 20 per cent tax on fizzy drinks, a fat tax, a sugar tax, a fine for not being a member of a gym, graphic warnings on bottles of alcohol, a tax on some foods, subsidies on other foods, a ban on the sale of hot food to children before 5pm, a ban on anyone born after the year 2000 ever buying tobacco, a ban on multi-bag packs of crisps, a ban on packed lunches, a complete ban on alcohol advertising, a ban on electronic cigarettes, a ban on menthol cigarettes, a ban on large servings of fizzy drinks, a ban on parents taking their kids to school by car, and a ban on advertising any product whatsoever to children.
I highly recommend you sit down with a beverage of your choice and read the whole thing.

This is the result of allowing health nutters - backed by big industry funders and state sponsorship from idiot politicians - to ignore debate and fill their pockets at the expense of your taxes and liberties.

No-one is immune, you're all smokers now.


13 comments:

castello said...

Thanks, now I need a drink or 2 :)

MarkWadsworth said...

Bugger. I used to walk my girl to school because it was so close to home that it was most convenient that way. Now she goes to a different school and it is more convenient to drive. Let's see them try and ban it though, shall we?

Tacitus said...

When I lived behind the Iron Curtain,it's collapse was inevitable. I wondered ,how long before,the creeping cancer of Neo Marxist State interference would enter the so called "free west" Not by Guards and Guns on every steet corner,oh no,far more sophisticated,by sifting through the apathy,and finding the puppets in high places.They waved their banners of "concern for our well being" their desire for our "heath and life longevity",their
need to divide us into managable units,to feed us with tit bits of self satisfaction, the creed of "ME,MINE ,WHO CARES ABOUT THE REST"
Now they have the audacity to give us a ballot paper every 5 years and call it "Democracy" Worse to come,most will trudge along to a polling booth and vote for the ONE PARTY STATE,and now,they dont even need a wall and guard towers.
One fine day enough will depart their digital cells and get a glimpse of the
sunlit reality
In the Madding Crowd

SteveW said...

It's no surprise that they're a bunch of bastards; I am, however, a little surprised at just how shameless they are about the whole thing. The fight goes on...

castello said...

fartknockers

Lisabelle said...

Lusting after money has always been depicted as Evil. Okay, Big Pharma, we got your number!

Ivan D said...

"Medicine's regulation applied with a light touch" is a ridiculous concept and another example of this governments dishonesty. It's ministers appear to be brainless clique who do the bidding of their masters in Whitehall

Hopefully people will have by now worked out that the Conservative party
supports public health authoritarianism to the hilt and is quite happy to further empower the medical establishment and its groupies.

Lisabelle said...

Is this the same WHO of course it is! This must be stopped and we must do it! http://youtu.be/i1LQiow_ZIQ Deadly Medicines and Organized Crime by Peter Gotzsche in sub-titles excellent and for sure it is on topic.

Junican said...

What is critical to understand is that the justification for regulation is not scientific - it is emotional.

"One of the reasons being that, as medicines, we can more effectively control their sale to children and the way that they are advertised and promoted"



By that statement, Earl Howe shows himself to be a charlatan. Only a charlatan would use emotions to create laws.

DP said...

Dear Mr Puddlecote

"It comes to something when our own government is more extreme, unaccountable and undemocratic than the EU, doesn't it?"


Perhaps this is just a ruse to make those awfully nice people in the EU look reasonable.


DP

Billy Webb said...

This is all so ridiculous. The government is trying to legislate against something they don't understand, which is laughable. The more people understand the better for everyone.
https://smartcigs.co.uk

nisakiman said...

The government is trying to legislate against something they don't understand...


So what's new? They legislated the smoking ban, probably the most economically damaging and socially divisive law to be brought in for the last five decades or more, without having a clue what they were legislating for. Their wormtongue advisers in Tobacco Control told them that it would 'save thousands of lives', and the gullible fools believed them. Politicians haven't got a clue, so they rely on 'experts' to guide them. If those 'experts' are working to an agenda, we get stupid laws that suit nobody but the ideologues behind them.

Lisabelle said...

It's GREED.