What You Won't Hear From ASH

If you haven't yet seen it, there was a particularly ignorant and anti-social article at HuffPo earlier this week written by a psychopathic anti-smoker. Entitled "Why smokers must be shamed", it argued - amongst other nonsense - that smoking outdoors in public should be a criminal offence and that smokers should not be allowed to work with children. Oh yeah, and that e-cigs should be included too, just for jolly.

Yes, really.

Frank Davis and Redhead have filleted the piece nicely, but there is one group of organisations which will say absolutely nothing on the subject.

You see, ASH pretend that want the debate to be about smoking, not smokers - as they say on their website.

 We do not attack smokers or condemn smoking.

Yet you know damn well that they are happy for others to do so. Their silence about the HuffPo article - which is guaranteed - will speak volumes.

Because, for a rent-a-quote group like ASH, it's telling that they will get their comments into any piece about smoking - like this one this weekend about a school which values education above anti-smoking dogma - but routinely fail to intervene when nasty little fascists like the HuffPo author spout their bile.

They were also silent when a report claimed that anti-smoking policies are harming the less well off.

Smokers are like ‘migrant and indigenous groups’ in past centuries who were seen as contaminating the rest of society and threatening the way of life of normal, healthy people, Professor Graham, of York University, added. 

Her report calls for anti-smoking campaigns to be redrawn so they try to help the poor improve their lives.

Nothing from ASH or their friends. Nada. Zilch.

It's not like they're unable to do so, as we saw when Stephen Williams wrote an article for Lib Dem Voice about plain packaging. In that instance, ASH's Arnott and Phil Rimmer - along with other state-paid tobacco control lobbyists - were queueing up to get stuck into the comments.

The tobacco control industry also had absolutely nothing to say about a Luton Herald & Post article in 2011 - in the same week that Anders Breivik killed 69 people in Norway - which thought it hilarious to talk about shooting smokers on sight.

So let's set a squad of licensed snipers on the streets, with permission to pick off smokers whenever there's a clear shot. 

I confidently predict that the prospect of having your head blown off while enjoying what you didn't realise would be your last cigarette would give smokers up and down the country an extra incentive to kick the habit. 

And if they defiantly carry on puffing, when they are popped between the eyes it will save the health service all the costs of caring for them in their declining years. 

We know bans don't work if they're not enforced. My way is simpler, and a lot more effective. 

Alan Dee, Herald & Post (July 21, 2011)

They industry was, however, very quick to squeal about an equal and opposite reaction to it from Freedom2Choose.

Ask ASH - or any other anti-smoking organisation, for that matter - on Twitter to condemn anti-smoker hatred or blatant lies from fellow tobacco controllers and you'll be met with silence. I know because I've tried.

We can, then, only assume from this that they're quite content for the most repulsive and vile anti-smokers in our society to advance their disgusting ideas, and will barely shrug on the day that a smoker is actually killed by one of these psychos.

I suppose Debs and her cronies could prove me wrong when they're back in their tax-funded office tomorrow and post a withering condemnation of the HuffPo author's rancid views in the comments, but don't hold your breath. They'll probably send her a congratulatory email instead.