Wednesday 14 January 2015

A Classic Of The Genre

From Maryland comes this article which describes the entire pyrrhic anti-nicotine moral crusade in a nutshell.
Smoking restrictions on Ocean City's beach and boardwalk will take effect May 1, and will include electronic cigarettes.
Of course they will.

But isn't this a beach and so - I presume - outside where wisps of smoke are diluted by the multi-quadrillion litres of air between the ground and the sky? Do we still ridicule homeopaths as absurd or has something changed?
"Most areas of OC's beaches are packed," he said. "Why should anyone, especially a family with small children and infants, and especially if they had set up their beach camp first, have to endure cigar or cigarette blowing in their faces all day?"
If discomfort is the problem here, one could also ask if adults relaxing on a beach should have to endure a family with small children and infants, especially if they set up their beach 'camp' first. They can also be irritating to some people albeit - just like smoke in wide open spaces - completely harmless. Perhaps there should be a law about prepubescent human livestock too. Just sayin'.
Every night in the summer, public works crews man giant machines that sift discarded cigarette butts from the beach sand and Boardwalk planks.
Oh I see, there is no study in the world to say that passive smoking outdoors is dangerous, so it's now a litter problem is it?
If you smoke e-cigarettes, you're not exempt.
Huh? But, but there's no litter whatsoever with an e-cig.
Council members all agreed, unofficially, that the ban would encompass vaping. According to Recor, extensive research shows that electronic smoking devices could prove harmful when it comes to secondhand smoke exposure.
So now it's about passive 'smoke' again, despite this guy just making up bullshit as there is no study worldwide which has shown any credible threat of harm from e-cigs indoors (nor will there ever be), let alone on a beach. In the open. By the sea. With a coastal breeze. Under an unimaginably huge amount of constantly shifting air.

"Ban it now! We'll think up some flimsy justification later", seems to be the call from the {cough} sage thinkers in this tourist town. Is it a prerequisite for local politicians to be utterly ridiculous or does it just aid the career path?

Apparently drinking alcohol is banned on this beach too, I bet it's a blast of a holiday destination.


20 comments:

Andy Morrison said...

Well I'm glad to report that I won't be visiting that shitehole of a beach or their poxy town anytime soon...... or anytime later come to think of it.

JLTrader said...

Banning ecigs on a beach. Not really a surprise, just one more fine example of the state of the world in 2015.

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Lots of others said the same in the local version. See comments here.

What the.... said...

We need to remember that this antismoking hysteria is a recent phenomenon produced by decades of State-sponsored inflammatory
propaganda. Just check movies and documentaries prior to the 1990s. People didn’t go around flapping their hands around tobacco smoke. People weren’t seen running screaming that they’d been contaminated by tobacco smoke and needed to shower urgently. People didn’t constantly whine about “stink”. Antismokers were few and far between.

From Bayer & Stuber

“…..In the last half century the cigarette has been transformed. The fragrant has become foul. . . . An emblem of attraction has become repulsive. A mark of sociability has become deviant. A public behavior is now virtually private. Not only has the meaning of the cigarette been transformed but even more the meaning of the smoker [who] has become a pariah . . . the object of scorn and hostility.”

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2005.071886

What the.... said...

This change from fragrant to foul has not come from the smoke which has remained a constant. The shift is an entirely psychological one. Unfortunately, the way the shift is manufactured is through negative conditioning. The constant play on fear and hatred through inflammatory propaganda warps perception. Ambient tobacco smoke was essentially a background phenomenon. Now exposure to tobacco smoke (SHS) has been fraudulently manufactured into something on a par with a bio-weapon like, say, sarin gas. There are now quite a few who screech that they “can’t stand” the “stench” of smoke, or the smoke is “overwhelming”; there are now those, hand cupped over mouth, that attempt to avoid even a whiff of dilute remnants of smoke – even outdoors. There are those that claim that, arriving from a night out, they had to put all of their clothes in the washing machine and scrape the “smoke” off their skin in the shower. There are even
those that claim they are “allergic” to tobacco smoke. Yet there are no allergens (proteins) in tobacco smoke to be allergic to.

And it didn’t stop with just the smoke. Cigarette butts – heretofore unheard of – suddenly became a “monumental problem” too – akin to improvised explosive devices, requiring drastic action. These are all recent phenomena born of toxic propaganda; it is an expanding hysteria. It says nothing about the physical properties/propensities of tobacco smoke. These people are demonstrating that they have been successfully conditioned (brainwashed) into aversion. They are now suffering mental dysfunction such as anxiety disorder, hypochondria, or somatization. Typical symptoms of anxiety disorder are heart palpitations, chest tightness, shortness of breath, headache, dizziness, etc. These capnophobics (smokephobics) are no different to those irrationally attempting to avoid cracks in the pavement lest their mental world come crashing down. Questionable
social engineering requires putting many into mental disorder to advance the ideological/financial agenda. It is the antismoking fanatics/zealots/extremists and their toxic mentality and propaganda that have long been in need of urgent scrutiny.

What the.... said...

Having long introduced indoor smoking bans and a variety of outdoor bans, Oregon is now proposing a smoking ban on its entire 360+ mile coastline, citing non-existent hazards to nonsmokers as the basis:

"Even though you're outdoors — and it might be really windy — the particulates from secondhand smoke are still in the air and can still impact people around it and downwind," Havel said.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/local/2014/09/04/public-comments-show-narrow-support-smoking-ban-coastal-beaches/15104635/

What the.... said...

Antismokers have no grasp of basic chemistry and the critical idea of dosimetry is entirely alien to them. Repeat: Antismokers
(misocapnists/capnophobes) are way, WAY worse than germaphobes.

What the.... said...

This change from fragrant to foul has not come from the smoke which has remained a constant. The shift is an entirely psychological one. Unfortunately, the way the shift is manufactured is through negative conditioning. The constant play on fear and hatred through inflammatory propaganda warps perception. Ambient tobacco smoke was essentially a background phenomenon. Now exposure to tobacco smoke (SHS) has been fraudulently manufactured into something on a par with a bio-weapon like, say, sarin gas. There are now quite a few who screech that they “can’t stand” the “stench” of smoke, or the smoke
is “overwhelming”; there are now those, hand cupped over mouth, that attempt to avoid even a whiff of dilute remnants of smoke – even outdoors. There are those that claim that, arriving from a night out, they had to put all of their clothes in the washing machine and scrape the “smoke” off their skin in the shower. There are even those that claim they are “allergic” to tobacco smoke. Yet there are no allergens (proteins) in tobacco smoke to be allergic to.

It’s an expanding hysteria. It says nothing about the physical
properties/propensities of tobacco smoke. These people are demonstrating that they have been successfully conditioned (brainwashed) into aversion. They are now suffering mental dysfunction such as anxiety disorder, hypochondria, or somatization. Typical symptoms of anxiety disorder are heart palpitations, chest tightness, shortness of breath, headache, dizziness, etc. These capnophobics (smokephobics) are no different to those irrationally attempting to avoid cracks in the pavement lest their mental world come crashing down. Questionable social engineering requires putting many into mental disorder to
advance the ideological/financial agenda. It is the antismoking fanatics/extremists and their toxic mentality and propaganda that have long been in need of urgent scrutiny.

What the.... said...

This change from fragrant to foul has not come from the smoke which has remained a constant. The shift is an entirely psychological one. Unfortunately, the way the shift is manufactured is through negative conditioning. The constant play on fear and hatred through inflammatory propaganda warps perception. Ambient tobacco smoke was essentially a background phenomenon. Now exposure to tobacco smoke (SHS) has been fraudulently manufactured into something on a par with a bio-weapon like, say, sarin gas. There are now quite a few who screech that they “can’t stand” the “stench” of smoke, or the smoke
is “overwhelming”; there are now those, hand cupped over mouth, that attempt to avoid even a whiff of dilute remnants of smoke – even outdoors. There are those that claim that, arriving from a night out, they had to put all of their clothes in the washing machine and scrape the “smoke” off their skin in the shower. There are even those that claim they are “allergic” to tobacco smoke. Yet there are no allergens (proteins) in tobacco smoke to be allergic to. It’s
an expanding hysteria.

Junican said...

It seems as though we are going backwards into a sort of medieval belief in miasmas. See this:

http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/blog/2015/1/15/labour-to-launch-war-on-consumer-choice-and-parental-respons.html

Jack Listerio said...

N.J. gets $29 million emergency grant to help laid-off Atlantic City casino workers

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2015/01/nj_gets_29_million_emergency_grant_to_help_laid_of.html

Jack Listerio said...

Revel Casino To Allow Smoking As Part Of Bankruptcy Filing ...newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/03/26/revel-casino-to-allow-smoking-as...

Mar 26, 2013 · Revel Casino To Allow Smoking As Part Of ... – When the smoke clears from Revel’s bankruptcy ... Atlantic City’s 12 casinos in terms of gambling ...

ROFLMAO! You outlawed smoking everywhere in NJ what did you expect would happen bunch of non smokers were going to show up and save the day like the tobacco control advocates said would happen once new jersey outlawed everybody from smoking everywhere. Perhaps you will get lucky and get a ERIC GARNER KILLING TO like up the road in NYC over your high taxes!

You caused it now live with it in your bankrupt non smoking nirvana!

Jack Listerio said...

I know DP when I first saw the headline I thought it was a joke too!

Vinny Gracchus said...

It's not about health concerns, nor about littering (which is already prohibited), it is about hysteria. Years of inflammatory propaganda hyping the nonexistent threat of second hand smoking has created fear of tobacco smoke and hatred of smokers. It is time to end this 'witch hunt' and the persecution of smokers.

truckerlyn said...

You mean the worldwide dictatorship that gets bigger each year, I presume.

truckerlyn said...

Perhaps it is those you mention with toxic mentality and propaganda who should actually be sectioned to stop them doing any more irreperable harm to the rest of the population!

truckerlyn said...

Perhaps this is the reason governments have renaged on their promises to increase funding for mental health?

truckerlyn said...

They are getting what they want so they don't care about accuracy of what they are being told. The mind machine of public health and the anti smoking blood suckers are delivering them from smoke filled environments, even if they don't want to use those places!

DP said...

Dear Mr Puddlecote

"Council members all agreed, unofficially, that the ban would encompass
vaping. According to Recor, extensive research shows that electronic
smoking devices could prove harmful when it comes to secondhand smoke
exposure."


If it's 'unofficially' banned then it's not banned at all.

It would help if Mr Recor gave references to the 'extensive research', though I suspect that since he, or the reporter, describes e-cigs as 'electronic smoking devices' and the exhaled by-product as 'secondhand smoke' we can't hope for much science from this source.

I note that Maryland has a Department of Health and Mental Hygiene - presumably that's where they wash people's brains.



DP

John M said...

Of course it will be a blast, what with all those Mormons and Amish filling the place. I'm surprised they havn't enforced the wearing of brimmed hats.