Monday 19 January 2015

The Provisional IRA Profits To Soar With Plain Packaging

With David Cameron currently talking tough on criminality and terrorism, I do hope he was advised of this article from the Irish Independent.
The [Irish] Government plans to introduce 'plain packaging' carrying only graphic health warnings rather than the current brand designs will provide the smugglers with a massive boost in profits, customs and garda sources say.
Police and border forces have a habit of saying inconvenient things like that. UK police chiefs warn of the same, along with their rank and file, and the concerns of our UK customs officials line up the same too. Perhaps they're all tobacco industry front groups or something.

The Irish Indy continues.
They estimate that Border-based Provo smugglers are importing around €90m worth of tobacco products a year, mainly from the Far East. Based on the experience of Australia, the first and only country to bring in the plain packaging, they estimate the IRA-controlled trade here could boom to around €120m in value.
Kerching for the Provos!
Officers say plain packaging will make the smugglers' jobs a whole lot easier as in future they won't have to repack several brands at their hidden factories along the border. 
One said: "Once plain packs come in, the smugglers won't have to go the trouble of repackaging dozens of different brands as all cigarettes will legally come in drab brown boxes with just a small space left for the brand name. All the smugglers will have to do is simply reprint the brand name."
Well, duh! Only a fucking clown state-funded tobacco control industry trougher could intentionally fail to see this entirely predictable flaw in their plan.

So the IRA seem equally as enthusiastic as Indonesian {cough} businessmen who quite simply can't wait for plain packaging to increase their criminal profits.
He even punched the air as he mocked PM David Cameron, cheering: "Plain packaging... I support the UK government! ...We will make more money. We can make it cheaper but sell for the same price. It's good for you, good for me." 

You have to wonder at the cognitive dissonance required for any politician to take the word of self-interested, career-perpetuating tobacco control industry lobbyists over and above the clear and converging opinions presented by law enforcement agencies and criminals alike as to the undoubted negative consequences of plain packaging. Loopy conspiracy theorists around the world would stand and applaud their capacity for credulous brainlessness.

You also have to marvel at (or, more accurately, be disgusted by) the hideous sight of a tobacco control industry actively aiding and abetting criminal gangs and former IRA terrorists while denigrating police forces as tobacco company shills.

I'll say it again. We here are firmly the law-abiding and on the side of the angels. Never doubt that.

If you - like me - feel very uncomfortable about the IRA getting rich on the back of inept government policy, why not send a message to your MP and double dare him/her to say the police are lying and criminals are making it all up. Their reply would be interesting.


11 comments:

Smoking Hot said...

It isn't that just current counterfeit branding will be made so much easier, it's the fact that the counterfeiters increase the range of cigarettes to every brand that is available. Let that sink in and next time you see all the brands of cigarettes available in newsagents just remember this. At the moment counterfeiters don't do ALL the brands ... it's too expensive and messy. Plain packaging removes all the obstacles. You really have to be a complete moron not to understand this ... cue Tobacco Control and Government!

Dick_Puddlecote said...

Good point well made. Breaking down barriers for gangsters is no problem for tobacco control. I'm sure they'll be applauded from Omagh to Warrington.

Smoking Hot said...

Armagh would be more appropriate ... otherwise known as Bandit Country. Government officials are not likely to be seen there and with good reason ... which l can personally verify :)

jude said...

It certainly was a boost to the tobacco black market here in Australia, and obviously these plain packs are attracting young people, as smoking prevalence among teenagers has risen since they came in. My local jeweler has sold out of cigarette cases, (the market for these had all but died out until plain packaging and the gruesome pics came in), now the jeweler has to order more in, so its been a boost to his business. He's also thinking of going into producing some very nice silver vape cases.


You wont here about the rise in the tobacco black market from the liars in public health though, "officially" , according to the likes of Chapman et al, plain packaging has been a roaring success. LOL, I certainly roared with laughter when I heard that one.

truckerlyn said...

Lies, Lies and more Lies is what equals truth to the public health and anti tobacco lobbyists! As long as their voice is heard loud and clear and continues to influence inept governments, the lies will continue and also continue to get bigger and more brazen!

Junican said...

I read a report in the Mirror (?) a couple of days ago about a couple of journalists who had been cleared of a criminal offence. I can't remember the exact words, but the charge was: "Conspiracy to provoke misconduct in public office". The journalists were accused of trying to bribe a couple of policemen.
Politicians are 'in public office' and the Tobacco Control Industry is feeding them lies and bent statistics with a view to getting them to persecute citizens. Clearly, the Zealots are equally guilty of "Conspiring to provoke misconduct in a public office".
And what about 'public officers' in ASH, the WHO and the Health Dept accepting treats from Big PHarma?
One day (soon, we hope) the penny will drop as it did in the expenses scandal.

DP said...

Dear Mr Puddlecote

These people are digging themselves deeper into criminality.

There are grounds for charges against many in tobacco control including but not exclusively: conspiracy, fraud, misconduct in a public office, obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception.

'Public office' covers a wide range of jobs occupied by people not necessarily paid by the taxpayer.

See the CPS on the subject:

http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/l_to_o/misconduct_in_public_office/#a05

I think many charity officers, academics and health practitioners are well within the definition. Any of those who mislead the public, say on 'secondhand smoke' or e-cigarettes, are likely to be committing criminal offences. Further when two or more agree to mislead the public, they enter into a conspiracy and commit a further crime.

There may be other offences these people are committing not listed above.

Maybe in the not too distant future someone is going to call these people to account. While that nice Mr Blair may be too big to brought to account for any crimes he may have committed in war or in assisting systematic torture, the organised criminals in tobacco control will probably not be able to rely on a 'get out of jail free' card.


Any found guilty of fabricating false bases for indoor smoking bans, for example, may well find themselves being sued for damages by the many tens of thousands of people whose businesses have been bankcrupted or closed by the bans.


DP

Dick_Puddlecote said...

We can but hope you are proved correct. It's pretty certain that future historians will judge them to have been appalling liars just as we now view US prohibitionists in the 1920s.

Certain sections of tobacco control are especially out on a dangerous limb when it comes to e-cigs, as I've mentioned in the past. That would go for inept local politicians in litigation-happy US states too. I look forward to careers, reputations and fortunes being ruined. ;)

CalFord20 said...

So it looks like plain packaging is happening. Remind me why I'm supposed to vote Conservative? Every time some apologist comes along and says the Conservatives are great, really, why are you overlooking all their considerable achievements, etc. they pull some stunt like this just to remind you that they're not on our side.

Curmudgeon said...

And a large number of media commentators who are generally pro-Tory have expressed their opposition to this, so Cameron could end up shooting himself in the foot.

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