Wednesday 26 April 2017

ASH And The Goldilocks Fairy Tale

One of the most bizarre measures in the EU's Tobacco Products Directive - a hideous and disgraceful piece of legislation which has nothing to do with 'harmonising EU markets' but everything to do with social engineering - is the ridiculous banning of 10 packs of cigarettes and smaller pouches of tobacco.

As Ian Dunt, editor of Politics.co.uk, rightly asks, what kind of idiot suggested this?


Well, the supportive delegation to the EU legislation in the UK was ASH of course, as they boasted about just a couple of weeks ago.
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, Action on Smoking and Health spokesperson Amanda Sandford said: “Cigarettes are already expensive and the price increase of cigarettes is a key factor in making people quit smoking. 
“So by removing the packet of ten cigarettes this means people will have to find that extra money for a packet. 
“It will hit poorer and younger smokers harder who are more likely to buy smaller packs.”
Nice of her, eh? I'm sure many on lower incomes will be extremely pleased that a person very well-remunerated from the taxes ripped from hard-working people is so keen on impoverishing them further for a meagre pleasure.

Anyhow. So we get that ASH believe small packs are bad, and big packs are good. We think they are insane for believing that but then it's a policy, isn't it. And ASH require policies - any policies - to ensure they carry on sucking from the public teat.

Which is probably why ASH yesterday tweeted a parliamentary question hinting at an entirely different policy !
Virendra Sharma Labour, Ealing, Southall 
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what plans he has to introduce maximum pack size legislation for the sale of tobacco products.  
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will make an assessment of the potential effect of introducing maximum pack size legislation on the bulk-buying of cigarettes.
This MP is calling for a maximum pack size now? ASH must be pretty disgusted, surely. According to their logic the bigger the pack size the better! The price will be more prohibitive the larger the packs sizes get, and if a huge pack size is even less affordable for the dumb, knuckle-dragging poor that ASH so enjoy punishing, that's surely got to be a good thing, no?

Well, apparently not. Because, y'see, Virendra Sharma is yet another member of ASH's APPG so was arguably told to table that question on behalf of his tax-sponging puppet-masters. They didn't tweet his question disdainfully, but because a mandated maximum pack size is exactly what they want to see legislated for.

So ASH now have a policy whereby they want to see small packs banned, and they are also potentially proposing that large packs be banned as well. In their never-ending quest for taxpayer funding, there is apparently some kind of mythical Goldilocks sweet spot somewhere in the middle that is "just right" for Debs and her fellow arseholes to tolerate.

Of course, in the real world - as opposed to the one where ASH pretend they are interested in health - this small pack bad, big pack bad idea is only about punishing absolutely everyone who has the temerity to continue choosing to smoke.

Can we stop calling them a tobacco control 'charity' now? Instead of pretending they are interested in health, we should be describing them properly. Extreme fundamentalist smoker-hating prohibitionists who have been ripping the public off and harassing law-abiding members of society for over four decades.

We don't tolerate bullies in schools; we shouldn't be giving the repulsive parasites at ASH a penny of our taxes either. 



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