Righteous Crocodile Tears

Isn't it odd that the tobacco industry is considered to be the antichrist by the righteous 99% of the time, but a convenient sob story when it suits their agenda.

Bootleg cigarettes with a retail value of more than £2,000 have been seized from a city newsagents.

In total. more than 400 packets of 20 cigarettes were seized – 44 of John Player's Special Black and 383 cartons of Lambert and Butler.

Miss Tracey said the haul could have made Kean, 31, a potential profit of £1,696, representing a loss to the tobacco industry of £2,399 and costing the Government £1,835 in unpaid tax.

Surely the deprivation of income for the tobacco industry has been a major goal of the righteous for years, and the loss to the exchequor has never been an obstacle when trumpeting the success of quit smoking campaigns paid for by the same taxpayers. So the problem isn't the loss of industry profits or duty receipts, but method of doing so. It's not righteous enough.

Speaking after the trial, Tom Terrett, Trading Standards and Licensing manager said: "The sale of counterfeit and non-duty paid cigarettes can encourage smokers to smoke more than they otherwise would."

Really? I've never heard of that one before, but then any faux statistic pulled out of the ether by righteous fanatics is never challenged. Most of us call these lies. They, however, would probably term them mis-spoken means to a laudable end.

There is nothing wrong with busting someone who has broken the law, but please spare us the crocodile tears over the damage to the tobacco industry and tax income. As for the lies based on nothing but conjecture, they would be funny if it weren't for the fact that frantically-nodding, self-important, confirmation-biased, ill-educated cocks will believe them.

We may see fewer cases like this in the future (or may not, who truly knows), seeing as the new law on hiding tobacco products is going to make it so much easier for bootleggers. Surreptitiously pulling a packet from under the counter will no longer be unusual, and the invisibility of tell-tale incorrect health warnings, to prying righteous eyes, is a godsend.

The one absolute certainty, though, is that when corner shops begin collapsing at an alarming rate as they did in Canada after such legislation, there won't be even the slightest murmur about tobacco profits or loss of tax revenue.

The righteous are always shy of the truth when it doesn't fit their crusade.