I entitled the article "Forget everything you thought you knew about economics, human nature" because Joy came out with one of the most absurd pieces of anti-smoking fantasy I've ever heard.
BBC: There must be a tipping point where you are forcing poorer people to buy their cigarettes without paying duty.
Joyless: Well, it's very interesting because [...] the tobacco companies always say that. If the tax goes up, this is going to increase smuggling. And they say it, it's one of their many deceits as it's not true.You could up the tax on cigarettes to £100 per pack, according to Joy, and it would have no effect on smuggling whatsoever. Smokers would simply give up. End of story.
I do wonder what she would make of this population level ecological study, then. No, not some computer-generated pile of steaming bullshit so trusted by the tobacco control industry, I'm talking about what has been peer-reviewed as something called real life in New York.
The Tax Foundation said that 60.9% of cigarettes sold in New York State are smuggled in from other states.
This makes New York the biggest importer of black market cigarettes, along with the state's highest tax rate of $4.35 per pack. That's compared to Missouri, the state with the lowest rate, of 17 cents per pack.
In New York City the tax rate is even higher, adding another $1.50 per pack to the state rate. It's not uncommon for smokers to pay $12 for a pack.
The report said that tobacco smuggling and the tax rate have risen practically in tandem since 2006. The New York State tax on cigarettes has risen 190% since that time, as the rate of smuggling increased 170%.There comes a point at which we must seriously begin to question the mental health of many in tobacco control. They are either deranged, or compulsive liars in need of urgent help.
Yet government listen to them. Go figure.
32 comments:
But then again our political elite are inbred deranged compulsive liars, so it's only like preaching to like.
That simply leaves us to assume that Joy Townsend is actually much cleverer than you are giving her credit for and is also running a massive cigarette smuggling cartel.
If I bought cigs in Missouri because I just happened to be there on business or some such, and took them home to New York, would that be "smuggling" in USA law?
Or is it that the word "smuggling" is being used very loosely?
You have to wonder if they really believe this nonsense. “The tobacco companies are liars, therefore this must be a lie”, sort of thing. I mean, why does she think people smuggle anything? Smuggling is, and always has been, a consequence of high taxation or outright illegality. There's no other reason to do it. If you increase the tax or duty on a commodity to the point where it begins to affect people's buying decisions, then that commodity will be smuggled. Every time. It might come as a surprise to the likes of ASH, but people resent being taken for suckers.
Agreed
It seems to be a reflex automatic gainsaying of whatever tobacco companies say, however cast-iron, irrefutably true it happens to be. They could declare that grass is green and tobacco control would disagree.
I'm sure she doesn't believe it.
That must be ok up to some amount for personal consumption. It's probably like the EU. You can't get someone else to transport them.
Clearly in denial or (more likely) lying. There can be no other explanation.
I'd ask her this - why do people buy cheaper baccy, smuggled or UK duty free? Indeed, have her pals from ASH et al ever asked those who do? FFS, it's to save money.
Indeed. Which is why ASH want to counteract it by demanding government reduce the amount which can be bought from Europe.
"Reduce the Minimum Indicative Limits for cross border shopping within Europe to the same level as in Finland, i.e 200 cigarettes and 250g of [hand rolling tobacco];"
Yes, here's another one:
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/01/09/prohibition-price-drives-cigarette-smuggling-new-york-elsewhere
I'm not sure if these "Health Experts / revenue raisers" are truly unaware or in ideological denial. Everybody else seems able to grasp the concept of supply and demand...
Keep up the good work. But you can't fight these people with logic, can you?
LOL How about scattering those tobacco seeds when the wind's blowing southwards, Leg-Iron?
The government listens to them because they finance them.
And ASH (Scotland) are very keen to emphasize that. They even bill it on the front page of their web site (bottom right hand corner).
http://www.ashscotland.org.uk/
In fairness it really doesn't need a lot of figuring. They're an arm of The State.
Dick the fantasy world of TC is fast running into reality as the facts are fast being reported in the mainstream media daily about smuggling and tobacco taxes.......
But the taxman sure can,when he tallys up losses versus income lost to bootleggers and enforcement costs........lmao
ASH can kiss it as it would make no diference,theyd just haul in more via underground systems of supply to cash in on the newer demand. Does ASH even realise they make bootlegging a lucrative trade and provide jobs for the unemployed in its distribution system all the way down to the kid on the playground.......
Hardly! Joy and countless others are the product of a massive academic job creation scheme that has seen the truly talentless employed and frequently promoted to the rank of Professor, usually in some second rate social "science" role. The real tragedy is that our kids, even if they choose the much harder route of studying real science or engineering for example are paying 9K a year to keep these people in jobs. It used to be that only the elite could get away with this by studying Natural Sciences or similar at Cambridge but the whole country is at it these days.
1.
Why society-fixer fanatics/zealots/extremists (e.g.,
medically-legitimized anti-tobacco) are dangerously
dysfunctional.
Fanatics were more than adequately warned
that extortionate taxes would promote a contraband market. This falls on
deaf ears when fanatics, in addition to governments, are also profiting
(funding) from extortionate taxes. When a contraband market begins to
flourish, as predicted, the fanatics go into denial – “of course there’s
no contraband market”, they squeal. When the facts make denial
impossible, they just blame something or someone else. They are quick to
divest, to exonerate, themselves of any blame for detrimental
consequences.
Extortionate taxes also put more severe pressure on those of lower
income if they don’t want to quit smoking and have no access to
contraband. It is further impoverishing them. How do the fanatics that
produced the circumstance react? “It’s not our fault. It’s the fault of
smoking”, e.g.,
“Higher taxes don't in fact burden low-income households: smoking does.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sheelah-a-feinberg/cigarette-price-increases_b_1934038.html
There are smoking bans in mental institutions. The hardest hit are
involuntary patients that smoke. It must be remembered that involuntary
patients are not criminals. They are not permitted to smoke at all. The
fanatics prefer that these patients are restrained physically or
chemically (sedation – more profit for Pharma) rather than allow them to
have a cigarette – even outside. And the needless, cruel
confrontation/agitation, probably on a daily basis, can go on for
months, if not years.
The fanatical, dictatorial message is clear – do as we say or you
will be punished. When the punishment comes, the “cause” of the
detrimental consequences is laid back on the victim and/or his
“addiction”, and where “addiction” has also been defined by the same
fanatics. It gives the fanatics free license to do what they will
because any detrimental consequences are never their fault.
Campus-wide smoking/tobacco bans are picking up momentum particularly
in American universities. These draconian, social-engineering bans
place adult students, particularly female students, in imminent danger
(e.g., physical assault) as smokers are forced - under threat of penalty
- to walk to the outer boundary of a campus particularly at night.
Fanaticism has placed these students in immediate danger of causally
definable harm in an attempt to “protect” them from
statistically-defined tobacco “harm” some 30, 40, 50+ years in the
future. If anything catastrophic was to happen to one of these students,
the fanatics would divest themselves of any responsibility claiming
that that’s the consequences of smoking “addiction”. The same can be
said for property-wide bans at hospitals that require patients/visitors
to walk/wheel to the outer perimeter, in any weather, if they want to
smoke.
A.
The above can be put another way.
Who but the mentally disturbed would inflict the Chapman Trick – the
attempt to manipulate nonsmokers in particular into the belief that in
SHS they are breathing vaporized ant poison, embalming fluid, toilet
cleaner, road tar, etc - on the population under the masquerade of
medical “authority” to shove the antismoking agenda down everyone’s
throat? Who but the mentally disturbed would set out to convince the
public that even a whiff of ambient tobacco smoke is “toxic and
dangerous”, that there is “no safe level” of tobacco smoke? Who but the
mentally disturbed would actively promote such irrational belief, fear
and hatred to advance their agenda?
Who but the mentally disturbed, having shoved the Chapman Trick on
the population, also “educated” the public that exposure to SHS
represents nonsmokers being “forced to smoke” against their will, i.e.,
passive smoking, secondhand smoking? Smoking involves the inhalation
(drawback) of a concentrated “packet” of smoke: Simply breathing air
that has some remnants of smoke does not remotely resemble smoking.
Passive or secondhand smoking are just some amongst many inflammatory
myths.
Who but the mentally disturbed would contrive tobacco-use into the same sentence with narcotics such as cocaine and heroin?
Who but the mentally disturbed (and greedy) would push for taxes on
tobacco to be raised to compounded extortionate levels on a fraudulent
basis (and for their own financial profit), knowing full well that that
is also the best way to promote a contraband market and further
oppresses those of low income? Who but the mentally disturbed, having
actively promoted a contraband market, then deny any responsibility?
Who but the mentally disturbed would jeopardize the immediate health
(e.g., physical assault) of smokers – for no other than bigoted,
social-engineering reasons – by having them walk to dark, isolated, and
sometimes distant, areas if they want a cigarette? Who but the mentally
disturbed would insist that no accommodation be given to the habit of
smoking whatsoever?
Who but the mentally disturbed cannot reason through the detrimental
consequences of their social-engineering and, when these
potential/actual consequences are pointed out, they couldn’t care less
anyway? Who but the mentally disturbed would disavow any responsibility
for any detrimental consequences of their making? All that matters to
the mentally disturbed is their acute fixation - their deranged
smokefree “utopia” - at any cost, and where the cost is typically borne
by those other than the fanatics that are producing the cost.
Who but the mentally disturbed would jeopardize the economic
viability of businesses through baseless, draconian smoking bans/policy
and then contend that no such detrimental consequence ever occurs? Who
but the mentally disturbed, where denial of such consequences is
impossible, then deny that it has anything to do with them?
Who but the mentally disturbed would make it mandatory to increase
the chemical load of cigarettes (FSC) and never bother to have such a
product change health tested? Who but the mentally disturbed, when
alerted to the failure, then demonstrate that they couldn’t care less?
Who but the mentally disturbed, having already promoted a contraband
market, would then actively promote a counterfeit market where the
contents of cigarettes are entirely unknown?
Who but the mentally disturbed would set out – intentionally – to
“denormalize” a sizeable group of the population (smokers) through
fraudulent means – a constant lying under the pretense of “science and
scholarship”, to make this “target” group appear as not fit for normal
society, a “threat” to all, to be relegated to the margins, to be
sneered at, looked down upon?
A.
The above can be put another way.
Who but the mentally disturbed would inflict the Chapman Trick – the
attempt to manipulate nonsmokers in particular into the belief that in
SHS they are breathing vaporized ant poison, embalming fluid, toilet
cleaner, road tar, etc - on the population under the masquerade of
medical “authority” to shove the antismoking agenda down everyone’s
throat? Who but the mentally disturbed would set out to convince the
public that even a whiff of ambient tobacco smoke is “toxic and
dangerous”, that there is “no safe level” of tobacco smoke? Who but the
mentally disturbed would actively promote such irrational belief, fear
and hatred to advance their agenda?
Who but the mentally disturbed, having shoved the Chapman Trick on
the population, also “educated” the public that exposure to SHS
represents nonsmokers being “forced to smoke” against their will, i.e.,
passive smoking, secondhand smoking? Smoking involves the inhalation
(drawback) of a concentrated “packet” of smoke: Simply breathing air
that has some remnants of smoke does not remotely resemble smoking.
Passive or secondhand smoking are just some amongst many inflammatory
myths.
Who but the mentally disturbed would contrive tobacco-use into the same sentence with narcotics such as cocaine and heroin?
Who but the mentally disturbed (and greedy) would push for taxes on
tobacco to be raised to compounded extortionate levels on a fraudulent
basis (and for their own financial profit), knowing full well that that
is also the best way to promote a contraband market and further
oppresses those of low income? Who but the mentally disturbed, having
actively promoted a contraband market, then deny any responsibility?
Who but the mentally disturbed would jeopardize the immediate health
(e.g., physical assault) of smokers – for no other than bigoted,
social-engineering reasons – by having them walk to dark, isolated, and
sometimes distant, areas if they want a cigarette? Who but the mentally
disturbed would insist that no accommodation be given to the habit of
smoking whatsoever?
Who but the mentally disturbed cannot reason through the detrimental
consequences of their social-engineering and, when these
potential/actual consequences are pointed out, they couldn’t care less
anyway? Who but the mentally disturbed would disavow any responsibility
for any detrimental consequences of their making? All that matters to
the mentally disturbed is their acute fixation - their deranged
smokefree “utopia” - at any cost, and where the cost is typically borne
by those other than the fanatics that are producing the cost.
Who but the mentally disturbed would jeopardize the economic
viability of businesses through baseless, draconian smoking bans/policy
and then contend that no such detrimental consequence ever occurs? Who
but the mentally disturbed, where denial of such consequences is
impossible, then deny that it has anything to do with them?
Who but the mentally disturbed would make it mandatory to increase
the chemical load of cigarettes (FSC) and never bother to have such a
product change health tested? Who but the mentally disturbed, when
alerted to the failure, then demonstrate that they couldn’t care less?
Who but the mentally disturbed, having already promoted a contraband
market, would then actively promote a counterfeit market where the
contents of cigarettes are entirely unknown?
B.
Who but the mentally disturbed would set out – intentionally – to
“denormalize” a sizeable group of the population (smokers) through
fraudulent means – a constant lying under the pretense of “science and
scholarship”, to make this “target” group appear as not fit for normal
society, a “threat” to all, to be relegated to the margins, to be
sneered at, looked down upon?
Who but the mentally disturbed would assume guardianship of “the
children” - as the tyrannical typically do? Children present a “blank
slate” where the fanatics can shape the children’s thinking in the
fanatics’ deranged perspective, brainwashing them in antismoking
propaganda from an early age a là Temperance/Eugenics Groups of early 20th century America or the Hitler Youth. Who but the mentally disturbed
would “teach” children that their 30-something (or any age for that
matter) smoking parents are liable to drop dead at any moment from
smoking and that the children are being “killed” by ambient tobacco
smoke?
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/12/23/Most-kids-of-smokers-what-parents-to-quit/UPI-38571356298634/
In one school, the very word “cigarette” is verboten:
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/12/children_do_not_need_us_to_artificially_sanitize_the_world.html
Who but the mentally disturbed would “teach” children that having
“nicotine addict” parents is shameful? It is the constant [fake]
moralizers that are the abusers of children. And what the rabid zealots
consider as “the children” is constantly morphing into greater
perversity. Consider this sanctimony from the self-absorbed zealot par
excellence, Stan Glantz, concerning university-wide smoking bans
directed at adults:
If young people can stop smoking, or never start smoking, before they
reach their late 20s, they will be unlikely to ever develop the habit
as older adults, said Dr. Stanton Glantz, director of UCSF's Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.
"Virtually nobody starts smoking after age 24 or 25," Glantz said.
"If you can get people through the college ages and a little bit past,
and they've either not started or they've stopped, then they're pretty
well taken care of."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/13/BAGJ1MOO9L.DTL
Who but the mentally disturbed (and greedy) would protect their
Pharma funders by calling for bans on all the competition for potential
smoking “substitutes” (chewing tobacco, snus, e-cigarettes) giving
Pharma a monopoly for its [useless] smoking cessation wares?
Who but the mentally disturbed would put antismokers – haters of
smoke/smoking/smokers – in charge of tobacco and not expect
catastrophe….. or even recognize the pathway to catastrophe as it’s
occurring?
At every turn in this twisted antismoking saga, there has been
constant self-serving deception. There is no accountability on the part
of the “society-fixer” fanatics: They have made themselves a law unto
themselves. In their own contorted, cultic fantasy-world are the
fanatics/zealots/extremists always right, never wrong. Only more
troubling than the antismoker fanatics is the medically-dominated Public
Health framework that has legitimized them. It’s here that the
seriously mentally disturbed – a là eugenics – reside: They have all
sorts of divisive control plans, far beyond antismoking, for the public.
Public Health has once again been hijacked by the medically-aligned,
peddling their deranged physicalist world view and perverse definition
of health. Public Health is once again being used for deranged ideology,
financial profit and oppression. Public Health, from the WHO through to
national health bureaucracies, has destabilized countries around the
world, bringing them progressively under sick, central control. It is
robber bureaucrats, robber politicians, robber “advisors”, robber
hangers-on. And it’s more than money that they’re robbing.
B
Who but the mentally disturbed would set out – intentionally – to
“denormalize” a sizeable group of the population (smokers) through
fraudulent means – a constant lying under the pretense of “science and
scholarship”, to make this “target” group appear as not fit for normal
society, a “threat” to all, to be relegated to the margins, to be
sneered at, looked down upon?
Who but the mentally disturbed would assume guardianship of “the
children” - as the tyrannical typically do? Children present a “blank
slate” where the fanatics can shape the children’s thinking in the
fanatics’ deranged perspective, brainwashing them in antismoking
propaganda from an early age a là Temperance/Eugenics Groups of early 20th century America or the Hitler Youth. Who but the mentally disturbed
would “teach” children that their 30-something (or any age for that
matter) smoking parents are liable to drop dead at any moment from
smoking and that the children are being “killed” by ambient tobacco
smoke?
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/12/23/Most-kids-of-smokers-what-parents-to-quit/UPI-38571356298634/
In one school, the very word “cigarette” is verboten:
http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/12/children_do_not_need_us_to_artificially_sanitize_the_world.html
Who but the mentally disturbed would “teach” children that having
“nicotine addict” parents is shameful? It is the constant [fake]
moralizers that are the abusers of children. And what the rabid zealots
consider as “the children” is constantly morphing into greater
perversity. Consider this sanctimony from the self-absorbed zealot par
excellence, Stan Glantz, concerning university-wide smoking bans
directed at adults:
If young people can stop smoking, or never start smoking, before they
reach their late 20s, they will be unlikely to ever develop the habit
as older adults, said Dr. Stanton Glantz, director of UCSF's Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.
"Virtually nobody starts smoking after age 24 or 25," Glantz said.
"If you can get people through the college ages and a little bit past,
and they've either not started or they've stopped, then they're pretty
well taken care of."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/13/BAGJ1MOO9L.DTL
Who but the mentally disturbed (and greedy) would protect their
Pharma funders by calling for bans on all the competition for potential
smoking “substitutes” (chewing tobacco, snus, e-cigarettes) giving
Pharma a monopoly for its [useless] smoking cessation wares?
Who but the mentally disturbed would put antismokers – haters of
smoke/smoking/smokers – in charge of tobacco and not expect
catastrophe….. or even recognize the pathway to catastrophe as it’s
occurring?
At every turn in this twisted antismoking saga, there has been
constant self-serving deception. There is no accountability on the part
of the “society-fixer” fanatics: They have made themselves a law unto
themselves. In their own contorted, cultic fantasy-world are the
fanatics/zealots/extremists always right, never wrong. Only more
troubling than the antismoker fanatics is the medically-dominated Public
Health framework that has legitimized them. It’s here that the
seriously mentally disturbed – a là eugenics – reside: They have all
sorts of divisive control plans, far beyond antismoking, for the public.
Public Health has once again been hijacked by the medically-aligned,
peddling their deranged physicalist world view and perverse definition
of health. Public Health is once again being used for deranged ideology,
financial profit and oppression. Public Health, from the WHO through to
national health bureaucracies, has destabilized countries around the
world, bringing them progressively under sick, central control. It is
robber bureaucrats, robber politicians, robber “advisors”, robber
hangers-on. And it’s more than money that they’re robbing.
Does it matter whether we refer to these fanatics as mentally disturbed
or liars or incompetent or greedy or Statists or propagandists? The
overriding fact is that they have done a massive con job on the global
public, seriously messing with people’s minds on a mass scale. There
isn’t too much that isn’t a lie…. a manipulation. And they function in a
contrived system that allows them to bypass critical scrutiny and
accountability.
The question is - what is the law?
The antis would phase it as loss to the taxpayer. One reason they inflate the cost of smoking related cost to the NHS is to justify high tobacco duty. In reality, UK duty paying smokers contribute far more to govt coffers than equivalent non smokers. The average smoker probably to the tune of about £1500pa net. Government must know that NHS smoking cessation rates are abysmal, yet deliberately hide this convenient truth. On the one hand they sponsor those whose job it is to scare the public shitless, on the other to use that fear as an excuse to fleece people. This was the default approach by the Church in the middle ages. Only difference is that the Church at least promised something in return. Smokers are damned regardless.
Now here's the Beeb reporting on garlic smuggling because of taxes/tarriffs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20976887
Logic/common sense would dictate the same thing with cigarettes?
Then again those two important factors have been conveniently ignored by the health puritans to advance their case.
They have only one eye. Their 'science' relies on it, by ignoring anything which doesn't fit the pre-conceived agenda. When it gets to the point where formerly serious and astute orgs are talking about banning smoking in apartments where there is a solid brick wall between one and the other, we have long since disappeared through the looking glass.
The brick walls are built in the nazis heads.............
They know there lying,the politicians know their lying and we know their lying. Which one is going to tell the public the truth! US!
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced an initiative to ban smoking from college campuses last month. This is part of the HHS goal to create a society free of tobacco-related disease and death, according to their action plan released by the HHS in 2010.
Colleges who fail to enact campus-wide smoking bans and other tobacco-free policies may soon face the loss of grants and contracts from the HHS, according to the plan. Western receives grants through a subdivision of the HHS called the National Institutes of Health, Acting Vice Provost for Research Kathleen Kitto said.
http://www.westernfrontonline.net/news/article_f8068f12-0efe-11e2-8b41-001a4bcf6878.html?success=1
Obama administration to push for eliminating smoking on college campuses
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/11/obama ... z29zJ2V2TV
President Barack Obama has already promised not to smoke cigarettes in the White House. If his administration has its way, American college students will soon be required to follow suit while they’re on campus.
Howard Koh, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will announce a national initiative Wednesday at the University of Michigan School of Public Health to stamp out tobacco use on college campuses.
“We are witnessing a public health evolution to make smoking history and protect people from tobacco dependence so that they have a fighting chance to enjoy their full potential for health,” Koh said in a statement released by the University of Michigan, a smoke-free campus since last July.
“Implementing this initiative will bring us closer to a world where tobacco-related illness is uncommon and lung cancer — the leading cause of cancer death in the country — is rare.”
Koh will announce the Tobacco-Free College Campus Initiative, reportedly part of Health and Human Services’ national Tobacco Control Strategic Action Plan, which will push other institutions of higher learning to adopt tobacco-free policies.
“Twenty million students, about a third of all young adults in this country, are enrolled in higher education,” added University of Michigan Tobacco Research Network executive director and Koh advisor Clifford Douglas. “Through their campus policies, colleges and universities have a unique opportunity to influence a student’s daily life.”
A number of colleges have already moved to become smoke-free voluntarily. Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights claim that 774 American college campuses had eliminated smoking by July 1, including 562 that banned tobacco completely, according to USA Today.
ENDING THE
TOBACCO EPIDEMIC
A Tobacco Control Strategic
Action Plan for the
U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services
Introduction
“ Our work to protect our children and improve the public’s health is not complete. Today, tobacco is the leading
preventable cause of death not just in America, but also
in the world.”
President Barack Obama
June 22, 2009
http://www.hhs.gov/ash/initiatives/toba ... an2010.pdf
Our work to protect our children and improve the public’s health is not complete. Today, tobacco is the leading
preventable cause of death not just in America, but also
in the world.”
President Barack Obama
Adolph Hitler 1943
“The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation.”
(Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler; 1943)
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