I'm sure the media will be scrambling for places in the gallery and newspaper editors are preparing to hold their front pages for breaking news from Abu Dhabi but - in the unlikely event that no-one really gives a stuff - a couple of tobacco control harebrains from New Zealand have a cunning plan to grab attention (and, by extension, grants).
Writing in The Lancet, they will tomorrow predict an end to smoking by 2040. No, not just in New Zealand ... but the entire world! Apparently, "the time has come for the world to acknowledge the unacceptability of the damage being done by the tobacco industry and work towards a world essentially free from the sale (legal and illegal) of tobacco products".
Now, if global prevalence was falling I suppose their puerile enthusiasm could be excused, but it requires Comical Ali levels of laugh out loud stupidity to make these daft pronouncements when tobacco use has never been higher in the history of mankind ...
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| From the CDC |
Apparently, they will be calling on "the United Nations (UN) to lead a “turbo-charged” effort against the sale and consumption of tobacco", forgetting that this will set the (unelected) UN the impossible task of persuading (elected) governments worldwide that they don't really need the huge levels of tobacco duty receipts - voluntarily surrendered by their electorate - after all.
Before you say that the cuckoo Kiwi prohibitionists haven't really thought this through, though, you must consider their brilliant change in emphasis. You see, they believe that "regulatory efforts have been too focused on reducing demand for tobacco" instead of trying to cut off supply. I take it, then, that their plan involves closing down all legal tobacco factories throughout the world in the next 25 years, as well as asking criminal gangs like the newly plain packs-enriched IRA to play ball ... well, good luck with that.
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| Click here for the interactive map, they'll all be gone by 2040 |
“The tobacco industry continues to interfere with governments’ efforts to implement effective tobacco control policies. If the world is to become tobacco free, it’s vital that the industry’s appalling conduct receives far closer scrutiny"Presumably, in this context, 'interfering' would mean tobacco manufacturers saying excuse me, but can you not shut our factories down, because people still want to smoke and you're going to create the biggest criminal black market the planet has ever seen. The interfering bastards, eh?
It is quite staggering that this huge, stratospherically-funded (The Gates Foundation is one of the WCTOH sponsors) tobacco control industry seems blissfully unaware that erasing supply when there is huge demand can only lead down one path. Have they honestly never come across the comprehensive disasters of Prohibition and the War on Drugs during their sociology studies?
I don't know what is more darkly comic, that this idea is being unveiled to the world on March 13th rather than April 1st; or the fact that there are politicians who would actually think this to be an achievable plan!
Good grief.
Who knows how much coverage this insanity will create, any sensible news editor worth his salt should laugh it out of his office. The quango-enthralled BBC, on the other hand, are doubtless lining up a splash for breakfast news as I type.
11 comments:
Wasn't it New Zealand who, some years ago, proudly predicted that they'd be "smoke-free" by 2012 or thereabouts? That went well, didn't it?
It looks like these anti tobacco crusaders totally missed the utter failure of alcohol Prohibition in the US. The winner in that Puritan escapade was the mafia. Looks like they want to shore up the flow of income for the gangsters around the world.
Sheer insanity.
They are the gangsters now it seems
I CHOOSE to smoke and hate dictators.
Hot on the heels of the Conference of the [All-Night] Parties® here’s another 5-star event for the petty-dictator set. It’s the World Conference on Tobacco or Health, the 16th in a series that began in the late-1960s. It’s been a prohibitionist crusade from the outset. By the mid-1970s, the World Conference attracted only about 500 medically-aligned oddballs from around the world. Now it’s a “red carpet” event catering to many thousands. The bigotry bandwagon has attracted the “educated” and the mega-wealthy. They all want a piece of the pontificating “action”. It’s cocktail sipping and ego massaging on a grand scale for the [self installed] “elite".
Detrimental consequences, e.g., contraband market, isolation from denormalization, promoting irrational fear, don’t exist in those with a “god
complex”. Amongst a cluster of mental dysfunction these Public Health nitwits suffer delusions of benevolence and omniscience. Even if the place was falling apart from detrimental consequences of the prohibitionists’ conduct, they would simply parrot the standard slogan of “all is going well”. That’s why prohibitionists….. sanctimonious zealots…. are dangerous.
At the end of Prohibition the question asked of the prohibitionists was “who do you think you are?” It should be obvious that prohibitionists believe they’re god; it’s their duty to fix up others and the world. They are deranged. Prohibitionists don’t just suddenly snap to their right mind. They are also incapable of reasoning or proportionality. They must be ousted from influence on public policy by a segment of society that has had enough of the sanctimonious, destructive stupidity. This segment of society
must constantly point out that antismokers, or contemporary Public Healthists, are seriously deluded. And it’s not the first time that the medially-aligned have wreaked utter havoc in the name of a “healthier” society, e.g., eugenics (which was also rabidly anti-tobacco/alcohol).
Dear Mr Puddlecote
They say: 'follow the money'.
The Master Settlement Agreement appears to pump about USD8,000 million a year into various pockets.
Meanwhile on the 'war on drugs', the Federal government spends about USD15,000 million a year and the states a further USD25,000 million - total USD40,000 million, which all goes into various pockets.
Ergo prohibition is far more lucrative. And it's great for the illegal criminals as well.
DP
What they realy want is a turbo-charging of tobacco control grants. It's about time that these bottom feeders were exposed for the rent seeking junkies that they are. Just glad that I don't live in New Zealand, probably the sheep are just as sick of these guys as everyone else.
They want the money, but they want the prohibition too. There will be plenty of money and jobs in administrating the prohibition regime when they get it, as with drugs and, formerly, alcohol.
Fuck me, these people really are cranks. 'Tobacco citadels'; 'cancer sticks'... it would be funny (and pitiable) were the threat they posed to freedom not so serious.
It doesn't really matter if it's achievable or not - in fact, they'd probably rather it wasn't, then they can go on claiming more funding, as with 'climate change' and any number of other unaccountable scams that always 'need more research'. About the only thing that keeps me sane is the thought that one day, these berks will over-reach themselves and make such a monumental cock-up that even they and their Guardianista/BBC chums won't be able to cover it up. I'm not holding my breath, though.. :-(
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