"This Lobby Is Impossible To Satisfy"

In 2007, a staff member at Puddlecote Inc who smokes commented on the inception of the smoking ban by saying "ASH may as well pack up now, they have everything they want". I replied that they will never stop because if they did it would threaten the most precious thing to them ... their salary.

You see, their industry can never be satisfied as long as there are grants to be claimed, as our esteemed mascot once expressed perfectly in parliament.

The problem, however, as with all these matters, is that the report panders to the zealots in society who are never satisfied. I guarantee that if all the recommendations were introduced, Committee members would, within a few months at most, come back with further recommendations because the previous ones had not gone far enough. This lobby is impossible to satisfy.

If you needed any further proof, here is a staggering example from New Zealand where the plans for their version of plain packaging of tobacco have just been announced. The ink has not even reached the statute book yet but they are already saying that what is proposed is simply not good enough and discussing what should come next.

Brand and Variant Names 

The Government has missed the opportunity to disallow any new variant names or to limit the market to those brand and variant names that existed when the legislation was first introduced.

Smokers are not allowed to be treated to new brands or blends, obviously. They are there to be bullied and nothing else, how dare an industry try to offer products which their consumers want to buy.

Stick Appearance 

[T]he regulations could have completely standardised stick dimensions, thus eliminating any points of differentiation between brands. They could also have introduced dissuasive sticks featuring unattractive colours or warning graphics, which give rise to unappealing connotations and are highly aversive.

Ah, the idea of Poo Sticks again. I've written about these a couple of times before, they look like this and show how extremely childish the tobacco control industry really is.

This is from one of the world's most insane anti-smoking harridans, Janet Hoek, who also advocates that processed food should be treated like tobacco and thinks it perfectly acceptable to "use cigarette's own packaging against smokers". None of that 'helping', 'supporting' or 'encouraging' smokers. And not a battle against smoking either, nope, against smokers. Vile humans like Hoek believe they are now in some kind of war, it's them against us.

Pack Size and Interior 

[T]he regulations could also have required the drab green-brown colour that will feature on pack exteriors to be used on all internal pack surfaces currently coloured white. Such a change would have been especially important for RYO pouches, as many smokers roll their cigarettes on the clean, white pouch flap.

Shock fucking horror! Smokers might have a surface that doesn't scream at them after they have made their choice to smoke? And there I was thinking the tobacco control cultists were upstanding, honest people who simply wanted the exterior of the packs to be made drab in order to deter children. Surely they wouldn't lie, huh?

Warnings 

The regulations do not apply to the rolling papers and filters used to make cigarettes from RYO tobacco; these should also have been required to adopt standardised packaging, including pictorial warnings. 

Yes, let's have warnings on products that don't, on their own, cause any harm at all, just to send a message saying "down with this sort of thing".

Kinda puts a new perspective on this nonsense, doesn't it?

And the denouement?

Conclusions 

The small steps made in NZ’s regulations are important, but much larger leaps are required to achieve the Government’s Smokefree 2025 goal.

Plain packaging is just "small steps". That's odd, because when they speak to legislators prior to any vote it is always described as urgent, vitally important and even "a vaccine against lung cancer". Now it is impending legislation, it doesn't go nearly far enough for the insane grant-gobblers of 'public health' as they start looking at "the next logical step" to extend their time sucking on the public teat.

As Our Philip said back in 2010:

I know for a fact that the moment the proposed measures are introduced, the zealots represented on the Select Committee will be back for more, and back for more again. They are never satisfied. Dr. Taylor said that he wanted the Government to go a little further and do a little more. Unfortunately, he and the people whom he represents always want the Government to go a little further and do a little more.

Indeed. So the best thing for government to do, if it wants a quiet life, is to just ignore these insane people and their bullshit, evidence-free posturing, cut off their funding and pretend they don't exist.

The cost of not doing so is a massive waste of taxpayer resources, and a barrage of insults from the sidelines from hideous prohibitionists anyway. You don't stop a kid from throwing a tantrum by acceding to its demands, nor should politicians let the tax-sponging pecksniffs in 'public health' get away with constantly chasing their own addiction - our money - at the expense of the right of law-abiding citizens to quietly enjoy the things they choose to consume.

There is no more anti-social threat to the public at the moment than the extremists in 'public health', one day governments will, surely, understand this pretty basic concept.