Sinner, Keep Sinning - We Need The Cash

"I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance." - Luke 15:7

My oh my, how revealing is this?

It was announced today that Philip Morris International - makers of Marlboro cigarettes - were funding a new initiative.

NEW YORK – Ushering in a bold, billion-dollar, far-reaching new effort to end smoking across the globe, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World will be formally launched in New York City on September 13 at 9:30am EDT. 

The Foundation’s founder and president-designate, Dr. Derek Yach, will outline the Foundation’s mission, objectives, and an initial funding commitment of approximately US$80 million annually for 12 years during a speech to the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum at the InterContinental New York Barclay. Additional funding from other sources will be announced at a later date. 

Dr. Yach will be preceded by Mitch Zeller, director of the US FDA's Center for Tobacco Products, who will speak at 8:45am EDT about the need for a new approach to smoking cessation and harm reduction. Members of the media are invited to attend. 

Dr. Yach is a former World Health Organization cabinet director and executive director who led the development of the world’s foremost treaty on tobacco control, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. In anticipation of the launch of his new Foundation, he said, “With more than 7 million smoking-related deaths every year, smoking kills more people annually than HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined. Smoking is a global public health crisis that needs an urgent response with significant, sustained resources, fresh ideas and collaborative action. The Foundation will provide all that and more as we work to help the world’s one billion smokers quit smoking.”

As I understand it, this is simply PMI shovelling money towards people who would like to research tobacco harm reduction (THR). No strings attached, not even a prerequisite to report what they are doing with it.

And what is tobacco control's reaction to this?

Physically sick. Yep, Chappers' right hand muppet (Chuppet?) is sick that research might be taking place towards methods to help people find ways of quitting smoking without her salary being paid help.

Ok, that's just another of those Aussie nutjobs, but what about our own?

While the new foundation appears to be a rare example of a consumer-goods company supporting efforts to undermine sales of its own products, its creation was greeted with skepticism by one anti-smoking organization. 

“The tobacco industry has a terrible track record of funding research designed to support its efforts to block policies to cut smoking,” Deborah Arnott, chief executive of London-based Action on Smoking and Health, said in a statement. “Tobacco industry claims can never be accepted at face value.”

Ha!

There are many who claim to be in favour of THR yet strangely get an attack of the willies once big industry gets involved. I think we can safely say that ASH is full of just such people.

What ASH should have done (if they were interested in health at all) - considering they have spent the last few decades condemning 'Big Tobacco' for not helping smokers to quit - was to welcome this huge amount of money and to congratulate PMI for changing course.

Instead, ASH decided to pump out what is basically a conspiracy theory. Apparently PMI are spending $1bn simply as a diversion. Does Arnott recognise how ridiculous that is?

As for the statement that “Tobacco industry claims can never be accepted at face value". Erm, her own industry has lied so much about e-cigs (and everything else) that she herself has openly opposed them at times. The tobacco control juggernaut is lying on a daily basis about vaping. It's not even being hidden, Arnott has the most amazing cheek to accuse others of being disingenuous when her global colleagues last said something truthful about 1975, the time the UK last held a referendum on Europe.

Rather than welcome a positive initiative from a tobacco industry which ASH and others have painted as irretrievably evil, they have chosen to slam it. This is the same bunch of people who have demanded that 'Big Tobacco' must pay a "polluter pays" levy, it has been a central plank of their demands to government for the past few years. But when just one company does so voluntarily, they jump to condemn it {whisper: could it be that this particular billion is not going to them like the plan they had in mind?}.

We've speculated before that the tobacco control industry has lost sight of its stated goal to reduce the number of people smoking, and instead has morphed into a movement which just despises tobacco companies, but I don't think we can call it speculation any longer after today. It's stark and blatant truth.

It goes to prove, yet again, that tobacco control has no care about health at all. To them, it's just a game and a means of feathering their cosy nest with cash. A tobacco company could devote its entire profit to THR and the likes of Arnott would still criticise. In fact they would criticise more because not only would it destroy their dated ad hom - that they never cease to lazily apply - about industry being untrustworthy, but it would also show that ASH would arguably have no further need to exist. Likewise the execrable Freeman who lied through her teeth at the Australian e-cig inquiry last week.

Oh hold on, do you think that could be why the scream test has been failed by tobacco controllers after this announcement? If you're not familiar with the scream test, here is Simon Chapman to explain:

Experienced tobacco control advocates have long spoken of the “scream test” of policy impact — if a new policy gets no reaction from the tobacco industry it rarely has an impact, but if the industry screams blue murder the impact will be large.

Barely a few hours in and they're already howling like stuck pigs. Must mean that the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World will be making a lot of people quit tobacco, and a lot of formerly comfy state-funded tobacco controllers redundant, eh? For tobacco control to profit, they need a sinner, and their chosen one just threw one billion problems their way.

Still, I must thank ASH and their international colleagues - yet again - for proving me 100% correct when I say the tobacco control bandwagon is absolutely nothing to do with health. On days like this it just gets too easy.