Seemingly not listening to Debs Arnott's hilarious claim that "The “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false", we have routinely seen other strands of 'public health' calling for plain packaging for anything from kids' treats, through fast food, alcohol and fizzy drinks, e-cigs natch, and even onto fossil fuels. That's how very 'unique' tobacco is, you see.
So it's not surprising that someone has decided to study the effect of plain packaging on one of these other threatened products.
A new study by researchers in Europe has concluded that plain packaging for food products may reduce an individual’s purchase intent but could actually lead to increased consumption once a product is purchased or offered. These findings suggest that measures to reduce unhealthy food intake by introducing plain packaging could have “adverse effects”, with the researchers suggesting it is “critical” for further studies to be conducted to see if such regimes would be a viable or ill-advised strategy to combat obesity.
The researchers appear to be quite startled by this conclusion.
“At first sight, the current results sharply differ from those obtained in the smoking prevention literature, with exposure to plain pack of cigarettes reducing product appreciation and desire to smoke, and actual smoking overall. What is effective for preventing smoking may not necessarily be as effective for reducing food consumption."
Erm, it's not quite true that plain packs has been "effective for preventing smoking", now is it?
Importantly, it cannot tell us whether a change in packaging achieves the desired outcomes of an increase in actual quit rates or preventing people from starting smoking.
Which is kinda important.
While people smoking the plain pack cigarettes were significantly more likely to have thought about quitting and place higher priority on quitting, their intention to quit smoking remained unchanged.
And that's quite significant because - two and a half years on - there has actually been an increase in tobacco consumption in Australia, as illustrated in the short two minute film below.
Now, I know what you're thinking. The food study involved plain white packs with no gory pictures, but they don't work on tobacco so that's a bit of a red herring. And besides, isn't it all about the children? Surely if they are less inclined to buy sweets they won't eat as many. Well, yes, that's exactly what Aussie tobacco controllers thought about plain packaging smokes, and look how that turned out.
So it seems the food study mirrors exactly the path of pitiful failure of plain packaging for tobacco. It looks like it promises so much, but eventually delivers absolutely bugger all except disappointment for bansturbators and a whole load of costly regulations and disruption for businesses.
Still, without a wild goose chase on which to expend their time and our taxes, state-funded vested interests would be sitting around flicking rubber bands and waiting for the inevitable cut to their unnecessary grants, now wouldn't they?
Plain packaging for any number of products offers a prime incentive for 'public health' tax-spongers to drag their loathsome carcasses around TV and radio spewing out fanciful theories and junk science for quite some time to come.
Well what a day of turgid gobshitery and joyless shroud-waving we have witnessed today over the Chief Morality Officer's new alcohol guidelines. I'd post about how deeply flawed they are but Snowdon has done so admirably already so pop over there and read all about it.
This idea that these are just recommendations, and that's all, is incredibly naive. Have these people been sleeping for the past 30 or 40 years? When have guidelines ever remained guidelines without leading to more and more coercion?
40 years ago government guidelines on smoking were to not smoke but, if you must, take fewer puffs and leave a longer stub, now we have bans just about everywhere in a campaign of "denormalisation" of smokers. In many countries they are actually now speaking openly of the "endgame"; of prohibition. All because government were persuaded that the 'guidelines' were not being taken seriously.
With sugar, the guidelines had barely been altered downwards by the WHO before there were calls from 'public health' that the public isn't following them so we need a sugar tax and TV advertising bans on certain foods.
There used to be guidelines about what food kids should be given by their parents to take to school, now we have packed lunch inspections and unapproved food being confiscated, while many openly talk about mandatory school dinners because the 'guidelines' are not being adhered to.
These are just a few examples of many many others I could have chosen (add more in the comments as I'm sure you will know plenty of other examples). This is how health nags work, people, if you haven't noticed that where have you been?
Take all the above into account, and if you can still honestly believe that the hugely-funded Goliath of 'public health' is not going to be rubbing their hands with glee at the future possibilities after today, well, you're not very bright is the most charitable I can offer.
As a result of these 'guidelines' that we are apparently free not to follow - you know, they're just fuzzy-wuzzy friendly advice, that's all - a whole new door has been opened on alcohol nagging.
Soon there will be campaigns by the usual suspects to say that the guidelines are not being adhered to. It will not be because the public have taken note of the advice and chosen to ignore it, instead the legions of public health parasites will say that the 'guidelines' are just not working and something must be done about it; that big industry is blinding drinkers to the harms; and that - how convenient - there are now so many more people drinking over the recommended guidelines that government must crack down hard!
Research will be produced showing that x% of drinkers are exceeding the 'guidelines' and that therefore they must be brought into line with advertising bans; restrictions on availability; higher taxes; denormalisation campaigns and bans.
This isn't even conjecture because we've seen it all before. If you think these are just guidelines that can be ignored, and that that will be the end of the matter, you're either massively deluded or - like Suzi who tweeted above - a public health campaigner who is well aware of what is actually going on but just wants to quell the outrage a little before moving on to the 'next logical step'.
Regular visitors here will be aware that I've often remarked on the marvellous capacity of e-cigs to expose irrational hatred from condescending, anti-social, psychotic smoker-haters, as exhibited nicely by Duncan Bannatyne in 2010.
Of course, he didn't know exactly why he despised e-cigs back then because he knew absolutely nothing about them and probably still doesn't. He just despised them. I theorised as to why at the time.
I can now understand why they boil anti-smoker piss so much. After nearly three decades of fabricating a scare story to eliminate others enjoying a substance (nicotine) of which they personally disapprove, the righteous have next to nothing on the e-cig, and it must really - no, I mean really - grate.
Having dreamed for years of that orgasmic final boot in the face of those they jealously hated for enjoying a benign pleasure, they can see a few wriggling free, still putting hand to mouth, and with the two fingers still defiantly up.
Some have found that vaping is a way of ditching tobacco for good; anti-smokers would prefer to ban e-cigs to force them back to being smokers where they are easier to hit. As Bannatyne shows above, they're not really bothered about health, or the chiildren, or harm reduction - they just enjoy the hunt, the superiority, and the self-righteousness.
E-cigs threaten to deprive them of that, all of it - after 30 years of intense obsessive effort - and the psychos don't like it one bit.
Since then, though, e-cigs have also exposed the cant, hypocrisy and methodological lying of many in the 'public health' and tobacco control trough-slurping industries too. The huge surge in e-cig popularity in the past five years has been matched only by the surge in ever more desperate - and almost proudly corrupt - junk science from researchers who care not a jot about health if it threatens their grants and/or salary and state-funded Merc.
Just in the past couple of months, for example, we've seen baseless smear-jobs to undermine a favourable government review, along with appalling, easily-debunked junk-science-by-press-release designed specifically to create hysterical anti-vaping headlines all around the world.
This, remember, from the same people who have condemned 'Big Tobacco' for decades for misleading smokers, perverting science and putting personal gain over health. Their hypocrisy really is quite staggering, isn't it?
However, even I am now becoming amazed at how far these arrogant establishment liars are prepared to go to put a positive genie back in its bottle and get back to their comfortable state of smug, self-centred finger-wagging. The latest development - and the reason for the blatant mendacity being stepped up to a whole new level - is the recent approval by the MHRA of an e-cig which could, theoretically, be prescribed on the NHS.
The path has been laid for e-cigarettes to be potentially made available on free prescription in Wales after a brand was granted a licence by a UK medicines body.
The decision by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency on the e-Voke e-cigarette applies across the UK and includes Wales.
This is the same Wales where - despite not a shred of credible evidence in its favour - the assembly is still planning to impose bans on public use of e-cigs. Awkward, huh?
But the Welsh Government says the Public Health Bill which would put the ban into law doesn’t prevent the use of e-cigarettes as an aid to stop smoking.
A Welsh Government spokeswoman said: "The Bill proposes to restrict the use of e-cigarettes in certain enclosed public places because we are concerned about the risk they pose to children in terms of normalising smoking behaviours."
And what of these medically licensed e-cigs, what are they like?
[A spokeswoman for the MHRA] added: “The e-Voke is the second product that looks like a cigarette meeting the definition of an e-cigarette to receive a marketing authorisation"
Oh I see. So to stop the "risk they pose to children in terms of normalising smoking behaviours", Wales will now have a law which allows e-cigs "that look like a cigarette" but will ban those which look absolutely nothing like one. Those funny provincials, eh?
I'd say you couldn't make it up, but ignorant, vapid, ideological establishment bansturbators and their useful idiots are doing exactly that almost on a daily basis about e-cigs now.
Dr Tim Ballard, the vice-chairman of the Royal College of General Practitioners, called for more research to be carried out before patients are told they can get e-cigarettes on the NHS.
"Potentially, there may be a place for the prescription of e-Voke as part of a smoking cessation programme, but GPs would be very wary of prescribing them until there was clear evidence of their safety and of their efficacy in helping people to quit," Dr Ballard said.
This is stunning! For years those ranged against vaping have clutched at the straw of there being no medically-licensed e-cig as a reason why their use can't be trusted and why bans are justified, but now there is a medically-licensed e-cig - even an intangible one which isn't yet on the market - they don't like that either!
The entire point of MHRA approval is that evidence of safety and efficacy must be established before it is given a green light.
A spokeswoman for the MHRA [...] said the licence “means it is a product of acceptable quality and can be an effective aid to smoking cessation.”
So what we are now seeing, believe it or not, is entrenched ideologists in the medical establishment effectively implying that the MHRA is incompetent; that medical approval is no guarantee of safety; and appearing quite willing to throw the entire British medicinal classification regime under the bus to defend a stance opposed to vaping based on nothing but a whim and a smile.
I really don't know how much further these weird people can go with such astounding denial, my crystal ball is all burned out. Five years ago, I predicted a very optimistic scenario where anti-smokers would be shown up by e-cigs to be absurd for adhering to hatred and baseless belief systems rooted in bigotry. This, however, has gone beyond my wildest dreams, the medical establishment transparently and publicly illustrating that it doesn't give a llama's spit about its own integrity and collective competence on the back of dogma and rumour-mongering is entirely unexpected.
The only thing we can be absolutely sure of, again, is that it's never been about health.
The Adam Smith Institute's Sam Bowman recently appeared on Irish TV to bring a modicum of truth to the truly idiotic garbage being spouted about minimum alcohol pricing (MUP).
It was a fairly substantial slot so all the aspects could be explored, but as a result this allowed Sam's opponent - Dr Stephen Stewart of the Royal College of Physicians - adequate time to vomit out every half-truth, prejudice, misleading stat, lie and conspiracy wackiness in favour of MUP all in one neatly-packaged video item.
You can watch the whole thing here or below but shall we count the deceptions? Yes, I think we should, don't you?
Claim number 1 from Stewart.
"Does not affect pubs or restaurant prices of alcohol"
This is only true of what is currently planned, but minimum pricing for pubs is, indeed, set out by the Sheffield researchers as a future option. The doctor states in this piece that he has read the Sheffield paper in depth so he surely must know this (page 6 here).
Differential minimum pricing for on-trade and off-trade leads to more substantial reductions in consumption (30p off-trade together with an 80p on-trade minimum price -2.1% versus -0.6% for 30p only; 40p together with 100p -5.4% compared to -2.6% for 40p only). This is firstly because much of the consumption by younger and hazardous drinking groups (including those at increased risk of criminal offending due to high intake on a particular day) occurs in the on-trade. It is also because increasing prices of cheaper alcohol in the on-trade dampens down the behaviour switching effects when off-trade prices are increased.
Now, Stewart could make this argument if his profession aren't well known for demanding more and more restrictions towards total prohibition, but they are. In fact, they are extremely well-known for doing just that and will undoubtedly do so. When MUP fails - as it will most definitely do because it's a load of donkey cock - there will be calls, based on the Sheffield model, for "differential minimum pricing" which will target pubs too.
In the scenario above, 80p per unit would affect Wetherspoons pubs in the UK and 100p would affect many many pubs outside of London and the South East, you can fully expect the same would happen in Ireland.
Claim number 2:
"and only the very cheapest"
This claim displays either crashing ignorance of economic pricing or is a convenient lie. MUP wouldn't affect only the very cheapest drinks, because the premium of a brand would necessitate rising prices right up the scale. If cheap booze is raised to a similar price as branded stuff, the branded stuff will increase in price to protect the differential. Minimum pricing would cost every responsible drinker more, and the poorest would naturally feel it in their pocket most because of the margins being more acute to those with less disposable income. This is economics and business 101.
Again, this is either a crashing ignorance of business and economics or a convenient lie.
Claim number 3:
"alcohol is a very very price-sensitive commodity, and there's very good modelling from Sheffield about the impact this will have"
Well considering the Sheffield modelling is garbage and produced by incompetents, he's not on solid ground at all here. Because, you see, Sheffield used laughable assumptions which are not based on any evidence whatsoever.
The model assumes that minimum pricing will have more effect on the consumption patterns of heavy drinkers than on moderate drinkers because heavy drinkers are more price-sensitive. This is a convenient belief since it is heavy drinkers who cause and suffer the most alcohol-related harm, but can we really assume that someone with an alcohol dependency is more likely to be deterred by price rises than a more casual consumer? The SAPM model says that they are, and yet there is ample evidence to support the common sense view that heavy drinkers and alcoholics are less price-sensitive than the general population (eg. Gallet, 2007; Wagenaar, 2009). Indeed, research has shown that price elasticity for the heaviest drinkers is “not significantly different from zero” - they will, in other words, purchase alcohol at almost any cost (Purshouse, 2009; p. 76).
So, who does Stewart believe MUP should be targeted at? During the piece he insists that the purpose is solely to address harmful consumption, but his claim only works if it is directed at all drinkers, heavy or otherwise. Did he give away a secret agenda or is he lying? You decide.
Claim number 4:
"We actually have real world evidence from British Columbia in Canada, we saw from that that if you increase the price of alcohol by 10%, you see a fall in consumption of 4.5% but most importantly you see a reduction in mortality by alcohol related causes by 32% in the first year."
Alas, this is entirely inconsistent with the established facts. Official statistics show that the alcohol mortality rate in British Columbia rose from 26 per 100,000 persons to 28 per 100,000 persons between 2002 and 2008. As the graph below shows, neither mortality (solid line) nor per capita alcohol consumption (dotted line) fell during this period.
Between 2002 and 2011, the number of deaths directly attributed to alcohol in British Columbia rose from 315 to 443 with the largest annual death rates occurring after the minimum price rises of 2006. Between 2006 and 2008, when further minimum price rises occurred, the number of deaths rose from 383 to a peak of 448. Moreover, the rate of hospitalisations for both alcohol-related ailments and acute intoxication both rose during this decade.
Claim number 5:
"That's not true [that if you are addicted to alcohol you will buy it whatever the price], because you will be limited by what money you have"
Yes, that financial restriction which has curtailed drug addiction for eternity. Aww bless, perhaps someone should tell him about black markets and drug-related crime?
Claim number 6:
"What we will see is a reduction in the concentration of alcohol in a bottle of wine, and that can only be a good thing"
This is actually as truthful as Stewart gets in the whole piece. Just the thought of wine manufacturers reducing their levels of alcohol - not to just heavy drinkers but to everyone - brings a satisfied smile to his face. It does, however, show him up for being disingenuous when he says that the measure is targeted at harmful drinkers. The alcohol content of drinks is dictated my market pressure - if a wine is unpopular the public won't buy it - so the overwhelmingly moderate-drinking public are obviously quite happy with the range of options currently available. Stewart doesn't like this and wants to interfere to reduce it by force of law ... for everyone.
Claim number 7:
"I don't think we should not introduce legislation because it's not going to work for everybody ... there is going to be no individual law that is going to be able to affect every single harmful drinker"
Yes there is, it's called ad valorem tax, currently applied to alcohol and the preferred option of the EU. Hence why it's the CJEU Advocate General's opinion that MUP is illegal. The presenter puts this very fact to Stewart which leads us to ...
Claim number 8:
"It's a lot easier for the drinks industry to get round those taxes"
Again, Stewart betrays himself. If targeting harmful drinkers as he claims to be concerned with, isn't it more sensible to try to affect all of them, not just the less well-off? Stewart doesn't seem to care, but is more interested in attacking the drinks industry. He doesn't care that there are better alternatives for 'public health', nor that supermarkets will have their coffers filled by a pointless initiative, just wants to bash the poor and demonise an industry providing popular products. he expands gleefully on this by talking about restricting advertising and availability, which will - of course - not target any particular subset of drinkers, it will affect every drinker.
Claim number 9:
"What we currently have is a public health policy which is driven by the alcohol industry"
I can only assume that Sam had debunked his nonsense so effectively on the show (and here recently too) that he was in desperation mode. As Sam quite rightly says, "we already have some of the highest alcohol taxes in Europe, in fact in the world in Ireland; to pretend the industry is setting all the rules here is just not true".
Indeed. It's barking conspiracy theory nuttiness from a Chicken Little bellwipe who seems to have been frustrated that all his dodgy claims are not being taken seriously.
Claim number 10:
"Currently we have a nanny industry in alcohol who are deciding the pricing, deciding the availability, and deciding exactly how they want to promote alcohol"
Oh, this is interesting. We've seen this daft argument here recently haven't we folks? In December it was food snobs trying to pretend that industry were the nannies and not hideous people who wish to restrict our choices, now the same flawed stupidity is rolled out by anti-alcohol frother Stewart. As I mentioned at the time.
The problem that nanny statists have - because that is precisely what they are - is that industry really doesn't have to try hard to sell popular products to the public, because they are just that. Popular. Whereas nasty curtain-twitching prohibitionists are not very popular at all! No-one likes a nag, especially when they restrict choice and ban stuff we like by pestering and bullying politicians.
Of course, if the cult of 'public health' truly believed that people are so easily swayed by a few ads, they would simply do the same themselves and we'd all dutifully fall into line, but they don't. And the reason being? Because they demand regulations, legislation and bans on the basis that - wait for it - education is not effective. No really, they do ... at the same time as pretending that education (adverts) from the [insert industry here] are somehow miraculously compelling! It would be funny if it wasn't so utterly pathetic.
The upside of all this, of course, is that their attempting to change the meaning of terms like 'nanny' and 'nanny state' simply illustrate how hurtful and damaging the terms are to them.
In truth, the Irish state - like our own - imposes heavy regulations on pricing, availability and marketing of alcohol by way of taxation, licensing and advertising restrictions. Stewart can try to push this laughable sound bite if he likes but it is an absurd and contorted perversion of reality; it won't work; and no matter how much butthurt he feels at being described as a nanny, he is one and will always be thought of in that manner by the public. Sorry, but that's life.
So that's 10 daft claims in one article, with not one of them standing up to proper scrutiny.
The last word must be left to Sam, who summed up the whole not-about-health mendacity and wriggling succinctly.
"Really what Stephen [Stewart] is saying is that he's annoyed that he's not in charge.
"He's annoyed that the alcohol industry has too much say and he wants doctors to have a say instead. I think that's not right, I think that we should let individuals make the decision for themselves how much they drink and what they drink."
“I am very concerned about e-cigarettes. We didn’t have sufficient information and I didn’t want the ‘perfect’ to get in the way of the ‘good’ in relation to including that in the legislation,” Dr James Reilly said. “But the evidence is starting to pile up now that this is a serious problem.”
Is that so, James? That's curious because the prevailing consensus seems to most of us to be going in the opposite direction.
The deputy leader of Fine Gael said he was concerned that e-cigarettes could become a “gateway” to traditional nicotine consumption.
Really James? So you're not aware of your own government's Healthy Ireland Survey 2015, which found “just 0.1% of never-smokers use e-cigarettes.”.
“I don’t want to undermine anything we’re doing by not having good, strong evidence, well-researched."
So your own government's research isn't good, strong or well-researched? Is that what you're saying? Quite a damning statement, but OK how about the Irish Cancer Society’s position paper on e-cigarettes from last year which said that 0% of non-smokers currently use e-cigarettes? Is that nonsense too?
"I know that there are people in America very concerned about this. What they’re finding over there now in recent surveys is that there are more children using e-cigarettes than smoking, as the first step. So now the danger is it’ll become a gateway into tobacco smoking and that’s a really serious issue.”
Is this the same America where teen smoking is at its lowest level in recorded history? Where it seems that the advent of e-cigs has coincided with a huge fall in the number of kids smoking? Is that what tobacco controllers are worried about in America, James?
And how is it a "serious issue" or a "gateway" if smoking prevalence is continually declining? Is this some kind of weird Irish mathematics?
He said the Government would keep “a close eye” on e-cigarettes. “If more information comes through to us on the damage that they’re causing, we will act on them too, if we’re in Government, obviously.”
I don't see any damage, James, nor does your own government's advisers. Do you have a different definition of the word over there?
"I always feel the greatest negligence is when you know there’s a danger and you do nothing about it.”
I can think of worse negligence, sunshine, how about talking up danger that doesn't exist solely because you harbour absurd, irrational and hysterical prejudices?
