That slippery slope that doesn’t exist?

Like a soft drink do you? Well get ready to be de-humanised for it over the next few years.

Smokers such as myself have already experienced it. But is only just starting for the lovers of soft drinks.

For smokers it first started with colossal rises in tax on tobacco products.

Guess what, soft drink lovers, it's going to happen to you in the near future.

Thousands of cases of diabetes and cancer could be avoided, saving the NHS £300million, by putting a health tax of 12p a can on sugary drinks, it is claimed. (My bold: They don’t actually know)

Academics have calculated the likely reduction in consumption caused by putting up the price of full sugar drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi and the resulting health benefits.

The work by experts at the University of Liverpool and the Children’s Food Campaign will fuel the growing campaign to extend the principle of a duty on unhealthy products from cigarettes and alcohol to some types of drink and food.

The start of your fall from grace begins there. They actually admit to wishing to follow the tobacco control template

Health campaigners and doctors have controversially likened sugar and its contribution to obesity and ill-health as the ‘new tobacco’.

Next will be horrendous images of diseased kidneys, rotting teeth, and pictures of ill people in bed  covering your can of delight.

The next step will be to of course will continue with fizzy pop being hidden behind screens for “THE SAKE OF THE CHEEEELDREN”.

You tell me what comes next….

SOURCE

Smoking bans

Smoking bans started creeping in long before 2007. When I first started in the world of work there were relatively no bans in force. Even in college you could smoke in the classrooms as long as you supplied your own ash tray.

When I joined my first ship, smoking was allowed any where, except if the vessel was an oil tanker or was carrying bulk ammunition. (Stands to reason. Big bangs hurt).

Then the mission creep started.

Ban in the engine room. Although trying to set light to marine diesel oil is difficult at the best of times.

Ban in duel occupancy offices became the norm.

Then no smoking in any offices.

Soon after, no smoking in internal alleyways.

No smoking in the Machinery Control or on the Bridge. Even though you had to be there for four hours at a stretch

No smoking in dining areas even when no food was being consumed.

No smoking in bars where food could be consumed. Bars sell crisps was the reason.

Finally. No smoking in cabins, even though your cabin was your home for four months.

Enough was enough.

I retired.

If you’re a smoker…….

and you want to help a fellow smoker sue the Scottish government you might want to go HERE .

We have a warrior, a warrior with balls I might add, as Alan Auld from Aberdeen has decided that enough is enough and wants to challenge the legal system for he says that “the smoking ban has totally ruined his social life” and has set out to sue the Scottish government for the princely sum of £1,000,000. I applaud him.After all, we already know, from a Scottish MSP no less, that smoking bans had nothing to do with the health of bar workers or anyone else for that matter!

You might want to donate to his fighting fund. If nothing else it force the PTB to realise that there are a lot of people (20% of the population) that really hate them.

Plain packaging

If you’re a smoker and are fed up to the back teeth with the war against smokers, then you need to take a stand against plain packaging.

I would bet my boots that our prime monster will incorporate plain packaging into the Queen’s speech in order to be “seen to be doing something” in order to distract the voters (and non voters, peace be upon you) from the drubbing that the conservatives received in the euro election.

Any smokers and non smokers for that matter, should hasten over to the Forest site and sign the letter which will be sent on your behalf, to David Cameron.

You can reach it HERE.

Hot topic

Since I posted yesterday on the decision of one E cig company to decide to wage war against smokers, my site visits have gone through the roof.

It would seem that it has hit a raw nerve by both smokers and vapers alike.

Having been linked on a couple of vaping sites, it amazes me that they haven’t realised that they are one of the next targets on the Public health template of denormalisation.

Well vapers, you have been warned.

Along with Drinkers, Salt lovers, sugar lovers, and those that like a nice juicy steak.

So I would say to vapers. Join forces and fight this pernicious taking away of your freedom to live a happy and fruitful life. Otherwise they’ll grind you down into nothing more than proles of the big state.

I’d have added some links but I’m expecting a skype call from a smoker in the caribbean. (No connection to the post, incidentally)

You have been warned.

Mission creep, or the domino effect.

An abridged list of policies that have been proposed in the name of ‘public health’ in recent months includes: minimum pricing for alcohol, plain packaging for tobacco, a 20 per cent tax on fizzy drinks, a fat tax, a sugar tax, a fine for not being a member of a gym, graphic warnings on bottles of alcohol, a tax on some foods, subsidies on other foods, a ban on the sale of hot food to children before 5pm, a ban on anyone born after the year 2000 ever buying tobacco, a ban on multi-bag packs of crisps, a ban on packed lunches, a complete ban on alcohol advertising, a ban on electronic cigarettes, a ban on menthol cigarettes, a ban on large servings of fizzy drinks, a ban on parents taking their kids to school by car, and a ban on advertising any product whatsoever to children.

An excellent article in the online journal, Spiked, written By Christopher Snowden on the slippery slope into more Public Health control of our lives.

Read the whole article HERE.

Somewhere on the Kent coast…..

Is a pub with one of the best smoking shelters I’ve come across.

High on the cliff top there is a hostelry that is always full. One of the reasons being is that it caters for smokers. It doesn’t consider 25% of the population as scum like some pubs in my area.

Overlooking the English channel is a large patio and nestling on one quarter, is a large shed situated close to the doors to the pub. This shed is of adequate proportions to allow at least twenty smokers to enjoy a cigarette in comfort. There are comfortable chairs, tables, superb heating and lighting and of course myriad ashtrays.

The beauty about it,  is that apart from the entrance, it is totally enclosed. Breaking the law you say? Well yes temporarily. However if an antismoking Nazi Inspector were to approach, sections of the side can be jettisoned in seconds, thereby conforming to the regulations.

It is interesting to note that just recently a smoking friend of mine entered the shelter on a blustery day to find a man and woman sitting there. When my friend lit up the woman immediately did the usual anti smoking hand waving, nose wrinkle and asked my friend in a petulant voice to stop smoking. My friend replied that the couple didn’t have to be in there. Her reply was that they were sheltering from the wind.

My friend doesn’t mince her words normally, but this time pointed to the large sign above the woman’s head. “Smoking shelter”.

They left eventually as my friend on returning to the pub, mobilised every smoker to use the shelter even if they didn’t really want a cigarette.

Needless to say the woman and her partner hurriedly left.

And no, I’m not going to divulge the location apart to say it’s somewhere between Eastbourne and the Isle of Grain.

That question and the most excellent final word.

 

Running to Mummy

An article in todays Guardian purports that those in the Tobacco Control Industry are running in fear from pro tobacco bloggers.

Leading advocates of tobacco control have been targeted in an apparent escalation of hate campaigns and intimidation by bloggers and groups who view moves to curb smoking as assaults on personal freedom.

Well. This blogger has absolutely no sympathy. Those whining hypocrites started this dirty little war. They have a vast army, supported by millions of taxpayer money to promulgate their tireless crusade.

Of course what they are worried about is that they can’t find any evidence that individuals are “Big Tobacco” funded, and people reading those blogs might just say, “Mmm, they have a point”.

The article even has to try and make out that smokers are homophobiac.

Liberal Democrat MP Stephen Williams, chair of Westminster's all party parliamentary group on smoking and health, has received abuse, including homophobic abuse, on his blog, especially after supporting plain packs. "When people make comments online, I sometimes wonder whether it is a real person or manufactured false identity. There are various front groups for the tobacco industry, and , I think, front individuals who post negative comments."

This individual wrote a blog post supporting plain packaging. The only abuse I can see is pro smoking commenters abusing the smokers who commented there. If you can find a homophobiac comment there, please let me know. I can’t find one. the pro smokers in the main were extremely polite.

My thanks go to Frank Davis, Dick Puddlecote, and The Angry Exile for pointing me to The Guardian Article

However if you’ll excuse me I think I’ll go and have a shower. I feel a little grubby now I’ve read it. It really is a terrible piece of slack journalism.

Smokers change their buying habits.

If the likes of ASH think that by putting the display of tobacco products behind shutters in supermarkets would deter smokers. I can tell you that it has actually had the perverse effect of making it quicker to buy those products.

Before shutterday^TM  as an example I would visit my local supermarket to buy a newspaper. Having picked it up I would head for the tobacco counter to pick up a packet of twenty ciggies. In front of me would be a couple of people buying tobacco and with small baskets of shopping which were processed at that counter. Delay five minutes.

In fact there is now less of a delay.

At the well known supermarket near my son’s house the behaviour of the supermarket and the tobacco buyer has changed. At that counter only tobacco products are processed. No baskets allowed. And that the trend of tobacco shoppers has changed to buying multiple packs.

Both times I’ve been there not one person has bought less than 100 at a time. Both times I was served by the same member of staff who knew intimately where each brand was situated behind the shutters.

So ASH if you thought you could inconvenience smokers, then I’m afraid you’ve actually made the buying experience BETTER.