Tuesday 26 October 2010

ASH launch new campaign

Campaigners call for desert island smoking ban

Anti-smoking campaigners have called a smoking ban on desert islands "the next logical step" in the war against second- and third-hand smoke. Deborah Arnott, director of Action on Smoking and Health, is leading a campaign for a total smoking ban across the world's islets and archipelagos: "It is a common misconception that smoking on a patch of land in the middle of the ocean poses no threat to others," she said.

"But we know there is no safe level of secondhand smoke. Cigarettes contain 4,000 chemicals which can travel hundreds of miles, contaminating nonsmokers, especially children, in neighbouring countries and pose a particular risk to passing sailors, especially children. There is overwhelming evidence that toxins remain on the torn trousers of shipwrecked travellers for years, which poses a serious health threat to potential rescuers, especially children."

At the moment there is little evidence that secondhand smoke can travel over international waters but scientists at the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies have promised to study the issue. "We'll get the evidence, don't you worry about," Arnott said. "For too long people have used loopholes like living thousands of miles from civilisation as a way to get around the hugely popular smoking ban. We need to send a clear message to smokers: we will track you to the ends of the earth."

ASH's new campaign has received high profile support from Glasgow-born millionaire Duncan Bannatyne and former desert island resident Man Friday.

Speaking at a press conference organised by Pfizer, Mr Friday said: "For most people, a desert island is a place to get away from it all and listen to their favourite records. They forget that for people like me it is a workplace and we deserve the same protection as other workers. By their very nature, desert islands tend to be unregulated and it is people like me and the fat kid with glasses from Lord of the Flies who end up paying the price."
But critics accused campaigners of going too far. Simon Clark of the smokers' rights group FOREST said: "This is just another example of the nanny state gone mad. Many desert islands are already struggling to attract ship-wreck survivors and this proposed legislation will finish them off. And it's unenforceable. This is just the precursor to banning smoking across whole countries."

In response to the accusation that ASH's real goal is to ban smoking indoors and outdoors in every country in the world, Arnott said: "Have you been reading my diary?"



11 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh very droll Chris, very droll. You had me going for a minute as your post smacks of some resemblance of reality. I could just see the anti smokers like Arnott hunting us smokers down no matter where we may hide.

Great stuff. I'll be chuckling all day after reading this post.

Carl V Phillips said...

Chris,
Brilliant. Though I am a bit worried about the implied apparent impossibility of irony in this situation, as implied by the previous comment. The death of irony can be a dangerous thing, especially for children.

Eddie Douthwaite said...

I suggest her first port of call is Bikini Atoll.

Paul Bergen said...

Bloody funny and not really that absurd considering that they really believe the "there is no safe exposure to second hand smoke" nonsense. (And remembering that only recently smokers have been castigated for contributing to global warming).

Unknown said...

@Paul. Sorry Paul, this is nothing new, they have been saying this for years:

http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-06/does-smoking-contribute-global-warming

Circa 2008.

And this is an interesting vid from 2007:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRpnUr8mCoo

And the grandaddy of the the global warming hysteria/scam, Al Gore, told the UN this many years ago:

http://www.diggersrealm.com/mt/archives/001878.html

Just saying is all.

Anonymous said...

I imagined Clegg sitting under his palm tree about to spark up when He looked up and one of those ubiquitous "These are no smoking premises..." signs was already hanging from the trunk freshly nailed on with Arnott's fist.

DaveA said...

Good to see you back too Chris.

Very funny.

Gary K said...

"We'll get the evidence, don't you worry about," Arnott said.
....................


That is what will bw unbiased/valid science??

Gary K said...

"But we know there is no safe level of secondhand smoke." Arnott said.
...................

US SG Carmona said in a press conference, and anti-smokers continually say, that "there is no safe level of exposure to SHS."

One might get the idea that this is a 'proven' fact.

However, that is not exactly what his 2006 report said!

The report said:"evidence INDICATES that there is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke".
(Chapter 1,page 11)

If it was a 'provable' fact I am more than certain that they would have said so.

Saying that there is 'some level of risk' tells people NOTHING meaningful about what a never-smoker's level of risk actually is.

A never-smoker has a 2/1,000th of a 1% chance of a lung cancer death( LCD) due to SHS/ETS exposure.

About 135 million never-smokers have been exposed to SHS/ETS.

Antis claim that they will have 3,000 lung cancer deaths(LCD's) due to SHS/ETS exposure.

That is 1 LCD per 45,000 never-smokers exposed to SHS/ETS.

44,9999 never-smokers will NOT have a SHS/ETS 'caused' LCD, that is 99.998% of them.

A never-smoker has a 2/1,000th of a 1% chance of a LCD due to SHS/ETS exposure.

While a risk free level of 99.998% is not totally risk free, saying that a 2/1,000th of a 1% chance is an 'unsafe' level is willful deceit and total crap.

Gary K said...

One might ask if there is a safe level of exposure to ANY air!!!

Here is a list of some of the toxic pollutants the US EPA has found will be in clean cigarette smoke free air.

Some you may recognize as being in cigarette smoke and there are some that are not found in cigarette smoke.

http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/nata/mapconc.html

Acetaldehyde
Acrolein
Acrylonitrile
Arsenic Compounds
Benzene
Beryllium Compounds
1,3-Butadiene
Cadmium Compounds
Carbon tetrachloride
Chloroform
Chromium Compounds
Coke Oven Emissions
1,3-Dichloropropene
Diesel Particulate Matter
Ethylene dibromide
Ethylene dichloride
Ethylene oxide
Formaldehyde
Hexachlorobenzene
Hydrazine
Lead Compounds
Manganese Compounds
Mercury Compounds
Methylene chloride
Nickel Compounds
Perchloroethylene
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB
Polycyclic Organic Matter (POM)
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (7-PAH)
Propylene dichloride
Quinoline
1,1,2,2-Tetrachloroethane
Trichloroethylene
Vinyl chloride

Anonymous said...

Chemical names are scary...

I mean: OMG!
Should WE allow products containg these to be sold next to the confectionary, and visible to the cheeldren?

Plant chemicals include:

Acetic-acid, aesculetin, alanine, alkaloids, alpha-sitosterol, alpha-theosterol, amyl-acetate, amyl-alcohol, amyl-butyrate, amylase, apigenin-7-o-glucoside, arabinose, arachidic-acid, arginine, ascorbic-acid, ascorbic-acid-oxidase, aspariginase, beta-carotene, beta-sitosterol, beta-theosterol, biotin, caffeic-acid, caffeine, calcium, campesterol, catalase, catechins, catechol, cellulase, cellulose, chlorogenic-acid, chrysoeriol-7-o-glucoside, citric-acid, coumarin, cyanidin, cyanidin-3-beta-l-arabinoside, cyanidin-3-galactoside, cyanidin-glycoside, cycloartanol, d-galactose, decarboxylase, dextrinase, diacetyl, dopamine, epigallocatechin, ergosterol, ferulic-acid, formic-acid, fructose, furfurol, galacturonic-acid, gallocatechin, gentisic-acid, glucose, glutamic-acid, glycerin, glycerophosphatase, glycine, glycolic-acid, glycosidase, haematin, histidine, i-butyric-acid, idaein, invertase, isobutylacetate, isoleucine, isopropyl-acetate, isovitexin, kaempferol, l-epicatechin, leucine, leucocyanidins, linalool, linoleic-acid, lipase, luteolin, luteolin-7-o-glucoside, lysine, lysophosphatidyl-choline, maleic-acid, mannan, manninotriose, mannose, melibiose, mesoinositol, methylheptenone, n-butylacetate, n-nonacosane, niacin, nicotinamide, nicotinic- acid, nitrogen, nonanoic-acid, o-hydroxyphenylacetic-acid, octoic-acid, oleic- acid, oleo-dipalmatin, oleopalmitostearin, oxalic-acid, p-anisic-acid, p-coumaric-acid, p-coumarylquinic-acid, p-hydroxybenzoic-acid, p-hydroxyphenylacetic-acid, palmitic-acid, palmitodiolen, pantothenic-acid, pectin, pentose, peroxidase, phenylacetic-acid, phenylalanine, phlobaphene, phosphatidyl-choline, phosphatidyl- ethanolamine, phosphatidyl-inositol, phospholipids, phosphorus, phytase, planteose, polygalacturonate, polyphenol-oxidase, polyphenols, proline, propionic-acid, propyl-acetate, protocatechuic-acid, purine, pyridoxine, quercetin, quercetin-3-o-galactoside, quercetin-3-o-glucoside, quercitrin, raffinase, raffinose, reductase, rhamnose, riboflavin, rutin, rutoside, saccharose, salsolinol, serine, sinapic-acid, stachyose, stearic-acid, stearodiolein, stigmasterol, sucrose, syringic-acid, tannins, tartaric-acid, theobromine, theophylline, thiamin, threonine, trigonelline, tyramine, tyrosine, valerianic-acid, valine, vanillic-acid, verbascose, verbascotetrose, vitexin

http://www.rain-tree.com/chocolate.htm
_

Ross