From Reuters:
Cops raid homes to stub out smokingBhutan police can raid homes of smokers in a search for contraband tobacco and are training a special tobacco sniffer dog in a crackdown to honour a promise to become the world’s first smoke-free nation...
The Bhutan Narcotic Control Agency has started raids, with officials allowed to enter homes if someone is seen smoking or if officials have reason to believe there is illegal tobacco there...
“The sniffer dog is being trained at the moment. The dog will be able to sniff out tobacco products,” said Major Phub Gyaltshen of the Royal Bhutan Police.
Bhutan’s prime minister said the law cannot be called draconian and it was passed in the “collective wisdom” of the members of parliament.
“It is cancerous, both in the literal and the metaphoric sense, cancerous to society and to individual and in many ways it is no different from psychotropic drugs, for which the penalty in certain countries is death,” Prime Minister Jigmi Y. Thinley said.
So far beyond parody that I feel dizzy.
It's just for the duration of the aeroplane flight that smoking will be banned. Otherwise, nothing to worry about, and no other freedoms will be threatened in addition to smoking. Slippery slope indeed, but nobody heeded the warning, so look what we got.
ReplyDeleteOne of the the great untold stories about the evils of tobacco control has been the willingness of Western anti-tobacco crusaders to export these policies to third world countries.
ReplyDeleteIt never occurs to these boneheads that it might be a bad idea to encourage anti-smoking policies in countries where people are tortured without even receiving a trial.
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/backgrounder/crd/2007/bhutan1007/
-WS
There not boneheads they are conmen ,they don't care who gets hurt all those bastards care about is money.
ReplyDeleteI do believe that this is just the start of the state, any state, entering the home.
ReplyDeleteAll part of the Godber Blueprint
Latest news:
Second-hand smoke will raise a child's blood pressure
Children as young as 4 experience elevated blood pressure when exposed to second-hand smoke, putting them at risk for a lifetime of cardiovascular problems, a study has found.
The findings add to a growing collection of evidence that suggests early exposure to cigarette smoke can cause serious, potentially lasting, health issues.
While few children involved in the study actually had high blood pressure, those with “elevated levels” measured at the higher end of what is considered the normal blood pressure range.
The study is behind a paid wall.
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/search?journalcode=circulationaha&fulltext=Simonetti