I was asked to write a piece for Public Service Europe which is here.
Is the anti-smoking movement addicted to legislation? If so, is it possible to wean these people off silly laws and return them into the community? I ask the question because every year the crusaders fire up their formidable PR machine and every year their policies become more surreal. Cigarette prices sky high? Make a pack cost £100. Graphic health warnings did not work? Put the cigarettes behind shutters. Shutters fail to do the trick? Make all cigarette packs brown. Perhaps the whole enterprise is a Situationist prank designed to see if there is any policy too preposterous to be enshrined in law under the pretext of protecting kiddies.
Mr Eugenides also has his two penneth at Think Scotland...
Under these plans, cigarettes could be sold only in plain packaging without logos or identifying marks of any kind; apparently the bright primary colours attract children and adults who otherwise wouldn’t dream of going near them, though I can’t help noticing that it doesn’t seem to work with Scottish people and fruit salads.
And at The Commentator, Dave Atherton covers the prohibitionists' desperate last ditch (and, it seems, futile) attempts to get more more supporters than the Hands Off Our Packs campaign.
