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.
3 comments:
As I've said many times before, the anti-smoking industry will do whatever they want to do while the public believe that second hand smoke kills - people believe that all smoking is therefore inherently evil and any measures to eradicate it are justifiable.
How can this public perception be changed?
I disagree!
The second hand smoke deception is merely one of those 'any measures to eradicate smoking are justifiable'. Many still do believe the SHS deception but many do not yet do continue to believe that primary smoking is the ultimate evil that kills more people than Hitler.
While they continue to believe the absurd statistics and fallacious claims that smoking is all bad, has no positive attributes, and that eradicating it will prevent millions of 'premature deaths'. then they will be happy to accept the SHS deception as a legitimate means to an end, as well as all the other debase methods used by the tobacco CONTROL industry. If they were given the opportunity to go back in time, how many normal, law abiding people would be prepared to assassinate Hitler to prevent his attempt at genocide?. It's to save the children you see - hindsight in reverse!
It is the propaganda, misinformation, exaggerations, and lies relating to the primary smoking deception that needs to be questioned more robustly. The SHS deception does demonstrate the debase anti-smoker personality and the inherent dishonesty within their ranks but no more. It does however provide a springboard from which to challenge the far more important active smoking, anti-smoker propaganda,
If this is not exposed, the tobacco CONTROL industry leviathan will continue to trundle on regardless as to how many believe the SHS or any of their other secondary con tricks.
I would have thought it would be easier to initially change public perceptions about second hand smoking than for primary smoking, although I agree with all your comments about direct smoking.
Before smokers can make any progress at "re-habilitation" in the public's mind, the non-smoking public need to be convinced that we do not represent a threat to their lives and the lives of their children. Perhaps then we might be granted some respect and credibility to make inroads into the issue of direct smoking.
I still ask the question - How do we change the public's perception on the health effects of smoking?
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