All he wants is the world on a stick

From New Zealand's Whangarei Leader:

Council calls on govt to ban tobacco

A local councillor has spoken out candidly about his addiction to smoking in an attempt to get the country's Smokefree 2025 vision taken more seriously. 

The Smokefree 2025 'vision' (AKA the 'endgame') is so obviously a euphemism for prohibition that it's amazing that Kiwi campaigners pretend otherwise. It is therefore refreshing to hear a politician state clearly what the plan is. The reason, however, is mind-boggling.

Whangarei District Council has resolved to have the mayor write to Prime Minister John Key, calling for a ban on the sale of tobacco products on January 1, 2025.

The man behind the movement, councillor Brian McLachlan, has struggled to give up. He says he's had enough, and many other smokers feel the same.

Try an e-cigarette, Brian.

Oh, you can't. The anti-smoking lobby had them banned.

"Giving up is easy. It's the day after, and the day after that, that's the hard part," he says.

"As soon as you start smoking, addiction sets in with a craving that totally subverts your freedom to choose."

Only in the mad, mad world of Public Health is the criminalisation of a product consumed by one in five adults considered to be a pro-freedom move. Orwell would be proud.

"What I need, now, is simply not to have cigarettes available at the places where I go to fill up my car, buy my groceries or last-minute stuff at the dairy. Whether I can see the smokes or not, I know they're there, and I know I can get them."

It's all about ME!!!

"You can ban smoking from yet more places and push me to a place where I stand out in the rain and feel like some sort of second-class citizen. That may have solved your problem, but it hasn't solved mine. I still need a cigarette."

Oh, just have a cigarette then, you weird masochist.

McLachlan says he is not advocating for smoking to become illegal...

Drinking was never illegal in 1920s America but no one was in any doubt that they were living under Prohibition.

...and overseas tourists would still be able to bring in tobacco for personal use.

Ah, the Bhutanese model. That worked well.

Has New Zealand's public health racket spoken out against the draconian fantasies of this manchild?

Of course not.

Council calls on govt to ban tobacco http://t.co/tF54smC5hN Good on you Brian McLachlan!
— Janine Paynter (@JaninePaynter) September 1, 2014