Anti-capitalism and public health

A new IEA report from me - read it here.

And an article about it, also by me...

 

Academics who see disease spreading every time money changes hands tend to take a dim view of the market economy. As anti-corporate rhetoric ballooned into a blanket indictment of capitalism, many of them decided that the solution must lie in overthrowing the existing economic system. They urge the public to regard “neo-liberal capitalism as the fundamental cause of health harms” and call for “a fundamental restructure of the global political and socio- economic system”. During the pandemic, a former WHO advisor hailed China’s draconian COVID lockdowns for curbing economic activity and claimed that “switching off capitalism not only protects us from the virus, it protects us from ourselves.” Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, has told Socialist Worker that “we need a mass movement of resistance” against “neoliberalism”. A WHO report published last year blamed “deregulated forms of capitalism”, “trade liberalization” and “the promotion of free markets” for poor health, and concluded that “the importance of addressing that political economic system, and rethinking capitalism, cannot be ignored”.

 

Read the rest at The Critic. 

 

 

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Spiralling down

ASH are agitating for outdoor smoking bans again, this time with a dubious survey - see my Substack.

And the government is looking at copying Scotland and pointlessly dropping the drink-drive limit - see The Critic.

If you're interested in the Lucy Letby case, I've written about that for the Spectator. 

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No smokes without fire in Australia

Australia saw another two murders in its ongoing nicotine wars last week and the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has finally had enough.

 

Australia's illegal tobacco problem has made the proverbial transition from tragedy to farce.

Illicit, excise-evading cigarettes now comprise half of the cancer-inducing products sold to Australia's 2.7 million smokers.

... In the past couple of years, there have been 125 firebombings of tobacco shops in Victoria, and another 50 or so in other states — the most recent last week in Corrimal, NSW.

... Violent robberies in Victoria have grown by more than 150 per cent since February 2024 due to tobacco-related crime.

This is much worse than an unintended consequence of the effort to reduce smoking; it is a complete stuff-up.

... The CEO of the Australian Association of Convenience Stores, Theo Foukkares, says the tipping point happened in 2019 when the excise increased 55 per cent over three years to $1.10 per cigarette stick.

As a direct result, illicit smoking took off and tobacco excise revenue to the government collapsed, from a peak of $16 billion in 2019 to this year's $7.4 billion.

 

All in all, it is a dramatic and resounding condemnation of Australia's 'public health' establishment who assured us that this kind of thing would never happen.

 

The ABC even implicates plain packaging - for which Australia was a 'world leader' - in this mess.

 

And it's not just the price that's driving people towards the much cheaper illegal alternatives, although that's the main thing, especially in a cost-of-living crisis.

For a start, the packs look nicer without pictures of horrible mouth tumours.

 

There is probably no way back for Australia now. Shopkeepers are sick of getting robbed and firebombed and are increasingly not stocking cigarettes at all, thereby leaving the tobacco market to the gangsters. The dolts in 'tobacco control' who should be held accountable for this fiasco will never get their comeuppance (Simon Chapman's blog posts reveal a man deep in denial). The only thing Australia can do is be a warning to the rest of the world.  

 

 

 

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