Smoking out the Truth

I have been mulling over this idea of packaging tobacco in plain packs.

Australia seems to be well on the way towards this, and the UK is lining up to join the band.  There is a campaign running in the UK at the moment which is worth a visit, if only to sign the petition.

I must confess I am a little confused by this latest idea from The Righteous.  What exactly are they trying to do?

They claim it’s to stop “the children” from taking up smoking, but I don’t see how.  Do kids really stare at the cigarette packs in a tobacconist and make an impulse purchase because of the packaging?  Are they so overawed by the colours that they just have to buy them? 

I suppose there could be an argument that there is some kind of playground kudos in flashing a particular brand around to impress “the mates” but if so, it is purely a kudos thing and nothing top do with starting smoking.  The kids are already buying at that stage so plain packaging will make no difference. 

Just suppose that some law was passed declaring that all mobile phones should look exactly the same, would that stop people from buying mobile phones? 

There is absolutely no rhyme nor reason for this move except to annoy smokers.  It is just another petty vindictive move to bolster the egos of The Righteous.

Will it stop people from taking up smoking?  Maybe an infinitesimal minority may be put off by it but I doubt it.  Will it make smokers decide to quit?  Why should it?  It is just an irritant, that’s all.

So what will the impact be?

For a start, it will be bonanza time for the counterfeiters.  It will literally be a case of one pack fits all.  They can tool up their printing presses, and just change a word or two to change the brand. 

It will also be a major irritant for tobacconists.  In the days before all tobacco displays had to be put behind doors, as if the display emitted some kind of strange cancer inducing radiation, I used to scan the display to see if they stocked my tobacco.  If they did, I could point and buy.  Simple.  Now I have to ask if they stock my brand and then I [and the rest of the queue] have to stand around while they faff about, opening doors and looking for the brand.  With plain packs, that will be considerably more tedious, as the assistant will then have to read the labels on each and every pack to ensure I get my correct baccy.

And what about tourists?  Say for example a French smoker is visiting our blighted isle?  He smokes a particular brand and will have to ask if it is sold here.  If it isn’t [which is more than likely] he cannot readily spot another brand with which he is familiar.  The assistant will literally have to name off all the brands so he can make his choice.  It will be tedious and time consuming for both the vendor and the customer.

How will it affect me?

It won’t, that much.  I buy 90% of my baccy in the same place and they know me and my brand.  I am not the type to leave my pack of baccy lying around for the kudos effect as honestly, no one gives a damn what I am smoking.

What it will do though is remind me every time I fill my pipe that The Righteous hate me on a personal level.  They don’t hate me because I smoke.  No.  They hate me because I am a smoker.

And I, as I look at my plain pack will hate them even more.

From yesterday’s Irish Times -

Irish officials may adopt UK scheme to cut smoking rates

There are quite a few questions I would have to ask about this.

For a start, I would love to know just what sort of magic bullet the gubmint seem to think this bloke has, that they invite the Gardai and Revenue along. Who is this bloke who seems to claim he can achieve what virtually every country in Europe has failed to do?

Actually, the answer is probably quite simple. He is an expert at bullshitting.

I have seen dozens of statistics that purport to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the rate of heart attacks has fallen dramatically after the introduction of a smoking ban.  And without exception every one of those proofs has proved to be a load of codswallop.  Heart attack rates have been falling steadily just about everywhere, and there isn’t a single case where smoking bans have caused the rate to vary, so the quoted figures, I can guarantee are the figures for the natural decline.  I notice he doesn’t hive a time period for this decline?  Is it since 2005?  2000?  1950?

I have tried to find the source of the figures he quotes, but I came up with a blank.  The nearest I could find was the crowd mentioned in the article called Fresh [Smokefree North East].  Reading through this site there is precious little in the way of hard figures.  It is full of innuendos and the glib clichés that the Righteous love so much -  “it is estimated that”, “a growing body of evidence that” and “the figures show” [which is never accompanied by the “figures”].

One of the claims is that “A campaign against tobacco smuggling has been very successful”.  Apparently this remarkable claim is based on a “survey” of 4000 people.  Now, how can a survey prove that smuggling has decreased? Unless the 4000 are all smugglers whining about their loss of trade, I can’t see how this “survey” can prove anything.  If some health freaks ring me up and ask my about my illicit tobacco supplies, do you really, honestly think I am going to give them the unvarnished truth?  Hah!  I will lie through my teeth just to confuse their figures.

There is one little statement though that really gets me going – “We know from the drink driving law that we can change people’s behaviour”.  Oh boy!  This is the Smug Righteous at their best!  Who is the “we”?  A group of smug little bastards who really sincerely believe that they know what’s best for us and believe they have a natural right to herd us into their way of thinking.

After all, we can’t think for ourselves.

Can we?

There are several ways of giving up smoking.

You can go “cold turkey”.  You decide one morning that this is it – you are no longer a smoker and you just stop.  You resist all temptations and that is that – you are no longer a smoker.

Another method that is becoming increasingly popular is to switch to the electronic equivalent – the e-cigarette, the e-pipe or the e-cigar.  While these have been marketed as smoking alternatives, increasing numbers of ex-smokers are reporting that they very successfully used the e-route to quit altogether.

The method we hear most about is the so-called “nicotine replacement therapy” – the patch, the gum and the nicotine inhalers.  Of the three methods these have been proved to be the least successful by far, over a long period.  They tout themselves as being successful but that is only measuring cessation rates after a month or less.  After a year, most smokers who have tried this route are back on the fags again.

The likes of ASH and the other Anti-smoker organisations would have you believe that the aim of their campaigns is to get people to stop smoking.  You would imagine therefore that they would chose the most successful route and would advertise that.  You would imagine that they would be delighted at the e-equivalent for a start.  Here is a method that has a proven high success rate and achieves their aims.  So why are they so desperate to have the e-cigarette banned or at the very least, subject to the same restrictions as cigarettes?  Does that make sense?

If you check any of the government quit smoking campaigns or look at the ASH cessation methods, they all suggest that the best way to quit is to “contact your doctor or pharmacist”.  Why would that be?  A doctor or pharmacist doesn’t sell e-cigarettes?  You don’t need a doctor or pharmacist to tell you to go “cold turkey”?  But what have doctors and pharmacists have in common?  Yup – the pharmaceutical trade.  They are both going to suggest the least successful method – the pharmaceutically produced patch, gum or inhaler.  They will even promote Champix, which has incredibly dangerous side effects.

Why is this?  Why do ASH et al insist on promoting the least successful method while attacking the more successful?

Surely you can come to the obvious conclusion?

Would it help if I mentioned pharmaceutical sponsorship and grants?

I had my usual little jaunt around the Interweb this afternoon.

Somehow I ended up on a site belonging to a British MP.  Now this little twat calls himself a liberal yet he is one of those idiots that believes that selling cigarettes in plain packaging is somehow going to stop people smoking.

He seems to be under the impression that the colour of a cigarette package somehow entices “children” to buy the things?  This must be one of the most deluded ideas that the Puritans have come up with yet.

When I started smoking, it was a case of nipping into a tobacconist and buying a cigarette.  Yes.  That’s right – one cigarette.  To this day I couldn’t tell you what brand it was or what colour its packaging was.  I know that practice of selling single fags has been stopped but it does indicate that packaging played no part in my choice.  Later on in life, I started buying them by the pack.  As far as I remember, I used to smoke Country Life which had a rather drab design, but was nice an cheap.

I have never heard of an instance where a twelve year old wanders into a tobacconist, sees the packs all stacked up behind the counter, and thinks to himself  “Wow! I must buy one of those.  They look great!”.  For a start, there is an age restriction on buying the things, so if he is under eighteen he shouldn’t be able to buy them anyway.

Plain packaging will have several effects.  It will make the tobacconists life far harder as he now has to read every label to make sure he is selling the right brand.  It is going to cost a fortune. The biggest consequence though will be a boom time for counterfeiters.  One outcome I can guarantee won’t happen though is that fewer people will buy them.

So far, the efforts of the Righteous have resulted in the closure of hundreds, nay thousands of pubs with the consequent loss of jobs.  It has divided society and stigmatised a large minority of the population.  The one thing it has failed to do is to reduce levels of smoking.  On the contrary, levels in Ireland have increased by 2% since the bans came in.

It’s worth reading that article.  It is a scary insight into the mind of a deluded bigot.  Here is a man on a mission to save people from themselves.

The best reading though is in the comments!

There is a question that has been bugging me for some time.

I was reading Róisín Shortarse’s framework for tobacco control in Ireland and I came across That Figure again.  Incidentally, this is the same Róisín Shortarse who thinks raising the price of booze will cure all alcohol problems.

And what is That Figure you may ask?

“It is estimated that [smoking] related healthcare costs account for up to 15% of all annual healthcare costs here”

Strangely the paper then talks about “between 6% and 15% of all annual healthcare costs” which seems rather vague to say the least? And that would also assume that 85 to 94% of all healthcare costs are incurred by non-smokers?

But that’s beside the point.  The point is

How?

How do they estimate that smokers cost the health service €365 million a year?  What exactly incurs these costs and how do they know they are “smoking related”?

I have been smoking now for over forty years.  I have never been to the doctor with anything that could remotely be described as “smoking related”.  I have had my medical trials and tribulations but none of them had anything to do with smoking.  What’s more, I know a lot of people who smoke and they have the same story.  Sadly I did know a few people who died of cancer but the majority never smoked in their lives.

So what is this mysterious ailment that is incurring these huge costs?  Are they counting everyone who presents with a cough and assume that they are all smokers?  Are they assuming that all cancers are “smoking related”?  Is every child who presents with Glue Ear counted amongst the smoking casualties?

I would love to know where they get their figures from.

And why do I suspect that they are figures that are gleefully plucked out of the air to scare the sheeple?