smoking healthier than homosexuality?

Justina reports that the head of the Australian Christian Lobby, Jim Wallace, has caused a stir by telling students at the University of Tasmania this week that smoking is healthier than living a homosexual lifestyle, at least for men, and that smokers deserve a big apology for being unfairly demonised.

“The claim was made during a debate on same-sex marriage with Greens leader, Christine Milne,” says Justina, “and while Wallace's comments may not prevent Tasmania from becoming the first Australian state to legalise gay marriage he does shed some much needed light on dodgy official health statistics claiming that smokers have the worst health outcomes than any other community group and as such deserve to be taxed exorbitantly for their vice.”

“Wallace presented the gay community's own health statistics showing that gays have a higher rate of illicit drug taking, mental health problems suicide and shorter lives than any other community group - ostensibly because of discrimination – and because of this deserve to be given exorbitant sums of money from the public purse.”

“Bearing in mind that smokers receive far more discrimination than gays  – and it’s officially sanctioned, too,” says Justina, “it does seem ridiculous that smokers are taxed for self-medicating themselves and yet gays claim health funding for illicit drug taking!”

“The most vocal critic of Wallace's comments so far is Australian Marriage Equality national convener, Alex Greenwich, who called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard to boycott the Christian Lobby 's national conference next month – but a spokesperson for the PM claimed that her attendance at the event would not be an endorsement of such comments.”

"Greenwich claimed that the Christian Lobby was basing its campaign against gay marriage on fear rather than facts and was hurting vulnerable gay people," says Justina, "and yet that’s the same argument smokers have been using for decades against those in government hell bent on demonising them – but fat lot of good it did them – the more they were stressed and denormalised, the more they smoked and the more tobacco tax they paid!”

“Wallace concluded the debate by claiming that further normalising homosexuality with the attribution of marriage is wrong because it encourages young men into a lifestyle that may reduce their lives by up to 20 years,'' says Justina, “and his clincher was a comparison with smokers whose lives may be reduced by seven to 10 years.”

“We tell all our kids at school they shouldn't smoke, and yet encourage them to embrace the homosexual lifestyle!”

See also:

smokers should read gay pride book


smokers pay unfair health risk penalties

Fight big tobacco not smokers!

Becky is angry that the tobacco controllers say they are fighting a war against Big Tobacco, not smokers, but it is smokers – not Big Tobacco – who are being hammered.



“It is cruel to blame cigarette smokers because 90% of us became addicted to tobacco long before the age of responsibility,” says Becky, “and that makes us the victims of tobacco industry marketing practices – and now we are the victims of greedy governments wanting our tobacco tax dollars.”



“I agree that the government tobacco controllers should make it difficult for young people to take up the habit, but I wish they would stop making themselves look good at the expense of making us look evil.”



“There are some tobacco controllers who do urge a more industry-oriented approach and show genuine empathy for addicted smokers,” says Becky, “but most of them are unscientific moral zealots, publicity seekers or control freaks wanting to regulate all human activity.”



“The very term ‘smoking’ inherently blames the victim,” says Becky. “They should use the term ‘tobacco products’ to make it plain that their war is against Big Tobacco, not us – and yet no matter what the official line is, all government anti-smoking campaigns have centered on individual smokers because their aim has been to win votes for re-election rather than to seriously to affect tobacco sales.”



“There was even a guy called Repace who introduced the idea of smokers’ breath being ‘hazardous’ to nonsmokers,” laughs Becky. “Of course this, and the concept of ‘third hand smoke’, has no foundation in reality.”



“Tobacco companies are not being punished – they are still making profits – but smokers are continually being punished through taxation and the removal of smoking-permitted areas,” says Becky. “All references to smoking and smokers are negative and we have been demonized as ‘nicotine addicts’ – but since many of us are also ‘caffeine addicts’ I don’t mind that so much.”



“Now that ex-smoker York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, has finally won his campaign to institute smoking bans in parks it should be pointed out that he achieved that goal not by punishing his wealthy mates in Big Tobacco but by nasty social pressure being applied to us,” says Becky. “He actually encouraged the harassment of smokers by saying that non-smokers should glare at smokers when passing them in the street!”



“The tobacco industry can no longer advertise its products, but it is still legally allowed to sell them,” says Becky. “That leaves smokers as the fall-guys, and since everyone in public health has been brainwashed into anti-smoking hate behavior, we are extremely vulnerable.”



“Tobacco controllers think they are smart to associate smoking with worse behaviors such as spitting in public places, or throwing urine and feces out of windows,” says Becky, “and their attempts to infantilize smoking - by saying it is like sucking on a pacifier - are really pathetic.”



“They say that smoking is a personal choice,” says Becky, “but those of us who find it most difficult to quit generally got hooked when we had no adult rational judgment to make that choice.”



“Honestly, if just a fraction of the hate smokers receive is directed at any other social group it would attract immediate condemnation.”



Read more by Becky on this issue:

Bogus health research

Sinful Pleasures

Anti-smoking media tarts

Licensed to smoke?

Who voted for WHO?

Fifty years of anti-smoking

How’s the war against smoking going?

How’s the war against smoking going?

Like any war, Becky sees the war against smoking as having its foot soldiers (the activists) and its generals (members of WHO, the American Cancer Society, Heart Foundation and Lung Foundation); an enemy (Big Tobacco) and the enemy’s foot soldiers (the hapless smokers); a battleground (the media, workplaces, schools, public spaces, etc); and an aim – to legislate to make smoking history.



“Most of the battles in the war against smoking were between activists and smokers,” says Becky. “The fanatic useful idiot activists did a magnificent job attracting media attention to their cause – but it was the more skilled activists who actually did the smooth talking that influenced legislators to adopt the WHO’s directives.”



“These skilled activists were garnered from the professions - teachers, doctors and health professionals,” explains Becky. “With the opportunity to join the WHO gravy train – and undoubtedly a better job than they had already – they were easily persuaded to join the cause as political lobbyists.”



“Private companies were also targeted to implement anti-smoking policy irrespective of legislation and became ‘models’ for more and more private companies for follow,” says Becky. “At that time, before smoker discrimination became sanctioned by government, banning employment to smokers was illegal (but, like all discrimination, it was never written down as policy and many smokers suffered illegal discrimination).”



“Support was also drawn from other activist issues - environmental groups had a natural affiliation with anti-smoking because of their interest in air pollution,” says Becky, “and citizen groups, motivated by the secondhand smoke propaganda, were also a fertile area for support - militant anti-smoking citizen groups such as New Jersey’s GASP started appearing as early as 1974.”



“Newsletters linked local groups to international groups and were used effectively to network and initiate ideas such as special days and events for smoke-free occasions which invariably made the news,” says Becky, “but the most effective tactic, by far, was promoting law suits.”



“Once individual citizens initiated law suits against tobacco companies seeking to prove product liability for sickness and death – and won – the avoidance of similar law suits by private companies and governments became obvious because they had a duty of care to protect employees and the public at large from tobacco smoke.”



“It helped, too, that ‘duty of care’ and ‘occupational safety and health’ hearings were heard by authorities stacked with anti-smoking stooges,” says Becky. “ASH founder John Banzhaf’s lawsuit of 1994 against OSHA was withdrawn in 2001 due to ‘perceived high-jacking of due process’, but Richard Daynard - a professor of public health and a staunch anti-smoker - managed to wangle a new ASHRAE standard relating to indoor ETS in 1999 while he was a member of that organization!”



“By referring to smoking as a ‘pandemic’ or a ‘scourge’ and inflating the harm done by it, especially to non-smokers, people were easily swayed to the anti-smoking cause,” says Becky. “And, by shifting the emphasis - from the harm smokers do to themselves to the harm they do to others - the vast majority of non-smokers who were not bothered by smell or irritated by ETS suddenly became concerned about their health and their right to clean air.”



“This shift in emphasis was a brilliant move because up until then non-smokers and smokers alike saw the anti-smokers as crazy fanatics – now all non-smokers became one force against smokers.”



“Another good shift was to counter the anti-freedom argument used by Big Tobacco with the argument that society has the freedom to implement public health measures,” says Becky. “By cunningly promoting Big Tobacco as an evil profit seeker, the anti-smokers looked like innocent defenders of their freedom to breathe clean air and live a healthy life.”



“One of the biggest hurdles governments had to overcome in order to implement tobacco controls was the economic fallout - jobs will be lost, and tobacco revenue will diminish,” says Becky. “The anti-smokers had to agree to a phasing out agenda in order to allow farmers alternatives to tobacco growing, and governments time to find another revenue source (which they never really did).”



“Finally, the anti-smokers believed they had won the war on the basis of their claim that no civilized society hesitates in stopping the spread of an addictive killer like tobacco,” says Becky. “There was never any direct cause-and-effect relationship between tobacco, addiction and death, but by making the tobacco companies look evil it was pretty easy to convince society that tobacco control was a civilized thing to do.”



“As the old anti-smoking generals grow infirm and die off, the newer ones taking their places really don’t have much public support any more – the world has moved on to more important concerns,” says Becky. “And, because no government in a world heading for financial meltdown can exist without revenue from smokers, the war against smoking is definitely losing momentum – except, of course, for those hoping to crown their anti-smoking careers with a WHO appointment.”





Read more by Becky on this issue:

Bogus health research

Sinful Pleasures

Anti-smoking media tarts

Licensed to smoke?

Who voted for WHO?

Fifty years of anti-smoking

Fight big tobacco not smokers!

Fifty years of anti-smoking

In the early 1960s three American bodies - the Cancer Society, the Heart Association and the Lung Association - began working together to educate Americans about the health hazards associated with tobacco use, and Becky traces how this ‘education’ turned into a global crusade for the next fifty years.



“The first report on smoking and health was published by the Royal College of Physicians in 1962,” says Becky, “and first World Conference on Smoking and Health was held in New York in 1967.”



“In 1969 the WHO’s regional committee for Europe and the Americas passed resolutions to make cigarette smoking history by the end of the century,” says Becky, “and this committee also set up a global network of anti-smoking professionals working together to achieve its aim by lobbying governments.”



“The 2nd World Conference on Smoking and Health was held in London in 1971, but it was at the 3rd World Conference on Smoking and Health held in New York in 1975 that the Godber Blueprint for making cigarette smoking history was set in stone with strategies to achieve the WHO’s final goal by 2000.”



“In 1979, at the 4th World Conference on Smoking and Health, Stockholm, the World Health Day theme was ‘Smoking or Health, the Choice is Yours’ – a reasonable theme,” says Becky, “but by the 5th World Conference on Smoking and Health held at Winnipeg, Canada, in 1983 there was a shift in membership which made its mark at the 6th conference.”



“By then, anti-smoking activists had infiltrated the health departments of their home governments and, once in positions of relative power, they were not only able to allocate tax-payer funds to private tobacco control organizations but also to put themselves forward as ‘professionals’ for media advocacy of their anti-smoking cause.”



“An anti-smoking industry, funded by taxpayers – particularly smokers via tobacco tax – had come into being.”



“By 1984, following a call by former U.S. Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, for a smoke-free society by 2000 - reiterating the Godber Blueprint of 1975 - the global anti-smoking crusade stepped up.”



“In 1985, tobacco-Free America (TFA) was created to form coalitions to lobby legislators, regulators and other public officials about the urgent need for enactment of tobacco-control legislation to achieve a smoke-free society by the year 2000,” says Becky. “TFA was also instrumental in changing public attitudes towards smoking, making it out to be a health hazard and a socially unacceptable behavior.”



“The first no smoking day was observed – of all places - in Shanghai, China, in May 1986; and in the following year, 1987, the 6th World Conference on Smoking and Health was held in Tokyo.”



“The first Global No Smoking Day was celebrated on 7th April 1988 coinciding with the 40th anniversary of WHO (a body dedicated since its inception in 1948 to end smoking).”



“The World Conferences on Smoking & Health continued, like a moveable feast, attracting more and more delegates eager for fame and fortune on the anti-smoking bandwagon,” says Becky, “In 1990 the 7th was held in Perth; in 1992 the 8th was held in Buenos Aires; in 1994 the 9th was held in Paris; in 1997 the 10th was held in Beijing; in 2000 the 11th was held in Chicago; in 2003 the 12th was held in Helsinki; in 2006 the 13th was held in Washington; in 2009 the 14th was held in Mumbai; and in 2012 the 15th World Conference is due to take place Singapore.”



“That’s fifty years of anti-smoking crusading!” laughs Becky. “These guys are just using smoking as an excuse to get on the WHO gravy train!”





Read more by Becky on this issue:

Bogus health research

Sinful Pleasures

Anti-smoking media tarts

Licensed to smoke?

Who voted for WHO?

How’s the war against smoking going?

Fight big tobacco not smokers!

ASH goes MADD

Just like MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) moved away from drunk driving campaigning to become a prohibitionist organization once it had achieved its initial aims, Pilar points out that ASH appears to be going down the same moral slippery slope.

“MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) started off campaigning against drunk driving and they were successful in achieving their aims because society, as a whole, agreed with their aims and couldn’t understand why the government had done nothing to stop the drunks,” explains Pilar. “However, flushed with their success the MADD women didn’t want to return to their kitchen sinks and morphed into a prohibitionist organization campaigning for strict alcohol sales and drinking laws.”

“MADD eventually became such a moral crusading blight on society that the original founder has disassociated herself from the organization!”

“Having achieved its original aims – banning smoking in workplaces and public institutions – the ASH people really have no more reason to exist and should pack up and find a real job,” says Pilar, “but they’re digging their heels in and becoming moral crusaders just like their MADD counterpart.”

“Between them, the MADD and ASH people are determined to wipe out alcohol and tobacco use,” says Pilar, “and this time around, prohibition will work because they have the World Health Organization and Big Pharma on their side.”

“Prohibition will be achieved gradually, inch by inch, rather than by the drastic legislation last century which resulted in a bootlegging crime wave,” explains Pilar. “First they work on the obvious – that drunk driving causes death, and smoking causes lung cancer – and, having garnered public support to achieve their initial laudatory aims, they then work on less obvious factors to demonize not just drinking and smoking, but drinkers and smokers.”

“ASH has been going strong for nearly 40 years and it is not going away any more than MADD is,” says Pilar. “There are now laws in place to prevent drunk driving and smoking in enclosed places – and smokers are a lot more observant of the laws affecting them than drunk drivers are – but the aim is to stop drinking and smoking altogether and replace these habits with pharmaceutical products.”

“They will achieve their final aims by a relentless moral crusade against drinking and smoking, preaching it from the pulpits and classrooms,” says Pilar. “The safe level of drinking is being reduced year by year, and more and more dodgy studies are being done to show that drinking is as carcinogenic as smoking.”

“It will be a lot harder to convince people that drinking is as bad as smoking because so many more people are addicted to it – and there are plenty of old folk around who remember too vividly how bad the Prohibition years were – but when you consider that 40 years ago smokers were in the majority you get to understand that constant and relentless chipping away will eventually turn the tide far more successfully than any outright prohibition.”

“MADD and ASH are on a roll, they have powerful friends, and they’re out to save us all from ourselves and if they don’t get us, they’ll get our children and grandchildren – that is, of course, if they haven’t been so scared off by the horrors of alcohol and tobacco that they’ve turned to hard drugs and done themselves in good and proper.”


Read more by Pilar on this issue:

tobacco tax funding ASH ads?

War vet victimized for smoking

As Didi watches her elderly father declining day after day - not from smoking, but from old age and weariness having to deal with victimization from anti-smoking medical crusaders – she thinks about the wars he's been in, the taxes he's paid and the extra taxes he's paid for his self-medicating cigarettes and she hates her government for letting him down.

“The worse thing the government has done is making smoking such an anti-social habit that so many people think they have permission to vent their venom on smokers – even old smokers like my dad.”

"The government will never ban smoking because alcohol prohibition didn't work," says Didi, "and, knowing this, it should act as a moderate voice between the tobacco companies and the anti-smoking lobby.”

"Right now, it's taking the side of the anti-smoking lobby and making it okay for every Tom, Dick and Harry to victimize smokers," says Didi, "and for this it's no better than the Third Reich."

"No German hated the Jews -- or at least made their hate known -- until Hitler came to power and started blaming them for Germany's problems," says Didi, "and in this sort of climate more and more smokers are going to become depressed even if they they weren't that way already."

"It's against the law to discriminate against every other aspect of being human -- your age, your ethnicity, your religion, your sexual preference, etc -- but it's perfectly okay to discriminate against smokers," sighs Didi. "Where's the justice in this?"

"Even if you smoke in your own time, in your own space, the government sanctions discriminatory measures against you," says Didi. "European employers have been given the right to fire employees who admit to being smokers. When is this madness going to end?"

"The message seems to be: stop smoking and we'll treat you nicely," says Didi, "but having quit smoking hundreds of times I know that that's not true. Victimizers are victimizers through and through and will quickly find something else they don't like about you."

"A climate fuelled by anti-smoking venom marginalizes smokers," says Didi. "This doesn't bother me because I don't get out much these days, but some smokers do have mental health problems far more serious than depression and I am wondering how long will it be before one of them snaps and gets really stuck into the smug non-smoking victimizers."

“Victimizing an elderly war veteran for smoking is really the pits.”

Read more by Didi on this issue:

mental health self-medicators?

dealing with elderly parents and doctors

Anti-smoking vaccine?

street government

Sapphire believes that there are two governments in every land – one ruled by the young and free which operates in the streets, and the other ruled by the geriatrics and health nuts which has no jurisdiction over her and young people generally.

"When bars and clubs start enforcing bans on drugs decreed by the public health lobby we'll just move the party outside or go back to what we've been doing for years -- partying at home," laughs Sapphire. "I feel sorry, sort of, for the hospitality industry losing out on us, but the bar and club owners really should have taken a stand."

"Their main source of income -- and attraction -- came from us, not the geriatrics and the health nuts running the public health lobby," says Sapphire. "It's ridiculous that they've forced us outside to smoke or do drugs. Hardly anybody is taking advantage of the smoke-free environment inside, and of those most are so old that they are not going to be around much longer."

"How is the government going to made amends to the hospitality industry when these bans close down thousands of bars and clubs?" asks Sapphire. "What about the tourist industry? What young people would want to come here when the whole country is geared for health nuts and geriatrics trying to live for eternity?"

"Who wants a night out at the gym or a place where the old folks hang out in their drug free zones?"

"I'm not sure which group is more responsible than the other for the current crackdown on all of our vices," says Sapphire, "but there's definitely a health agenda behind it and I think alcohol is going to be next."

"Like I said, it won't bother me what they do because I have my street government," says Sapphire, "but the world is going to become an awfully boring place for everyone else when all the health bans on drugs take effect."

"Bring back the likes of cigar chewing Winston Churchill and vodka swilling Boris Yeltsin," laughs Sapphire. "Now they were politicians to admire and would have kicked the current politically correct idiots back to kindergarten where they belong."

Read more by Sapphire:

health nuts, geriatrics and smokers

unruly teen alienated by stepfamily

We’re all gonna die!

drugs create genius?

health and safety madness

government treats smokers as enemies?

Penelope has endured ten years of victimization from anti-smoking fanatics, and she believes that life under the Islamist Taliban in Afghanistan cannot be much worse than it is for her and other fellow citizens who smoke, and wonders why her government is treating smokers as enemies.

"I can appreciate that the Islamists and the anti-smokers truly believe in the barrow they are pushing," says Penelope, "but they don't ever seem to question the propaganda that feeds their cause. They just accept it as if it were an incontrovertible truth and repeat it so often that they sound like parrots."

"I am prepared to listen to the arguments the government puts forward about cancer, passive smoking and everything else -- I don't have much choice, really, when it's pushed into my face every day," says Penelope, "but I cannot in all seriousness accept all of it.”

“Most of it has been discredited and while I don't mean to be disrespectful, something that makes me feel so good cannot be all bad. It's as simple as that."

"It's a pity they are not prepared to listen to what smokers have to say," sighs Penelope, 'but brainwashed fanatics are, by definition, incapable of seeing both sides of an issue so I don't bother trying any more."

"Frankly, after putting up with the anti-smoking terrorists at home for ten years, I fail to see how life under the Taliban could be very much worse," says Penelope. "In fact, it would be a lot easier to accept being terrorized by them because they're not the same race and religion as myself -- as my current intimidators and torturers are."

“Now I know how the Jews felt in Nazi Germany,” says Penelope. “I feel like a non-citizen in my own country.”

Read more from Penelope on this subject:

brainwashed anti-smoking terrorists

brainwashing v education

tobacco war doing better than terror war!

Fergie smokes, so what?

Rhoda doesn’t smoke but in many other respects her circumstances are similar to Sarah Ferguson’s and she is fuming that on top of the News of the World sting on the Duchess of York – accepting money to introduce Prince Andrew to a shady sheik – a Telegraph blogger adds insult to injury by suggesting that her smoking habit is worse!

“Alex Spillius wrote on May 25th, 2010 in a post entitled ‘Will smoking on camera kill Fergie's chances of another resurrection?’ that being caught on camera peddling influence was bad enough, but being shown smoking will certainly snuff out any chance of her being able to rebuild her career,” explains Rhoda, “and I nearly choked with indignation when I read it..”

“Poor Fergie probably took up smoking in an effort to help her lose weight and get rid of the odious Duchess of Pork label, and I half expected the blogger to come up with some other odious label to vilify her smoking habit – such as a fag hag or something equally nasty – but I suppose he left that to his readers to do,” says Rhoda. “Thankfully the anti-smoking bigots must have been asleep that day because all of the comments I read were in support of her.”

“I am by no means supporting her money-grubbing antics and I usually don’t come out in support of smokers,” explains Rhoda, “but in view of the seriousness of Fergie’s financial faux pas, and the mammoth job she has already done to lay to rest the toe-sucking incident and re-invent herself as a successful author, I thought it was below the belt to jump on the anti-smoking bandwagon and hit her with smoking crap at such a vulnerable time in her life.”

“I had to reinvent myself after divorcing out of a similarly stuffy old money family and it wasn’t easy,” confides Rhoda. “I traded off the family name to get ahead, just like Fergie has done, and while I think her recent attempt to make money out of her royal connections was very shabby, I am very impressed by her massive weight loss and her success as a children’s book author.”

“If that blogger/journalist earned half as much in a year through his writing as Fergie fritters away in a week then he would be laughing all the way to the bank and would have better things to do than make snide remarks about other people’s smoking habits – especially someone who actually earns a good living through her writing and will continue to do so despite smoking,” laughs Rhoda. “So it’s all sour grapes, isn’t it?”

“If Fergie smokes, so what, so do other members of the royal family,” adds Rhoda. “Journalists should be concentrating on the implications of the cash for introductions scam that seems to be going on, and leaving out her personal peccadilloes.”


See also:

drunk as a skunk

Fergie’s Imaginary Friend

Will Fergie and Andy Remarry?

Mother of the Year?

Fergie’s chutzpah survival

what's next for Fergie?

Oprah tops Fergie’s retirement pot

Fergie Flouts Family

Fergie and the global gravy train

Greedy Fergie!

Fergie smokes, so what?

Homeless Fergie?

Fergie’s menopausal mania

Is Fergie reliving her childhood?

a foghorn for silent whispers

Sarah Ferguson’s Libran Balance

Age Secrets of Prince Andrew

Age Secrets of Sarah Ferguson

Andrew and Sarah, Duke and Duchess of York

Marriage or Emigration for Fergie?

Fergie’s £15,000 pa was a lousy settlement

How free is Fergie?

star struck Fergie

cashing in on the family Fergie style!

Fergie’s broken homes

plain pack smokers

Along with an immediately effective massive 25% increase in tobacco tax the Australian labor government made a world first last Thursday by announcing that by July 2012 all tobacco products were to be sold in plain packs (no brand images or colors) causing Marrielle to wonder whether it will soon become mandatory for smokers to become brown paper bag-heads, too.

“As a smoker, I am already abused by having to put up with disgusting health warning graphics on my cigarette pack, and being sold a legal product that is unable to be displayed and comes from ‘under the counter’ like hard-porn,” says Marrielle, “so I really don’t care about the plain pack proposal as long as it doesn’t present a huge problem for shopkeepers – but I do care about the 25% increase in tobacco tax because I’m a backpacker and don’t have much money and having this sprung on me without any warning to adjust my life and finances accordingly is really bad form.”

“True to form,” sniffs Marrielle, “the tobacco companies kept mum on the massive 25% tax increase but jumped up and down on the proposed plain packaging law because it would encourage counterfeiting, lower its profits, harm branding and infringe intellectual property rights.”

“The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd insisted that his government will not be intimidated by Big Tobacco – and quite rightly so,” says Marrielle, “but along with his other disastrous forays into social engineering and money grabbing he may change his tune down the line if Big Tobacco mounts a legal battle and wins compensation from the Australian government, or the whole industry is wiped out by his draconian measures – putting thousands out of work and a huge hole in his budget.”

“The 25% tax increase will increase the cost of a packet of 30 cigarettes to around $16.70 Australian dollars – which means one cigarette costs slightly more than the 55c it costs for a local postage stamp – and will reap the government an estimated $5 billion Australian dollars over four years,” says Marrielle. “This estimate takes into consideration that about 6% of the current estimated 16.6% smokers over 14 years of age will quit.”

“For a pack a day person on basic wages or benefits the cost of cigarettes has now become prohibitive and a lot more than 6% of smokers may be forced to quit – and a greater percentage of smokers may resort to the black market, or buy cheap and nasty imported Chinese cigarettes – meaning that Mr. Rudd may not get the $5 billion he expects to gouge out of smokers.”

“If the $5 billion is being relied upon to invest in the nation’s health system, then a lot of people are going to miss out on their hip replacements and lap banding surgeries – and I mean that literally because obesity related illnesses now outstrip smoking related illnesses in Australia and most western countries and I don’t see fatties and the junk food they crave being abnormalised in the way smokers and tobacco are.”

“Imagine the outcry if all of our pleasures had to be purchased under the counter packed in brown paper bags?” asks Marrielle. “These measures are not just abnormalizing smoking but pornographizing it!”

“Actually, the announcement came out of the blue – Australia already has an automatic bi-annual increase in tobacco tax – and as it was made at the same time as Mr. Rudd ditched his climate change plans until 2013 one wonders whether the 25% tax increase on tobacco was a quick fix intended to fill the coffers that the carbon emissions tax was supposed to fill.”

“Before the Copenhagen Conference Mr. Rudd was blathering on about climate change as being the ‘great moral challenge of our generation’ and if he can do a double-take on his carbon emissions tax then nobody in their right mind can believe that this new 25% tax increase on tobacco has anything to do with health.”

“If the government really cared about the health of smokers then it would be offering nicotine replacement therapies cheaply or for free,” says Marrielle. “So, the heavily addicted who can’t quit and can’t afford the extra tax will be forced by the Australian government to smoke cheap cigarettes that are more likely to cause health problems than regular cigarettes.”

“It’s just a tax grab on the most vulnerable of citizens – including the Aboriginal population – and it’s also an unscrupulous distraction from the fact that Rudd has reneged on the ETS and desperately needs a whole lot of money to repay his Chinese debts,” says Marrielle. “Which makes me wonder whether this is part of a deal he has made with China to flood the market with cheap Chinese tobacco products?”

“Also, plain pack cigarettes are really not going to bother existing smokers and I cannot see how they are going to influence young people not to take up smoking either,” says Marrielle. “Tobacco advertising was banned decades ago and to suggest that a stupid brand logo makes a young person want to buy cigarettes to make them look ‘cool’ is ridiculous, especially when all cigarette packs are plastered with horrific images of smoking related illnesses on them – what’s cool about that?”

“The plain pack proposal was merely added to the 25% tax increase on tobacco in order to give the impression that it’s all being done in the interests of better health, not to raise money,” sighs Marrielle, “and that the tax increase applies immediately, but the plain packaging doesn’t take effect until July 2012 – by which time Mr. Rudd and his labor government may be out of office – shows that it is all a big bluff and may never see the light of day.”

“Now that winter is coming on in Australia a lot of backpackers will be heading home for the northern summer and with the prohibitive new cost of cigarettes I will be one of them,” laughs Marrielle. “Australia is no place for smokers – especially poor smokers like me!”

smoking on balconies

After losing her job in the global economic crisis Mindi had to relocate for her next job and the only accommodation she could find, and afford, was at a run-down lodging house where smoking was only permitted on balconies.

“The smoking rule didn’t bother me much because I was only using the lodging house for sleeping, I would only be there until I had saved enough money to rent a place of my own and if I did need a puff it wasn’t too much of an imposition to go out on the balcony,” says Mindi, “but it just didn’t work out that way at all.”

“My new job was incredibly stressful, nobody I worked with was interested in hanging out after work, they all went home to watch television or do something else to un-stress themselves and as a result I had nothing better to do than go home early myself.”

“Happily, there were some convivial people staying at the lodging house so my social life was not an entire disaster,” says Mindi, “but by 10pm they’d all drift off to bed and not being accustomed to sleeping before midnight I was left alone in my bleak lodging house room night after night with nothing but a few magazines and a packet of cigarettes for company.”

“Needless to say, the balcony got a lot of use during these two hours of loneliness every night and the butts were starting to pile up, necessitating my having to buy some pot plants – not for the plants, but the containers. They were great for storing the butts until I could dispose of them.”

“I worked out that I needed to stay at the lodging house for at least three months, by which time I should have saved enough money to rent a place of my own,” says Mindi, “but I didn’t bargain on a cold snap which turned my life upside down.”

“Before my first month was up, the weather changed dramatically and even though I piled on my overcoat to go out on the balcony to smoke it was just too cold – my hands were shaking and I was shivering and yeah, I know, I should have gone without my cigarettes or done something naughty like disabling the smoke alarm and smoking inside, but I didn’t want to flout the lodging house rules and it never occurred to me that I would actually catch a cold.”

“Well, I really don’t know whether it was smoking on a balcony at night in freezing weather that did me in or whether I caught a bug from someone at work or the lodging house – everyone was coughing and sniffling – but as the swine flu epidemic was just starting to hit the headlines the lodging house manager wasn’t prepared to take any chances when I fell ill with the worst cold I’ve ever had in my life.”

“He called a doctor for me and I was quarantined in my room for three miserable days straight – without cigarettes – until the tests showed that I didn’t have anything too serious,” laughs Mindi, “and I’m laughing because it was just the opportunity I needed to get away from that stressful job and that lonely lodging house.”

“My parents insisted I come home immediately and because I wouldn’t be able to return to work for at least two weeks my new employer let me go without a fuss,” says Mindi. “You have no idea how relieved I was to say goodbye to it all – the job and the lodging house and those pot plants – and go home to a place where I wouldn’t be required to go out on a balcony in the freezing cold to have a smoke.”

“Yeah, I know, fire is a hazard in lodging houses and managers can’t afford to take any risks,” says Mindi, “but considering how old that place was, and the dodgy state of its electrical wiring, I don’t think a careless smoker is likely to set the place alight – even though a smoker will always be blamed if a fire does break out.”

pushy railway smokers

An incident on an outdoor railway platform at Farningham Road, Kent – involving two young guys smoking under a footbridge, an antismoking older woman, a push, a stumble and a fall onto the tracks – has brought out another spate of venom against smokers and Soraya – the same age as the victim, Linda Buchanan – is angry because this is what happens when governments pass laws without teeth, failing to give relevant authorities the funding necessary to enforce them.

"The ban against smoking has only been in force for a year," says Soraya, "and if the government is serious about its nonsmoking policy then it should have given the railways the funds necessary to hire more staff to patrol stations rather than leaving it up to strident members of the general public, like Linda Buchanan, to enforce it."

"Those two guys were described as being about 25 and have probably been smoking for over 10 years already," says Soraya. "By giving naive people like Linda Buchanan the false impression that all smokers can change their habits so quickly and easily, or want to – for no other reason than because the antismoking lobby has spent millions of taxpayer funds promoting how disgusting the habit is – the government has exposed her to the wrath of two young thugs who, quite clearly, have no intention of quitting and resent interference in their enjoyment of what is, after all, a legal product."

"Actually, I am loathe to call them thugs because although they were obviously cognizant of the smoking ban, but lit up regardless, they did their smoking under a footbridge, far away from the main platform, being courteous towards fellow commuters who did not want to smell cigarette smoke,” explains Soraya. “They were providing themselves with a quiet smoking space – making a protest, of sorts, against the stupidity of applying the smoking ban to outdoor areas – not expecting someone like Ms Buchanan to go out of her way to confront them at 7am, three days in a row.”

"I’m not a heavy smoker, I certainly don’t smoke at 7am and I’d never push someone who shoved me verbally,” says Soraya, “but I do think that the total smoking ban is unreasonable. It would be civilized to have a smoking section in all indoor public areas, but failing that it is cruel, hypocritical and nonsensical to ban smoking in outdoor areas where toxic fumes and evil smells from trains, planes, vehicles, factories, homes and restaurants are already polluting the air or offending the nostrils."

"What was thuggish about their behavior was not their furtive smoking but their over-reaction to being told to stop smoking, three days in a row, by a woman who is very lucky that they gave her a push rather than sticking a knife into her," says Soraya. "And, if it comes to that, they were very lucky that she wasn't a gun toting lunatic."

"They had absolutely no right to touch the woman -- no matter how much provocation she gave them -- and this is their crime, not their smoking, but all the anti-smokers out there fail to make this distinction," points out Soraya. "Had Ms Buchanan not stumbled, fell onto the railway tracks and caused the guys to run away in panic, she could have had them charged with assault and lumbered them with a criminal record that would affect the rest of their lives -- and she still can, of course, providing they are located -- but she can't have them charged and given a criminal record for smoking."

"Smoking in a non-smoking area is an offence and, like a multitude of other silly offences under the New World Order, it is not a crime like murder, rape and theft; and if everyone believes they have the right, as Ms Buchanan did, to tackle strangers for committing these silly offences, then the actual crime rate is going to escalate and there'll be dead bodies everywhere."

"Being the same age as Linda Buchanan, I cannot understand what on earth possessed the woman to think that strapping young men of about 25, on their way to a laboring job by the description of their clothing, would pay any attention to her," laughs Soraya. "Having tried once to stop them smoking, what possessed her to impose her will on them, 'lawful' though it was, a second and then a third time? If she was so incensed, so out of her mind with rage, why didn't she approach the railway staff and get them to do their job rather than doing it for them?"

“Is she nuts or something? I wouldn’t approach two young women of that age to ask them the time, let alone two young men to tell them to stop doing something that offended me. I’d just walk away, as would most sensible older people.”

"Would she have similarly approached two men her own age doing the same thing?" asks Soraya. "I very much doubt it, and what we are seeing here is perhaps a woman with adult sons of the same age who won't let go, who continues to treat them as children, and that is why her last words to them was to 'grow up' before they gave her the push that made her stumble and fall onto the railway tracks."

"I'm surprised, really, that two young laboring men would be taking a train to work in the first place -- most commuters where I live are older people," says Soraya. "And yet as the cost of running a vehicle becomes prohibitive, forcing more and more people out of private transport onto public transport, I suppose this sort of incident is going to become rife -- if not for smoking then for any number of silly offences."

“But it doesn’t surprise me that this incident happened in the South-East, the most overcrowded part of the UK, a tinderbox of hostilities waiting to be ignited,” says Soraya. “Even where I live, where it’s not so overcrowded, I’m into cocoon survival.”

"Those two guys were probably still living at home -- for the same reason that they cannot afford private transport to get to work -- and were probably subject to constant nagging by their moms," explains Soraya. "When nagged young men are confronted three times by someone else's nagging mom, I guess they snapped."

"I'm not making excuses for the young men, I'm merely pointing out that every railway platform in the country, if not the whole world, is seething with people suffering from all sorts of afflictions and private miseries and the slightest thing can set any one of them off -- a whiff of cigarette smoke, a crying child, a piece of litter, a cell phone ringing, you name it, something is sure to offend someone – and if we are to survive as a harmonious society in an increasingly overpopulated world then governments should be promoting tolerance rather than pandering to divisive lobby groups such as ASH.”

"What about the Greyhound bus passenger in Canada who had his head cut off by the lunatic sitting next to him?" adds Soraya. “He wasn't smoking, he wasn't littering, he wasn't drunk and disorderly or in any way annoying the lunatic sitting next to him -- but something about him ticked off the lunatic -- the smell of his aftershave, an inadvertent touch, a cough, who knows?"

"And this is why governments that pass silly laws trying to control every aspect of human behavior are wasting taxpayer's resources."

"If governments must pass silly laws telling us where we can and cannot eat, smoke, drink, fart, urinate, defecate, expose our body bits, have sex, make noises, etc, etc, then at least put some teeth into these laws by requiring all authorities -- in this case public transport operators -- to raise their act and take 100% responsibility for the safety and comfort of commuters," says Soraya. "It was grossly negligent of the government to pass the nonsmoking ban without enforcement patrols to go with it, leaving people like Linda Buchanan with no option but to do the job herself (and heavy smokers like those two guys with enough rope to hang themselves)."

"If I were Ms Buchanan I'd try suing the government because her actions were based upon a reasonable belief that the government was serious about the smoking ban, why else would they pass the law?” points out Soraya. “However, because the majority of the population doesn’t trust anything the government does, preferring to remain cynical, minding its own business, I don't fancy her chances."

"Everyone else on that railway platform in Kent, except for Linda Buchanan, was minding their own business," says Soraya. "If she had minded her own business and the railway staff had been given government funds to properly mind theirs -- patrolling the platform 24/7 -- her wrist wouldn't be broken and two young men would not now be on the run, hunted down like animals, their future lives in ruin should they be located."

Barack Obama Smokes?

Barack Obama’s losing fight to rid himself of the smoking habit is now public knowledge and is causing a stir among the chattering classes and Sissy wants to know why on earth it should matter.

“Many voters did not even know that he had ever smoked and are righteously indignant and shocked that a person with such an ‘abominable, filthy and disgusting’ character flaw could ever stand for office,” says Sissy. “But, in view of the legality of the habit, and his quitting smoking not being a requirement of nomination, what business is it of anyone’s?”

“As long as he can perform the duties of office and uphold the social contract we invest in him,” says Sissy, “then I really cannot see why a smoker in office would be worse than a drinker or a drug-taker, especially when tobacco calms the nerves and aids concentration.”

“I don’t understand why he ever bothered to take it upon himself to do the ‘quitting’ thing in the first place,” says Sissy. “And why is a presidential candidate’s smoking habit more important to voters than slaughter in Iraq or the state of the economy?”

“I would say that drinking, drug-taking, womanizing, gambling, lying, violence or abuse of women and children are far worse character flaws than smoking,” says Sissy, “and I certainly wouldn’t vote for anyone with those flaws.”

”To my mind, Obama risks being considered a wimp for trying to fit in with the Politically Correct herd mentality if he went on the quitting train,” says Sissy. “I’d rather that he remain his own smokin’ man.”


Read more by Sissy on this issue:

once a smoker always a smoker

backing a winner?

addictive friends

peace up in smoke?

walking on water

a life changing vote

who’s the boss?

candidates and spouses

and check out:

Secrets of Barack Obama’s Age

Obama, Clinton or McCain?

once a smoker always a smoker

Reports that Barack Obama has broken his pledge to quit smoking by sneaking a few cigarettes now and again – and comments about his deteriorating performance - do not surprise Sissy as much as his ridiculous decision to quit smoking in the first place.

“People lapse and lose focus when they quit smoking, so why did he put himself through all this totally unnecessary public humiliation?” asks Sissy. “Frankly, his timing to quit smoking – running for office - was atrocious, as was his estimation of his willpower.”

“He doesn’t seem to have much insight into why tobacco smoking first attracted him and always will,” explains Sissy. “He’s not so much a nicotine addict as a smoking addict – chewing Nicorette isn’t going to help him when he needs to see and smell smoke and take it into his lungs. Can’t he see that?”

“It pains and embarrasses me to see him so unfocused,” sighs Sissy. “I’m sure the other candidates take a shot of something or other before they go on stage, and if this guy needs smoke in his lungs in order to function at his best then he should just do it – and do it openly (it’s legal!) We are sick to death of hypocrites in politics.”

“On the other hand, if he is serious about quitting for good then being the type of smoker he is it may take him several years, and many relapses, before he succeeds,” says Sissy, “but even then he will always be a ‘smoker’ and just like a drinker on the wagon it will be a day at a time, a personal fight against a personal demon for as long as he lives.”

“Obama ignored all of the basic principles of giving up smoking,” says Sissy. “You do it because you want to quit not as a promise to someone else; you choose a calm, stress free time to commence the quitting process; and, if you’re a lifetime smoker (as he was) rather than a social smoker, you must have realistic expectations about your success.”

“That he’s now falling off the quit wagon and performing badly doesn’t surprise me,” says Sissy, “but it does make me feel angry that some idiot has compromised Obama’s chances by filling his head with so many illusions about what he is capable of doing, and what he is not capable of doing without a great deal of pain, effort and help.”

“His deteriorating performance since quitting smoking is so painfully evident that I shudder to think what he would be like in office, with more stresses than ever,” adds Sissy. “If he doesn’t pull himself together right now, while the race is still on, recant his pledge to Michelle and announce to the world ‘I’m a smoker, take me or leave me’ then I don’t see how he can win.”

“Even if he beats Hillary, he has ultimately to face McCain and the formidable Republican machine and things are going to get really dirty and nasty,” sighs Sissy. “But, since the GOP is in league with the tobacco companies perhaps Obama may have won himself a get out of jail free card on his smoking!”


Read more by Sissy on this issue:

Barack Obama Smokes?

backing a winner?

addictive friends

peace up in smoke?

a life changing vote

who’s the boss?

candidates and spouses

and check out:

Secrets of Barack Obama’s Age

Obama, Clinton or McCain?

Elisabeth Fritzl Locked Up For Smoking

When Marta read that Josef Fritzl’s reasons for imprisoning his daughter included her vile, disgusting habit of smoking she could feel 80% of the western world relaxing a bit – feeling less hostile towards the man, agreeing with him that locking her up for a while was probably the only thing he could do to help rid her of the nicotine demon – and she believes that half of that miserable PC lot is probably capable of understanding, too, how Elisabeth’s new smoke-free locked-up vulnerability aroused forbidden desires in him, the unleashing of which unfortunately prolonged her incarceration.

“Fritzl’s PC reasons for locking up Elisabeth are being used shamelessly by his lawyer to garner sympathy, and it’s working, and it’s making me so angry that I want to shake some sense into all of the PC infected sheeple out there,” explains Marta. “I am not using Elisabeth’s pain to push the smoking barrow. The issue at stake is Elisabeth’s freedom – not just her physical freedom but her freedom to smoke, to drink and to live her life according to her values, not her father’s or anyone else’s. Get it?”

“Locking up ‘bad’ people is what our culture does – other cultures use other means, such as stoning them to death,” explains Marta. “Being locked up is the penalty we pay for behavior that offends others and Josef Fritzl – with or without his wife’s collusion – was way ahead of his time for locking up 18-year-old Elisabeth in 1984 for daring to smoke (and drink and do things that all teenagers do) because the next step in the war against smoking is to do exactly that and to hell with the ‘freedom’ our culture is supposedly based upon.”

“Lock up the filthy dirty smokers is a common war cry from the Nicotine Nazis,” sighs Marta. “And they’re called Nazis for a very good reason – they, like Josef Fritzl, have a psychotic belief that their values trump all others, that their physical being is superior to all others and that the way to deal with inferior people is to lock them up and humiliate them. We saw this sort of behavior exhibited in Abu Ghraib, but it happens within families, too.”

“I’ve often heard parents discussing locking up their kids – in their bedrooms, or in a basement, attic or cupboard – for refusing to comply with whatever draconian decree they wanted to enforce,” says Marta, “so the initial act of imprisoning Elisabeth to save her from a partying lifestyle –smoking, drinking and staying out late – is something a lot of parents can sympathize with if not actually do.”

“They euphemistically call it ‘time out’ but we all know what it really is.”

“When you impose your will on anybody, especially a child, for their supposed good, you are behaving like a monster,” says Marta “Parents who claim that they are nothing like Joseph Fritzl should take a good look at themselves, and governments that claim they are nothing like Hitler’s regime should do likewise.”

“One monstrous step often leads to another, more diabolical, as it did in Joseph Fritzl’s case,” explains Marta. “And I’d go even further than this to assert that people who have a need to control and punish others for not doing their bidding are psychotic – which just about describes everyone in positions of power.”

“I think the best way to raise children is by setting a good example – and by that I mean being a good person,” says Marta. “Good people come in all packages, and can be smokers, drinkers, drug takers or whatever and can believe in any number of gods, or not, and what makes them good is their tolerance, their acceptance of differences in others and their ability to live their lives and do their thing without hurting others, or allowing others to be hurt.”

“I would say that less than half of the world’s population is ‘good’ by my definition and much fewer than that in the western world and that is why I have yet to decide whether or not I want to marry and have children,” says Marta. “Being a smoker, it will be incredibly difficult for me to be myself and yet conform to what the western world now expects of mothers. I can’t hide my smoking in the same way that Fritzl hid his unholy vice and remained a pillar of society, can I?”

“In this sense, blaming Fritzl’s neighbors and the authorities for being too stupid or uncaring to see what he was doing in the cellar is unfair – it was done secretly with every contingency covered,” says Marta. “I do, however, think that the Fritzl family should shoulder some blame for colluding with his tyrannical ways.”

“It appears that Elisabeth was the only member of the family – including all of the aunts and uncles – who refused to buckle to the man’s tyranny and for this bravery she was sacrificed by the lot of them.”

“Fritzl said that he intended to release Elisabeth after he broke her desire for vices such as smoking and drinking, but having given reign to his lusts he was as much trapped as she was.”

“Knowing that Elisabeth would have him locked up for what he did to her, her fate was sealed for 24 years and it was only in his old age, with diminished desires, that he showed some compassion for his captives – a compassion which will no doubt earn him redemption in much the same way as his ‘regret’ for a previous rape and arson charge earned him the right to a respectable existence that was used as a cover to perpetrate another and far worse crime.”

“With a healthy nicotine-free body and a comfy jail lifestyle – with ready access to the medical and dental treatment he denied his captives – this monstrous man will probably live for another 30 years in good health at the Austrian taxpayers’ expense, outliving all of his victims and inflicting upon those of us who remember him and were wounded by what he did, a never ending litany via his legal representatives and a willing media how much good he is now doing as a drugs counselor for fellow inmates, fighting the good fight against tobacco and other filthy drugs.”

“He will probably become a beacon of redemption, do speaking tours and maybe have his own television show,” sighs Marta. “Our PC society never fails to reward the redeemed, to make martyrs out of monsters. I can see it all now, and it makes me physically sick.”

“Like all good people, my soul is wounded by the enormity of this man’s crime – it is a crime that truly robs us of any semblance of pretence about homo sapiens being a superior species,” sighs Marta. “And, I am further wounded by his reasons for it – Elisabeth’s bad habit of smoking is clearly stated in his confession – because, as a smoker, I can imagine a time when I, too, may be physically locked up by the Nicotine Nazis for my filthy, dirty habit – rather than being emotionally locked out of ‘respectable’ society and the best jobs, like I am now.”

“I would imagine that after 24 years of incarcerated brain washing Elisabeth may have lost her desire to smoke as well as all of the other desires she once had,” says Marta. “But, being the incredibly strong and magnificent woman she is I would not be surprised if she maintained mental freedom throughout her 24-year ordeal and that being the case she is likely to buck the incredibly PC world she has re-entered and demand her right to smoke be restored.”

“Will 80% of the western world deny her that right?”

“You know what?” says Marta, “I believe they will – for her good, of course, and her children’s – because they don’t want to see the similarities between this sort of thing and being locked up in a cellar.”

“Welcome to the PC prison of 2008, Elisabeth,” adds Marta. “Unfortunately, you’ll find that it’s ruled by people very much like your parents, all shiny do-goody respectability on the outside and rotten to the core inside, and most of the brave young people growing up around you in 1984 are now pathetic sheeple incapable of doing anything without first consulting their PC manual – which, amazingly, is very much like George Orwell’s novel describing the very year in which you were incarcerated (for your own good, of course).”

smoking invasions

Like most smokers, Moya, 48, is under considerable pressure at work to quit her enjoyable habit even though smoking is something she indulges in at home -- not at work -- and she is fuming that her civil liberties are being violated and invaded in this manner. She sees the whole quit smoking campaign as being as criminal, shortsighted and venal as the Iraq invasion, and believes that it's pushed by the same type of opportunistic people, for the same reasons.

"Although it's not a life-threatening violation of my civil rights -- as the criminal invasion of Iraq was, and still is, to Iraqi citizens," says Moya, "the quit smoking war is still very much a criminal act -- it's creating discriminatory attitudes in my place of work that are violating my civil liberties to enjoy a legal product in the sanctity of my own home."

"What I do at home is absolutely no business of my employer and it's deplorable that a comment I made to a coworker about smoking ended up being reported on my employment file," says Moya. "This is Big Brother gone crazy and next thing they'll be wanting to know what we eat for breakfast and what we do in bed."

"As I see it, the quit smoking campaign came about as a result of someone getting lung cancer and successfully litigating against the tobacco companies," says Moya. "That person may very well have developed lung cancer from a bacterial infection whether he or she smoked or not, but once the precedent had been set -- and the dollar signs started flashing -- that was the end of freedom for smokers."

"From then on, smokers became the enemy and the lies started coming thick and fast -- such as smokers are killing themselves and others (some of us may very well be doing that, but so are drinkers, drivers, meat eaters, gun owners, etc); we are bankrupting the health services with our smoking-related diseases (and paying for them ten times over with tobacco tax); and we crave liberation from the thralls of addiction (yeah, sure, we embrace the efforts of the nicotine-Nazis with love and gratitude.)"

"The illegal invasion of Iraq -- against UN decisions -- came about as a result of Mr Bush and the warmongers being frustrated at failing to nab Osama and going after Saddam instead," says Moya. "One criminal excuse after another was given in order to justify the illegal invasion -- Saddam was a monster (he may have been, but so are lots of other rulers and even Hillary Clinton is seen as being one by a fellow Democrat! ); he had stockpiles of WMD (Hans Blix found none); and the Iraqis crave liberation (yeah, sure, they embrace our gun-toting troops with love and gratitude)."

"The quit smoking campaign and the decision to invade Iraq are also alike in that they were based on shortsighted premises by people who have no understanding of consequences and no way to back off without losing face -- making them dangerous people."

"Their jobs -- their wealth and their pension funds -- depend upon successfully completing their mission and maintaining control over the outcome," says Moya. "They refuse to admit that they were wrong in invading Iraq -- that Saddam was the right person to rule a divided nation -- and they also refuse to admit that they were wrong in making such deceitful claims against smokers."

"The Iraqi people they claimed to be 'liberating' are now living in fear, anger and helplessness, wishing Saddam were back in power," says Moya. "And that's the way many ex-smokers feel. The rewards of being a non-smoker are not what they were cracked up to be -- all of the hidden reasons why people become smokers in the first place come back with a vengeance when they give it up."

"I have personally seen several acquiantances at work sink into deep depression when they quit cigarettes," says Moya. "Now they are on prescribed medication and spending just as much on their meds as they did on cigarettes. Big deal!"

"And there has been no massive decrease in the so-called smoking-related diseases either," says Moya. "Rather that admitting that other factors cause these diseases, the health authorities now claim that people who once smoked have already done the damage. Hmm, more reason to keep on smoking, then?"

"Finally, by far the closest likeness between the quit smoking campaign and the invasion of Iraq is, you guessed it, money!" sighs Moya. "They want a bigger cut of the Iraqi oil fields and they want a bigger cut of our money -- if not in tobacco tax then in quit programs and products."

"They've already pushed the Iraqis too far by overstaying their welcome -- and they're pushing smokers to the end of their tether, too," says Moya, "and I have no idea whether they doing what they're doing out of grotesque money-grubbing greed, arrogant self-righteous hubris or just plain dumb stupidity."

"The only way the warmongers can win decisively in Iraq is the same way the anti-smokers can win decisively in the smoking war -- imprison or shoot all the dissidents."

"I don't think there are enough prisons and bullets to achieve this end and while fellow citizens may not be too concerned about this sort of thing happening in Iraq they may start squirming when the dissendent smokers at home start getting rounded up -- or will they?"

"Judging from what's happening at work -- and what's happening in society at large --I honestly fear that our national identity as a feircely proud and free nation has been so watered down with foreign immigrants from totalitarian nations that the concept of civil liberties is fast disappearing from our national psyche."

"That so many so-called democratic freedom lovers still see the Iraq invasion as justifiable -- as justifiable as smoking and other bans -- is really scary," says Moya. "I feel so sorry for the next generation raised on Big Brother television and Big Brother government -- as well as control freaks at school and work -- because they will never know what freedom is."

"And most of all I feel sorry for the Iraqis -- especially the ones who smoke, and that's an awful lot of them -- because if western style democracy takes off in that country, they're going to be hit with an invasion of their smoking rights next."

Le Grand Fag Parasite

Becky, a self-employed IT professional with a real doctorate is fuming that someone with an honorary doctorate, not a real one, from Sussex University, presumes to tell her how to live her life.

“Health England, chaired by Julian le Grande -- a former adviser to ex-PM Tony Blair and a lecturer in social policy at the London School of Economics -- advises the government on health policy but his proposal to discourage people from smoking by forcing them into a humiliating licensing system has nothing to do with smokers' health," says Becky. "Instead, it is yet another parasitic fag-bashing policy designed to raise revenue, create more non-jobs, boost NuLabour votes and further victimize a social group he hates -- smokers."

"In view of the fact that recent research at the London School of Economics (where he works) laid to rest the 'smoking harms your baby' scare tactic -- and smoking bans have removed the equally unsubstantiated claims about second-hand smoke, and cancer research is currently focusing on viruses rather than smoking -- Le Grand cannot possibly claim that his new proposal is anything to do with health."

"Le Grand's proposal -- that smokers should be forced to pay 10 pounds annually for a licence to buy tobacco and forced through complicated and annoying bureaucratic hoops in order to apply for a smoking licence -- is not only totalitarianism gone mad but a system which is totally unworkable (but since when has NuLabor parasites thought anything through?)."

"The system apparently exonerates foreigners -- I suppose they just need to show a foreign passport to purchase cigarettes -- so it is definitely targeting native Brits," says Becky. "And, it's the elderly and low income smokers who are going to suffer from this scheme because they can't afford to circumvent it like I can. It's an iniquitous form of extra taxation on top of existing exorbitantly high tobacco tax."

"Le Grand said that cash raised by the proposed scheme would go to the NHS," explains Becky. "What a joke. The money will go straight to the bureaucrats hired to police the scheme, just like tobacco revenue goes straight to the ASH parasites. It's just another NuLabour non-job creation scheme and a desperate measure to gain votes from the grateful jobsworths so employed."

"But it's more than that -- it's blatant victimization of a section of society that has been targeted by NuLabour for the past ten years."

"NuLabour hates smokers -- it hates us more than it hates Tories, Islamists, hoodies, binge drinkers, obese burger eaters, SUV drivers, burdensome elderly people and bottled water drinkers," sighs Becky, "And, when it has sucked the last sou out of smokers or forced the last smoker out of the British Isles, it will start on the next hated group."

"The most ridiculous assertion made by this man is that 70% of smokers actually want to stop smoking," laughs Becky. "Oh yeah? Where did you pluck that figure from, Mr Le Grand? After ten years of harassment and victimization under NuLabour, any smoker wanting to give up smoking would have done so years ago."


Read more by Becky:

self-employment in parasitic britain

parasites and brain drains

Licensed to smoke?

Bogus health research

Sinful Pleasures

Anti-smoking media tarts

cigarette muggers

Zaina and her partner were recently mugged for their cigarettes and she points out that this is what happens when governments regularly increase tax on a legal product that is addictive -- like cigarettes -- in order to fund schools and hospitals. The time has now arrived when cigarettes have become too expensive to buy for many smokers and some will necessarily resort to crime in order to get what they want. Is this how we want our schools and hospitals funded?

"I was standing outside a restaurant with my partner having a smoke when we were mugged by a gang of youths," says Zaina. "Okay, they didn't actually bash us up -- they pushed my partner and stole his packet of cigarettes -- but the effect was the same as a mugging."

"We felt violated and wounded by this experience," explains Zaina, "and more so because we had no redress -- we could hardly call the police and complain about being pushed around and having cigarettes stolen, could we?"

"This sort of thing never happened when restaurants allowed people to smoke inside," says Zaina, "and, as the tax on cigarettes goes up even more, I expect these muggings to increase and become even more violent. Is this really how we want our schools and hospitals funded?"

"By forcing us outside to smoke the restaurant owners are exposing us to muggers," says Zaina, "but I don't blame the restaurant owners because they are merely complying with the new rules. It's the fault of the mugging government in every respect!"

"The government enforced the no-smoking rules on public establishments and imposed draconian taxes on cigarettes and it might find the whole exercise backfires when someone gets badly hurt and takes legal action -- reversing the whole legal process that started the non-smoking campaign in the first place."

"Already we've read about lots of smoking-related violence -- smokers reacting violently against people trying to stop them lighting up in non-smoking areas, and anti-smokers behaving violently towards smokers smoking in smoking areas," says Zaina. "I don't know how many smokers have been mugged for their cigarettes like we have -- it's not the sort of thing that makes front page news, is it? -- but I predict an increase in this sort of crime when the taxes increase so much that poor people can no longer afford to buy their cigarettes."

"A huge increase in cigarette smuggling to avoid tax is also going on," sighs Zaina. "It's really upsetting to see a pleasurable thing like smoking attracting criminal elements."

"The government is crazy if it thinks that people will just cut down or stop smoking when it becomes too expensive for them to buy cigarettes," sighs Zaina. "We're talking about an addiction here, not a preference for one thing over another like buying a cheap bottle of wine when you can no longer afford French champagne, or a bottle of methylated spirits when you can no longer afford a cheap bottle of wine."

"Most smokers have already been forced by exorbitant taxes to buy cheaper brands of cigarettes, and when the cheapest brand become too expensive to buy the ugly consequences of the anti-smoking campaign are really going to manifest themselves big time."

"The government knows that cigarette smoking is most prevalent among low socio-economic groups," says Zaina. "What plans does it have to prevent theft, violence and slaughter when it raises the taxes on tobacco products to the tipping point?"

"I believe most smokers are honest law-abiding people -- we have accepted the new smoking rules and accommodated to them without stirring up a revolution," says Zaina, "but I do not know whether my partner and I will be able to sit by silently while not only the government bullies us but the poorer smokers, too."

"After our mugging experience we have decided to stay home from now on -- or to restrict our dining out experiences to places where there is a private smoking area," says Zaina. "But now we worry about being mugged at the point of sale -- places where we buy our cigarettes."

"When people get desperate they do desperate things -- and even if tobacco outlets are set up as fortresses the purchasers are exposed to muggers when they leave such establishments."

"Imagine having to look around and see who's watching you every time you buy a pack of cigarettes," sighs Zaina. "It's not a nice way to live and I am angry that the government is creating a criminal environment around the sale and use of a legal product."

"It is almost as if the government is deliberately creating a crime situation by raising taxes so much that poor people have to resort to crime to get their cigarettes (and then it can take the ultimate step to ban smoking altogether)," muses Zaina. "but since it makes such a big deal about tobacco tax being used to fund our schools and hospitals I can't see any logic in that argument."

"If our schools and hospitals are funded by tobacco tax, and everyone who smokes suddenly quits, buys their cigarettes tax-free off smugglers or mugs for them, then what? Where is the money for the schools and hospitals going to come from?"

"No, I don't think the government's ulterior motive in increasing tax on cigarettes is to create such a bad crime situation that it has a good reason to ban smoking -- that would be like cutting off its nose to spite its face," says Zaina. "So, that leaves me with the horrifying realization that the government hasn't a clue."

"It had no idea what Pandora's box it opened when it targeted smokers and put the tax screws on them, but it's going to find out pretty soon," sighs Zaina. "Reminds you of the invasion of Iraq, doesn't it?"

"In the meantime, I can't understand why schools and hospitals can't be funded by regular taxes," sighs Zaina. "If tobacco is so bad, then it's mind-boggling that the government would depend upon it in this way."

"And, if it's not so bad, then it's mind-boggling that the government would tax it to the point where consumers can no longer afford it and have to resort to crime."

smoking scientists discredited

It sounded like a good debate to watch -- Gore's Inconvenient Truth v. Durkin's Global Warming Swindle -- but Lottie was gobsmacked when one of the debating panellists attempted to destroy the life work of an eminent scientist by saying, shock horror, that the man was a smoker and had published a paper debunking second hand smoke.

"Imagine the furore if he had said, instead, that the scientist was a Muslim and had published papers, say,debunking the medical benefits of alcohol," says Lottie. "Since when have scientists been forbidden to be smokers, Muslims or anything they want to be -- and publish papers accordingly?"

"I fully expected the panellists to shred to pieces each other's pro and anti global warming theories," says Lottie, "but I didn't expect a debate between so-called science intellectuals to sink into a personal attack and especially so when the man whose personal habits were being attacked wasn't there to defend himself."

"To their credit, or perhaps not, the other panellists ignored this personal attack and kept strictly to the global warming debate," says Lottie, "and it did not surprise me one bit when I checked this guy out later and discovered he was employed by the government, being paid from taxpayer funds."

"His remark came in the context of a personal interview he once had with the eminent scientist -- oops, the filthy, dirty, nicotine stained, cancer riddled, moronic smoker -- and this guy actually counted the number of cigarettes the scientist had smoked in his presence."

"Hopefully, the scientist had politely asked his guest whether he minded if he smoked -- and naturally the guy would have said, okay, because he was, after all, a guest in the private space of a smoker -- and in this convivial environment the scientist relaxed, talked and smoked. Not twenty cigarettes, not ten but three lousy cigarettes."

"OMG, for the poor guy to have actually counted the cigarettes smoked he must have been incredibly uncomfortable and fearful of dropping dead on the spot from second hand smoke," laughs Lottie. "If so, why didn't he object straight off on the smoking issue or suggest that they go outside?"

"No, he sat there, pretending to be friendly and interested in what the scientist had to say but all he wanted was a reason to discredit the man," sighs Lottie. "What a jerk!"

"Had the scientist slugged three whiskeys, or ate three chocolate eclairs or scratched his backside three times would that have discredited him, too?" asks Lottie. "Probably. That guy was hell bent on finding something not quite kosher about the scientist in order to discredit his anti-global warming stance, and a smoking habit and support for the rights of smokers was it."

"The global warming debate was, of course, inconclusive -- neither side was able to convince the other, or the audience -- but I did pick up some facts about scientific research funding that made me understand not only how global warming came to be such a big issue but also how cigarette smoking got such a bad rap."

"Apparently, because the clique of global gnomes who rule the world behind the scenes have two pet hates -- smokers and rising third world polluters, China being a threat on both counts -- the word went out to the puppet western governments to stamp them out."

"Second hand smoke and global warming were quickly invented for this purpose," says Lottie,"and a mass of funding became available to any researcher willing to give credibility to these invented hazards."

"That's why there is now an avalanche of literature in medical and scientific journals about the hazards of smoking -- and very little about any of the terrible diseases that continue to plague us," sighs Lottie. "Our governments deliberately reduced the funding available for the diseases that the researchers wanted to study, and the only way the medicos and scientists could get around this was by linking whatever they wanted to research with smoking."

"Do a search of PubMed and the number of articles linking the most esoteric diseases to smoking is a joke," says Lottie. "I don't blame the researchers -- because it's clear from their articles what their real passion is -- but it is nevertheless an abominable way for our governments to manipulate researchers."

"Similarly, there is now an avalanche of literature in all types of journals about the hazards of global warming," says Lottie, "and if more scientists appear to support Al Gore it is only because they are the ones getting the big funds to do so."

"The politicizing of science -- like the politicizing of other so-called independent bodies -- is an abomination similar to the crazy religious climate in which Galileo worked and suffered," says Lottie. "An avalanche of government funded research does NOT represent conclusive evidence of anything other than politcal interference."

"While I remain undecided about climate change, I nevertheless applaud the maverick scientists who went out on a limb -- some with threats on their lives believe it or not -- in order to present publicly an opposing theory," says Lottie. "I applaud them not because I smoke -- or because some of them, apparently, have also presented an opposing theory to the hazards of second hand smoke -- but because science would not be science without dissent and scepticism."

"If today's 'politically correct' science community is encouraged to discredit the work of a fellow scientist on the basis of a personal smoking habit," says Lottie, "then what is it going to do about the work, for instance, of Albert Einstein, and how is it going to attract brilliant young minds with attitude?"

"Undoubtedly, after the debate the panellists retired to a lounge where, awash with alcohol and whatever other drug was being used, a convivial atmosphere prevailed," sighs Lottie. "I hope they didn't relax too much because who knows who was COUNTING and storing this information for a future discrediting."