Legislating against a sense of belonging
So smokers are about to be inundated with lovely images of people with smoke issuing from holes in their throats, emaciated bodies and babies in incubators? [Incidentally, I agree with the baby in the incubator one – no baby should smoke in an incubator – too much oxygen].
The fact that all these images are Photoshopped irrelevancies is beside the point. We all know smokers, and none of ‘em have half their face missing or bulbous growths anywhere.
There were a couple of things that interested me in the article.
The first is that the move is to counter the tobacco industry’s “marketing tactics” and that the tobacco industry was targeting young women through “innovative” packaging and “slimline” cigarettes which were used to “glamorise” smoking.
How exactly are they doing this?
Advertising has been banned for many years. The only time you will see a cigarette in print is in one of these incessant press releases. You can’t even see cigarettes in the shops as they are all hidden behind ugly great doors. The only time you will ever see a cigarette packet in this country is after it has already been purchased, so how in the name of God is the tobacco industry targeting anyone?
The point that really caught my eye though was their contention that “27 per cent of women smoke but a much higher rate is seen among women aged 18 to 29 in deprived social class groups”.
Now these women know the risks. They have been bombarded over the years with petty laws and restrictions which have obviously failed in persuading them to quit. They are not going to be dissuaded by lurid pictures of imaginary “victims”. Of course there is the point that those in “deprived social class groups” are more than likely buying their supplies from Man with a Van because of the penal prices on smoking in this country, and are therefore unlikely to see the images anyway? But the main point is that if they have not quit by now, they aren’t going to quit because of images.
But then we come to the kicker.
“[the report] recommended community-based cessation programmes to overcome the reality that smoking is a “cultural norm” in many communities, providing a sense of “solidarity and belonging”.”
So here we have something that provides a sense of solidarity and belonging?
We can’t have that now, can we?
They tried that here. I think the courts knocked it back.
Pointless. Irritating. Futile. Whether it's smoking, eating or drinking, why cannot they just leave us alone?
http://www.thefind.com/gifts/info-cigarette-purse
Sorted!
🙂
Now somebody should create a nifty cigarette case that ugly pack can slip into.
Mick & Pat – A company in Australia has started selling stickers on-line to cover cigarette packs. Box Wraps. Needless to say The Righteous are furious and are trying to find a way to shut the company down!
Anyone with a little bit of common fucking sense and a little less of a self pursuing agenda would realise (as I'm sure most of us here would) that just like all other commodities in life; moderation is the key.
I eat a normal sized meal three times a day; I have a few drinks on occasion; and I smoke on average about fifteen ciggies a day.
Enough said.
I know you are a free thinking adult, but do you really know what is best for you? The Righteous really do know what's better for you, you know, and you must obey.
Of course they don't mind you buying them, paying the excise duty etc, just don't smoke them when you get them. Same with the car, pay all the road taxes, insurances, excise duties, licences and then leave it parked up
Don't forget to leave the engine running or the poor dears won't collect the tax on fuel.
"We all know smokers, and none of ‘em have half their face missing or bulbous growths anywhere."
And that is where the zealots will finally fall flat on their faces. There will come a point where people (even the brainwashed ones) will take a step back, and say "Hold on a mo. This doesn't really hold true in my experience."
Really, apart from what I suspect are TCI shills writing fabricated comments about 'how-dad-died of-LC-and-auntie-Flo-died-of-emphysema-and-uncle-Bill-had-a-heart-attack-and-I-had-to-watch-them-die-horrible-deaths-and-it-was-all-because- they-smoked-the-filthy-stinking-bastards' in the comments sections of MSM articles on the subject, there is little evidence before our eyes to back up the lies of TCI.
I have never known, and as far as I know, my friends and acquaintances have never know anybody who has died because they smoked. I'm sure there must be some out there, as smoking is not without risk, but my gut feeling, based on personal experience, is that the exaggerations of the dangers are quite staggering.
I suspect you are right.
I stopped smoking pipe about 10 years because of my job .But its always being my intention to invest new pipe and die happy, how long more can they confuse facts with opinions .
If you fancy the idea of going back to the pipe then what right has anyone got to tell you not to? This is supposed to be a free world [hah!] and we are supposed to be adults who can make our own decisions. No one should claim any right to force us to follow their particular religion.
“27 per cent of women smoke but a much higher rate is seen among women aged 18 to 29 in deprived social class groups”.
I can confirm that this is total bullshit GD. A good few of the girls I hang out with smoke and them slappers is like totally posh birds like myself. 🙂 The only thing they're deprived of is some battery operated devices/an animal in the sack..
They obviously didn't interview you then?
Today's [Friday's] IT sheds some further light on that –
"The report stated that 27 per cent of women smoked, but the rate rose to 56 per cent among women aged 18-29 in disadvantaged communities."
So apparently their bans on advertising, packs of ten, shop displays and the ban on indoor smoking is having a huge effect then? 😉
Of course their figures are a pile of horse-shit. They always are.
I guess it's a kind of oblique suggestion that if you smoke, then you're portraying yourself as uneducated and poor, and you don't want to do that. So don't smoke and all of a sudden if you're like deprived you will no longer be… badabing.
I would say it is far from oblique. It';s just another cynical attempt to stigmatise smokers. If you smoke you are "lower class".
I started smoking late in life…at an ancient age of 19 (around 1978). I finally gave myself a Christmas present and quite in December of 2005. My doctor at that time badgered me constantly to quit smoking, had me taking all sorts of tests that "proved" I had COPD due to smoking. Six months after I quit and with a new doctor (I kicked the old one out the window) I had her redo the same tests. Guess what? No problems whatsoever. After the better part of 3 decades worth of smoking all of a sudden all effects of filling my lungs with nicotine and tar laden smoke simply disappeared? Go figure.
Okay, I'm not stupid. Dragging smoke into your lungs for a couple of decades or so does not do them any good. Any bonehead can figure that out. Then again, heading out for an afternoon putt on my Harley without a helmet increases my chances of buying a fatal head injury if some cage driving moron knocks me off my sled while I'm still in town. And spending 5 years poking holes in the ocean in a nuclear powered submarine certainly didn't do my health any good (no, it was not from radiation). The point is, it was my choice.
Pipes and cigars I couldn't care about and the government should leave them alone as far as I'm concerned. When it comes to cigarettes though, all they have to do is keep raising the price and people will eventually quit and it certainly won't do them any harm to do so. Personally and ironically enough, I hated the way a cigarette smoker smelled even when I was smoking although I was a light smoker. I constantly washed my cloths (and myself) to keep the smell down. But have even a moderate smoker walk by me now and it's like someone sticking a full ash tray under my face.
Your point about the adverting and vivid images on cigarette packs is well taken. Completely irrelevant for the current times. About two decades late at least if you ask me.
A couple of points I would like to make – the first is that I do not and never have advocated smoking. What I do advocate is freedom of choice so that those who do enjoy a puff or two are left alone to do so. Smoking isn't for everyone. Like most other substances some people have a greater tolerance than others so alcohol [for example] may provide a lifetime's pleasure for one, but a life of alcoholic misery for another. My second point is that I hate cigarettes! I hate the mess and the smell that they leave behind. Having said that, I will still fight for the right of cigarette smokers to be free to smoke 'em. My intolerance is my problem and not society's.
I have a problem with the concept of raising prices to combat smoking. The problem lies in the "slippery slope". Once they start that form of social engineering then where do they stop? They are already talking about hiking the price of drink, fat and sugars to "solve" problems that are mainly imaginary. Apart from that, I firmly believe that government has no right whatsoever to interfere in normal business transactions, provided that the produce is legal.
Oh, I agree with everything you said and I already knew you didn't advocate smoking of any kind (except maybe the "medicinal" sort now and then?). I also believe in the freedom of choice but I think you already know this. I was merely relating my personal experiences.
Sure, it's a slippery slope but so is everything that involves control by any government (town, city, state, nation). You have to know where, when and to what to apply it to and where, when and what not to apply it to (something like that anyway). Some governments are good at this, others are not and the rest of us are always waiting to find out which one it is.
The only way to avoid the slippery slope is not to enter it in the first place!