Is Tobacco Control The Latest Form of Witch-hunting?

A question was asked on the TV programme ‘Tipping Point’ this afternoon. It was something like ‘What event happened in Pendle in Lancashire in 1500 (?) which resulted in the execution of X women?’ The answer was ‘witch-hunt’, or something similar. I hear these things only incidentally, although I must admit that ‘Tipping Point’ is easy watching.

I believe that anti-smoking Zealotry is a modern day form of witch-hunting. Tobacco companies are still the major witches, inflicting death and disease via fumes, but Tobcoms have moved the goalposts. They have adopted ‘smokefree’! What a giggle! No wonder that TobCON is becoming hysterical. Their main plank has been hijacked by their arch enemy! What a stroke of genius! Here is Dr Michael Siegal on an invitation to join, as an advisor, Philip Morris International (PMI)’s initiative for ‘a smokefree world:

“Unfortunately, I will not be able to consult or play any advisory role on this project. Since Philip Morris International (PMI) continues to aggressively market cigarettes internationally and to aggressively fight public health efforts to reduce tobacco use, this is just not a project that I can participate in as a public health practitioner. PMI cannot be sincere in its intention to establish a smoke-free world when it continues to aggressively lobby against public health efforts to reduce tobacco use.”

He refuses to be involved because he hates Big T. He may love ecigs, but he still hates with all his might, people who invest their cash in Tobcoms. Perhaps it is a small point, but I would not describe myself, if I was Siegal, as a public health practitioner. He is nothing of the sort. He is a talker, and not a ‘practitioner’.

And is that not an enormous problem? All these Zealots are TALKERS. Every one of them. Absolutely none of them work ‘at the coal face’. They can lie and lie, and they are impervious.

The latest crap is the call for a smoking ban in ‘public’ housing in Scotland. What’s so special about ‘public’ housing? I don’t believe for a moment that it was serious. Even the SNP would shy away from antagonising so many of its voters. No,  as Arnott said, the whole point was ‘to send a message’. These people will lie until the cows come home, provided that they get MSM exposure. That is what keeps them in a job.

Further, I think that politicians like that. They too are into MSM exposure. They really, really hate to go unreported. I should imagine that Cromwell et al would have been upset if no one had attended their witch-burning sessions. Thousand used to attend hangings at Tyburn – the football match of the day. The same applied in the French revolution.

Nothing has changed except the perceived spells, and the way in which the head choppings, hangings and burnings are performed. Dare to oppose and antagonise the Zealots, and any such academic will be put to the rack, as happened to Enstrom and Kabat. They were hung, drawn and quartered.

It is hard to see how the ascendancy of ‘academics’ and ‘experts’ can be overcome. When a Gov says that policy must be driven by evidence, it denies its ‘popular consent’. It introduces a third party, which is unaccountable.

Think about Cameron’s introduction of PP. He half-halfheartedly rejected such an idea for a while, and then capitulated. Why did he capitulate? I can only think that it was because policy was being driven by ‘evidence’. Do you see my point? It was not that policy needed evidence, but that the evidence created the policy. Who produced the evidence? Was it ‘The People’? No, it was a few self-elected know-alls. The fact that a person is a ‘professor’ means bugger all when he expresses an opinion. His view is just his opinion, no more important than mine. If he states facts, then his opinion is probably better than mine, but epidemiology is not ‘fact’ – it is situations arising around the same time. Thus, weird nastinesses happened around Pendle (and Salem in the USA) which could only have happened because there were evil spirits around. Where better than a black clothed widow with a black cat, especially if she annoyed her neighbours, and had a broom?

I am beginning to think that we smokers, and our associations (?), should stop taking anything that TC says seriously. Just laugh at them. Ridicule them. Ask them how forcing smokers off hospital grounds will stop the import of diesel fumes through hospital windows. Should not all hospitals be relocated to the open rural areas?

The need for ridicule is paramount. You cannot engage in rational discussion because the Zealots have all the sound-bites. Consider the sound-bite “Smokers Stink”. (Note that that sound-bite also incorporates all those blaggards who say that they have to shower and wash their hair, and wash their clothes when they have been to a pub). You cannot disprove that assertion. The answer is ‘So what? Who does not stink? Do YOU not stink? How do you know that you do not stink?’

So, since we have no power, we must stop taking the situation so seriously. Who in the UK cares about Oz? I mean really cares about the situation in Oz. That is for Australians to sort out, but we will help if we can.

I must admit that I am becoming a bit disheartened by the constant bombardment of ‘bad news’ for smokers all over the world. The fact that almost all of the persecution is based upon falsehoods, and the perpetrators are liars, does not alter the fact that smokers are being persecuted and no politician dares to ‘call it out’.

Anti-smokers is a scandal of ENORMOUS proportions. But what really annoys me is that the proponent of the scandalous disinformation will walk away enriched, via taxes from the poorest segment, without a blemish on their records. But they are unassailable, aren’t they?

I leave that question in the air.