Tuesday 8 April 2014

Breaking News From Australia: It Has Never Been About Health

I'm starting to feel embarrassed for the deluded masses who still believe smoking bans had anything to do with health.

From Australia:
MONASH Mayor Geoff Lake and Health Minister David Davis have faced off in the debate about extending state-wide smoking bans to cover outdoor dining areas. 
Waverley Leader reported that Oakleigh restaurateurs had rejected the idea of a smoking ban in outdoor dining areas, saying it would damage business.
The story behind this particular abuse of authority is that a local Aussie Mayor is rather pissed off that businesses - who pay his wages - have objected to a law which would ban outdoor smoking on their premises, despite their paying the Mayor's council for the privilege. You see, the traders are concerned that their customers will cross the border to less fascist jurisdictions, thus avoiding being denormalised. This won't do, of course, hence our unfriendly tosspot of a Mayor demanding state-wide action.

Mafia eat your heart out.

But the reasoning behind it is justification for this blog which I could quite simply not afford to buy.
Monash Council has been campaigning to get the State Government to introduce a Victoria-wide ban on smoking in alfresco dining areas. Cr Stephen Dimopoulos told Waverley Leader in June he had been contacted by seven or eight families in recent months who wanted smoking in outdoor dining areas banned.
And why is it that these seven or eight decide they have the right to dictate to everyone else? Well, the linked article doesn't say. It just mentions that they don't like it. How's that for evidence-based policy, huh?

Commenters to the original piece are very clear though.
Readers have again joined the debate online, overwhelmingly responding to the restaurateurs concerns by saying that smoking bothered them.
It "bothered them". That's it.

So it really isn't about protecting bar staff then? It's only been about a bother? For businesses that it is very easy to avoid if you don't want to be 'bothered'?

And that is enough these days for an ignorant public to dictate to people who have invested their entire life into their businesses?

There is no 'science' or 'evidence' because this Mayor doesn't bother to quote any. Perhaps because even tobacco control gave up on trying to 'prove' second hand smoke outdoors is dangerous a long time ago for the obvious reason that only the most stupid would believe it.

Remember all that agonising back in 2006? You know, the delicate balance between mythical harm to others and free markets, liberties, property rights and all that jazz? It's all a distant memory now, isn't it. These days the effete amongst us are finally admitting it wasn't about health and openly demanding laws to punish something they find a trifle inconvenient.

Smoking bans have never, ever, been about health. They have, however, been a brilliant avenue for driving sympathetic prohibitionist thinking towards bans on alcohol, sugar, fast food, fizzy drinks and many other popular staples which happen to offend pompous middle class superiority complexes.

In the case of e-cigs, of course, it doesn't even matter if the smell isn't there either. Just something that looks like smoke and a self-absorbed anti-social moron is enough. Liberties be damned!

The world on a stick and a unicorn for Christmas now apparently require urgent action and aggressive pursuance by idiot politicians.

H/T Angry Exile


7 comments:

theprog said...

What a sour-faced pair of twats (kids look fairly happy after their sugar fix)

Junican said...

I love it! I never go near these uncouth places! Ban, ban, ban! Ban males wearing tee-shirts and females wearing shorts. They're disgusting! They must obviously stink if they have to wear such skimpy clothes. Also, the presence of babies promote sexual activity. Are those alcoholic beverages on the tables? How dare they! Disgusting, stinking, filthy!!!
Any bans in Australia are none of my concern. Sod 'em.

What the... said...

Interesting about this article, DP, is that comments questioning the antismoking rhetoric have been allowed. That’s a shock. While the heraldsun is more than happy to publish comments like “those awful addicts”, “dirty, filthy, disgusting”, “secondhand smoke harms everyone”, "smokers are a cost burden to society", etc., any comment remotely connoting a negative attitude to antismoking, for explained reasons, is typically censored. I’ve had the experience in the past of having most comments to heraldsun articles censored unless they are heavily edited which then loses the intended meaning. So it’s a pleasant surprise that certain comments questioning antismoking have actually made it through.

nisakiman said...

Which rather makes one wonder how many didn't make it past the mods.

harleyrider1778 said...

Britain’s efforts to reduce smoking are becoming a cash cow for big tobacco

Pharma ploughs the furrow

These developments were inevitably of great interest to the pharmaceutical industry, which, as Ben Goldacre reminds us, “penetrates British academia and medicine to its absolute core”. NRT is big business and smoking cessation services have turned government into a lucrative customer: the funding increase lauded in Beyond Smoking Kills includes massive payments (over £60m in 2012) to pharma companies for prescriptions.

From a commercial perspective though, the cessation market is flawed. Consumers only use the product for a limited period and the whole point is to speed the moment when they stop using it. This flies in the face of three decades of business research which has emphasised the profitability of customer retention and relationship marketing, and spawned countless loyalty schemes – from club-cards to air-miles. For pharmaceuticals this translates into chronic use. Statins – taken by increasing numbers of healthy over fifties for ever60367-5/fulltext) – are the gold standard.

https://theconversation.com/britains-efforts-to-reduce-smoking-are-becoming-a-cash-cow-for-big-tobacco-25334

harleyrider1778 said...

Profit from Smuggling Cigarettes in the United States

in Business Security...

According to figures released by an official with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a cigarette smuggler can make up to $500,000 from from smuggling cigarettes between states on the East Coast.

The smuggler legitimately buys 200 cases of cigarettes in southern states such as North Carolina or South Carolina. Then, the smuggler would then drive up the coast to New York City, where the tax on tobacco is $4.35.

56.9 percent of the cigarettes smoked in NYC in 2012 were smuggled though the black market.

(See more profits from illegal jobs.)

Source: Mark Niquette and Esme E. Deprez, “Cigarette Smuggling Prompts Crackdown by States Losing Billions,” Bloomberg Businessweek, March 24, 2014.

Additional criminal justice information:
1. Percentage of Smuggled Cigarettes in NYC
2. Cigarette Smuggling in Boston
3. Lost Tax Revenue due to Cigarette Smuggling in Australia

Tagged as: Cigarette Smuggling, Crime in the United States
http://www.havocscope.com/profit-from-smuggling-cigarettes-in-the-united-states/

Sunex Amures said...

Wow - that John guy in the comments section of the HeraldSun is impressive. He really blasts the antis mercilessly! Did me good to read his posts.