Friday 11 April 2008

FOR THE KIDDIES...REALLY?


Although our Canadian media have reported plenty about another phase of anti-smoking to be enacted shortly in Quebec and Ontario, we have chosen to present this article from a UK reporter because we found that it brilliantly exposed every side of the perverse and hypocritical legislation of hiding or taking tobacco products down from the shelves.

Oh yes, it appears that in UK also, our kiddies must be protected from the site of the ‘’evil’’ nicotine, and be replaced by the ‘’good’’ nicotine from the pharmaceutical industry.

The anti-smoking movement is a financial and political war between two filthy rich industries with the smoking citizen caught in the middle and business people caught in the crossfire.


Indeed, the tobacco and the pharmaceutical industries battle over who will market the nicotine substance praised for its many qualities. It appears that the pharmaceutical industry is winning for the time being. Of course they have to continuously use their best arsenal: the kiddies.

Let’s not forget Pr Molimard’s exposé, pointing out how inexpensive nicotine is and how exorbitant profits can be made by those who market it. He pinned it down to a science, when he explained to us how the pharmaceutical interests wanted to profit from the momentum the substitution of heroin by methadone had on heroin addicts, by introducing nicotine replacement therapy to ‘’cure’’ smokers from their dependency. Except, as he explains, you can’t cure someone from his dependency by giving him his own ‘’drug’’ of choice. He went on opining that nicotine without tobacco does not procure the satisfaction the smoker craves for and this is why nicotine replacement therapy has very low success rates. He continues by pointing out that this is the reason smoking has dropped dramatically in Sweden after they introduced the SNUS. SNUS is a form of chewing tobacco and therefore gives the tobacco user what he’s looking for.

Yet, the legal drug pushers continue peddling their nicotine replacement treatments to the point that they are making themselves at home in private businesses by kicking out the tobacco products to replace them with theirs. At least this is in part what we conclude from the following article:

Pssst! Wanna buy 20 Capstan Full Strength?

Goodness knows what Arkwright in Open All Hours would have made of it. You can just imagine Ronnie Barker's stammering shopkeeper spluttering to his hapless assistant Granville: "W-W-What? S- s-sell cigarettes under the c-c-counter?"

But that's exactly what the Government is proposing in its latest assault on smokers.

Dawn Primarolo, Smokefinder General in Labour's monstrous regiment of meddling madwomen, wants all tobacco products taken off display and more prominence given to tobacco replacements such as nicotine patches and chewing gum.

She also plans to remove vending machines from pubs and restaurants.

"It's vital that we get across the message to children that smoking is bad. If that means removing cigarettes from behind the counter, I'm willing to do that."

That's big of you, pet. "Children who smoke are putting their lives at risk and are more likely to die of cancer than people who start smoking later."

Have you noticed how often the health fascists couch their argument in the language of caring?
Thus, if you dare to object, you are automatically accused of being in favour of children dying lingering deaths from lung cancer.

There can't be a single schoolchild in Britain who isn't aware of the dangers of smoking. They have it bludgeoned into them almost from the moment they leave the womb.

One of the biggest single factors in people giving up smoking is the constant nagging from their own children, who have just come home from school after spending the afternoon staring at pictures of diseased lungs and sclerotic arteries.

Not to mention lessons in the horrors of "passive smoking" which, as any fule kno, murders millions of unborn bay-bees every year.

Just in case there are any youngsters out there who still think cigarettes are safe, there's a handy reminder that "SMOKING KILLS" plastered across the front of every packet.

The public smoking ban introduced last year has spawned a whole industry of cessation officers and propagandists.

There's not a wall in any school, shop, factory or office without a statutory "NO SMOKING" sign on it. The anti-smoking nazi who visited my sister-in-law's place of work in Norfolk even insisted on putting one inside a store cupboard, on the grounds that otherwise someone might slip in there for a quick drag.

Even though only around one in five people still smokes, the figures aren't falling fast enough for the health fascists.

These people never stop dreaming up new ways to bully and inconvenience the rest of us. So small shopkeepers will have to behave like purveyors of hardcore pornography when it comes to selling cigarettes.

"Hello, George, I've got that College Girls Go Wild video you ordered. Psst, fancy 20 Silk Cut while you're at it? Or would you like something a little harder, know what I mean?

"I've got some Capstan Full Strength down here somewhere."

I can't see for the life of me why a perfectly legal product can't be sold on open display to consenting adults. The Government hasn't got the courage to ban smoking altogether.

Gordon likes the tax too much. So the battle goes on incrementally.

If they get away with forcing through the furtive sale of Woodbines, where will it end?
There's already an entire branch of government devoted to the eradication of junk food. On that basis, Curly Wurlies, crisps and fizzy drinks will be joining cigarettes under the counter. Booze won't be far behind, either.

McDonald's will have to clean up its act, too. First, it'll have to stop putting pictures of Big Macs in the window, then the sale of burgers and fries to anyone under 21 will be prohibited altogether.

Ministers may not be able to ban Top Gear magazine outright, but I wouldn't put it past someone like Primarolo to insist that it's sold in a plain brown wrapper to appease the polar bear huggers.

And take those magazines aimed at children, which are said to encourage binge drinking and underage sex. They'll have to go.

As for the old-fashioned Open All Hours corner shop, once the sweets and cigarettes and unsuitable comics are swept under the counter, the only thing Arkwright will have left on display will be a couple of packets of Nicorette and a dog-eared copy of Asian Babes on the top shelf.

Curious, too, that the tougher they get on tobacco, the softer they are on drugs. Only yesterday, figures were released which show that the number of cannabis dealers sent to prison is at an all-time low. Fewer than one in four is given a custodial sentence since dope was downgraded.

Next thing you know council officials will be mounting dawn raids on newsagents and tobacconists, accompanied by armed police in riot gear.

Maybe that should be Dawn Raids.

How long before the jails are full of shopkeepers convicted of putting cigarettes on open sale while the local pusher walks free?

G-G-Graaanville!

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