Dick Puddlecote

Rage-Driven Tobacco Control Industry Stupidity Explained In One Tweet

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 22 Feb 2023 18:52:00 +0000

It was once explained to me that there are thousands of students who start off aspiring to be doctors. Those not clever enough to become doctors drift into other public health roles, but those who are not clever enough for that often go into the tobacco control industry.

This was in answer to my querying why I regularly read stuff from tobacco controllers which are too stupid for words. Either they lack basic comprehension of concepts such as behaviour and economics, or advance ideas so puerile that most 14 year olds should be able to see through them. Often I have imagined that some would not even have had the required intellect to be a driver in my transport company.

And today, we have seen a diamond-encrusted example of exactly this type of utter tobacco control stupidity.

In the early hours UK time came this tweet from anti-vaping organisation Quit Victoria, whose Twitter timeline is chock full of ignorant statements and assertions which they must surely know are untrue at the best of times. But on this occasion they have truly excelled themselves.

In answer to Australian academic, Alex Wodak, asking why they rejected the Cochrane Library - the gold standard of evidence reviewers - stating that there is "high level certainty" that vaping is more effective for smoking cessation than NRT, Quit Victoria came up with this absolute stonker of a lie.

Earth-shattering, if true, but of course it wasn't. What's more, they elaborated on their claim by saying that it was "backed up by investigative journalism", no less.

The link they provided to 'prove' this was an article in The Australian at the end of January designed to smear pro-vaping academics of being manipulated by Philip Morris International. BAT was not mentioned in the article and the only reference to Cochrane merely confirmed that what Wodak was referring to was correct.

A review by the widely respected British policy institute Cochrane found rates of quitting smoking were higher when people used vapes and e-cigarettes than when they used nicotine replacement therapies such as patches.

So, we are already in the realms of stunning idiocy, but imagine what kind of thought process went into this tweet. Well, basically none.

Firstly, where did the thought originate? Had the author read something somewhere to make them think this was the case? Perhaps they were confused with something else. Which leads us to ask did the author of the tweet do some basic fact-checking before going public around the world with it? Patently not, because it has no shred of truth about it.

How can someone be employed in such a role when they are unable to perform basic functions like that in a public-facing organisation? I'm afraid it is just the nature of the industry. When you have a never-ending flood of funding at your disposal, any old idiot gets hired so the corpulent budgets can be spent.

I can imagine some in the industry think a professional is someone who play sports for money, accountability is being able to add up, and rigour is someone who works pumping oil.

The motivation for such a moronic action, in case you were wondering, is the irrepressible rage that anti-vapers get when they read convincing and evidence-based arguments about the huge potential benefits of vaping products. For them, this is pure heresy! It must be discredited by any means. If they can't do so by challenging the science (as if tobacco control is bothered by such things) then they will have to lie and lie about it until people disbelieve the claim. Standard tobacco control behaviour.

A Sydney pensioner has already had a pop at Cochrane by saying it assesses the wrong kind of studies, but even his Koi carp don't listen to the old duffer anymore, so a dullard at QuitVic thought they'd have a go in their own vacant style. We saw the same desperate wriggling, by the same people, funnily enough, to try to discredit PHE's claim (repeated annually since 2015) that vaping is at least 95% less harmful than smoking. Thousands of lies later, they have consistently failed with that too, hence the palpable frustration you see with people who know that, as evidence mounts up in favour of vaping, they are losing the war and just cannot stomach it.

Word eventually reached Cochrane about the palaver, and they confirmed what everyone except the dumbasses at QuitVic already knew with an admirably low-key tweet. Considering the disgusting slur they had been subjected to, it exhibited class that the likes of QuitVic will never be able to achieve.

Of course, if QuitVic employed people who possessed even a modicum of intelligence, they could have discovered this themselves as it was announced on Twitter that Cochrane had received a new round of Cancer Research funding on February 10th.

And to add the cherry on top of this monumental tobacco control industry self-own, at time of writing it is approaching 6am in Melbourne. It seems they posted a load of demonstrably defamatory cobblers, allowed themselves a smug grin, turned the computer off and fucked off to watch telly. It is often noted that the tobacco control industry has no regulator. No-one to complain to when they make inaccurate or mendacious statements. No accountability, no-one to censure them when they regularly mislead the public. Now, we see that QuitVic doesn't even have internal oversight of its own.

Soon the author of the tweet and the rest of QuitVic will wake up to a whole host of mentions calling them out as liars and their reputation in tatters.

With any luck the lawyers' letters will soon follow.

When The Comments Section Lets You Down ...

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 29 Nov 2022 00:13:00 +0000

{Taps microphone} Is this thing still on?

Well, well. It appears so. Everything from the inside of this looks very different though, a bit snazzy even. I must admit it looks a hell of an improvement, I'm knocking on the walls in a virtual sense to see how robust they are.

Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned. It's been two years since my last blog submission. I shall submit myself to 12 Hail Mary Poppins and see where posting random thoughts gets me for now.

I've still been writing elsewhere though, and noting the ever-growing - and increasingly wild and hysterical - library of tobacco control lies prevalent across the world. It really is quite astonishing.

Which brings me to why I have dusted off this old thing. Well, it's because I'm old enough to remember when blogs were new and raw. They were also quite consistent, and excelled in beating the mainstream media on standards quite often. One of the early adopters was Irish blogger Slugger O'Toole, but sadly the blog has published a load of arrant tripe this weekend.

An article entitled "Vaping: We're being fooled again" turned up there which is a boilerplate rehash of all the crap that $1bn of Bloomberg cash is intended to promote. Written by a pharmacist from Belfast, it is astonishingly ignorant about the vaping debate. What's more, it is written by someone whose previous blogs rightly ridiculed COVID conspiracy theorists.

"[I]t seems no matter how good a scientist you might be when you become convinced of something and you become committed as a believer that faith is next to impossible to change. Even when the data has been shown to be flawed or fraudulent or simply wrong you retain your original position."

But the Belfast pharmacist is fully taken in by conspiracies about reduced risk nicotine products like e-cigarettes. He has swallowed the Kool-Aid willingly and enthusiastically. Perhaps even, intentionally.

Slugger's about us page states that:

"We believe diversity of opinion is essential to building a reliable view of any single problem, great or small."

Yet my response to the article has not been published despite others since having been. Perhaps it contained too many references to sources which make the author's claims look a bit fanciful, who knows?

It is rather sad that the avalanche of misinformation designed to fool the naive and gullible has reached a naive and gullible Belfast pharmacist, but more so that a formerly decent blog seems happy to censor comments which could better educate its readers that they were being fed information designed for the naive and gullible.

So, for the record, this was the comment that Slugger's blog didn't publish.

Sorry, but this article is nonsense from start to finish. Where to begin!
How about this? "the evidence does not support the claim that e-cigarettes are a tool for stopping smoking". Pretty poor timing really. The Cochrane Library, considered the gold standard of evidence reviews, published an estimate just last week that vaping is twice as effective as NRT for helping smokers to quit:
"There is high-certainty evidence that ECs with nicotine increase quit rates compared to NRT ... We did not detect evidence of serious harm from nicotine EC"
The claim the author of this article makes that vaping products are not a tool for stopping smoking is contested by the Tobacco Control Lead at the Office for Health and Disparities (OHID), Martin Dockrell, who has gone on record saying "the claim that e-cigs can't help smokers quit is now so plainly false that anybody making it not only discredits themselves but, worse still, undermines public confidence in science". Now, I know it's a tough call, but I tend to trust the opinion of a guy who is leading tobacco control at the government's highest public health agency over that of a Belfast pharmacist.
The article also plays up an increase in use of vaping by youths but fails to mention that the linked ASH report states clearly "Of 11-17 year old never smokers ... 0.5% use e-cigarettes more than once a week". The vast majority of under 18s who vape are or were smokers and considering OHID confirmed in September that vaping is at least 95% less harmful than smoking, what is the author's problem?
The article also states "we now know that e-cigarettes are a gateway to tobacco smoking due to their growing popularity among young people" but can the author please point out any jurisdiction where vapes are sold legally where youth smoking is on the rise? The opposite is true, with UK youth smoking declining rapidly as vaping use rises. It's not difficult to understand why considering they are direct substitutes. In the US, more youth vaping has led to a situation where cigarette smoking is so rare amongst youth that the most used product is cigars! Could the author explain the mechanism of how youths supposedly start with a cheap, pleasant tasting product which is orders of magnitude less harmful than combustible tobacco then decide to move on to a massively more expensive and dangerous product which tastes only of burned tobacco leaves? Are there also instances of kids throwing away their mobile phones in favour of using a call box?
Cancer Research UK has repeatedly condemned the prevalence of irresponsible misinformation about vaping and commented on how it is having a detrimental effect of public health. This article is exactly the kind of thing they are so concerned about. And that's the most alarming thing about it ... that it has been written by a pharmacist who should know better. How many customers has he turned away from vaping who have continued to smoke, half of whom will die as a result. Good grief!

There, I got that off my chest.

It's quite comfy in here, maybe I should come back and write more often, eh?

The WHO Doubles Down On Its Incompetence

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Fri, 29 May 2020 17:13:00 +0000

You'd think, wouldn't you, that after the damning political and media criticism the World Health Organisation has rightly been subjected to over fucking up the health of every nation on Earth - with their pitiful and incompetent response to the Coronavirus - that they would have learned a lesson on getting their priorities right.

Well, it seems not. This week, they were celebrating the "defeat" of e-cigarettes in Finland, as if this is in any way a good thing.

Strong legislation helps defeat e-cigarettes in Finland

...

Many countries across the European Region have struggled to contain the rising popularity of these products, and instead have simply seen a transferral of nicotine addiction from tobacco products to e-cigarettes.

Erm, that's the entire point of harm reduction, you dribbling cretins. In fact, it is in your own literature where you state ...

1(d) “tobacco control” means a range of supply, demand and harm reduction strategies that aim to improve the health of a population by eliminating or reducing their consumption of tobacco products and exposure to tobacco smoke;

Harm reduction - in this particular policy area - is exactly about transferring people from smoking to far safer alternatives like, I dunno, e-cigarettes. Do you get the sense that the WHO isn't really interested in improving people's health, after all? Because I sure as shit do.

OK, you may be sceptical about that, so try this instead. It is World No Tobacco Day on Sunday, and the WHO has just issued a call to action. Here is the kind of deliberately misleading garbage they will be pumping out.

Tobacco products kill more than 8 million people every year. Tobacco and related industries must continuously find new consumers to replace the ones that their products are killing to maintain revenue.

"Related industries"? What could they possibly mean by that?

Tobacco and related industries’ tactics to market to children and adolescents include:

Over 15,000 flavours, most of which attract children and adolescents
Sleek, sexy designs

Ah, in other words, vaping products which have killed no-one, let alone 8 million people. And in case you didn't get the clever ~~lie~~ message they are trying to send, they offer 'material' to nail their crooked mendacity to your subconscious with this kind of emotional muppetry. Note the box mod vaping device pencilled into the girl's hand just under the emboldened 8 million figure.

This is the kind of anti-scientific garbage the WHO was hoping to enter into their global policy recommendations that I wrote about in my blog entitled Liars To Convene In The Hague 12 Months Later Than Planned at the end of April. Because there is no other word to describe them except disgusting liars who are wedded to policies which will seriously harm the health of the public all over the world.

Not satisfied with seeing their incompetence towards Coronavirus kill hundreds of thousands, if not eventually millions, across the world - along with the global economy - these utter fuckwits are doubling down and deliberately derailing the biggest driver - worldwide - of declining smoking rates too.

It is no accident and they are not stupid people. No, this is a deliberate; they are simply monstrous and catastrophically irresponsible organised criminals.

As Ecigclick put it recently:

Let’s face it, the WHO has been running a guerilla style war on all things vape for some time.

Its tactics have included sniping from the sidelines with completely fake news and ‘science’ surrounding e-cigarettes, issuing totally made up decrees based on fresh air and billionaire paid for ‘research’, flooding the social and mainstream media with horrific scaremongering based on total BS, and churning out enough anti-vape propaganda to make a dictator of a tin-pot country jealous.

Shocking stuff and yet more proof the World Health Organization is not fit for purpose.

Well, quite.

The WHO isn't a 'health' organisation, it's a Goddamn killing machine.

It's That Man Again!

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 21 May 2020 19:57:00 +0000

So, the menthol tobacco ban - mandated by the EU's Tobacco Products Directive from 2014 - came in this week and many smokers will have been completely unaware of it until Wednesday when they found that their usual smokes are never to be seen again.

However, one thing we did see again was the British tobacco control industry's only supporter amongst retail tobacconists. Not surprising since just about every anti-smoking initiative could have the potential - even if it is not designed, which is arguable - to put corner shops and newsagents out of business.

Meet - once again - John McClurey, an anti-smoking newsagent who has had years to stop selling cigarettes in his shop but seemingly without success.

Shopkeeper John McClurey said: "Retailers have known for years about the new menthol rules so there is no reason why we shouldn't be well prepared."

"We?", John? So you mean you've been selling these things for the past 5 years?

"I'd much rather sell birthday cards for people who are living longer than sympathy cards for people who have died from smoking". Shopkeeper John McClurey, whose own father died from smoking, responding to the ban on menthol cigarettes from today https://t.co/8mRJ9uG3sZ pic.twitter.com/EEaTp5mZyX
— Fresh - Making Smoking History (@FreshSmokeFree) May 20, 2020

You may remember ~~Troy McClure~~ McClurey from previous tobacco control press released material such as "it doesn't cost much money to install tobacco display ban equipment".

During the debate over legislation to end retail displays of cigarettes, I remember seeing lobbying claims from trade bodies claiming that the legislation could cost retailers over £10,000. I’ve just worked out the bill for the curtains I will need to put over my gantry for cigarettes – it comes to only £120.

At the time, it was uncanny that his estimate was exactly the same - to the penny - as a fantasy figure promoted to politicians as fact by the anti-smoking movement.

The Ministry of Health asked anti-smoking organisation ASH (which is hardly a disinterested party) to check on the cost, and it claimed the figure for the gantries was just £120. This figure was sent by health minister Lord Darzi to every member of the House of Lords.

When the supplier, 4 Solutions of Canada, heard about this, it pointed out the individual cost would be approximately £450 — and this did not include any of the installation costs, which would be around £1000. They also pointed out that the costs of the gantries for all the outlets in Britain could be over £30 million. Neither ASH nor the Ministry of Health has corrected the information they have given to the members of the House of Lords in advance of the vote.

That was in 2009 but poor John has still not managed to stop selling the cigarettes that he dislikes so much.

Scroll onto 2016 and John made another return in response to an ASH report with a bold statement:

ASH research shows corner shops don’t need tobacco to be profitable

McClurey was happy to be their patsy on behalf of others in his industry who overwhelmingly disagree with him.

He believes it’s time for change and welcomes the ASH report because it challenges retailers to consider whether tobacco companies and their local reps really have retailers’ interests in mind.

McClurey added:

“The decline in the market, the disappearance of cigarettes behind gantry doors and the shift to plain packaging have made the traditional approach to selling tobacco out-dated. A better alternative for retailers is to reduce stock, shift the gantry and free-up space for products that actually turn a decent profit.”

Well, there's nothing stopping you, John. It's very simple, just stop selling cigarettes. You know what they say about actions being worth much more than words.

Yet here we are, four years later, and John seems to have only just quit selling menthols. And there is a good reason why.

“We have seen from Australia that retailers who price at RRP or below have had no adverse effect on their tobacco sales. This is critically important as the tobacco shopper visits c-stores more regularly than non-smokers and spends almost £1,500 per year more in store. As a customer group, these shoppers are vital to your business and for your continued success, you need to retain these shoppers rather than drive them to rivals.”

So, goodbye menthol cigarettes, but hello again to John McClurey, the most indecisive anti-smoking newsagent in the country. Proudly - and alone - championing the tobacco control industry's efforts to close down his fellow newsagents' businesses without actually setting an example by stopping selling 'unprofitable' products himself.

What a trooper!

++BREAKING++: Liars To Convene In The Hague 12 Months Later Than Planned

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:56:00 +0000

Today saw an announcement from the World Health Organisation that their biennial anti-nicotine shitfest has been postponed by a year.

In light of the COVID-19 global pandemic and its impact on the conduct of international global conferences and travel, the Bureaus elected by COP8 and MOP1, after consulting the host country, have decided that convening the Ninth Session of the Conference of the Parties to the WHO FCTC (COP9) and the Second Session of the Meeting of the Parties to the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products (MOP2), scheduled for November 2020, is no longer possible.

They have been moved back until November 2021 instead.

There is something quite fitting about a real public health emergency leading to postponement of a meeting full of pretend 'public health' tax-spongers who bleat about imaginary threats to the world when people are actually dying in real life instead of on cleverly-created computer models.

The WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control had great plans for COP9 in the Hague. Increasingly irritated by the inconvenient propensity of safer nicotine delivery products, such as e-cigs, to decrease smoking rates all over the world - when loudly-hailed FCTC initiatives like plain packaging had done bugger all - they were all set to spout a load of junk science and lies to try to eliminate their far more successful competition.

If you want an idea of the utter donkey bollocks they were preparing to deliver, you just have to watch this from one of their most prominent officials. I could fisk it all but you might recognise the lies by yourself. There is basically not a single word of truth that slithers out of this WHO maggot's mouth.

Probably the most laughable claim he made was that vaping increases heart attacks. This was filmed at the end of February, by which time the joke study to which he relies on for his 'information' had been retracted due to including heart attacks that occurred before subjects had started vaping. It was widely reported in the popular and medical media, so you would imagine that a top-ranking WHO official might have noticed, but apparently this particular 'expert' was as blind to it as if someone had just told him there was a virus in China.

It's strange that they didn't just hold the thing virtually instead; that seems to be the way of other conferences. But, as has been pointed out on Twitter, that's not how the FCTC works.

They'd never switch to a virtual meeting for the same reason leadership in the US Congress doesn't want virtual votes -- it's a lot easier to twist arms, bully, and watch over people in person.
— Gregory Conley (@GregTHR) April 27, 2020

Indeed. Regular readers will know that the FCTC COP meetings are all held behind closed doors; the public and the press are excluded; deals are done in secret; delegates bullied and gaslighted; countries traded with incentives for repeating falsehoods; and junk science promoted over scientific fact. And that's not to mention the huge influence wielded by pharmaceutical sponsors and funders with conflicts of interests so huge they could swallow planets.

They won't put their conference online because it's not a transparent discussion or open debate, it is deliberately designed to be secret. Despite being funded by taxpayers, they have no wish to let taxpayers see what they are talking about. In 2014 in Moscow, they even turned off the WiFi so that delegates could not communicate with the outside world.

A $40,000 wifi facility was also wasted when tweets dried up on the second day, and Instagram accounts which had been sharing pictures went silent soon after. It seems that the WHO were desperate to ensure nothing escaped to the outside world about what they were discussing.

No, a virtual meeting would never do. They could have put controls in place to exclude people looking in - like they do physically at each COP they organise - and I'm sure they probably discussed it. But, I expect the potential for hacking was too great for them to consider and seeing as they are crap at just about everything else, they decided not to take the risk.

So, farewell then, COP9. We will see you in 2021 and will still be ready to counter your garbage. In fact, it gives us an opportunity. As we have seen recently with various political causes, the public is striking back against elite cabals ... and winning.

The WHO's COP jamborees feature up to 2,000 attendees, but vapers number in the tens of millions, and growing. Arguments are won by people who are infinitely more passionate about causes than their opponents. For the WHO, it's about money, for consumers it is far more personal than that.

We'll be ready for November 2021, slot it in your diary, folks.

WHO Values Lines Of Text Over Saving Lives

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sun, 19 Apr 2020 20:29:00 +0000

So, it seems that the US has decided to stop funding the WHO.

For those of us who have been aware of how unaccountable and out of control they are for quite a while, it's not surprising that they have been found wanting when it comes to the only thing we all would like them to do very well.

Their failure to cope with epidemics is not just restricted to this one, who can ever forget the former incompetent Director General taking tea with Vladimir Putin at an anti-tobacco and vaping conference in Moscow instead of an event in Brussels to address Ebola killing people very quickly in Africa? She attended Moscow but texted her speech to Brussels.

The US has decided to implement a review because the WHO's handling of the Coronavirus has been an absolute disgrace. Being a highly-professional organisation, the WHO has obviously reacted to this by focussing on what really matters to them in these extraordinary times.

Via The Times.

The World Health Organisation has warned governments about engaging with the tobacco industry over the development of coronavirus vaccines.

British American Tobacco, whose cigarette brands include Lucky Stripe and Dunhill, said this month that it had made a significant breakthrough in developing a potential plant-based vaccine candidate for Covid-19.

However, vaccines from Big Tobacco would pose a dilemma for public health officials and governments. Under the WHO’s framework convention on tobacco control, members are restricted in dealing with the industry.

A vaccine to save millions of lives would be a "dilemma" to the WHO? Are you fucking having a laugh?

The global health body said that “partnership with the tobacco industry undermines governments’ credibility in protecting population health as there is ‘a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests’.”

Erm, so an industry producing a vaccine is bad because it goes against "public health policy interests"? This must be the biggest "computer says no" statement of all time.

People are dying, but hey, who cares? The WHO has a bit of text and it simply cannot be disregarded. Apparently.

It's called Article 5.3 and it absolutely doesn't fucking cover this. Not even close!

In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.

Do you see anything in there about refusing a vaccine which could save millions of lives?

It said that countries including Britain that had ratified the framework in 2004 “should take steps to prevent any interference by the tobacco industry . . . The key point for addressing tobacco industry interference is to reject partnerships and non-binding or non-enforceable agreements with the tobacco industry at any times.”

In other words, the WHO would dearly love someone to come up with a vaccine to prevent deaths caused by their catastrophic incompetence, but sadly if it comes from a company they don't like, everyone will have to refuse it. Computer says no.

The London-listed BAT, which generated profits of £9 billion last year, has joined the race to develop a vaccine that involves companies worldwide. Its vaccine is being developed with Kentucky Bio Processing, its American biotechnology subsidiary. It said this month that it was in pre-clinical testing and wanted to form partnerships with government agencies on the non-profit project to help to bring its vaccine to human trials, possibly by next month.

Evil bastards!

David O’Reilly, director of scientific research at BAT, has said that the company has contacted healthcare departments to offer access to its research and planned to contact the WHO.

The government, which has established a vaccine taskforce including industry and academics, is in contact with the tobacco company and other coronavirus vaccine ventures.

If testing “goes well”, through collaborations with government and third-party manufacturers between one and three million doses per week could be manufactured from June, the company said. Clinical studies typically take more than a year.

Dr O’Reilly said that history would take a dim view if the company had not told anybody that it had technology that could be deployed rapidly to help to tackle a pandemic.

Well, quite. I don't know about you, but as someone who would like to go out sometime before next Christmas, actually see flour on supermarket shelves again - maybe even visit a pub - and not see escalating deaths all over the world due to the WHO's stunning stupidity, I really couldn't give a rat's chuff who makes a vaccine. I don't think tens of thousands of bereaved families in the UK or elsewhere will care either.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive Action on Smoking and Health, an anti-smoking charity, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic is a disaster, there have been over 40,000 deaths since it started and rising — but we mustn’t forget that the tobacco epidemic still kills over 22,000 people a day.”

40,000? Try 160,000 and rising.

But besides that, so therefore we should tell BAT to stop working on a cure? Put away your test tubes, guys, close down the labs and your expensive machines, tobacco control has got this. They're putting health warnings on individual cigarettes soon, that'll learn the virus, and no mistake!

Seriously, some of these people should learn to keep their heads down and shut their traps right now. This isn't a fucking game.

Now, it's clear that WHO are puppet masters of people further down the chain, so they kinda have to dance to the WHO's tune. I'm sure they wouldn't be such disgusting people if that burden was taken away from them.

So for the good of humanity, and to help our UK tobacco controllers to not have to act as heartless oafs, it's probably for the best that the UK government stops funding the WHO too.

It might - just might - force them into working out for themselves that an organisation which claims to be a force for good health around the world, should value people staying alive when faced with a deadly virus which kills in days, more than childish ideology and a few sentences of fucking text.

We're All In This Together ... Except For Some

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 19:21:00 +0000

This week, the Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock, asked for further help from industry to develop testing for the Coronavirus outbreak. He namechecked a few Titans of industry in his daily briefing which had already downed their usual tools and decided that their talents, and financial clout, could be useful to society in saving lives.

The week before, Hancock had acknowledged the already admirable efforts that the private sector had put in to redirect their ample resources towards tackling the virus, saying:

Many companies are already working urgently to assist us in this and I'm delighted that so many more are looking to step up to this challenge.

It's all hands to the pump and we are all together on this, aren't we? It is so refreshing to see; everyone pulling together in a common cause against a common enemy.

Well, not quite everyone, unfortunately.

On the same day that Hancock said he was "delighted" at the efforts being made, there was one subset of our society which was still excluding themselves from this campaign of working together. You see, British American Tobacco (BAT) had issued a press release - on the very same day - announcing that they were working hard on producing a vaccine. You can read it here.

You would think, wouldn't you, that those in tobacco control would meet to discuss this and decide that now isn't the time to broadcast their childish and insular prejudices to the world. But, I dunno, maybe because communication lines are difficult working for home (I'm being generous) that didn't happen.

Instead, there was a wail of collective outrage from the tobacco control industry, the most vomit-inducing from Wanda de Kanter, a particularly nasty anti-smoking lunatic from The Netherlands.

Yep, in a global emergency, companies she doesn't like should be told to "stop" using their huge resources in an effort to save lives. This, from someone who would call herself part of 'public health'. Note she is not saying that she, particularly, would refuse anything provided by the 'wrong' company if she was on death's door - which is her choice - but that other people who are dying should be prevented from accessing the equipment and that work on a vaccine should cease because she says so.

Considering over 100,000 human beings have died so far, this evil attitude truly beggars belief!

The reference to ventilators is a reaction to a different story broken by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism - an organisation which claims to be the pinnacle of truth in reporting, but currently writes articles to order funded by Michael Bloomberg's puppet, Vital Strategies - about 50 ventilators donated by Philip Morris in Greece.

No-one would have known this story if it wasn't highlighted by the grubby guns for hire of the journalism trade but, sadly, someone far less of a lunatic - and who should know better - chose to chivvy them along by offering this disappointing comment.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health, criticised PMI’s motives. “This is a shameful publicity stunt by Philip Morris International, which owns Papastratos and has a 40% share of the Greek tobacco market,” she said.

“Smoking makes people more vulnerable to coronavirus, and if they get it makes the symptoms worse, meaning they’re more likely to need ventilators. Papastratos makes €1.3bn a year ... In comparison, the donation of 50 ventilators is a drop in the ocean.”

The fact that Papastratos - an affiliate of Philip Morris - had not courted any publicity whatsoever until the Bureau of Incompetent Journalism blundered in, seems lost on some, obviously.

As if that is not bad enough on its own, shall we test this assertion that "smoking makes people more vulnerable to coronavirus"?

Because, you see, it's not true.

Smokers are conspicuously under-represented amongst cases in both China and the USA. An evidence review published three weeks ago found no association between smoking and the severity of COVID-19. Yet every tobacco control organisation - including Public Health England - in the UK has been spewing this fake news from their social media channels for a couple of weeks now.

So, one could argue that the only people using this virus as a publicity stunt are tobacco controllers themselves. Pretty shameful, huh?

In fact, it's worse than that. While we are all working together to defeat the virus, the tobacco control machine is actively trying to nobble any efforts to join with the noble cause as Hancock has been suggesting.

Another Bloomberg-funded sock puppet made a desperate plea a few days ago for governments to refuse help from not only tobacco companies but vaping ones too. Repeating the lies about smoking and vaping leading to increased risks from the virus, they urged governments to "encourage citizens to quit outright and to hold the tobacco industry accountable for the harm caused by its products, including harm related to COVID-19".

Now, I've always had quite a distaste for extremists in tobacco control. They are devoid of empathy, they pervert scientific principles, treat ethics as if they were an inconvenience and are incredibly venal and selfish.

But, I honestly never believed they could be so monumentally crass as to put their own funding and personal dislikes over and above the greater cause of helping as many people to live as possible.

Maybe I'm being unfair and - just as happened when the WHO installed the butcher of Zimbabwe as a goodwill ambassador, remember that? - there are many others in the tobacco control industry who are disgusted by such a cold, heartless and inhumane reaction to companies trying to help lessen the number of people dying during this real public health emergency, but if so they are extremely quiet about it.

If, at some point, BAT did create a vaccine for the virus, I do hope the massed ranks of selfish and blinkered tobacco controllers who find the manufacturer distasteful will refuse to take it. They would be astonishing hypocrites otherwise, and by declining they would leave more supplies for those in the public who value life above stupid and childish ideology.

You may have read often on these pages that I don't believe certain sections of pretend 'public health' actually care about health at all. Well, I think this is case closed, don't you?

Let's Unleash More Public Sector Resources!

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 21:33:00 +0000

We are living in extraordinary times, as bad as I can ever remember. I thought that Diana dying in 1997 would be the biggest news story in my lifetime but then it was eclipsed by 9/11. There are some stories that literally take over the entire news agenda so that everything else is rendered irrelevant.

The Corinavirus story, though, has hijacked news outlets in every country around the globe, there is literally no other game in town.

But I have been massively encouraged that so many are turning their talents to assisting the cause. My own transport company has been assisting vulnerable people and our staff are classified as "critical workers". We have been put on notice that our vehicles and staff could be redirected at any time to provide other services. We are well prepared for that and our employees are champing at the bit to do so, many have already volunteered as a result of the government's call for people to help the NHS in their spare time.

It's also fantastic to see other private sector organisation stepping up to the plate. Dyson has responded to the government's call by making much-needed ventilators, along with MacLaren, JCB, Ford, Land Rover, BAE and others. Today we see that Mercedes has worked in conjunction with UCL to produce ventilators in a stunningly short space of time.

BrewDog and the Scotch Whisky Association have retooled and are producing hand sanitisers, as are AB inBev and others in the drinks industry.

Corinavirus testing centres are opening up with the BBC reporting that private sector theme park Chessington World of Adventures has given its huge car park up for the purpose, and employees of Boots have been retrained to administer swabs for invited key workers from the NHS and other key health trades. Virgin and EasyJet are also now providing workers for the new incredibly impressive Nightingale Hospital in East London.

This is absolutely magnificent, doesn't it make you proud to be British?

But we could do more.

As many have pointed out, the public sector is largely insulated from the national carnage and it would seem that they might be under-employed. The Police, shorn of anyone on the streets to arrest due to the lockdown, seem to be making the most of their new totalitarian powers and filling their time making up laws that don't exist.

They don't seem to have any pressure to furlough their staff like private businesses have to when demand is down, so have instead resorted to castigating people walking on remote hillsides, ticketing shop owners for chalking 2 metre guidelines on the the pavement to help customers social distance, and criticising shops for selling Easter Eggs.

With officers apparently having little to do, why not redirect their efforts to driving delivery vans for supermarkets instead?

Likewise state-funded nanny state activists. Many have grants which mean their salaries are protected for a considerable time. Nagging about fizzy drinks, bacon, vaping, and the odd alcoholic drink are pretty pointless considering now we are faced with something that is actually killing people. Right now!

Telling people to scrutinise bread because it has sugar in it is not really a skill we need at the moment, especially since people would mostly like to just get a loaf for their family rather than fanny around wondering about how it is made. Who cares about the sugar content of baked beans when you've not seen any on shelves for a fortnight and someone tells you that there might be a few in a corner shop two miles away?

So why not use these 'public health' workers by re-deploying them to perform proper public health work? Granted, a lifestyle nanny will have zero transferable skills which enable them to be put on the front line, but hospitals need cleaners, people to fill out forms, to serve meals and other gopherism which they could do without costing the country a penny more.

People are dying every day, and ordinary citizens are volunteering to help with counteracting that. Some huge businesses are converting their entire operations towards health products rather than retail ones.

Getting productive jobs for lifestyle commissars so they contribute to the common cause on their hefty salaries is a great restructuring of resources, and would mirror the immense efforts being donated from the private sector.

Remember "Dig for Victory" in the second world war to get regular people to lay down their highly paid jobs and work on farms to help feed people? Well how about "Grab your mop and bucket and clean for the nation" as a mantra for those whose career is an overhead and far less important than what they could instead be doing to support the NHS?

Professional nags are a luxury at the best of times but when we are facing a crisis of this magnitude they are simply not a good use of taxpayer funds. By their own parlance, this would also be helping them, just as they say they 'help' the public by making alcohol more expensive, complaining about Easter Egg adverts or banning ads for Burger King on the London Underground.

It must be depressing for those whose normal lives, absent this crisis, entail lobbying the government for policies when government has absolutely no interest in their ideas right now. By giving them a tabard, some bleach and a mobile cleaning station, we could free up their potential and make them more productive, and happy that they are doing their bit for the country. It's for their own good.

They would most definitely thank us, I reckon, so to borrow a phrase, let's get this done. Because as the government says, we are all in this together. Aren't we?

Humanity Is No Longer A Priority For the NHS

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 26 Dec 2019 20:00:00 +0000

If you wanted evidence that humanity has departed from the NHS in favour of elitist zealotry and pointless ignorant bullying, you couldn't find a better example than this.

Smoking to be banned on all hospital grounds from next April

Next year’s NHS contract with hospitals will say no-one should be allowed to smoke in any areas such as car parks.

Car parks. You know, where cars spew out deadly exhaust fumes that can kill in minutes in the wrong circumstances. Remember when it was about the vague 'perils' of secondhand smoke ... in enclosed places? Those days are long gone.

Health ministers have said no-one should have to “walk past a cloud of smoke in order to enter or leave their local hospital”.

A laudable aim, no doubt, if you are setting policy to encourage self-indulgent, snobby and bossy people who have orgasms over interfering in the lives of others for no reason but to inflate their own pathetic egos, but of no benefit to public health whatsoever. Smokers are not going to quit because of bullying like this, if anything it will strengthen their resistance and create mistrust of the medical community.

As anyone who has ever visited a hospital will know, the reason these daft rules are ignored - not just by the public but by staff too - is because not only are they are evil, daft, counterproductive and unnecessary in equal measure, but also the vast majority of people recognise that hospitals are stressful places and there is no will from decent people to poke their nose in and finger-wag some poor sod who may have just lost a relative. Are they really saying here that the answer to someone having a cigarette to soothe their grief is to run over and slap them with a penalty charge notice? Fuck me, what hideous mind came up with that plan?

The slug-like justification above is purely because "walking past a cloud of smoke" is one of the most-used reasons for rancid people on newspaper comments sections - who self-select by gravitating towards articles which get their teeth gnashing - to justify their personal wish for the world to revolve around them. We all know their problem is not actually having to breathe smoke in doorways anyway, it's the existence of people doing something they don’t like. There is no evidence whatsoever that these people are suffering harm. Banning smoking in car parks on this basis makes about as much sense as passing a law to fine people who stop in shop doorways ... which is my personal bugbear.

So it seems that NHS policy is now going to turn its guns against people in stressful situations, despite the real harm and distress it might cause, in order to satisfy some of the most intolerant and hideous people in society.

And it's worse because there is a very simple answer to all this if only the NHS and health professionals could drop their bullying and actually be interested in improving lives. Want to banish people smoking by hospital entrances? Simple, build a smoking shelter away from the entrance, it's not rocket science.

It doesn't even need to cost anything. The government claims it is fully in favour of e-cigarettes as a way to quit smoking, so festoon it with ads for vaping products and get e-cig manufacturers and retailers to pay for it to be built and its upkeep, they would be glad to do so. Put adverts for Samaritans in there too and they could be offering a service to the grieving at the same time. You'd expect highly-paid professionals who work in an industry which is supposedly compassionate to come up with ideas like this, wouldn't you?

But, no, NHS offices are now filled with ideological bullies who would rather slap fines on people at their most vulnerable, pander to vile prodnoses, and ignore innovation which could actually help people switch to safer products which are backed by their own Tobacco Control Plan!

So, we are now in a situation where institutions like Grimsby hospital - which unveiled a sensible and forward-looking policy in October this year - will be forced to tear their newly-installed shelter down in favour of adherence to deliberate stigmatisation based on nothing but knuckle-dragging intolerance. So stupid.

Hospital bosses unveil plan to help patients and visitors give up cigarettes - a smoking shelter near the entrance

“Peter Reading, Chief Executive at the Trust, said: “We have thought about this long and hard. [...] We need to ... help everyone to get the support they need to help them quit. We’ll be putting information about this support into the shelter, which is supported by the local public health team in North East Lincolnshire, and giving the users details of who they can contact to get help.”

Not that there is any adherence to government advice with this new NHS policy either, because they're not ruling out fining vapers too at some point in the future (emphasis mine).

Supplementary documents say the rule would “not apply at this stage to e-cigarettes” Health Service Journal reported.

The health service and the NGOs, admin staff and assorted hangers-on appear to have completely forgotten what their role in society is supposed to be. They are paid by our taxes to provide a service which fits in with how people choose to live their lives, not to dictate their personal prejudices on us and impoverish or criminalise people who pay their wages for no reason except their own bigotry. They are the cart, not the fucking horse.

I speak from experience having just over a week ago been placed into the nicest room in the hospital - the relatives room where they sit you down, offer you tea and coffee till you're overflowing, and tell you your loved one is dead. I don't smoke anymore but you just know if someone sparked up there the most pressing problem - for the NHS - would be that you lit a fag rather than that your fucking Dad just died suddenly.

Daft policies like this prove that thinking amongst health professionals about providing a service which works for everyone is an alien concept to the higher echelons of the NHS; that they believe their obsessive zealotry is more important than the people who are unfortunate enough to have to visit a hospital; and that decency and humanity have left their premises long before the smokers they wish to eject have done so. They would rather drive bereaved and distressed smokers onto the street at their hour of heartbreak - not even conceding the car park or their own private car for crying out loud - than provide somewhere humane for them to take it all in.

The people who work in NHS hospitals are caring and compassionate, the people who lead them are the opposite; ignorant, overpaid, heartless and - on the basis of this crap - unimaginative, inhumane and incompetent.

The Incomparable Deceit Of The WHO

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 19 Dec 2019 21:35:00 +0000

Today saw a lot of media coverage over a new report from the World Health Organisation claiming:

Number of males using tobacco globally on the decline, showing that government-led control efforts work to save lives, protect health, beat tobacco

It further boasts that ...

[P]ositively, the new report shows that the number of male tobacco users has stopped growing and is projected to decline by more than 1 million fewer male users come 2020 (or 1.091 billion) compared to 2018 levels, and 5 million less by 2025 (1.087 billion).

Wow! A million globally, they say? That is a lot, isn't it? The Director General of the WHO - who once recruited Robert Mugabe as a goodwill ambassador before worldwide disgust forced him to backtrack - is ecstatic ...

“Declines in tobacco use amongst males mark a turning point in the fight against tobacco,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “For many years now we had witnessed a steady rise in the number of males using deadly tobacco products. But now, for the first time, we are seeing a decline in male use, driven by governments being tougher on the tobacco industry."

Is that so, DG? Really? That million reduction is entirely due to the policies dreamt up by the massed ranks of tobacco control? Well, I think that is debatable. A clue is there if you scroll to the bottom of the page (emphasis mine, cos they'd rather you don't notice it).

The WHO report covers use of cigarettes, pipes, cigars, waterpipes, smokeless tobacco products (like bidis, cheroots and kretek) and heated tobacco products. Electronic cigarettes are not covered in the report.

Yep, the WHO - for this report only - do not consider e-cigs as being tobacco use.

Now, in the UK alone we have approximately 1.9 million ex-smokers who now exclusively vape, and the law of averages suggests at least 50% of those are male. Globally, we know from the BBC that there are around 41 million vapers worldwide. Kinda knocks the WHO's pathetic 1 million into a cocked hat, doesn't it? Add those 20 million odd males who vape instead of smoke to the WHO's consumption figures and we're looking at the same old tired and failed tobacco control policies as always.

In The Hague next year, the WHO will insist at their biennial shit-fest - COP9 - that there is no difference between vaping and smoking, they will also insist that e-cigs are a tobacco product, that they do not help people quit and demand that governments across the world either prohibit vaping entirely or treat the products exactly the same as cigarettes, including slapping taxes on them, eradicating flavours and banning their use just about everywhere. There are no grants for these trouser-stuffing quangocrats from Mr Bloggs handing his own cash to a vape shop to buy a Vype or an Eleaf.

Yet, for the sake of a headline, they will admit that vaping isn't smoking just long enough to claim credit for a revolution which was absolutely none of their doing.

This report from the WHO is weapons grade nonsense. Plain packaging, for example - the WHO's big ticket item of recent years - has had no effect anywhere it has been tried, in fact all evidence points to it increasing the black market and leading to more people smoking. Wherever vaping is treated favourably, by contrast, has resulted in record declines in smoking prevalence never seen in hundreds of years. It is absolutely nothing to do with Tedros and his blinkered, Luddite, stick-in-the-mud troughers and their goalpost-shifting, cherry-picked junk statistics.

The deceit of these people is quite astonishing. If they were so confident that their policies are so fucking marvellous, they would include e-cigarettes and show that despite the massive uptake of vaping their interventions were still robust, but they can't. So instead they exclude vaping and try instead to claim credit for what they had absolutely nothing to do with, and in fact are straining every sinew to exterminate on behalf of their generous conflicted funders.

Christ, if Carlsberg did lying, even they couldn't do better than this. It's never been about health, and it's never been about truth.

Fake Charities, 10 Years On

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 18:13:00 +0000

We reached a significant milestone recently which should not go unmarked. It was just over a decade ago that legendary blogger Devil's Kitchen and his co-author The Filthy Smoker began the fightback against the widespread abuse of government funding being handed to lobby groups to lobby government.

2009-01-19T03:47:08Z

That was the date and time that your humble Devil first registered the fakecharities.org domain—19th January 2009. I built the first fakecharities.org site that night, using a simple Open Source CMS called WebsiteBaker.

I then populated this simple site with a few organisations that I, and Kitchen contributor the Filthy Smoker, had identified as being particularly egregious specimens of the type we called "fake charities".

The fake charities site may not be around now but it was the first step in shining a light on the sly deceit on the public that state-funded lobby groups had quietly worked to build for many years.

Even government ministers were not aware that taxpayer money was being shovelled to single interest lobby groups to spend on attacking the government and demanding legislation that the government - who awards the cash - wanted to see passed.

It is one of the most corrupt aspects of the way this country is run and should have been banned years ago. The blogosphere-originated fake charities site exposed the de facto corruption - because that's what it is in all but name - where mainstream journalism had not only failed to even notice it, but actively encouraged it whether unwittingly or not.

As DK explained in 2012, it was (and still is) a stain on the way the country is run.

Some years ago, your humble Devil and his Kitchen colleague, the Filthy Smoker, noticed that more and more charities were being cited by news media—and, most especially, the BBC—in connection with government initiatives.

These charities almost always reinforced these policies: and these policies were almost always ones that aimed to reduce freedom and liberty in this country.

Out of curiosity, we started to investigate these charities in a very simplistic way: when a charity was quoted as being in favour of yet more grossly invasive legislation, we went to the Charity Commission website and looked up the public accounts.

In the majority of cases, we found that these quoted "charities" were, in fact, largely funded by the government whose policies they were enthusiastically endorsing.

I would like to say that what we unearthed shocked us, but that would be a lie. What did surprise us was just how many of these organisations there were.

People tend to think of charities as being... well... voluntary organisations, doing actual, physical good deeds in the community—whether that be running soup kitchens, cancer hospices or homeless shelters.

But most of these organisations were indulging in little more than flat-out lobbying. And they were using our money to do it. In our view, these charities were being deliberately disingenuous.

And we came up with a name for these organisations—"fake charities".

DK's initiative has since moved on and now these organisations are described more as "sock puppets". In 2012, a report detailing "how the government lobbies itself and why" eventually resulted in a law which caused uproar among those who were incensed that their mouths might one day be removed from the comfy taxpayer teat they had suckled on for years.

Naturally, the term fake charities was resisted by fake charities and the troughers tried every condescending trick in the book to derail any criticism of their grubby antics, as DK described in 2016.

When we were (inevitably) attacked in various articles by the BBC and the Third Sector, they tended to ignore the "lobbying" clause—we were horrible, sweary, libertarian bloggers who wanted to do down the valuable work that charities were doing. Nevertheless, all these protests did was to bring the concept of fake charities to a wider audience—with the phrase becoming regularly used amongst the politically-aware.

The rearguard action against this abuse of public money has continued and just last week an update on the corruption was produced by the IEA with a report named "Still Hand in Glove" (which you should read, by the way).

The ten year anniversary of the fake charities site is one that we should not forget for two reasons. Firstly, it highlights that only the blogosphere can highlight these things, the idea that mainstream journalists are somehow investigative and able to tackle abuse like this is a fantasy. There are no Woodward and Bernsteins around anymore, anything that pretends to be investigative journalism nowadays is more likely to be conspiracy bullshit directed at those who oppose a big state.

Far from exposing the corruption of government lobbying government, the mainstream press has singularly failed to get any handle on it at all. Even now we are seeing pliant articles from lazy hacks - who have lost the ability to distinguish between state-funded activism and real life fact - simply regurgitating press releases from organisations funded by the government, to lobby the government.

Secondly, just about every liberty that we have lost in the past 20 years has come about because of fake charities and sock puppets. Government has actively used fake charities by handing them cash to lobby for their latest public-bashing schemes as I illustrated during the plain packs 'debate' with the gloriously now defunct Smokefree South West.

Fake charities/sock puppets take your taxes and lobby for more government, more restrictions, more bans. Not one of them has ever lobbied for a liberalising of laws or a de-regulating of restrictions, and they never will. When government doesn't ban something they are in uproar, but even when the fake charity community is caught out, they just stay silent for a while and come back regardless. No-one is punished, no-one loses their job.

As I wrote just the other day, there is a huge elitist monolithic hegemony in the public sector which self-perpetuates and its existence depends on not upsetting the tax-funded apple cart. The result is rules being applied on a whim against our liberty while any relaxation of rules will be resisted as if their lives depend upon it. In the case of lobbyists whose income is in the fake charity sector, this is undoubtedly true from a financial standpoint. If their scam is extinguished they might have to go get a job that doesn't involve shitting all over the choices of ordinary people.

Fakecharities.org was a ground-breaking blog-led awareness raising campaign which opened many people's eyes to how government is feeding an unelected, unaccountable and unregulated prohibitionist gravy train with your money, whether you like it or not. It's creation 10 years ago was a much-needed breath of fresh air.

A Ban If It's Law, A Ban If It's Not

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 19:21:00 +0000

In answer to a parliamentary question tabled by Liz Saville-Roberts of Plaid Cymru yesterday, the government's Home Office spokesperson, Victoria Atkins, gave us a small glimpse into how the choices of staff and the public are treated with contempt by the elites, and how they really only have themselves to blame for some of the abuse they receive.

Saville-Roberts asked which Home Office premises do not operate a no-smoking policy. It turns out that not only is the answer none, but that the Home Office has been massively gold-plating restrictions demanded by the smoking ban.

Victoria Atkins The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, Minister for Women

The Home Office supports the right to work in a smoke-free environment. The Health Act 2006 and similar laws in Scotland and Wales ban workplace smoking.

Home Office staff must not smoke or use e-cigarettes anywhere on Home Office premises including:

• buildings, vehicles and land – this includes all walkways, access areas and car parks
• outside entrances and exits of buildings
• private vehicles parked on Home Office premises

I really don't know where to start with a policy as hideous and daft in equal measure as this.

Why Atkins bothers to cite the Health Act 2006 is baffling because that merely bans smoking in any building that is more than 50% enclosed, it has absolutely no bearing on all the extra restrictions she seems proud to boast about. The justification given in that Act was that there was {cough} scientific 'evidence' that passive smoking harms bystanders in enclosed public places, otherwise politicians would have never dreamed of removing the right to use legal products, oh no! It was merely to protect those poor bar workers. They had no choice, see?

So where did the idea that bans outside in "walkways, access areas and car parks" should be included come from? Where is the {cough} scientific 'evidence' for banning smoking "outside entrances and exits of buildings"? And how does banning an employee smoking in their own parked car, alone, "support the right to work in a smoke-free environment"? Surely, to borrow from one of the most clichéd anti-smoking tropes of all time, the Home Office's right to protect an employee from their own secondhand smoke ends at the door of their own fucking vehicle.

It's not really about health, is it?

What's more, how is also banning the use of e-cigs in all of those places conducive to a "smoke-free environment" when they don't emit any smoke? In the past year or two we have seen Public Health England advocating for vapers being afforded somewhere in the workplace to vape, the government's Tobacco Control Plan clearly stating that vaping "should not be included in policies which ban smoking", and the Science and Technology Committee recommending that "rules around e-cigarettes should be relaxed so they can be more widely used and accepted in society".

It's scary that a policy so devoid of common sense has been written by a department which is tasked with our security, because its terms mean that although soldiers can face live firing on Salisbury Plain, they'd better not even think about having a smoke or a vape while they're there or they could face disciplinary action. Utterly absurd.

It's like different departments of the government don't even talk to each other anymore. How can you take politicians seriously when, on the one hand, you have health departments giving out guidance and a Home Office Minister trumpeting on Hansard about how they are proud to be completely ignoring it?

It also tells us that the smoking ban was a quite hideous piece of legislation which lifted up a rock and let every belly-crawling prohibitionist maggot slither out and run riot. I am pretty sure that prior to 2006 the Home Office wouldn't allow smoking in its offices, but the green light the Health Act gave to civil service regulators desperate to regulate something - anything - has led us into this situation where smoking is banned even if you are sitting at nose level with a car's exhaust pipe, and every weapons-grade bigot with an axe to grind about other people's choices is encouraged to chip in their personal gripe and a policy will be drafted to ban it. It's becoming the national sport.

Whether there is a law against it, whether there isn't, and even when the very government itself would prefer the opposite.

There has been a lot of talk today about how politicians are receiving abuse on social media and how it's very, very bad. But those are just words. Politicians and the system they have administered - badly - in recent years are attacking the public like no other time in history. Their ratchet has gone only one way for the past decade or so, if they want to gain a bit of respect, perhaps they might consider recommending a relaxation of pointless and draconian bans and restrictions instead of forever dreaming up new ways to beat the public about the head for simply wanting to use legal products.

Where is the cabinet minister who will stand up and declare that, you know, the public is there to be served. Not a target to attack and be moulded into something they'd rather not be? And maybe that the public might appreciate not being told what to do. Every. Fucking. Day!

Further reading along the same lines today here: "This will leave the Government in the absurd position of officially advising people to drink pure orange juice as one of their five a day while banning adverts for it because it is junk."

Reality Bites In Snobland

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 21:49:00 +0000

Oh frabjous day!

Long time readers may remember when the sugar tax was installed by a timorous, erm, 'Conservative' government quaking in their boots under pressure from a gullible TV chef. I called it "a triumph for repulsive anti-social snobbery".

The sugar tax is born out of the same vile and scum-infested middle class base as the smoking ban. The only difference being that back then it was smokers, now it is the overweight. The precedent was set a decade ago, a precedent which gave a green light for the most hideous in society to point fingers, criticise the choices of others, publicly vomit insults, and demand government force be brought to bear on people who they feel offended at seeing.

Since then we have seen the laughable spectacle of Jamie Oliver's menu offerings being found to be more unhealthy than Burger King and Pizza Hut and Public Health England have come out with draconian measures of what is deemed to be unhealthy.

This has come as a bit of a shock to some of the food snobs amongst us. Farmdrop is a company which has advertised "fresher, fairer" food on the London tube for a few months now. I've seen their adverts and I personally wouldn't buy from them because I just know it will be expensive but I have no problem with their business angle at all, I wish them the very best of luck. I'm sure most of their customers wouldn't think the same about ads for Burger King or KFC, but then that's the difference, isn't it?

Well Farmdrop just got a dose of reality. L. O. L.

To combat childhood obesity, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has enforced a ban on junk food advertising across London’s public transport network, which we fully support. But is it really a ban on junk food as we know it?

For a company which is in the food business, to not see this coming is a fatal error. And, sorry guys, if you fully support this you just lost any sympathy from me.

Preventing brands from aggressively advertising junk food to children on the transport network is a step in the right direction and we fully support it. The link between heavily processed junk foods and obesity is well established (it's not - DP) and recent studies suggest that diet-related diseases like diabetes are rising among children, which is hugely concerning. The majority of Londoners support the decision as well, including respected figures in the food industry like Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

I could go into the concept of polls which ask airy questions without going into detail but I don't think these guys would get it, but they should because what if the poll said "would you be in favour of banning advertising of 'junk food' which includes farm-produced butter, eggs and bacon?" because that's the PHE definition. I reckon they would get a different result and wouldn't be so supportive of the results.

Naturally, we were pretty shocked that a picture of some fresh groceries with a healthy mixture of fruits and vegetables, dairy, eggs and cupboard staples would flout TfL’s new junk food rules. But it turns out that TfL score foods individually according to a nutrient profiling model created by the Government. It’s a pretty crude measure and means that foods you would still think of as junk, like fizzy drinks with artificial sweeteners or low-fat fried foods, could in some scenarios comply with the new regulations.

At this point I imagine the Farmdrop guys be like ...

Well yes because ...

We fully support the Mayor of London’s decision to prohibit junk food advertising on the transport network but we’re concerned about how it’s being applied. We hope that TfL sees some sense and starts to apply the ban with a little better judgement.

Hey, it's not TfL's judgement of what is HFSS food, it is towards PHE that you should be directing your complaint. Reason being that if snobs call for bans on products they find icky because chavs like them (come on, own up, that's what it is about really) then the constituents of those foods need to be analysed and a policy formulated based on the ingredients. Just a feel-good about who makes it won't wash once you get the big state involved.

It is quite hilarious to see a company piggy-backing on hipster snobbery being hoist by a petard entirely fashioned by its snooty customers. The replies on Twitter to Farmdrop's astonished tweet were testament to it.

Here's the rub though. The companies that Farmdrop fully support having their ads banned - they touch upon McDonald's in their article - will, at some point, get round the rules by reformulating their products. Farmdrop, however - if it is true to its unique business selling point - will not be able to reformulate natural butter, eggs and farm-produced bacon. Their ads will still be banned unless PHE changes the rules.

And the only way that they can do that is by admitting that it's all snobbery after all and that the restrictions will only apply to large fast food chains and not to Jamie Oliver's sugar-laden hypocrisy or Farmdrop's perfectly natural, but sadly high in fat sugar and salt, produce.

Then we will see some pretty momentous court cases.

There is one thing that might help Farmdrop though. They could stop pandering to snobbery and join us in attacking ridiculously arbitrary rules and object to any restrictions on what we are allowed to see on advertising billboards. Now they have worked out that it really isn't about health, would they be prepared to join we who are on the side of the angels? I doubt it.

Once they and the people they sell to learn to be accommodating of the choices of others maybe we might get somewhere as a society. Until then, chalk one up for those of us who have been warning them for a long time about this and revel in the discomfort.

Laughable Bullshit Tsunami Incoming From The Telegraph?

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 21:25:00 +0000

A Telegraph 'expert', pictured yesterday

Like Clive Bates who has blogged about this today in an article entitled "Anti-vaping activists pitch unscientific fringe positions to a national newspaper", I also saw an email detailing how the Telegraph is planning on publishing a massive load of bullshit about vaping tomorrow (Feb 29th apparently) in one of "a series of articles".

"We have spoken to the experts listed below and sought their views on the following topics: the medical concerns surrounding e-cigarettes despite them being promoted as a reduced risk alternative to traditional cigarettes; the marketing of e-cigarettes; the risk to young people of becoming addicted to nicotine via the use of e-cigarettes:"

The first thing that sprung to mind when I read this was what could have prompted it? Were Telegraph writers just sitting around one day wondering what to fill the pages of their newspaper up with when one of them said "I know! Let's do a deep investigation into e-cigs!" to which another may have said "Great idea! Let's get on Google!".

If so, one wonders what the search term must have been to come up with this set of 'experts', which is basically a who's who of wacky ideological fuckwit outliers who are out there where the buses don't run when it comes to the thinking around vaping in this country and beyond.

Professor Simon Capeman, Liverpool University (Professor Public Health and Policy)

Professor Anna Gilmore, Bath University (Professor of Public Health and Director of Tobacco Control Research Group)

Professor Mike Daube, Professor of Health Policy, Curtin University, Perth, Australia and Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute and the McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth

Professor Stanton Glantz, Director Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, California University

Professor Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Heath, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and former President of the Faculty of Public Health

Dr Gabriel Scally, President of Epidemiology and Public Health, Royal; Society of Medicine

Professor John Ashton, former president of public health at the Royal Colleges of Physicians and former president of UK Public Health

John Dicey, Global CEO Allen Carr’s EasyWay

Robin Ireland, former chief executive of the Health Equalities Group

Shall we go through them one by one?

Professor Simon Capeman, Liverpool University (Professor Public Health and Policy)

Does anyone remember Sarah Knapton? Well, she is/was a science editor (pfft) at the Telegraph who once wrote an astonishingly stupid article entitled "E-cigarettes are no safer than smoking tobacco, scientists warn" which was roundly condemned as being utter garbage. Her article was so very bad that she is now immortalised in Hansard as a junk scientist by Lord Callanan.

Much of the problem stems from media reporting of junk science. The worst example was a headline in the Telegraph in December, which screamed: “E-cigarettes are no safer than smoking tobacco”. It was a nonsense report based on, as I said, junk science.

The reason I mention her is that she had a roladex or something where she was hooked up with just about every junk science peddler in the safer nicotine debate. It would be a very slim roladex since there aren't too many of them these days. She is not the one who sent the email but it would appear that someone has been raiding her list of conspiracy theorist ne'er-do-wells and looks to have got confused between Simon Capewell and Simon Chapman.

So let's assume this one is Simon "Capslock"Capewell due to the location. The guy who tweets like a kid with ADHD, always in capitals and never a care for calm evidence-assessment. A far left business-hating prohibitionist who wants just about everything banned from fizzy drinks, through pizza and of course harm reduction products, he is part of a north west enclave of denialists who are ignoring anything sent to them by central organisations and even government itself despite deriving their funding from that source.

Professor Anna Gilmore, Bath University (Professor of Public Health and Director of Tobacco Control Research Group)

Anna "anything for a grant" Gilmore has carved out a career in smearing industry of any stripe for cash. Recently awarded $20m by Bloomberg to make her smears global. Heavily incentivised to find fault with everything industry does because, erm, that's how she gets paid.

Professor Mike Daube, Professor of Health Policy, Curtin University, Perth, Australia and Director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute and the McCusker Centre for Action on Alcohol and Youth

A geriatric former British tobacco controller now living in Perth, Australia. He was condemned by the PM of Australia in 2014 for leading calls to ban a performance of the opera, Carmen, because it is set in a cigarette factory. He was caught lying about that episode and is on record stating that e-cigs are a tobacco control conspiracy. Australia bans e-cigs for little reason whatsoever and is desperately fighting against a wavering Australian government which looks like it may join neighbours New Zealand in regulating vaping, much to his embarrassment. No conflict of interest there then.

Professor Stanton Glantz, Director Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, California University

Where do we start? The world's biggest pharma-funded anti-vaping liar who said in December that vapers should go back to smoking. Currently embroiled in a bit of a kerfuffle after being accused of sexual harassment and stealing accreditation from female students in his team. His university settled out of court for $150k to avoid too many #MeToo negative headlines. His high-profile 'feminist' colleagues are silent about his antics but he is still being pursued by anti-misogynist groups who want to know why his university was rewarded with more grant money despite the scandal

Professor Martin McKee, Professor of European Public Heath, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and former President of the Faculty of Public Health

Porky Paddy who FOI responses showed had lied in the BMJ and to the Guardian over comments he clearly made. For a professor of 'public health' to deliberately lie in his profession's most prominent journal should surely call into question any integrity he claims to possess, but despite having a huge conflict of interest he is deemed an objective 'expert' by the Telegraph apparently. Even Debs Arnott of ASH called him out as an outlier on national TV news for his extreme, biased and ideological views.

Dr Gabriel Scally, President of Epidemiology and Public Health, Royal; Society of Medicine

Not sure where Scally fits in here, I haven't seen what he says about e-cigs since he blocked me on Twitter after he threw a hissy fit about having to obey the law and respond to FOI requests during the plain packs campaign. A committed left-wing former NHS lead from the south west, it will be interesting to see what his 'expert' testimony is considering I'd heard he was amenable to harm reduction but despises big businesses, especially those who sell products containing nicotine. In this kind of company, he could actually be a fig leaf of objective balance.

Professor John Ashton, former president of public health at the Royal Colleges of Physicians and former president of UK Public Health

Notice it says "former"? Yeah, because he lost that job after an astonishing Saturday evening in 2014 where - fuelled by what substance we don't know but suspect must have been mood-altering - he launched a night-long attack on vapers on social media. You can read the extraordinary goings-on here, some of them extremely creepy. Like Glantz and McKee, what should have been career-ending behaviour was passed over by 'public health' and he was reinstated to the Faculty of Public Health with just a small demotion.

John Dicey, Global CEO Allen Carr’s EasyWay

A business which has been rocked to its core by the advent of e-cigs which are a huge threat to their global sales of quit smoking books. No conflict of interest there then.

Robin Ireland, former chief executive of the Health Equalities Group

Yet another from the last bastion of e-cig denialism in the north west acting like Japanese soldiers still fighting an imaginary war once everyone else has gone home. Part of the Healthy Stadia group which lied to football and rugby clubs to get bans on vaping outdoors at their venues, in direct contravention of guidance being given by Public Health England at the time. Hopelessly pharma-conflicted.

And this is the stellar cast that the Telegraph thinks is an objective panel to pronounce on the benefits or otherwise of vaping. That Google search must have been pretty specifically worded to come up with just about every crank and looneytune in the harm reduction debate, whilst not picking up Public Health England, the Royal College of Physicians, Cancer Research UK, the UK government, Stoptober, Royal Society of Public Health and countless other organisations who have all sifted the evidence and are welcoming towards e-cigs.

The star journos at the Telegraph 'science' department seem also to have missed the Cochrane review - the gold standard of research - which contradicts everything their carefully-selected fruit loops and extremist bullshitters have fed the gullible hacks at the Telegraph.

And another thing. You have to wonder why so many left-wing, vehemently Brexit-hating 'public health' freaks are so fond of a Brexit cheerleader such as the Telegraph. Could it be that - via the Sarah Knapton link - it is the only newspaper still remotely willing to publish their crap?

And it truly is bullshit. A tsunami of it. Bates has gone through each one of their ridiculous assertions in this blog article, I do recommend you read it, it will raise a smile or two I promise.

So now we just wait to see what execrable nonsense the Telegraph comes out with tomorrow. It could be a classic of its genre, a masterclass in fake news and the best bit? They are making it a series! Get the popcorn in, this could be great fun. Did I ever tell you it's not about health?

10 Questions, 9 Of Them Stupid

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 22:38:00 +0000

Forgive me Father, I have sinned. It has been three weeks since my last article, hand me the hair shirt and beads.

Real life has been getting in the way like a mofo recently, I'm afraid. Business, family and personal pressures have conspired in such a way that I've had little time to even catch up with what's going on let alone write anything. If you follow me on Twitter too, you may have noticed.

But prior to a busy week, I've a window to have a go at some recreational writing and what better to comment on than an unintentionally funny article from Sydney pensioner Simon Chapman on his blog last week. I do feel for the guy, he's getting old, the dementia might be kicking in and he is still desperately clinging to tried-and-trusted smears against industry which don't hold up in the modern world. You know, like your grandparents who get shouty when you say they should have data on their phone and they reply that "I just want to ring someone on it!".

One of my obstructions recently has been that I've had a lot of building work on my house done, and I mean tons. The team doing it are incredibly experienced (for that, read old) and brilliant at what they do, but the moment the idea of smart bulbs which can be operated by an app came up, their hackles raised and I was told "a light should have a switch, you turn it on and off, that stuff is just nonsense". It's the old dog and new trick mindset, and one which is amusingly illustrated by Chapman in this article entitled "10 questions for Philip Morris International on their “transformation”".

Its basis is this tweet from Moira Gilchrist of Philip Morris.

I know there's a lot of skepticism around @InsidePMI and our #smokefree vision, so I want to have an open conversation about better alternatives for the millions of men and women who would otherwise continue smoking. Tweet me with any questions you might have.
— Dr. Moira Gilchrist (@DrGilchrist) February 20, 2019

Now, the impertinence of a tobacco company exec invading the crusty guy's decades long smear-led safe space is red rag to a bull for Chappers, so he leapt into action ... by reproducing correspondence he had with a former PMI exec in 2005, before today's alternative products were available and about a completely different subject.

Anyone with elderly parents will recognise this harking back to the old times as if they were just yesterday. The modern world can be so confusing, can't it?

But anyway, that's not the point of my article. I don't know if Gilchrist will take up his offer of publishing a blog on his site of up to 2000 words, but his 10 questions are so inane and rooted in the past that they're well worth fisking. Corporate reticence, a fiduciary duty to shareholders, along with a legal department shitting bricks and a reluctance to give away info to business competitors might prevent her from replying in depth, but I can have a go.

1) You say you want smokers to switch to IQOS, but Philip Morris USA (a separate company to Philip Morris International which just happens to share the words “Philip Morris” in its title) is on record recently as saying on its website that cigarettes are “our core product” and that they are working hard to keep their smokers happy with “best quality” cigarette products. Are cigarettes also PMI’s “core product’? Or asking another way, how much global revenue does PMI make from tobacco today, and how much from IQOS and what are your forecasts for these numbers in the next 10 years? Are your shareholders happy with you purposefully trying to drive south (by far) your biggest income stream?

The original draft described Philip Morris USA as an "affiliate" of PMI, which is 100% wrong. It is a separate company as he has had to correct but it kinda hurts his line of smear, so he did so in a snarky way. But this is just the start of his quaint misunderstanding of the modern world.

He knows that cigarettes are PMI's core product because, ahem, there are a lot of smokers in the world. So obviously PMI makes a lot more revenue from smoking than it does from nascent products. Chappers, who seems to revel in the fact that new products are just a fraction of 'Big Tobacco's' main offering, went a bit silent when the question of global revenue was answered quite emphatically on Twitter.

So what of his concern for shareholders? That's a first for a guy who is so right-on he's been hating big business of every stripe since he was at university and vandalising bus shelters. They may well be unhappy with a company declaring they are changing their "core product" over time but here's the thing Simon - you cretin - if they are doing that they are doing exactly what tobacco controllers say that they want, reducing the number of cigarettes they sell.

You'd think a rampant lefty who hates smoking would be happy with this double whammy - shareholders losing out and percentage of combustible tobacco declining - but his sympathy for shareholders is just a pubescent debating tactic as we shall see further down.

2) What are the KPIs (key performance indicators) for the sales, marketing and public affairs staff in your cigarette division today? Are they being asked to try and sell less cigarettes or to keep on trying to sell more? Could we all see copies of some of those please?

Fewer cigarettes, Simon, fewer.

In the pensioner's tiny little mind, this is a very simple equation for a multinational company. There is only one policy and it is global. Erm, but it depends on jurisdictions and what the legal framework is, doesn't it. Let's take, for example a random country. Say, I dunno, Australia. How does PMI sell e-cigs containing nicotine in that country when they are banned? How do they transition smokers away from tobacco when they can't sell iQos? I wonder who is behind that kind of retarded policy? Wouldn't it be pretty brazen if someone who had a hand in it then accused a company of being disingenuous by not selling enough products which they had done their damnedest to ensure remain illegal?

Every country is different. Simon only sees a homogenous blob of countries with fully-aligned legislative and trading criteria, or pretends to. Either he is woefully stupid or he is preaching to the unthinking. You decide.

3) In Indonesia, Philip Morris International owns the Sampoerna tobacco company. In 2016, Reuters reported that you were trying to get “wider reach” there via “stronger cigarettes” What do you say to those who say you are being duplicitous with all this reduced harm talk when this is what you are doing when you calculate that people in the west might not notice? Similarly, when the city of Balanga, Luzon in the Philippines wanted to implement a smokefree campus and surrounding environs, you supported the Philippine Tobacco Institute in its (successful) legal case against the proposal. So you say you want people to quit smoking, but only if they switch to IQoS, is that it? And if not you will continue fight effective tobacco control as usual?

Similarly to the bollocks he spouts in question 2, what chance when Indonesia bans e-cigs and any other alternative products?

Indonesia's trade minister Enggartiasto Lukita set off a backlash from anti-smoking groups in November when he suggested tobacco farmers would be hurt by the fledgling industry, and that those turning to e-cigarettes -- also known as vaping -- should smoke regular cigarettes instead.

"We should turn vapers into conventional cigarette smokers," he said at the time.

And do you know what? I think the old coot knows this.

4) In recent years, your company has aggressively opposed tobacco control policies like graphic health warnings, plain packs, and increasing tobacco tax, all known to reduce smoking. When you do this, can you understand that many people think you are flagrantly lying when you say you want to help tobacco control?

See what he did there?

Plain packs has had no effect on reducing smoking in Australia except in his increasingly senile mind. Nor has it in France or in the UK. There has never been any significant evaluation of graphic warnings either, with many studies showing that smokers just ignore them. But Simon skips past all that controversy and states a bald fact which is debatable at best and simply not true at worst.

Vaping, however, has had a dramatic effect wherever it has been allowed to flourish, which doesn't include Australia.

And, erm, when did PMI ever say they want to "help tobacco control"? Considering how shockingly poor their results have been recently - and the abject misinformation they have been peddling on alternative products - tobacco control is the very last industry producers should be helping. Harm reduction talks directly to consumers and cuts out the parasitical tax-funded leeches of which Chapman is a prominent reactionary in a self-enriching cohort more interested in delaying their obsolescence than any concern for health.

5) What do you say to critics who say that your business model is surely all about smoking AND vaping, not smoking OR vaping?

There is only one of those, and it's Chapman. Considering all tobacco companies have said that their risk reduced products are more profitable than conventional tobacco, a 5 year old should be able to see that's a nonsense conspiracy theory.

6) I don’t think I’ve ever met a smoker who wanted their kids to grow up and start smoking. Do you feel the same way? Would you also hope that children would not take up vaping? If you really believe ecigs are of minimal risk, why not openly encourage kids to vape?

No-one has ever said that kids should be encouraged to vape, but the old duffer knows this, he's just using an old argument about how even smoking parents don't want their kids to smoke. But it is exactly that, a decades old argument and this particular old dog is still doing old tricks and wondering why he's not getting the same biscuits.

I know Gilchrist wouldn't be able to reply as I do, but I personally couldn't give a toss if my kids took up vaping. And it doesn't seem to have crossed Chapper's increasingly-shrinking mind that if a kid smokes already vaping is a better option for his side, and that if they vape instead of starting smoking, that's something he should be celebrating. I know it's tough for an imbecile to imagine multi-factorial outcomes such as that, but you'd think with more time to feed his carp since retiring he'd have thought a bit more deeply.

7) Smoking by Australian teens is at a record low (1.9% of 15-17 year olds currently smoke) I find it hard to believe if your company had not modeled the impact of such a dire situation on your bottom line into the future if this was to continue. So what does that modelling show? And am I wrong in thinking that if your IQOS product does not attract a significant number of kids into regularly using it, then your company will wither and die within a few decades because if only smokers switch, many of those will quit and die, with no cohort of young people moving through to replace them.

This is the only decent question he asked, and it's a very good one. He could have saved a lot of words and just restricted his article to this one valid point. I remember that this question was asked of PMI's Mark McGregor at a fringe event organised by Forest at Tory Party Conference in October, but it's sadly not made the cut in the highlights (Updated to add the transcribed exchange, scroll to the end of the article).

8) The parent company of Philip Morris USA, Altria, just invested $US12.8billon in Juul, the vaping product that has spearheaded 20% of US teens using ecigs in the last 30 days. Are you going to tell me that this teen use of ecigs “concerns” you or that there were a lot of champagne corks popping at work when you all saw that data?

Yawn. Just a rehash of his 'think of the children' scare story from question 6. He knows very well that everuse in past 30 days is experimenting, but he and similarly ideological denialists use this as a dog whistle to scare the living shit out of unwitting parents.

And now for the highlight. You're gonna absolutely love this. If he'd wanted to illustrate to the world that he has not a clue about how e-cigs work and should probably just pick up his pension and go feed the ducks when he is tempted to comment on harm reduction, he couldn't have done it better than this.

9) The average daily vaper inhales 200 times a day and up to 600. The average daily smoker inhales about 95 times a day. Does that comparison suggest that nicotine delivered via vaping might be very, very addictive? Does that bother you?

Stop sniggering at the back, he's an elder statesman don't you know, and degenerative mental health is not a laughing matter.

Does this erstwhile antipodean anti-smoking colossus really not understand that nicotine delivery is vastly different between combustible products and non-combustible products? Here is a graph to illustrate what I mean, courtesy of Lynne Dawkins of South Bank University.

Clive Bates explains further here:

“My wife/boss/friend/agony aunt/dog etc. uses it constantly. S/he must be getting more nicotine”.

Myth: This is a commonly expressed view that we hear from those whose partners/ friends/ family members have switched to vaping (and retarded Australian blowhards - DP). Given that vaping results in less efficient nicotine delivery to the blood than tobacco smoking, those switching to e-cigarettes need to vape more than they used to smoke (vapers commonly refer to this as ‘grazing’). Concerns over ‘excessive vaping’ can be reduced by switching to a higher nicotine-containing e-liquid.

Now, Chapman likes to tell the world he is an 'expert' on such matters, so why is it that he is so woefully ignorant on something that is central to the debate? I mean, this is a fundamentally basic error. He is arguing on the same level as a Daily Mail reader with not even basic understanding of the product.

Far from suggesting "that nicotine delivered via vaping might be very, very addictive", it shows the polar opposite. That vapers take or leave their nicotine habit and just top up here and there, never reaching the levels of the big instant hit that smoking delivers.

Is this wilful or is he really that fucking stupid? Can't lie, but it could be either couldn't it?

And now for his jovial "and finally" moment.

10) I’ve heard people very unkindly quip that it would be a good idea if all tobacco company employees were obliged to smoke or vape (in the obverse way that no cancer control agency would hire a smoker). It would be hard to imagine a senior executive in a car company who chose to not drive or own a car, but to always cycle or walk and openly declare that; or the head of a meat marketing board who was an open vegetarian, or a skin cancer prevention advocate who was deeply tanned. So why do you think your company is comfortable with some of its employees choosing not to smoke or vape? Do you smoke or vape yourself?

I'm sure people work for meat companies who are vegan, and I'm sure people who work for car manufacturers only cycle. Classic bait and switch from the old fool to conflate "some of its employees" with upper management to con the gullible with a trite argument.

Irrelevant anyway, as he could have found out if he ever accepted any of the many invitations he has been offered for conferences on harm reduction. Because if he had not been so cowardly, he would have seen that Moira Gilchrist uses an iQos. Relentlessly.

So anyway, 1 hit out of 10 ain't bad for a pensioner. I'm sure there are more brain-addled Australians around, but not many who are still convinced they are sages in a field of which they have very little understanding outside of the funny farm.

You can read his blog unfiltered here, it's great fun.

UPDATE: Relating to Chapman's question 7, thanks to Simon Clark, who has sent me a transcription of the exchange between Chris Snowdon and Mark MacGregor at the Tory Party Conference fringe event.

CS: You don't recommend IQOS for anybody other than existing smokers ...

MM: No, no.

CS: ... and you want to reach a point as soon as possible where there are no smokers, so what is the long-term prospects for PMI? Within 70 years there's no smokers to convert to IQOS and all the IQOS smokers are getting older and dying, so within a century, outside, you're finished, aren't you?

MM: Well, I guess we've quite a big challenge with those billion, or 1.1 billion, smokers so if we could get 300, 400 million of those to convert to IQOS I think that's a big enough challenge for now. What you do in the longer term feels more like a debate for somebody else.

Make of that what you will.

Popcorn Poppycock

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 17:44:00 +0000

You'd think, wouldn't you, that the US governmental Food and Drugs Administration would be tasked with giving the public information based on rigorous and robust science. Sadly, you'd be wrong.

This week - in the face of hysterical panic about youth use of e-cigs - they have produced a poster which they will be sending to every High School in America to be put up in school bathrooms. Now, let's put aside for a moment the laughable idiocy of showing kids the new risky fad that many of their peers use and that they might be missing out on, and look instead at what is in it.

Well, as you can imagine from an arm of the tobacco control scam, it is full of lies, none bigger than this.

Erm, inhaling flavours from an e-cig causes popcorn lung? Well that's the message they seem to be wanting to send here. This is the biggest lie that tobacco controllers have ever told, and that is from a long list of fucking massive lies that their industry is renowned for.

Michael Siegel has written extensively about this and, to cut a long story short, it is absolute bollocks.

There is no evidence that e-cigarettes cause popcorn lung. Despite millions of e-cigarette users, there has not been a single confirmed case of popcorn lung caused by e-cigarettes. Moreover, since the level of diacetyl in cigarettes is 750 times higher, on average, than in e-liquids, why isn’t the Tennessee Department of Health warning kids that smoking can cause popcorn lung? The rest of the story is that popcorn lung has not even been associated with smoking. There is absolutely no evidence that vaping causes popcorn lung.

Juul, the market-leading product in the US which has caused panic amongst knuckle-dragging American parents countrywide, and which the FDA seeks to demonise, doesn't sell flavours containing diacetyl. But then again, nor do any other vape companies because e-liquid manufacturers stopped stocking products containing diacetyl back in 2015, so it's difficult to contract popcorn lung from a substance which is hugely diluted compared with that in cigarettes if it isn't even in any products at all.

But that's the message these government-funded goons are sending to the entire country.

Shouldn't the FDA know these kinds of things? Instead of basing their decision-making on solid science they are embarking on hare-brained public information rooted in fantasy and seem to be on an intellectual par with medieval witch-finders. It makes you wonder if they are even in the business of seeking the scientific truth at all. Which means that if they can get this so badly wrong, what is the value of taking anything the FDA says on trust?

The answer, of course, is absolutely none.

A Short History Of Pharma-Bought Influence

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 03 Jan 2019 21:35:00 +0000

If you have half an hour to spare, you could do worse than watch the two excellent films by YouTuber Grimm Green embedded below

Long-time readers here will remember the history of anti-smoking legislation and how it developed from an aspiration in the 1970s with the Godber Blueprint. Specifically:

The 3rd World Conference on Smoking and Health (“The Worldwide Campaign Against Smoking”) was held in New York from June 2 June 5, 1975.

Sir George [Godber, raging anti-smoking UK CMO,] noted that the means by which smokers could be encouraged to quit, was to : “foster an atmosphere where it was perceived that active smokers would injure those around them, especially their family and any infants or young children who would be exposed involuntarily” to secondhand smoke.

In other words, the perception of harm to others would have a far greater impact on convincing smokers to give up the habit than merely harping on the long term health risks to smokers themselves. It would also make it easier to convince the public that discrimination against smokers was justified, not just for their own good, but to protect the health of those around them.

This was a gift to pharmaceutical companies who were peddling their ineffective - but highly lucrative - nicotine patches and gums without too much success at the time. The long search for junk science to back this dream began after that conference and anti-smoking legislation has become exponentially more hysterical ever since, with pharma interests encouraging it every step of the way.

At every turn, the public is told that the evidence is leading the policy, but there is every reason to believe that the policies were set in stone many years ago and that these policies have been leading the evidence. It is clear from the documents that plans to deal with passive smoking, for example, were being drawn up long before there was any evidence of harm.

Scroll on to today and we see exactly the same misdirection and junk science being targeted at vaping products, and exactly the same big industry actors throwing billions at hungry 'public health' researchers to produce it.

In a well-referenced piece of investigation, Grimm Green takes you through the history of how Big Pharma bought the 'science' from those days and continues to do so today. Every time there is a threat, there they are, a massively-rich global industry paying huge sums to corrupt the public's understanding and buying off politicians to install legislation which favours their products.

Ask any MEP, for example, and they will tell you that pharma lobbyists swarmed the EU during formulation of the Tobacco Products Directive in 2012, yet anti-smoking orgs concentrated hard on complaining about those from the tobacco industry who were outnumbered about 20 to 1.

If you've ever wondered why the tobacco control industry seems completely unconcerned about conflicts of interest arising from pharmaceutical grants yet strangely will scream at any hint that a researcher has even had a cup of tea with someone working for a tobacco company, well it's because many of the most powerful players in the tobacco control industry are trousering huge sums from the former, as Green highlights. Hardly any surprise, then, that there was indecent haste by tobacco controllers in the early years of e-cigs to kill the insurgent technology off as swiftly as was possible, it was only a groundswell of activist vapers who headed it off. But the corporate struggle goes on to this day, with the US being the focal point for a rearguard action to try to demonise anything that threatens pharma sales as the burgeoning e-cig market is doing very well.

Don't believe me? Well, take a pew and watch both parts of this. A short history of how Big Pharma has paid for 'science', legislation and - ultimately - global public perception in the smoking and nicotine debate, none of which has anything to do with health, but lots to do with a manufactured market spat over nicotine driven by big stinking corporate profits.

Once again, as I have revelled in many times before, new nicotine products are revealing the corruption and cant that had previously gone unnoticed in the war against tobacco. A spotlight is increasingly being shone on the unrepentant cockroaches in the tobacco control scam like never before. Long may it continue.

With the direction of travel heading towards acceptance of safer nicotine alternatives for those who choose to quit, it's fair to question the true motivation of those last die-hard defenders of 'quit or die', don't you think?

H/T @Twigolet

Won't Somebody Please Punish The Children

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sat, 22 Dec 2018 17:53:00 +0000

A vile elitist snob, pictured in 2015

Still plenty up in the air in Puddlecoteville for a number of reasons, hence the radio silence recently, but Puddlecote Inc closing for the holiday gives me a breather.

Of course, while most of us are breaking up for a relaxing Christmas period of enjoyment and pleasure, it is about this time of year that rancid 'public health' nags are at their most frustrated. They simply can't bear to imagine people enjoying themselves, so every festive period sees some vile prodnose come out with a miserable or spiteful pronouncement, and this year is no exception.

Via the BBC:

England's top doctor has accused the food industry of "failing the public" and is calling for taxes on unhealthy food high in sugar and salt.

Dame Sally [Davies] said "industry had not delivered" on voluntary targets set by Public Health England to make their products healthier and called for them to do more.

"Those sectors that damage health must pay for their harm or subsidise healthier choices," her report says.

She hinted she would like to see a tax on chocolate and junk food, with the proceeds going to subsidise fruit and vegetables, which should be on offer in obvious places in shops.

But she recognised this was "a dream".

As I remarked on Twitter yesterday, we all have aspirations in life but it takes a special kind of arsehole to "dream" about taxing chocolate.

So here we have an extremely highly-paid individual eager to slap a tax on products enjoyed harmlessly by millions of people, a tax which the least well off will find most difficult to withstand. Sally, of course, will not be overly affected by this tax considering she is paid a salary of over £210,000 per year.

She is quite happy, though, to take pocket money from kids, which this policy would effectively do. The taxes won't be paid by industry, it will be paid by the consumer just like every other tax.

Elitist snob Davies, angered at the very idea of the public enjoying products she doesn't favour, has chosen Christmas time to declare to the world how repulsive she is.

This miserable harridan once told us all to think of cancer before you have a glass of wine and now sees the joy and excitement of Christmas as an opportunity to guilt trip us ghastly plebs just as we prepare for "the most wonderful time of the year".

It beggars belief that people in 'public health' consider this kind of nagging acceptable. It is nothing less than industralised anti-social behaviour and harassment. And what bollocks is this?

Based on the success of the tax on sugary drinks introduced in April, Dame Sally wants the government to do more to force the food industry to cut sugar and salt in our everyday food.

Success? What success? There has been no effect on obesity whatsoever from the sugar tax, all that has happened is the nation's food and drink supply has been altered by industry at threat of state bullying. Overall well-being of the nation has deteriorated thanks to pompous, insane and vulgar cretins like Davies. Products we freely chose to consume have disappeared following a barrage of snobbish propaganda about a non-existent obesity epidemic being caused by sugar, the consumption of which has been in freefall since the 1960s.

There are no words for the contempt I have for silly Sally Davies. She has condemned vapers who she said should "grow a backbone" and quit or die instead of using the country's most successful smoking cessation device, she wants us to fear cancer when enjoying a glass of wine, and now wants to tax children's pocket money.

There may be a problem with a small section of the public over-indulging in unhealthy products, but it it is vastly outweighed by the disease of rich bastards using their power and influence to interfere in the lives of the less well off and use coercive tactics to change their choices against their will.

Disgusting.

More Plain Packaging Failure

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 19:46:00 +0000

No matter how many times tobacco controllers claim that plain packaging has been an overwhelming success, the facts stubbornly refuse to adhere to their fantasies. I've often amused myself with articles on this subject and it's great to see that the failure continues into its sixth year, according to Australian Channel 9.

Shocking statistics have shown more men are becoming smokers despite all the health warnings. #9Today pic.twitter.com/Qa1td0j9rr
— The Today Show (@TheTodayShow) November 30, 2018

Remember that Australia was not only the first to introduce this daft idea, but has also punished smokers with a number huge 25% increases to tobacco duty and outdoor smoking bans but with little effect. Once celebrated as offering "a vaccine against lung cancer" by an over-excitable Sydney pensioner, reality keeps butting in and pointing out that plain packaging was a laughable policy and a scandalous waste of public money.

Of course, despite treating even the tiniest positive sign as proof of plain packs success, when things go badly like this the tobacco control scam just circles its wagons ... and blames something else. On this occasion, it's apparently because there are not enough TV ads telling everyone that smoking is bad, as if the public didn't already know this. It's not like the pack doesn't tell them, now is it?

It started with more Aussie kids smoking in the wake of plain packs, but since then smoking rates have flat-lined before the Channel 9 news that more men are smoking now - or "blokes are back on the smokes" as one Aussie newspaper put it. The Daily Mail reported it succinctly too.

Recent data has shown that the campaign to reduce smoking habits of Australians over the last half a dozen years has failed as smoking rates among men actually increased in that time.

The Daily Telegraph reported on the figures released by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare which showed smoking among young men, 25-29, had seen an increase.

Rates among young men had risen from 17.3 per cent to 19.3 per cent between 2013 and 2016 alone.

Smoking among older men, 40-49, also saw an increase.

It's not working in France either, as we found out in March where it was branded a failure by one of those who championed it.

Yet despite all this we see barking mad 'studies' in health journals triumphantly speaking of not just a possible beneficial effect of plain packaging, but ...

A Global Public Health Victory for Tobacco Plain-Packaging Laws in Australia

I don't think co-author of that particular 'study' - Melanie Wakefield who campaigned for plain packaging and evaluated its effectiveness herself - found that absurd headline hard to write, if I'm honest.

It's hard to imagine any other industry which receives massive tax-funded subsidies getting away with trumpeting abject failure as a huge success, but then tobacco control is a completely unregulated Wild West of a profession, and when you have that scenario, liars are always going to float around the top of the cesspit.

So, we have a flat-lining of smoking rates in Australia - and now a rise in some demographics - where they are wielding the big stick mercilessly and where nicotine alternatives like e-cigs are banned; but a dramatic decline in the UK where smoker punishment is less draconian, and e-cigs are legal, regulated and the use of which is advertised in government stop smoking campaigns.

Hmm, where's the Australian Sherlock Holmes to solve this impenetrable conundrum as to what is going wrong down under?

A Decade

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sun, 18 Nov 2018 18:20:00 +0000

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of this little corner of the internet.

As long-time readers will have noticed, the last year has been considerably lighter on content than previously, and in recent months very sparse indeed. This is because, sadly, a lot of real life has barged its way in - both business and personal - and has left me little time (and sometimes inclination) to write much here. I'm afraid to say that this will be continuing for the foreseeable future so it might be worth subscribing for email notifications of articles rather than checking back since they will be very infrequent.

As in previous years, I'd like to thank all fellow jewel robbers who have popped by since 2008 - over 300,000 of you have posted over 30,000 comments on more than 3,500 articles - creating nearly 6 million page visits. It's been a hell of a ride.

I have a couple of rather significant life changes coming up which could free up far more opportunity to write, but it won't be for some considerable time. In the meantime, thanks again for reading and engaging over the past 10 years with this "tabloid guff", as I am still proud it was described as many years ago by snooty twats.

À bientôt, mes amies.

Health Guidelines Are A Weapon Against Choice

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Tue, 13 Nov 2018 19:58:00 +0000

Be afraid, be very afraid!

On Friday evening, I went to Maxwell's in Covent Garden for a pre-theatre meal with a friend. The place has been in business for over 30 years that I know of and describes itself as "the home of the freakshake". I'd never heard of a freakshake before I booked a table and I didn't eat one, but plenty of healthy-looking young things around us did.

Today, a vast number of other people found out what a freakshake is for the first time thanks to those hideous health fascists at Action on Sugar. Via the BBC:

The campaign group Action on Sugar is demanding a ban on freakshakes and all milkshakes with more than 300 calories.

It surveyed milkshakes sold in restaurants and fast food shops in the UK and found they contained "grotesque levels of sugar and calories".

Freakshakes are milkshakes that also contain chocolates, sweets, cake, cream and sauce.

The Toby Carvery Unicorn Freakshake came top of the survey with 39 teaspoons of sugar or 1,280 calories.

That is more than half the daily recommended amount of calories for an adult and over six times the amount of sugar recommended for seven to 10-year-olds.

I'm late to the party as Snowdon has already pointed out that - as is obligatory with 'public health' lobbyists - Action on Sugar and its supporters are blatantly lying about these products in just about every claim that they make. I recommend you go read how jaw-droppingly shameless they are about it at his site.

I'd like to highlight, though, once again the naive and gullible fallacy of believing that health guidelines are nothing to be afraid of and are actually just giving us information. I wrote about it two years ago in response to this tweet from a 'public health' apologist on (mendacious, natch) alcohol advice.

My take on new alcohol recommendations. Which are just that - RECOMMENDATIONS! https://t.co/fr52FyrsoF do what you want, but know the risks!
— Dr Suzi Gage (@soozaphone) January 8, 2016

I only need repeat what I said back then.

This idea that these are just recommendations, and that's all, is incredibly naive. Have these people been sleeping for the past 30 or 40 years? When have guidelines ever remained guidelines without leading to more and more coercion?

With sugar, the guidelines had barely been altered downwards by the WHO before there were calls from 'public health' that the public isn't following them so we need a sugar tax and TV advertising bans on certain foods.

There used to be guidelines about what food kids should be given by their parents to take to school, now we have packed lunch inspections and unapproved food being confiscated, while many openly talk about mandatory school dinners because the 'guidelines' are not being adhered to.

These are just a few examples of many many others I could have chosen (add more in the comments as I'm sure you will know plenty of other examples). This is how health nags work, people, if you haven't noticed that where have you been?

As a result of these 'guidelines' that we are apparently free not to follow - you know, they're just fuzzy-wuzzy friendly advice, that's all - a whole new door has been opened on alcohol nagging.

Soon there will be campaigns by the usual suspects to say that the guidelines are not being adhered to. It will not be because the public have taken note of the advice and chosen to ignore it, instead the legions of public health parasites will say that the 'guidelines' are just not working and something must be done about it; that big industry is blinding drinkers to the harms; and that - how convenient - there are now so many more people drinking over the recommended guidelines that government must crack down hard!

And what have we seen today? 'Public health' parasites saying that the 'guidelines' on sugar are just not working and something must be done about it and that government must crack down hard.

By banning a dessert milkshake! We're well beyond the fucking looking glass here aren't we?

We are not free to ignore recommended guidance all the while vicious, draconian, career-puritans like Action on Sugar and their similarly arrogant, sneering elitist chums are indulged by government agencies instead of being recognised as the anti-social cunts that they really are.

As Snowdon describes today, there is not likely to be a ban on Freakshakes, politicians aren't that stupid ... yet (even though we did once see two parties fighting over which was more determined to declare war on a fucking chocolate orange). But it opens an Overton Window which Public Health England will likely exploit.

Public Health England, in its madness, wants to cap calories in milkshakes to 300 per serving. It is Action on Sugar's job to make Public Health England seem relatively reasonable. To that end, they are calling for it to be a crime to sell a milkshake with more calories than this.

Quite. There may not ultimately be a ban, but there will definitely be coercion, and that is because the guidelines or recommended daily amounts are not produced to give us information and then to be left alone - as Suzi childishly tweeted two years ago - they are intentionally produced in order to be a weapon with which to beat us into submission.

We should all be appalled at the very suggestion that any dessert - not drink as Action on Sugar claim - should be subject to a ban, yet this kind of story appeals to the most repellent in society who succumb to the powerful urge to dictate what other people choose to do with their lives. If we want to live in a free country we shouldn't be pandering to such obnoxious and nauseating people, we should be treating them with contempt, yet Action on Sugar - and any number of 'public health' activists in other areas - do precisely the opposite.

If government wants to educate the public with recommendations and guidelines, that's fair enough, but anyone who believes - with the 'public health' industry wildly out-of-control as today proves very much that they are - that those guidelines are just advisory and we are perfectly free to ignore that advice is, quite frankly, a cretin.

Prior to 2007, the very idea that government should be in the business of dictating what businesses can or can't allow their customers to enjoy in their private premises would have been anathema to the country as a whole, but once tobacco control legitimised prodnosery with the smoking ban, it opened the floodgates. Now you just have to harbour some sneering contempt towards what other people are doing that you disapprove of and a 'public health' lobby group - somewhere - has got your back. It doesn't even matter anymore that the only possible harm can be to yourself, the sugar tax proved that. It now also doesn't matter that you are given information to make those choices for yourself, because 'public health' doesn't want you to have those choices available at all.

People who work in 'public health' often bristle when they are referred to as health fascists, but can you think of anything more fascist than dictating how big your pizza is, how much bacon you are allowed to consume, or whether or not you should be permitted to eat a milk-based dessert? After today, the debate is over. It's well past time government stopped listening to these horrendous organisations and starved them of funding; that or drown the miserable bastards in a butt of Marmsey for glorious ironic effect.

If nothing else, politicians should take away the weapon of 'guidelines' if they want to say we are a liberal country with a straight face. Make it clear that the recommended levels are exactly that, recommended, and that if we choose to ignore them we should be left the fuck alone.

Some?!?

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 22:11:00 +0000

A curious piece turned up on the BBC the other day from their 'reality check' team.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock wants to encourage people in England to make "better choices" around their alcohol, sugar, salt and fat intake, while getting more exercise.

He is promising to spend more on public awareness initiatives to prevent obesity in the latest in a long line of of public health campaigns over the years.

Three of the best-known health messages are eating five portions a day of fruit and vegetables, getting 150 minutes of exercise a week and quitting smoking.

But what evidence is there that these have worked?

Being a tax-funded organisation, the BBC team were of the opinion that gentle messages from the government - based on education of the public - are not effective. The fact this is exactly the message that tax spongers in 'public health' were screaming about when Hancock made his policy announcement is surely a coincidence.

Needless to say, the criticism is that he's not passing strict laws and imposing nannying regulations ... oh, and not giving more money to those who are criticising him https://t.co/rfjDjEh5JQ
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) November 5, 2018

There was one area, though, where the 'reality check' team had a different view.

The Labour government banned smoking in enclosed public places and workplaces in England in 2007.

The result is a marked decrease in the number of smokers.

Yep, when vile coercion is used instead of messages intended to change personal choices without a big stick, the BBC was hinting that this was a huge success.

Except, erm, it was nothing to do with the smoking ban, as the graph they publish with the article shows very well.

The result of the smoking ban was not a "marked decrease in the number of smokers". The marked decrease in the number of smokers came from 2012 when e-cigs went mainstream. As you can see from the BBC's graph above, all that the smoking ban did was halt a previously massive "marked decrease" of smokers prior to 2007.

The 'reality check' team did mention something around this at the very end of the article - how could they not considering it's so fucking obvious - but only in faint terms (emphasis mine).

Changes in law, habits and tastes may all contribute to changes in attitude which may affect lifestyle choices. For example, some of the decline in smoking could be attributed as much to the rise of the e-cigarette as anything else.

Some?!? Look at the figures for crying out loud.

It's a pretty rum definition of reality and an odd understanding of the word check if the BBC refuse to face up to what reality actually is and fail to check it properly.

Looks more like a supportive puff piece for their comrades in the tax-leeching game to me.

Cretinous @DundeeCouncil, An Abusive Employer

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 22:24:00 +0000

If you live in Dundee, I'd be very afraid if I were you, because your council is run by weapons grade idiots.

Now, I run a business and have to ensure that my staff are as competent as they can be or else the business fails, but it appears that you don't require even the slightest semblance of intelligence or awareness of what is going on around you to run Dundee Council. You also don't need to have any empathy with any of the nearly 8,000 employees that have to pitifully work for the vile bunch of cretins who govern the city. Via The Courier:

A new policy that bans council workers from smoking during working hours has been branded “tantamount to bullying”.

Trade unions have also hit out at the Dundee City Council rules, which will mean workers are not allowed to smoke or vape on tea breaks, while travelling between offices or when outside, even if they are not identifiable as council staff.

Anyone caught flouting the new rules could face disciplinary action.

This is a quite astonishingly tyrannical policy. It effectively says that the council - as an employer - has the right to dictate what employees do in their spare time. It says that they have a right to demand employees do the council's bidding even when they are not being paid.

Dundee Council, as a result, have catapulted themselves to the top of the UK league table of abusive employers. What next? Considering the ridiculous demonising of sugar, will Dundee's vacant councillors soon ban their staff from buying a Coca-Cola while on a lunch break? A McDonald's?

Oh, and they are liars too. According to Simon Clark, their justification is this.

The policy has been created in response to the Scottish Government report ‘Creating a tobacco-free generation: A Tobacco Control Strategy for Scotland’, with guidance from COSLA, and explicitly bans council workers from smoking whilst outdoors, even while walking from one premises to another or during tea breaks. The ban also includes e-cigarettes, which the council does not consider different from cigarettes.

In consultation with COSLA? Well that seems very strange considering Health Scotland "in partnership with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA)" had this to say on e-cigs just last year.

Terminology – the use of smoking terminology should be avoided when referring to ecigarettes. E-cigarette use is often known as ‘vaping’ and e-cigarettes users are often known as ‘vapers’. Make clear the distinction between vaping and smoking, and the evidence on the relative risks for users and bystanders.

Erm, Dundee City Council may be distinguishing between between smoking and vaping by mentioning them separately, but they are treating them exactly the same. It takes a monumental collection of fucksticks to think this is somehow acceptable. I have an idea that the Dundee dickheads didn't have any engagement with COSLA whatsoever. If they did, COSLA have questions to answer too because there must be some hideously lazy public sector staff flicking rubber bands around the office and failing to check what Dundee were saying and comparing it with THEIR OWN FUCKING ADVICE!

More cuts required, obviously.

Sooner or later, I expect the champions of vaping, ASH and ASH Scotland, will ride in and chastise these backward Scottish burghers and save the day. Well, maybe not just right now.

Anti-smoking charity ASH Scotland’s chief executive Sheila Duffy said: “Policies like this aim to care for employees and the communities they serve."

Yep. Sheila believes it's perfectly acceptable for workers to be bullied by their employer as to what they do in their spare time because she really wants them to quit smoking. Sheila also believes it's fine that they can be sacked for using a device - again, in their spare time - to quit smoking.

Where the fuck does the lucrative tobacco control industry find these incredibly repulsive people? Do they have anti-interviews where the most hideous are given the job?

As for the ASH mothership.

Employees of Dundee City Council have been banned from smoking during the working day under a new smoking policy. The council said its revised policy would encourage staff to quit and reduce the number of adult “role models” seen with cigarettes in public. https://t.co/w3QisvMan7
— ASH (@ASH_LDN) November 2, 2018

Once again, ASH seem pretty keen to endorse draconian bans on smokers and are more than willing to disregard the fact that vapers are being thrown under the bus along with them. I often hear about how ASH are the new guardians of vaping and how sincere they are about safer alternatives - mostly from ASH - but they keep doing shit like this.

ASH Wales, remember, "fully welcomed" a ban on vaping on a Welsh beach, while ASH London absolutely loved a ban on smoking and vaping in hospital grounds. Now we have Duffy of ASH Scotland clapping her tiny hands in excitement about vapers being threatened with dismissal and her London counterparts remaining silent as Scottish vapers are being bullied by an ignorant and hypocritical council.

Put simply. Employers should have absolutely no say about what their workers do - legally - when they are not being paid. I understand the unions are on the case and, for once, I hope they make a massive scene and cripple the city until the pathetic and incompetent people running Dundee Council take their heads out of their arses and think outside their tiny, prejudicial and vapid minds.

I would, however, like to thank them for yet again proving that none of this has ever been about health and that ASH has never been a friend of vapers.

Dundee Council, you are utter morons and abusive employers. In an ideal world your entire executive would be fired on the spot for harassment of your employees and barred from public office for a lifetime.

A 'Stalwart Smoker' Tries iQos

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Sun, 28 Oct 2018 17:55:00 +0000

A few years ago a friend of mine who travels incredibly regularly for business wrote some guest blogs here. You can see them on the Bear Tripper tag.

Having recently tried an iQos for the first time after not having heard of it until earlier this month, Bear sent some interesting initial thoughts as a blog article.

Note: I am not Dick Puddlecote.

I am a stalwart smoker of cigarettes.

Years ago I tried e-cigs when they were new on the market, in fact I was the one who first introduced DP to one in 2009. As someone who travels on an extremely regular basis, I found that the e-cig was helpful in many ways, most notably for use in some no smoking hotel rooms where the policies on smoking are particularly draconian, however I still wanted a proper cigarette. I found e-cigs dried my mouth.

Just a supporting note on that, there are still many smoking hotel rooms, no matter what people say, and it's quite rare on my travels that I don't find them. If you're a regular traveller - especially on business expenses - you are a good customer and I treat those hotels well for their understanding approach to people like me.

Enter the IQOS which I have only just heard about (which says something about the lack of marketing, why are smokers like me prevented from hearing about it? I can only guess that it is because anti-smokers are blocking marketing). It is described as the healthier way to smoke. I had to try this, obviously. My first thought was ‘what a great idea’. However, after pondering, I kept asking myself the same question. Why?

This is a ‘healthier’ way to smoke but wherever I've tried to use it I am still faced with going outside. If you use an e-cig, nobody knows you ‘smoked’ in a room. With IQOS, you can’t do that. A colleague told me that using IQOS meant he didn’t smell of smoke anymore, but not convinced the hotels or bars would see it that way, regardless of whether or not it had no harm to others.

I was an early adopter of e-cigs, as mentioned earlier, and I remember asking about using it in a couple of bars and was told, at the time that I couldn't. Their understanding of the smoking ban was so poor that they were worried it would be seen as smoking. In truth, they didn't know what e-cigs were and the fines for allowing smoking are so draconian that they didn't want to take the risk. I now see anti-smoking organisations including e-cigs in their campaigns but find it quite hypocritical because uptake would be much better if they had spoken up in the early days so that bars weren't afraid of allowing them. It's probably too late now. As Dick often says, it's not about health is it?

Some bars have now accepted and encouraged vaping, but very few in this country. I have found that the attitude in mainland Europe is far better than in the UK despite this country being praised for being welcoming towards vaping. Maybe that tells us something about the attitudes of Brits and our reluctance to turning a blind eye to silly laws.

Will IQOS be the same? Will we be allowed to smoke a ‘safe’ cigarette? Given that it is like the invasion of the bodysnatchers these days where people point and roar if you smoke, drink, eat chocolate, drink fizzy drinks etc, I am not sure we will have that option. Since trying the product I have looked up articles about it and found nothing but health organisations trying to demonise it before it gets started.

As to IQOS itself. I like the idea. I did find it dry and did not like the ‘taste’ but that was the same with e-cigs in the beginning. It can only be improved. New flavours could prove popular.

We then get to cost and availability. Heets are not that cheap. Will this cost reduce and will they be more available as they grow more popular?

I would like to keep trying IQOS, and will do until the Heets I currently have run out (or beyond if I enjoy it and can easily find more), but I am not seeing the advantage yet. The smoking ban was clearly not about health or else we would be seeing far more vaping allowed in public places. but with IQOS the outlook seems to me to be even worse. So why are we trying to make smoking healthier when we are still banned and thrown outdoors.

If someone in the anti-smoking movement can explain that to me, I'd think harder about whether to carry on trying something safer, but all the while I am thrown out into the cold I'll carry on with the fags, thanks.

So Predictable

noreply@blogger.com (Dick Puddlecote) — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 20:39:00 +0000

Just the other day I said this about the pitiful state of tobacco controllers when it comes to safer products made by industry.

I don't know about you, but I always thought tobacco control was about stopping people smoking by whatever means. You'd think Arnott would be happy about smokers being encouraged to use something far safer, wouldn't you?

And, today on the BBC, here we go again.

One of the world's biggest tobacco firms, Philip Morris, has been accused of "staggering hypocrisy" over its new ad campaign that urges smokers to quit.

The Marlboro maker said the move was "an important next step" in its aim to "ultimately stop selling cigarettes".

But Cancer Research UK said the firm was just trying to promote its smoking alternatives, such as heated tobacco.

"This is a staggering hypocrisy," it said, pointing out the firm still promotes smoking outside the UK.

Look, it's very simple. In much of the world, the ghastly tobacco control machine has been demonising e-cigs and other similar products so much that governments are banning them. The latest is the absurd decision by Hong Kong to prohibit sale, manufacture and advertising of anything to do with vaping while still allowing cigarettes to be available everywhere. They join cretinous policy-makers in Thailand, Brazil and other assorted lunatic nations like Australia.

Look at Australia, proudly standing shoulder to shoulder with these fine, upstanding countries which have banned #ecigs #COP8 https://t.co/qp7bYspyZs pic.twitter.com/RldgPCDZnD
— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) August 8, 2018

What the blithering fuck do these cretins think are going to be promoted if they do silly things like that? Well, a brain donor from CRUK seems to think he has a stunning argument on that.

"The best way Philip Morris could help people to stop smoking is to stop making cigarettes," George Butterworth, Cancer Research UK's tobacco policy manager said.

Jesus Christ! This is the thinking of a fucking 10 year old yet he is being paid handsomely to have it. George, there are things called businesses that are beholden to their shareholders, your puerile nonsense is quite absurd, as I have mentioned before.

Any CEO who cut their shareholders off at the knees with such a stupid destruction of their business would probably end up in jail for abandoning their fiduciary duty to their investors, many of which are pension funds which could see their value decimated overnight. Any tobacco controller who suggests this as a feasible course of action - and some actually have - is showing themselves up to be a monumental cretin.

Let me tell you something that I fully believe Butterworth knows very well. Philip Morris ceasing production of cigarettes would not lead to a single smoker quitting. Their carcass of a company would be picked over by hawkish competitors, their shareholders would be in uproar, pension funds would suffer and their brands would just be produced by someone else.

If he truly believes this is a good argument he is a moron. But I suspect he is not that dense and just says it because he instinctively wants to oppose anything industry does. It's a quite pathetic stance to take and one which ASH are happy to follow too.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Ash, said Philip Morris was still advertising its Marlboro brand wherever globally it was legal to do so.

"The fact of the matter is that it can no longer do that in the UK, we're a dark market where all advertising, promotion and sponsorship is banned, and cigarettes are in plain packs.

"So instead Philip Morris is promoting the company name which is inextricably linked with Marlboro," she said.

It advertises its brand in other countries, Debs, because it is legally entitled to do so and is arguably obliged to to satisfy its investors. You were in Geneva for COP8 and singularly failed to remove prohibition of safer products from the FCTC's guidance to less developed nations. If you want Philip Morris to stop selling cigarettes why not talk to your colleagues and get them to stop encouraging countries like India - for example - to ban alternatives?

As for Philip Morris advertising its company name, erm, I think you'd be hard pressed to find a smoker who knows who makes the cigarette they smoke. It's an utterly absurd argument.

The simple fact, yet again, is that tobacco controllers are raging about the fact that industry is doing their job far better than tobacco control can. And they are sensing how much of their funding is going to disappear.

It's never been about health with these people, and today proves it yet again. They are more interested in attacking industry than encouraging smokers to quit.

It wouldn't be so pathetic if it wasn't so bloody predictable.

Anyway, here's the campaign video that these 'anti-smokers' are objecting to. Not my cup of tea but oh how ridiculous and venal tobacco control make themselves by wanting it shut down.