Why UK smokers should fear the Lisbon Treaty

Here is a chilling quote via the Telegraph:

'Lisbon Treaty should mean single EU seat on IMF board'

Simon Johnson, a former IMF chief economist, said that the passing of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, should accelerate moves towards a common European position in international economic institutions.

He said: “People say that the EU is not a country and only countries can have IMF seats, but that doesn’t really stand now that you’ve got Lisbon. The treaty makes the EU as much a single federal entity as some other IMF members.”

So soon? The disenfranchisement of the UK government has begun already. A mere three days after Vaclav Klaus signed away the last resistance to a Europe-wide legislature, and before the Lisbon Treaty goes 'live' on December 1st.

Talk of the EU as a single body dealing exclusively with the affairs of member states, without recourse to national parliaments, should be a worrying development for smokers considering the transparent EU stance on tobacco.

Put quite simply, they hate you, and would like you banned from everywhere.

Markos Kyprianou has called for an EU-wide ban on smoking in public places.

“It is time to bring the debate to the EU level”, the EU health commissioner said as he launched a consultation on policy options to tackle passive smoking.

But Dick, I hear you cry, what's the difference? We UK smokers are banned everywhere already. It's not as if there is anyone at Westminster who is willing to listen to us ... they are only interested in filling their pockets, and we haven't got any money to throw at them.

Yes, you'd be correct. On all counts. But, the EU have bigger plans which, until Lisbon, you had a chance to take up with your elected representative.

Brussels chiefs want to outlaw beer garden ciggie areas - and even extend the ban to open air concerts like this weekend's Glastonbury festival.

The European Commission says the current bar on smoking in enclosed public places does not go far enough. It says non-smokers in outdoor areas are still in danger from passive smoking.

It comes after a World Health Organisation report said workers such as waiters and door staff are exposed to dangerous levels of smoke outside pubs and restaurants. And the smoke can waft back inside buildings through open doors, windows and vents.

Note the words in bold above. The European Commission. The unelected European Commission.

Prior to Lisbon, you, business owners, and anyone else concerned about the loss of liberties when there is no valid reason for their being stripped away, could complain like crazy to their MP. They might not listen, but if they didn't, you had the option of voting against them at the next election.

There is no such luxury with the European Commission, as they are appointed, not elected. They are above democracy, rendering you irrelevant.

With the first moves in erasing the idea of a British nation, as a separate entity within Europe, already surfacing at the IMF, it's not going to be long before the steamroller of EU dictatorship fires up its engine and embarks on the flattening of the freedoms they have been planning on crushing for quite a long while.

And, legally, there is not a damn thing you can do about it.

Incredibly biased authoritarian twat honoured

Oh look. An Australian anti-smoking obsessive has won an award.

An international award has been given to the University of Adelaide's Professor Konrad Jamrozik, who has spent the past 30 years campaigning against smoking and helping smokers to kick the habit.

He's quite a guy, this Jamrozik.

Since the mid 1980s, Professor Jamrozik has combined his academic and clinical work with his passion for tobacco control as a "part-time activist but full-time advocate".

One would assume from this that if he were to conduct a 'scientific' study, it would only come to one conclusion. You would attach about as much significance to it as you would a study by British American Tobacco claiming that smoking turns you into Usain Bolt.

Wouldn't you?

Not so the BBC.

Passive smoking kills more than 11,000 a year in the UK - much higher than previously thought, a study shows.

Report author Konrad Jamrozik said: "It is clear that adoption of smoke free policies in all workplaces in the UK might prevent several hundred premature deaths each year."

Also, not so if you are nice-but-dim British MP.

His work on deaths attributable to passive smoking was cited at least nine times in the Westminster Parliamentary debate that led to the adoption of smoke-free legislation.

And was the study flawed, innumerate, and ... well, there's no nice way of putting it ... shit?

Of course it was. What else could one expect?

In other news, an Israeli has produced a study that 'proves' Palestinians are descended from the Devil, and Pepsi have conclusive evidence that Coca Cola is the prime cause of dementia.

Yeah, I reckon the Beeb will swallow that too, and MPs will scuttle around passing retarded legislation on the back of it.

What a ridiculous country we live in.

Anti-tobacco flummoxed

The campaign to amend the smoking ban (if you haven't signed up yet, why not click here and do so?) has thrown up a bit of a problem for anti-smoking nutcases. They really don't know how to argue against it.

It's quite understandable amongst local rag article commenters who have always relied on anti-tobacco cliches to avoid the obvious, but one would have thought that local columnists might actually read the question before writing nonsense ... unless that is what they didn't do at journo camp to end up at provinicals like the Bridlington Free Press, like Paper Clip here.

SO lots of people in Brid are backing our MP Greg Knight's idea to have smoking reintroduced in pubs and clubs.

They argue the smoking ban in public places is killing the pub trade and is an infringement on their human rights.

I say smoking is killing thousands upon thousands of people in this country every year and that the filthy habit is an infringement on the human rights of non-smokers who have to breathe polluted air.

1) They don't argue that a ban is an infringement on their human rights (would love to know where he got that from).
2) The campaign doesn't ask that any poor flower should be forced to breath 'polluted air', either.

Anyway, let's go with it. See what happens, eh?

Recent talk of a ban in people's own cars when children are inside gets my support.

If the use of mobile phones at the wheel can be banned then surely so can smoking!

Exclamation mark?

Err ... has the wire wally not noticed that the law on using mobile phones has been distinctly unenforceable? As would be a ban on smoking in cars. In fact, it would make things worse. Hands openly hanging out of the window to keep fumes out on a long drive would be replaced with blacked out windows firmly shut on long journeys. It's a shame that Mr Clip didn't factor this into his one-sided bullshit.

But then, what does he care? He's a cast-iron ban fan. He even agrees with previously-ridiculed prosecutions on eating in cars.

Are drivers in full control if they are smoking? Less so than if they are eating a bar of chocolate and motorists have found themselves in trouble for snacking at the wheel.

One can only assume that when the worthless office expendable read about drivers being prosecuted for eating a kit kat, laughing, taking a sip of a bottle of water, eating an ice cream, eating a banana, and brushing one's hair in slow-moving traffic he must have thought it a right wheeze.

If not, he would be a hypocrite, no?

Of course, if he did, he's a righteous twat with no right to be entertained in civil society. Still, I digress.

He is evidently incapable of understanding the written word, as exhibited again later in the article.

If I wanted to risk my health and have my mouth tasting of an ash tray I would smoke – but I don't, so I shouldn't have to put up with smoke when I go into a pub or wherever else selfish people want smoking reintroduced.

Hey. Clippy-boy. Have you even read the web-site regarding the amendment? Because, you see, I always assumed that those who write for newspapers were supposed to research before banging the keys. If you are one of the fabled million monkeys, then I apologise, but one would have thought someone further up the evolutionary scale would have noticed that you wouldn't have to put up with any smoke under the measures proposed.

That's the second example of not understanding the subject matter. I hope there won't be a third. That would make you look rather fucking stupid.

Oh dear.

I don't want to sit on a table in a non- smoking part of a restaurant 10ft away from the smoking part because I will still smell it.

Err ... the clue is in the title of the campaign. It's called "Save Our Pubs And Clubs". Where did you get the restaurant bit?

Admit it, you're just a bigoted pratt who has no clue about the campaign. You are writing a piece on apples when the article to which you refer talks of oranges.

Labour educated, yes?

I don't think we need to go into the rest of his garbage, do we? Especially the bit about being able to smell smoke in a different room, in an establishment he quite simply wouldn't go to in the first place.

I love this new campaign, it's flushing selfish morons out of the woodwork like nothing before. They simply can't handle it, they're flummoxed.

All about health, is it?

This report from the New York Times is very worrying.

Suicide Warning Issued for 2 Anti-Smoking Drugs

WASHINGTON — Federal drug regulators warned Wednesday that patients taking two popular anti-smoking drugs should be watched closely for signs of serious mental illness, as reported suicides among the drugs’ users mount.

Very worrying indeed.

Between the two drugs, Chantix and Zyban, the FDA have received 112 confirmed reports of completed suicides (ie real, confirmed, deaths), and 205 reports of attempted suicides.

In the interests of risk-prevention, these drugs must be withdrawn immediately, surely?

But officials emphasized that patients should not be scared away from taking the smoking-cessation medicines, Chantix, made by Pfizer, and Zyban, made by GlaxoSmithKline.

Of course not. Health authorities in the US, and over here, are balls deep in financial agreements with these pharmaceutical companies. It is impossible for them to act in the public interest due to the sponsorship and contracts to which they are tied.

A perfect UK example is Warwickshire PCT, which I talked about here recently (note: Chantix is marketed in the UK as Champix).

Contact 1: Plan strategy for quitting, including assessment for drug therapy including carbon monoxide test, access to nicotine replacement therapy, Zyban® or Champix®

Contact 2: Possible quit date
Ensure access to NRT, Zyban® or Champix®. Carbon monoxide test

And Warks PCT aggressively promote these these drugs, why?

Joint working with Pfizer around targeting of clinics/drop-ins

Joint working with Pfizer to develop more effective recruitment campaigns in N&B, also targeting health professionals to refer more and more effectively.

Can you guess why Pfizer want more effective referrals, boys and girls?

Meanwhile, back in the US.

The F.D.A. required Pfizer and Glaxo to place so-called black box warnings — the agency’s most serious caution — on the prescribing information for both drugs. Both companies will be required to conduct clinical trials to assess the mental health risks associated with the drugs’ uses.

In the clinical trial ordered by the F.D.A., manufacturers must assess risks among those with identified psychiatric disorders, because mental health problems are associated with high rates of smoking.

So, let's get this straight. The FDA have identified smoking as being associated with mental health problems, yet are not withdrawing a product which has been proven to exacerbate, or even cause, mental health problems and suicide.

Stinks, don't it?

How Labour in parliament work: Gillian Merron

This exchange in Westminster exhibits both the best and the worst of our elected representatives.

In answer to a friendly question by Ann Coffey (Labour, Stockport), the Minister of State, Gillian Merron (Labour, Lincoln) exhibits some incredible arrogance to a two-pronged spearing from more knowledgeable MPs.

Note the difference in tone, and attitude.

In response to Coffey.

My hon. Friend is a great champion for quitting smoking. I am delighted ... and I congratulate her ...

Compare and contrast the reply to Philip Davies (Conservative, Shipley), who cares about ALL his constituents (as he has shown before), not just some.

Davies: There is nothing to suggest that the ban on tobacco displays will reduce the number of young people taking up smoking; that ban is merely another triumph for the nanny state and for this Government, who are obsessed with headline-grabbing but pointless initiatives. Will the Minister reconsider this decision, given the negative impact that it will have on small shops, which are already struggling through the recession?

Merron: The simple answer is no, and the reason why is that removing tobacco displays is not going to close shops, no matter how much the hon. Gentleman and others in the House spread myths.

Myths? Such as a documented 23 shops closing every week in Ontario, and 12 in Quebec, due to the same unnecessary measure over the Atlantic, for example?

Then, fresh from the launch of amendthesmokingban.com, David Clelland, a fellow Labour MP, challenged her loose grasp of reality too.

Clelland: But if the display of tobacco products encourages young people to take up smoking, what influence do the crowds of people whom we see on the streets outside pubs and clubs have on young people? Would it not be better for these smokers to be hidden away—inside the building in a controlled environment, rather than on the streets, where children can see them?

He's got a point, you know.

Merron can't see it though. Unfortunately, she had her fingers in her ears and was singing la-la-la at the time.

Merron: My hon. Friend is, as always, very inventive in making his point.

Apparently, logic and common sense is now classed as 'inventive' by New Labour.

Could this be why no fucker in their right mind votes for them anymore? Just a thought.

Health & Sports Committee (Scotland) - Warning! May contain nuts.

The video below is the final 'evidential?' hearing from stage 1 into passing a law in Scotland that would see "point of sale" tobacco gantries removed from behind counters in shops and supermarkets; in fact any structure that sells these products, like ice cream vans etc, and put under the counter so that adult smokers will have to get their cigarettes and other tobacco products furtively, as though they should be ashamed for even asking for this legal product. But it's all to save the bairns from a life of dependency you see, isn't it? Yeah right!

The first part has a representative from ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers,) Andrew Barker, Assistant Chief Constable from the Fife constabulary debating which system is best to keep tobacco vendors on a leash, a national register or a licencing system. Oh the angst they go through in deciding how best to criminalise the hard working businessman/woman!

The second part is the usual crock of shit from MSEP's & MP's as they wax lyrical with so called facts and figures.

The committee will now ponder on all the evidence from Stage 1 and write up their findings, to be published around September this year.

Watch but have a bucket to hand because your bound to want to wretch.

Click To Play