There are many reasons why I support the Forest Campaign - Hands Off Our Packs - against the ridiculous idea that all cigarettes and tobacco should be in plain packaging.
The antis have just one argument for it - young people and children shouldn't be able to see any tobacco product brand in case it makes them start smoking. We adult experts who stared smoking as children know this is rubbish because none of us began smoking because of the design on a pack of fags.
"The children" is just an excuse to further punish the tobacco industry and to confuse adults into quitting but as far as "The children" are concerned, this proposal will ensure they are put more at risk from an ever growing black market of contaminated tobacco which gains success on the back of over regulation and punishment policies such as plain packaging.
Such a move would make smoking more dangerous than it was for my generation of children in the 1960s. We might have been "exposed" to being able to buy in shops but at least our product was regulated and to some extent, even back in the 60s, controlled.
The other reason I'm against this ludicrous idea is because it isn't really about "plain" packaging at all because there will be faked images of death and disease plastered all over them.
If Tobacco Companies' legal and historic trademarks can be stolen to be replaced with Tobacco Control and Public Health graphic trademarks, then I wonder what could be next. It will set a precedent for anyone claiming any product to be unhealthy - and particularly bad for children
How about the makers of soft drinks which are specifically marketed at kids?
Certainly Public Health campaigners are warning of the life threatening danger and if they get their way on plain packs for tobacco products then soft drinks could well be next and the drinks companies like Pepsi (which currently pays its smoker employees less than non smoker employees for the same work) could be targeted along with Coca Cola.
And how about McDonalds and Burger King? If plain packaging on tobacco goes through then perhaps we'll begin to see our burgers and chicken nuggets in packs such as this - "Plain" meaning covered in gross images with only a number to distinguish between one brand and the other.
This is not a future I want as an informed adult who is able to pick my way through the myriad of health propaganda, mixed with my own experiences, likes and dislikes, to come to a conclusion on what is bad for me and what is not.
Communism comes to mind and state controlled industry which removes all competition and allows only the sale of products owned or approved by Govt. And they wonder why the economy is in such a mess.
3 comments:
Your last paragraph is exactly it and makes me question whether at the root of it, this entire worldwide economic depression hasn't been triggered in a large extent by rampant belief in destructive anti-smokerism. Destruction of pubs and the hospitality trade is something most obvious. But underlying it all, what's not to say it hasn't already wormed its way deep into all economic sectors at large, given the premise is to spread lies through propaganda using ill-gotten thievery of taxpayer money to prop up the agitators, for whom the only worthy business enterprise in their eyes, is that of the anti-smoking industry. And any industry in opposition or not conforming, must be destroyed. Look at California, scheduled to be $3.3 Billion in red ink and out of money by mid-March. They've spent 16 years inflicting smoking bans, indoors and out, and have now escalated spending at a hyperbolic rate into lavish TV productions aimed at calling smokers murderers of infants while encouraging hatred amongst non-smokers to be vigilantes and do something to stop smokers, both verbally and physically, whatever it takes to make smokers not smoke in public, nor in private. This super inflated cost for funding this sort of propaganda is all from taxpayer money that could have gone to worthwhile causes - and it comes at the cost of decreased tobacco and tobacco sales tax revenue, which the state has already recognized is at an all time low. The anti-smoking industry has become like a parasite on public funds and those from pharmaceuticals and does nothing but stir up division and hatred in order to maintain its high on the hog lifestyle, at the benefit of the entire economy of California. If it can do that to a state, then it could as much be the root cause behind rapid economic deterioration worldwide, as the tentacles of the anti-smoking industry have spread themselves into international markets and may be the kiss of economic death for any country upon which they leech. It might be good for the pharmaceuticals, the fake charities and the politicians who support this type of economic vampirism, but it might be at the expense of economic annihilation worldwide.
"...at the benefit of the entire economy of California."
should read "at the expense of the entire economy of California."
Taking anon's comment further, does this go anyway to explain what is happening in the world today?
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/education_transformation/cultural_marxism%3a_the_doom_of_language_20110606438/
Cultural marxism, Frankfurt school, critical theory, political correctness etc- all depend on creating crises that can be used to mould society. "... the long march to undermine the love of God, family, and country."
Can anyone deny that we are in a period where there appears to be one crisis after another in all sorts of areas, challenging long held values and norms - smoke bans, global warming, terrorism, war, insurgencies, public health panics, financial melt downs, economic instability etc.
All very frightening!
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