I wrote a piece in response to the effect[affect?] of the smoking ban in Scotland – and now here in ‘The Land of the Free’ as Albion was called (a long long time ago…) or just Plain England and Northern Ireland, we are about to have the enforcers crashing into our lives down here as well – and If you think that because You Don’t Smoke it won’t affect you – then think again. The ball to make it illegal to give kids alcohol in the parental homes under the age of 16 has just begun… nevermind the fact that you will be less likely to meet the interesting folk who will continue, out of principle, to live their own lives.
Anyway, I will probably post on how the fascists manouvre their cache of restrictive ideas through the parliamentary system and into our lives, but in the meantime – Something from the archives. Enjoy….
Monday, September 11, 2006
Five months in and the health fascists have their hands over their ears…
It is five months since Scotland took the rather bold step of making outlaws of folk who smoke where they used to. There has been a great amount of compliance, with the general erection of temperary shelters for smokers (wait for winter to see more permanent ones, with their gas heaters – it’s so good for the environment,) and complaints about cigarette stubbs.
And what did they expect? You kick someone who has been smoking for years inside ‘his local‘ and without an ashtray you would think that people who are making this chain of events happen would realise/hope that men are not machines. And you are ‘kicking‘ the guys out of their locals because the locals are not able to choose whether they are smoke-free or not – I have known some pubs up north ie around Newcastle go smoke-free after they consulted their customers and I have nothing to say but good luck to them, not that they’ll see much of me anyway. So without the establishments ability to decide their own course of action – if people want to (or cannot stop) smoke then they are barred by law.
But how does the law discriminate between those addicted and those who positively choose to carry on smoking – it does not, so it in the end treats us all like little children with no backbone of our own and the nanny is sent in to tell us off in her blue uniform and the power to put us in the corner and then fine us if we don’t make good…
So why do I say that the fascists have their hands over their ears? I was checking up on an old e-mail and saw on the news stream a link to this – article about the ‘land of the free’ or Scotland to you and me. I particularly like the way they decided to have only photographs of old men standing outside the pubs (probably easy to snap, but it could not have taken that much more effort to get a view of the wider population being affected.) But to get back to the point, after all has been said about the economic costs and that some obviously don’t appreciate being kicked out of their local, the Health Minister Andrew Kerr has said that he has not met one person who wanted to set the clock back on the ban…
He must either keep a close reign on who he talks to, and about what or he has an excellent memory for a politician. Some pubs, like those locked in the middle of a street are being hit hardest from the drop in sales that has so far resulted – I am sure they will appreciate their better working environment when it is no more and have to console themselves somewhere else. I think that there is no doubt that as in Dublin there was competition to be the best hosts to smokers – there will be winners and losers…
Andrew Kerr refers to the lives that will be saved – but to be honest – the ban will save no-one from death, it may well increase folks standard of health and maybe longevity but the problem with the health of the Scots is mostly due to it’s diet. I must admit that the next time I visist Glasgow I want to try a deep fried Mars bar, but that is the problem – fried food, not even too much food, just what they eat, so when they start dropping due to clogged arteries will the scottish parliament feel the need to ban the chippy? and if so, why is it doing things in the wrong order? Is it because that smokers are an easy target and that they can grab headlines which will be impressive without risking complete and utter alienation? and if this is their view, shouldn’t they use their residual backbone to say they have no spine.
But then like hitler and mussolini – fascists have always gone for the easy targets first, the question the rest of you have to think of is – what freedoms do you think are precious – the freedom from inteference perhaps, because you’ll have a fight to get that back from it’s highly conditional state. And to an extent it was always conditional – but on the harming of others ie the proof that you had done some bad thing like murder or theft – not asked for a drink whilst smoking, and before we all go berserk about secondary smoke – yes it will have an affect if you stay in a very smokey atmosphere for prolonged periods over time, but the chap who researched and established the link between smoking and cancer said that the evidence was something he would not trust to make the same link between secondary smoking and cancer and secondly he also said that there was no real health risk from smoking (or to be more specific – that smoking did not statistically alter your natural life expectancy) before we started the easy smokes of cigarettes.
I will endeavour to continue to enjoy smoking my pipe of tobacco and the occasional cigar, my thanks to everyone for their concern, but I like my freedom and to stop me from smoking in a bar is to make it nearer to closing down…
[...] ago I wrote a post about Scotland and the effects or, rather, lack of effects that the smoking ban will have on the [...]