From Taking Liberties, plain packaging doesn’t work:
New evidence, says Forest, suggests plain packaging will not reduce the number of teenagers who smoke.
Instead of declining since the introduction of plain packaging, youth smoking rates have gone up. According to the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare, youth smoking rates have increased by 36% in the period 2010-2013.
Plain packaging has had no impact on adults either. Monthly figures for the adult (18+) smoking rate are consistent with the long-term decline of smoking in Australia. Far from accelerating that decline, says Forest, the trend for the year 2013 shows a 1.8% annual increase. (Figures courtesy Roy Morgan Research, Australia’s longest-established market research company with a strong reputation for reliability and accuracy.)
Plain packaging, says Forest, is also fuelling the black market. In Australia in 2012 illicit tobacco stood at 11.5% of tobacco consumption. By mid-2014 it reached an unprecedented 14.3% share of the market, an increase of nearly 25% (KPMG, Illicit tobacco in Australia, 2014 Half Year Report, October 2014).
Simon Clark, director of Forest, said: “Plain packaging hasn’t worked.
But CRUK says it works:
Cancer Research UK said the country’s experiment with unbranded packaging had led to falling smoking rates without creating an illegal black market.
Sarah Woolnough, the charity’s executive director of policy and information, said: “This is an anniversary worth celebrating. Australia took the lead on this issue and two years later they’re reaping the rewards.
“Smoking rates have fallen, more people than ever support standard packs and scare stories about flooding the market with cheap, illegal tobacco have failed to materialise. It’s been a resounding success in Australia and we’re confident the same can happen here.
“Research has shown that removing the colourful designs of tobacco packs reduces the appeal of smoking to children. This measure will help cut the number of people killed by smoking and we’re urging the UK government to take the next steps as soon as possible.”
Perhaps they could agree on a compromise: Plain packaging works! Youth smoking rates are rising!
In other news:
David Cameron faces a huge rebellion by more than 200 of his own MPs who want us out of the European Union.
Party veteran Sir Bill Cash has warned that at least two thirds of the 303 Conservatives in the Commons now want to leave.
And Ebola hasn’t gone away.
Two months ago, the World Health Organization launched an ambitious plan to stop the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, aiming to isolate 70 per cent of the sick and to have 70 per cent safe burials in the three hardest-hit countries— Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — by December 1.
Only Guinea is on track to meet the December 1 goal, according to an update from WHO.
In Liberia, only 23 per cent of cases are isolated and 26 per cent of the needed burial teams are in place. In Sierra Leone, about 40 per cent of cases are isolated while 27 per cent of burial teams are operational…
Earlier this month, the U.S. announced it was scaling back the size and number of Ebola clinics it had initially promised to build in Liberia, citing a drop in cases.
Death toll still mounting:
Nearly 7,000 people have died from Ebola in west Africa, the World Health Organization said late Friday, adding some 1,200 more deaths to a toll from two days earlier.
Frank Davis 
The Tobacco Control lobby is misrepresenting the situation in Australia. It seems propaganda trumps facts. Since plain packaging was introduced the illicit market for tobacco has grown. According to the November KPMG report, illicit tobacco trade had increased from 13.5% to 14.3% of total consumption making around 1 in 7 cigarettes consumed contraband. Revenue (taxes) lost to the state were about AUD $1.2 Billion. (See “Illegal Tobacco ‘at record levels’ in Australia, 25 November 2014 at http://www.voxy.co.nz/business/illegal-tobacco-record-levels-australia/5/208350 .) As a result, it appears the Australian black market for tobacco has grown despite the Cancer Research UK claims that illegal tobacco has failed to materialize. Since the introduction of plain packaging Australia’s black market for tobacco has grown while overall consumption rates have stalled (i.e., they are not continuing to decline).
Remember ‘Comical Ali’? Anyone who does not equate CRUK’s propagandists with ‘Comical Ali’ is a fool.
‘Lying Toerags’ would be more appropriate…
The Telegraph asks, Plain packaging on cigarettes: Where does it all end?
It ends with total prohibition after decades of deception and “salami slice” dictatorial measures.
But The Telegraph starts with a link to the Financial Times article, “Australian smoking rates tumble after plain packaging shift” (behind a paywall, but we get the gist).
Being MSM, they obviously hang onto every word of TC and actual facts mustn’t get in the way of their propaganda. And their “journalists” don’t have time to check facts and accommodate their four hour liquid lunches.
I had thought that packets of ten were being banned for the sake of the cheeldren, but apparently, The EU is preparing to ban menthols, because they are “flavoured”, and 10-packs, because they are too small to really see the rotting teeth and gangrenous limbs which smokers are required to contemplate.
Coincidentally, regarding my comment about where it all ends, the article says,
This is not a fringe opinion: Tasmania’s upper house wants a similar law, while in the USA, acting surgeon general Dr Boris Lushniak wrote: “We will explore ‘end game’ strategies that support the goal of eliminating tobacco smoking.”
Land of the Free (from tobacco).
We also read that,
57 per cent of all British smokers say it would be difficult to go without smoking for a day. For those who smoke 20 or more per day that rises to 82 per cent. Yet almost half of them say they want “quite a lot” or “very much indeed” to quit.
We read this sort of thing a lot, but do they ever say why? Is it due to the health concerns they have been convinced of? Is it the because of any actual effects (e.g. wheezing – I know a man who gave up because as he was lying in bed he could hear his tubes whistling)? Is it the cost – because taxation makes cigarettes five times the price they would otherwise be? Is it due to the dehumanisation of smokers and the increasingly draconian regulations?
Do the mainstream media ever question the OCDs that people in TC have which compels them to revel in grotesque imagery? They quote from these people who, in my opinion, need psychiatric help for their obsessive behaviour, by being driven by images of disease, sperm and death, by their strong desire to control others, to habitually distort the truth, etc.
Stewart, I think the whole thing with OCD’s is connected to that article I posted about two months ago, the so-called “psychological displacement” phenomena. I’ll try to dig it out and repost, if I can find it.
If people wanted to quit they would of their own accord without being made a criminal.
Its the criminal part that pissed us all off and said fuck em all!
Here is another group of victims of Australia’s plain packaging: workers, companies and whole Third World countries,
“By stripping our brands and trademarks from packaging, the policy precludes our tobacco producers from differentiating their premium products from competitors in the marketplace, which has been extremely detrimental to our industry,” said Dr. Katrina Naut, the Dominican Republic’s Director General of Foreign Trade.”
http://globenewswire.com/news-release/2014/12/01/687494/10110368/en/The-Dominican-Republic-Highlights-Impact-of-Australia-s-Plain-Packaging-Legislation.html
From dailymail.com.uk :
Men who recover from Ebola must abstain from having sex for three months or risk passing on the disease in their semen, health experts have warned.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said the virus, which has claimed almost 7,000 lives in West Africa this year, can remain in a survivor’s seminal fluid for 82 days.
The WHO said: ‘Men who have recovered from Ebola virus disease should be aware that seminal fluid may be infectious for as long as three months after onset of symptoms.
‘Because of the potential to transmit the virus sexually during this time, they should maintain good personal hygiene after masturbation, and either abstain from sex (including oral sex) for three months after onset of symptoms, or use condoms if abstinence is not possible.’
…
These recovered Ebola patients are allowed to roam around the U.S.A. There are over 1.2 million people with H.I.V. in North America. 20,000 deaths per year. Now we will have another wonderful immigrant group. Thank you, Mr. Obama.
80…81…82. C’mere, Rosalind. I love the pretend precision of these guys.
‘Because of the potential to transmit the virus sexually during this time, they should maintain good personal hygiene after masturbation, and either abstain from sex (including oral sex) for three months after onset of symptoms, or use condoms if abstinence is not possible.’
…
If abstinence is not possible? So, officially people are not in control of their own behaviour?
These recovered Ebola patients are allowed to roam around the U.S.A. There are over 1.2 million people with H.I.V. in North America. 20,000 deaths per year.
The BBC keeps announcing today that the HIV virus appears to have become “less deadly” and “less virulent”; Hurray???
IF this has been ‘observed’ we have a multitude of problems, the first problem being that governments have lost track of HIV infections….
Well, now that the plain packaging effort isn’t working as well as the tobacco control crew like they will seek additional outside bans. Sydney, NSW is looking to ban smoking in the CBD (on top of existing indoor and outdoor bans). The plan is for a 12 month trial (likely a tactical statement to make the plan seem less draconian) and then potentially expanding to additional areas.
(See “City of Sydney council will vote on a plan to stub out smoking in Martin Place,” Daily Telegraph, 02 December 2014 at http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/city-of-sydney-council-will-vote-on-a-plan-to-stub-out-smoking-in-martin-place/story-fni0cx12-1227141392587 .)
Australia has long had comprehensive indoor smoking bans, including restaurants and pubs. Most states already have alfresco bans. By next year all states will have alfresco bans. Smoking is banned on all? university campuses around the country. There are numerous hospitals where smoking is banned on the entire grounds. Smoking is banned (indoor and out) in most mental health facilities. Smoking is banned (indoor and out) in most prisons. There are various beach bans. Smoking is banned in vehicles carrying children younger than 18 (in all? states). There are only a handful of hotels around the country that permit smoking in rooms. There are a plethora of apartment smoking bans. If renting, it’s now even very difficult to find a detached house that doesn’t have a “smoking not permitted indoors” clause.
So, the move is to advance [baseless] smoking bans in more public places, e.g., shopping strips, malls. It’s useful to note who it is that’s advocating this latest asinine ban (in Martin Place, Sydney). It’s Christine Forster. She’s supposedly a “Liberal” councillor; that’s “liberal” as in lesser government interference “conservative party”. She’s also gay (and gay activist). And she’s the sister of the [Liberal] prime-minister, Tony Abbott.
Concerning antismoking, the liberals, supposedly the conservative party, are bad enough. The Labor Party, once protector of the working class, is even worse. And the fringe “Greens Party” are whacko central.
This also today from a Greens senator:
‘No Gender December’: Greens Senator calls for end to gender-based toys
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/no-gender-december-greens-senator-calls-for-end-to-genderbased-toys-20141202-11y4ro.html
It’s sad to say but Australia is a serious basket case.
It’s sad to say but Australia is a serious basket case.
Unfortunately true.
As I’ve mentioned before, I lived there for most of the 70s, and it was great – I loved it. I don’t really know what happened to the country in such a relatively short time.
I went back about 12 years ago to visit my sons in Adelaide. I had a flight from Kuala Lumpur, and it went via Melbourne where it dropped off some of the passengers and refueled before continuing on to Adelaide. It was a two hour stopover, so I got off the plane to stretch my legs and find somewhere to have a ciggy (I’d been airborne for 9 hours or so). I looked in vain for a smoking area (this is early 2002, remember), and finally spotted a cleaning lady who I figured would know where I could have a much needed ciggy. “Oh no”, she said. “There’s no smoking anywhere in the terminal; $600 fine if you’re caught smoking”. WTF?!? No smoking ANYWHERE in the terminal, and no way of going outside. I was one pissed-off bunny, I can tell you. Then the cherry on the cake was when I arrived in Adelaide, and was treated like some criminal scum by the unbelievably unpleasant customs and immigration. And it wasn’t just me – they treated everyone like dirt. I can’t remember ever having been treated with such contempt by anyone, before or since. I imagine the Gestapo must have had a similarly despotic approach.
I vowed then that I would never set foot in Australia again, and nor will I.
And it wasn’t much better in the city. When I went with my son for a beer, just about everywhere was non-smoking. I was appalled.
Nope. Never again. Such a shame.
It is sad to see total tobacco control being extend so far. This near prohibition is rapidly becoming the case through out the US, Canada, South America, Europe, and Asai (read everywhere). Not content with reducing smoking they want to eradicate all vestiges of smoking (and not only public smoking as the latest bans are in apartments and on residential private property). The tempo toward prohibition is now getting very rapid. How can we stop this madness?
Just as the tobacco controllers gain momentum with each new restriction, the smoking community would start to gain momentum if some of these bans were rejected or reversed. The problem is the majority has bought into the propaganda. How is that countered?
New evidence, says Forest, suggests plain packaging will not reduce the number of teenagers who smoke.
Of course not! To begin with, teenagers do like “guts&gore” – and sooner or later they will have collected enough of these “plain” packets to have enough for a full deck for games based on good old fashioned card games. (Prof Ropohl)
But CRUK says it works:
Cancer Research UK said the country’s experiment with unbranded packaging had led to falling smoking rates without creating an illegal black market.
Why am I not surprised?
CRUK obviously uses the monies donated by the public for anti-smoking propaganda rather than what the money was donated for: Developing TREATMENT for (all!) cancers.
In other news:
David Cameron faces a huge rebellion by more than 200 of his own MPs who want us out of the European Union.
They might want out of the EU but they say nothing about smoking rooms inside pubs etc.
And Ebola hasn’t gone away.
Two months ago, the World Health Organization launched an ambitious plan to stop the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, aiming to isolate 70 per cent of the sick and to have 70 per cent safe burials in the three hardest-hit countries— Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — by December 1.
The World Health Organization says a lot – and continues to spend tax payers’ monies on in SECRET held lavish conferences to conjure up more inhumane treatment for smokers?
Death toll still mounting:
Nearly 7,000 people have died from Ebola in west Africa, the World Health Organization said late Friday, adding some 1,200 more deaths to a toll from two days earlier.
These deaths are REAL deaths and show only the tip of the iceberg. The WHO has said nothing what it intends to do with all the orphans and the impending famine in these Ebola EPIDEMIC affected areas. Is it because anti-smoking propaganda is more important to the WHO and the likes of Bill Gates and ‘sorting out’ the impending famine is Bob Geldof’s job?
Here’s the real deaths for us all…………..
Lest we forget
http://thesmokersgraveyard.wordpress.com/
Nor should we forget tobacco could have saved ever death to Ebola…………..but no the Nazis like Gates had to push their own brand of the zmapp drug thu hamster Ovaries.
Ebola Drug Made From Tobacco Plant Saves U.S. Aid Workers
A tiny San Diego-based company provided an experimental Ebola treatment for two Americans infected with the deadly virus in Liberia. The biotechnology drug, produced with tobacco plants, appears to be working.
In an unusual twist of expedited drug access, Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc., which has nine employees, released its experimental ZMapp drug, until now only tested on infected animals, for the two health workers. Kentucky BioProcessing LLC, a subsidiary of tobacco giant Reynolds American Inc. (RAI), manufactures the treatment for Mapp from tobacco plants.
The first patient, Kent Brantly, a doctor, was flown from Liberia to Atlanta on Aug. 2, and is receiving treatment at Emory University Hospital. Nancy Writebol, an aid worker, is scheduled to arrive in Atlanta today and will be treated at the same hospital, according to the charity group she works with. Both are improving, according to relatives and supporters.
Each patient received at least one dose of ZMapp in Liberia before coming to the U.S., according to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-05/ebola-drug-made-from-tobacco-plant-saves-u-s-aid-workers.html