H/T Dick Puddlecote for some good news:
Court rules cafes and bars can set up smoking rooms
Health September 14, 2016
Cafes and bars can continue to set up special smoking rooms where customers can light up, judges in The Hague said on Wednesday.
Anti-smoking lobby group Clean Air Nederland had gone to court in an effort to have all smoking rooms abolished. It argues that allowing cafes and bars to sanction smoking in certain areas conflicts with international treaties signed by the Netherlands.
The court ruled that CAN cannot call on the World Health Organisation treaty which requires signatories to actively combat the use of tobacco and to protect people against tobacco smoke.
The text of the treaty does not state that there should be a ban on smoking or that countries are obliged to introduce one, the judges said in their ruling.
The hospitality industry says it is pleased with the verdict. ‘We have worked hard to ensure that both smokers and non smokers are welcome in cafes and bars,’ a spokesman told website Nu.nl. ‘The smoking room is a part of that.’
CAN said immediately that it would appeal.
Does the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control not state that there should be a ban on smoking? From the FCTC:
Article 8
Protection from exposure to tobacco smoke
1. Parties recognize that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability.
2. Each Party shall adopt and implement in areas of existing national jurisdiction as determined by national law and actively promote at other jurisdictional levels the adoption and implementation of effective legislative, executive, administrative and/or other measures, providing for protection from exposure to tobacco smoke in indoor workplaces, public transport, indoor public places and, as appropriate, other public places.
Well, indeed it doesn’t actually state that smoking must be banned. It says that there should be protection from exposure to tobacco smoke. The only thing it calls for a ban on is advertising.
Banning smoking is one way of doing that. But not necessarily the only way.
Frank Davis 
This is very good news indeed. Well done the Dutch for applying a bit of commonsense and reasonability to an area usually guided more by emotional manipulation, hysterical fearmongering and the personal preferences of those in authority. But I’m confused. Wasn’t it in Holland that the owners of very small bars got their original ban overturned, only to have that decision itself reversed a short while later? In which case, how come some places were still allowed to even have smoking rooms in the first place?
I think I’m also right in thinking that Holland was one of the few countries (maybe the only country) where the non-Jewish population actively fought against the onslaught of anti-Semitic rules and regulations in the run-up to WWII. Says a lot for their sense of right and wrong and of what’s fair and what’s not, doesn’t it? A bit like this ruling does.
I thought it was the Danes during WW2, smuggling Jews to Sweden. Or is that something different?
So the lies and manipulations that serve as the foundation of the tobacco control confidence game are exposed once again–this time in a Dutch court… Hopefully some momentum can gather to further expose the tobacco control lies and their bunco rackets!
actually it sounds like all they need do is turn a fan on……………protection satisfied
But what are you protecting from,theres nothing in it to begin with,the human breath fills the air inside and the grill smoke if not vented properly. Whats the big deal to begin with!
Any idiot should have laughed the bastards out the door the second they opened their mouths about tobacco smoke.
whats really appauling is the fact that if they can get away with smoking bans based upon nothing imagine what else they can get away with…………..death camps maybe.
Reblogged this on Contra la ley "antitabaco".
Actually, I’d say it’s a pretty BIG victory due to the direct confrontation with the FCTC brought on by the Antis misjudging their strength.
What’s needed next is a clear ruling addressing the ridiculous claim of all that whole death disease thing to simple “exposure to…” The Antis COULD argue with some scientific basis that given normal bounds for epidemiological conclusions they can connect smoking and LC and COPD and maybe even CHD. But they can NOT yet do this for ordinary levels of ETS exposure. The Antis pulled a fast one by simply conflating the two things in the Treaty as if they were one and the same.
The best approach in attacking that is showing its inapplicability to extraordinarily small exposures. E.G. it has most certainly, with no argument whatsoever, never been “shown” that being at one end of a grassy field while someone smokes at the other end “causes death, disease and disability” although the nonsmoker at the far end is almost certainly exposed to at least a few molecules of smoke.
The judge made an excellent call in the case, and my guess is that some of our folks in the Netherlands contributed significantly to the atmosphere bringing it about!
:)
MJM
Michael, thanks for helping us understand, the precise weaknesses of the anti-smoking argument. The devil is in the details!
Indeed, the issue of risks to exposure to ETS is crucial. As you say, medical evidence on serious adverse health effects due to ETS is scant (to put it mildly). ETS exposure in small poorly ventilated spaces can be irritant (even to smokers) and at worse may be harmful (but not lethal) to asthmatics or people with respiratory susceptibility. Good ventilation (as in airplanes before the mid 80’s) or smoking rooms eliminate the involuntary exposure. As we all know, banning of smoking ventilated or isolated areas does not follow from any reasonable health concern, but from the political and ideological needs of tobacco controllers (eliminating any semblance of a social network where smokers can smoke without stigma as part of their “end game”). As Dick Puddlecote mentioned in his blog, the anti-smoking group protesting the court decision in the Netherlands invoked signature of the FTCT and did not even bother to resort to the usual excuse of “protecting” bar attenders and waiters.
Judging from my experience anti-smoking among the Dutch and many other continental European societies (and also in Latin America and East Asia) has not become so entrenched as a popular religion as in English speaking countries (California and Canada and perhaps Australia are the worse and Singapore is a hell hole). Bans on indoor smoking were also overturned by courts in the Czech republic and (if I remember well) also in Germany. Smoking rooms are available in Japan and in airports in Paris and Zurich, and even if smoking is not allowed indoors, owners of restaurants and cafes in many countries make an effort to accommodate smokers in terraces.
The key point is what proportion of non-smokers in a given society have become participants of the anti-smoking cult, that is: how many are willing to go out of their way to endorse regulation that does not REALLY endanger or bothers them but that persecutes smokers. You only need a sufficiently large determined minority among the public to impose the cult. Governments and the hospitality industry are very sensitive to this. Court decisions as the one in the Netherlands, the Czech republic and Germany are bound to occur in countries in which anti-smoking is not (yet) a popular cult, a robust judiciary system exists and there is no dependence on scraps from the WHO to finance health programs (as in many poor countries).
…and there is no dependence on scraps from the WHO to finance health programs…
Ah, but it runs deeper than that, Roberto, much deeper.
The WHO works hand in hand with the IMF, and they have strong lines of communication, what with them both being offshoots of the same organisation, the UN. Thus, even countries which would not be classed as ‘third-world’ knuckle under when the WHO suggest that if they don’t sign the FCTC then the IMF may be less than helpful should their services be needed by that country in the future. It’s a powerful argument, as no country can afford to alienate the IMF in these uncertain economic times.
That is why just about every country in the world has ratified the FCTC. They’ve basically been forced to sign under threat.
Nisakiman, I’ve always assumed that the mass ratification was simply a “feel good” vote that most countries never expected to be taken seriously or never fully examined the ramifications of, but your analysis is stronger. I can’t think of the particulars at the moment, but I believe I have seen a public report on such IMF/WHO pressure on some other issue in the past: any chance of tracking that down?
:?
MJM
Yes Nisakiman, the IMF may be involved in coercing compliance with the FTCT, but I doubt it will so easily act as an automatic bully man to police this compliance to the absolute level desired by the strictest controllers. The IMF takes issue with countries that fair badly in financial issues (cases in point: Argentina and Venezuela), but has much less motivation to meddle in lifestyle issues, specially if this could clash with local costume and regulation (can you imagine the IMF acting as bully for UNESCO to press Islamic countries on gay rights?). The IMF will not risk political conflict with the government of a given country that is following its recommended monetary policies and has decent macro-economical standards, all this just to get some extra whim regulatory detail demanded by tobacco controllers invoking the FTCT. If the IMF was truly overpowering and absolutely committed to police the strict FTCT sharia, smoking rooms in bars would have disappeared from Amsterdam and Prague long time ago.
“The IMF will not risk political conflict with the government of a given country that is following its recommended monetary policies and has decent macro-economical standards, all this just to get some extra whim regulatory detail demanded by tobacco controllers invoking the FTCT.”
I wouldn’t be so sure Roberto. We have an Anti out there (Sweda? Repace? Daynard?) who claims to have spent 13 years infiltrating and corrupting ASHRAE (or OSHA?) to get the workplace rulings in place as their “board of advisors”(?) was eventually stacked with Antis. Remember, these folks build their lifetime income on doing this stuff every day for 20, 30, 40+ years.
Michael, OSHA and ASHRAE have nothing to do with the IMF. Perhaps some subjects like Repace have managed to become moles in the IMF, but this does not mean they have decision power on its policies. It is likely that decision makers in the IMF share the premises of the anti-smoking cult-religion, as they belong to the social milieu in which it is widespread (college educated upper middle classes of North America and western Europe). This does not mean that anti-smoking is for them such an important vital issue overtaking the core issues of the IMF, more so considering that they have been living in smoke-free environments for decades. A more realistic scenario is some powerful anti-smoker like Bloomberg using his financial clout to force stricter anti-smoking measures on vulnerable countries, but I cannot imagine the governments of the Netherlands or the Czech republic submitting to Bloomberg’s pressure and forcing their judiciary system to overturn rulings on smoking rooms on bars and cafes. Yes, Tobacco Control is well funded and politically powerful, but it does not rule the world. In fact, it seems that politicians feel that smoking has been defeated, so we may see in the near future more and more funds and political action in the new anti-obesity public health crusade, with anti-smoking taking a back seat and Tobacco Control loosing grants and political favor.
Yes, I know OSHA/ASHRAE are not IMF-related, but what I was offering that info for was to show the conscious effort of the more established and fanatical Antismokers to infiltrate and corrupt governmental-level regulatory/related bodies.
Re TC funding. There are four main sources:
1) US Master Settlement Agreement
2) Cigarette taxes (including dedicated ones … e.g. Prop 10(?) in California’s 1988 that suddenly kicked the radical end of the antismoking movement up from a few million max per year into the tens of millions)
3) Big Charity, as nothing plays better at loosening donation purse strings than images like little children and babies being attacked by big monstrous clouds of smoke
4) Big Pharma (or, as I like to label them: The NicoGummyPatchyProductPeople)
I think all of the last three have seen steady growth over the past 20-30 years.
The US MSA contribution to TC has declined. Back in the early 2000s it ranged from 600 to 850 million dollars PER YEAR. Nowadays it’s down around a mere half billion or less.
My best guess for TC in or from the US from all four sources at this point would be a total of one billion (a thousand million) to two billion per year, but the only accurate figure in that is the MSA number.
– MJM
Roberto, I don’t think the IMF are involved in any coercive measures themselves. In fact I’m certain they keep a safe distance from the actual issues. They merely take the agreed upon role of the stick with which the WHO threatens to beat any country that is ambivalent about the FCTC. All couched in very diplomatic language, of that you can be sure; there will be no naked threats, just suggested implications based on the shared UN principles of the two sister organisations.
Once the FCTC has been ratified, then in most cases the WHO can rely on the local anti-smoking organisations to bully the government concerned into compliance. They need no further involvement. In most cases, the local antis will be vociferous enough to use the (now ratified) FCTC to bulldoze bans through just like the WHO want. Pace the current situation in the Netherlands, where CAN are using the FCTC to try to impose their warped ideology on everyone else.
MIchael, yes Tobacco Control is politically powerful and very well funded (MSA, taxes, charities, pharma), but there is a slow tread mounting since about 10 years in Public Health bureaucracies to shift the priorities of their lifestyle crusades towards obesity. This link from 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/health/policy/28obesity.html?_r=0 already mentions this trend, but if you google “tobacco and obesity” you will find older and more recent references. Admitting subjectivity, my guess is that this trend will continue and will very likely weaken TC financially and politically, even if politicians and regulators keep paying lip service on the need to eradicate tobacco use. Now, perhaps I am mistaken. Only time can tell.
Nisakiman, I agree with you: once the FTCT has been ratified the local (country wise) crusades depend on local crusaders. But local crusaders have to contend with local regulation, social costume and public perceptions in their societies. In some countries all these factors align with the crusaders whims, in other countries much less. This means that extreme anti-smoking measures (for example outdoor bans) may be heavily resisted. Here in Mexico (and likely in all Latin America) there are no outdoor bans in parks, public campuses and beaches, the hospitality industry either finds legal loopholes to circumvent indoor bans or makes an effort to cater smokers in comfortable terraces. I’ve heard of similar situations in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia, but nothing of the sort would happen in (for example) California.
Agreed. And there’s also a significant amount of undercover ban defiance among smaller, off-the-beaten-track places.
Well analyzed! Thank you Roberto!
“1. Parties recognize that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability.” LOL
Not just Holland where a little common sense prevails. I was gob smacked to find the Starfuks-Clone I went in Oldenburg Germany this June had not only a smoking room but that smoking room was air con’d, clean, tastefully decorated (if you Neo-Japanese, Haikus and Flower prints with black furniture) and even had Free Wifi.
Let the Brexiters bear in mind that it WASN’T the EU that brought in the 2007 Smoking Verbot in the UK…Mind you IF the Dutch AntiSmoker league lose at Appeal I’m sure they will go to European Court for a ruling to overrule the Dutch ones…and they will probably get it but it will eb a few more years down the line.
Let the Brexiters bear in mind that it WASN’T the EU that brought in the 2007 Smoking Verbot in the UK
You’re quite right. It wasn’t the 2007 UK smoking ban, but instead the 2009 EU smoking ban.
I thought is was the 1989 EU Resolution of the Council and the Ministers for Health of the Member States, meeting within the Council of 18 July 1989 on banning smoking in places open to the public
Public and private establishments referred to in point 1 of the resolution
1. Establishments where services are provided to the public, whether for a charge or free, including the sale of goods;
2. Hospitals, establishments where health care is given and all other medical establishments;
3. Establishments where elderly persons are received;
4. Schools and other premises where children or young people are received or housed;
5. Establishments where higher education and vocational training are given;
6. Enclosed establishments used for entertainment (cinemas, theaters, etc.) ; radio and television studios open to the public;
7. Enclosed establishments where exhibitions are held;
8. Establishments and enclosed places where sports are practised;
9. Enclosed premises of underground and railway stations, ports and airports. ”
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A41989X0726
I admit I don’t follow politics very carefully so it’s possible I’m wrong but I’m pretty sure the UK Smoking Verbot was brought in by the British Parliament …and the Dutch verdict does kinda expose the fallacy of blaming ‘the EU’ for all the bad laws passed by the British Government, doesn’t it? I mean in several EU States I could legally own a hand gun and even smoke in a cafe. I’m told there are even countries in the EU where little children are still exposed to the sight of colourful, shiny, cigarette packets on open display (say it ain’t so, will no one think of them poor liddle childrens condemned to a life of filthy addiction?!?!?).
Pray God it ain’t true but I have heard rumours that there are unenlightened places where you can smoke in a car with children on the back seat. I know, shocking isn’t it?
Acidity aside, what the EU decides is relatively unimportant, what Sovereign governments choose to turn into legislation is what matters. Blair ostracised a fifth or so of the adult population, made countless unemployed and crippled the hospitality industry, it wasn’t Brussels.
Dear The Blocked Dwarf
I am of the opinion that one of the modus operandi of the eu* overlords is to test drive legislation in various countries to see what the response is before rolling it out across their empire. The UK was probably picked as one of the easier targets, being generally law-abiding. Had they tried Greece or Spain first, the widespread flouting of the law may have dissuaded them, at least for a time.
Further, Brits holidaying in Greece and Spain may have been infected with rebellious thoughts had bans been implemented in those countries first and the UK some years later.
The eu probably devotes considerable resources to planning the way in which laws are introduced to minimise resistance. One way may require subject governments to introduce legislation ahead of eu-wide bans so that the public are led to believe the bans are ‘home grown’ and not imposed by the eu, hence the UK ban preceding the eu ban.
DP
* no longer worthy of capitals.
Oops, forgot to close the italics – missed the ‘/’ after operandi. DP
Does that ruling apply to the UK, or is there some additional “Forbidden by Blair” legislation which forbids smokers enjoying smoking, and publicans enjoying their custom?
When I see how carefully and successfully Frank Davis and others examine such matters as the FCTC and the putative science of SHS, and poke holes in the way anti-smoking Nazis use them, it helps me to see that, although the number of smokers’ rights activists is small, we are not without significant power!
Well, that is wrong. I have been exposed to tobacco smoke, and am most definitely not dead, diseased or disabled, never mind all three.
Perhaps they meant: “1. Parties recognize that scientific evidence has
unequivocallyestablished that exposure to tobacco smoke might cause earlier than expected death, and might also cause disease and/or disability.”(Disclaimer: I do not smoke, have never smoked, and do not understand why anyone would want to smoke. However, I can accept that others might think differently.)
Dang! No editing facilities!
Good news for lovers of jam, jelly and marmalade.
Early days.
2008
Jam can curb cancer, say food scientists
“An ingredient found in jam and jelly may help prevent the spread of cancer, research suggests.”
“Both popular foods contain a modified form of pectin, a natural fibre found in fruits and vegetables that is widely used in food processing.
A laboratory study by the Institute of Food Research found modified pectin releases a molecular fragment that curbs all stages of cancer progression”
“Pectin supplements that claim to detoxify the body and protect against cancer are already sold on the internet, and a laboratory study published in the journal Glycobiology last year showed pectin can slow the growth of prostate cancer.
Scientists at the University of Georgia in the US found when prostate cancer cells were exposed to pectin powder or heat-treated citrus pectin, up to 40 per cent died.
The cells were made to “commit suicide” through a natural process called apoptosis that halts the creation of tumours.
Other studies on rats and cell cultures suggest pectin also fights lung and colon cancers”
https: //web.archive.org/web/20100820204511/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3183821/Jam-can-curb-cancer-say-food-scientists.html
New Research: Modified Citrus Pectin – A Potent Anti-Cancer Therapy
2013
“A new review by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine highlights a large body of published research demonstrating how modified citrus pectin (MCP), works against cancer. The study, which was published on April 18 in the American Journal of Pharmacology and Toxicology, also examines MCP’s synergistic relationship with chemotherapy, as well as its ability to modulate immunity, safely remove heavy metals and block the pro-inflammatory protein galectin-3.
“The modification allows MCP to easily absorb into the circulation and exert numerous therapeutic effects throughout the body, now demonstrated in multiple peer reviewed studies.
For example, the review discusses MCP’s ability to control metastatic melanoma, as well as prostate, breast and colon cancers. These outcomes have been confirmed in multiple published studies, which have also shown MCP’s ability to suppress angiogenesis (new blood vessel growth to tumors). Blocking angiogenesis is a key factor in preventing cancer metastasis.”
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-research-modified-citrus-pectin—a-potent-anti-cancer-therapy-210050381.html
So how do they modify it?
They heat it as jam makers do to make the jam set.
Anti-cancer activities of pH- or heat-modified pectin
2013
Abstract
“Despite enormous efforts that have been made in the search for novel drugs and treatments, cancer continues to be a major public health problem. Moreover, the emergence of resistance to cancer chemotherapy often prevents complete remission. Researchers have thus turned to natural products mainly from plant origin to circumvent resistance. Pectin and pH- or heat-modified pectin have demonstrated chemopreventive and antitumoral activities against some aggressive and recurrent cancers. The focus of this review is to describe how pectin and modified pectin display these activities and what are the possible underlying mechanisms. The failure of conventional chemotherapy to reduce mortality as well as serious side effects make natural products, such as pectin-derived products, ideal candidates for exerting synergism in combination with conventional anticancer drugs.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3792700/
“Jam, jelly and marmalade set because of pectin. Pectin is naturally occurring in fruit, when cooked with sugar and the naturally occurring acid in the fruit, thickens and sets the preserve.
To give a guide on some fruits please see our list below.
Fruits with high pectin content:
Cooking apples, crab apples, cranberries, citrus fruit, damsons, gooseberries, redcurrants, plums, quinces.
Fruits with medium pectin content:
Apricots, blackberries, dessert apples, greengages, loganberries, mulberries, raspberries, plums
Fruits with low pectin content:
Bananas, cherries, figs, grapes, melons, nectarines, peaches, rhubarb, strawberries”
https: //www.bakingmad.com/faqs/how-do-i-know-the-pectin-levels-of-the-fruit/
Court rules cafes and bars can set up smoking rooms
This deserved a little exploration of the currently fashionable retro experience. So I dug out my Wishbone Ash album, opened a beer and lit a cigarette.
Undoubtedly the tobacco company and smoker haters will appeal the Dutch court’s decision.
Does the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control not state that there should be a ban on smoking? From the FCTC:
Article 8
Protection from exposure to tobacco smoke
1. Parties recognize that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability.
2. Each Party shall adopt and implement in areas of existing national jurisdiction as determined by national law and actively promote at other jurisdictional levels the adoption and implementation of effective legislative, executive, administrative and/or other measures, providing for protection from exposure to tobacco smoke in indoor workplaces, public transport, indoor public places and, as appropriate, other public places.
Indeed, this does not state a smoking ban is required. However, this
1. Parties recognize that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability.
requires a question to be answered:
Have the parties been presented with who financed what research and how these research financing parties linked up prior?
However, neither appeared to show an interest in what THE PEOPLE want.
Dear Mr Davis
Any legitimate reliance on article 8 falls at the first hurdle:
1. Parties recognize that scientific evidence has unequivocally established that exposure to tobacco smoke causes death, disease and disability.
The scientific evidence is anything but unequivocal, with studies suggesting that second hand smoke is mostly harmless. This won’t put off the faithful, who, to a man “hears what he wants to hear / And disregards the rest” (The Boxer, Simon and Garfunkle).
The “parties” are exclusively those who are faithful to the cause of smoker control, which effectively negates the application of the FCTC to everyone else, unless the “parties” and compliant governments are under the misapprehension that they own the people on this planet.
If so, perhaps the time has come to disabuse them of this.
DP
As Rose points out the EU paper in 1989 started the screw turning,
Then the EU published their green paper in January 2007, this after the Labour government’s Patricia Hewitt and Caroline Flint pushed through the law in England stating it would save thousands of lives,
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/passive-smoking-is-there-convincing-evidence-that-its-harmful-6102137.html
This was done under the Health act 2006 to thwart having to prove that second hand smoke was harmful, as the HSE had concluded in their statement in OC255/15 article 9 that they could not produce epidemiological evidence that SHS was harmful.
eu/health/ph_determinants/life_style/Tobacco/Documents/gp_smoke_en.pdf
Click to access 255_15.pdf
Then this article below taken from the EU 2014 (article 7) further proves the pressure from the EU, the labour government loved the EU, and pushed it through no matter how much they had to lie with their lobbyists.
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32014L0040
(7) “Legislative action at Union level is also necessary in order to implement the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (‘FCTC’) of May 2003, the provisions of which are binding on the Union and its Member States”.
The EU combining with the FCTC played a very large part in bringing a ban into the UK, it could not have been achieved otherwise by the HSE as they have to provide proof of harm.
I joined UKIP because of the smoking Ban in 2009, and after 7 years of hard work was rewarded by us voting to leave the EU on June the 23rd, I hope the truth of the deceit and bare faced lies from mainly Labour UK politicians and their lobbyists, the EU and FCTC in regard to SHS will be revealed and these people held to account for the damage they have done.
Greg, I have a Bachelor’s degree in Peace Studies and did two years of hard work toward an uncompleted Ph.D. in Peace Science at the U. of PA’s Wharton School. I was a true and firm believer in the goodness of the United Nations and Benevolent Big Government.
Then, in the later 1970s, the rumblings from Godber’s 3rd “World Conference on Smoking And Health” with its whole “We can adjust the smokers by creating pressures from nonsmokers on them.” started up and I began to see that Orwell’s 1984 “Big Government” was more of a likely direction than a bedtime story nightmare. If I hadn’t been “awakened” by the early stirrings of the modern antismoking movement I might have been out there campaigning AGAINST Brexit.
– MJM