Is there something in the water? Health professional Dr Helen Evans, director of Nurses for Reform, has come out and said what we smokers have said for years and one can only hope this time someone listens.
Her piece :A bridge too far: why banning tobacco displays means the Coalition is sleep walking into a sea of illicit tobacco, criminality and more smokers
In her words :
Stigmatised, marginalised and treated with no sense of proportionality, British smokers are being reduced to the perilous and irrational status that a number of minorities suffered in Germany around 1934 and 5. Today, 23% of Britain’s are being made to feel guilty for who and what they are and everyone else is being encouraged to ‘un-normalise’ them.
Simultaneously pitied, hated and left out in the cold smokers are the new minority that I believe all health workers should now be protective of. For when a terror starts to strike, it is not good enough to blindly stand by and obey politicians’ orders. While I choose not to be a smoker, I recognise it is time for good people to stand up on the side of common sense, proportionality and basic tolerance. Being a British libertarian who has always hated racism, homophobia and cruelty, I have a keen sense of when things are going too far and when in the name of the public or collective good, persecution is being unacceptably legitimized.
Another great read today comes from Simon Clark over at Politics.co.uk about how Nanny Lansley's stance of blindly supporting the crooks in the anti-smoking industry are losing the NuConservatives core and activist support.
He also mentions other signatories to a letter in the Telegraph who call for an end to "Denormalisation."
Perhaps something happened after that awful tragedy in Japan to turn the tide o hate against us here. Perhaps such events put into perspective what is truly dangerous to hundreds of thousands of people and what is not.
As for Lansley and the NuCons - I have one question. What final solution do you have in mind once you force smokers down to 18.5% in five years and thereafter? I will remain among the smoker minority so what future plans do you have to make the last years of my life hell? I think we smokers and the wider public have a right to know now.