PLUMS AND TOBACCO

I stomped off into the garden to pick 5lb of plums after writing below about the latest piece of anti-smoker politicking to make me see red. It gave me time to think and calm down a bit and a job for the afternoon preparing fruit for jam.



My plums are greengages like Leg Iron has in his garden. They've been soaking in sugar for hours and now ready to boil down.



Hours have been spent this summer by me and my other half foraging in nearby woods for anything we can pick. In addition to red and yellow cherry and plum jam, we've set red and yellow cherry, elderberry, plum, sloe and damson wine and bottled lilac that was set two years ago. The taste is just strong - like brandy or whisky.



I also thought it was about time I got myself some tobacco seeds after watching Leg Iron's success at growing and I hope the order has gone through as I just don't get paypal but at least the firm has a phone number so I can always check on my order the old fashioned way.



New demands on plain packaging can only create a dangerous and organised black market and a greater chance of fake tobacco getting into shops. You'd think the Govt would realise what a dumb idea they are forcing onto us. Ah well, as long as the anti-smoker industry can keep throwing money in to clean up the mess they make then I can rest assured with my own home grown supply that I will no longer contribute to the insanity.



If my seeds arrive soon, I'll grow one plant indoors over autumn and winter and then if all goes well with growth, harvest, and taste, I'll look at getting a greenhouse full next spring and some sort of crop rotation going.



For now I'd better get back to my plums and get that jam boiled.

A TOWN LISTENS AND ACTS

It seems that following the protests of residents in Stony Stratford against the bigoted councillor Bartlett's plan to ban smoking outdoors the town actually took notice and rejected his preposterous idea

According to the About My Area blog : When it became apparent that nobody was prepared to second Councillor Bartlett's proposals, there were calls from some members of the public for him to also withdraw the proposal that had been moved to the 20th September. Other people were calling on Councillor Bartlett to resign from his position on the Town Council. The Town Council listened to the people and the businesses of Stony Stratford and then dealt with Councillor Bartlett's proposals accordingly.

They were unanimously rejected but for two people - which was Bartlett and one other - and the town demonstrated democracy in action as opposed to public health bullying of the electorate. Our national Govt would do well to take a leaf out of SS Town Council's book and actually listen to what the majority want - fairness for both sides - as opposed to pandering to the phobias of the minority to want smokers criminalised.

I have been saying for ages that this is no longer about health but ideology and the eradication of smoking by any means even if it means criminalising the adult consumer of this legal product.

That has now been confirmed by the woman in the linked radio interview on calls for more smoking bans in public outdoor places.

The woman from Derbyshire's Stop Smoking "service" says it's a matter of not allowing children to SEE smokers. Simon Clark at Forest reasonably put her in her place but sadly our Govt and it's Neo-Nazi health Dept agrees with these smokerphobics.

That's why the protest at Stony Stratford and its victory is so important. Govt and councils must be made to see that working against smokers is working against the wishes of the public they are supposed to serve.

All of us accept reasonable restrictions to stop youth and child smoking but the oppression of the restrictions introduced since 2007 have put back any good work done on that front. Kids can now get unregulated, uncontrolled, and dangerously mixed tobacco from the black market and everything the righteous do now helps to make that market more and more viable and profitable. Man with a bag is certainly in my home town and we know that in Ireland there have been cases of children used as runners to sell dodgy tobacco door to door. The blame for this lies squarely with the anti-smoker industry that cares more about its own profits, funding and the enforcement of its ideology than children and health.

MIDDLE AGES POLICIES DON'T WORK

Despite the bullying it seems these damn smokers still won't quit.

I don't know why others are not giving up but the reason I don't quit is because my mother taught me to stand up to thugs.

I toyed with the idea of quitting in the late 90s but by the time the 00s arrived, the more Nanny nagged the more I felt like reaching for my roll ups to prove I was the one still in control of my own body.

I'm told that smoking outside has become cool for young people in a stylistic sense despite the freezing weather. Non-smokers are happily chilling outside with the smokers while a bit of "smirting" goes on. The antis are still moaning as they sit inside on their own.

Govts don't seem to learn that social engineering doesn't work. People will behave as they want and have done for centuries despite the threats.

Tobacco use is millions of years old. Historically smokers were executed, persecuted, and imprisoned at about the same time that courts put animals on trials for crimes such as murder.

Just over 50 years after the first smoker was imprisoned during the Spanish Inquistion in 1493, a sow and her piglets accused of killing a child in France in 1547 led to the execution of the pig. The sow's family was spared because of their youth and the fact their mother set a bad example.

It's great to see that we don't put animals on trial for breaking the law any more and we did make progressive moves towards smoking and smokers but the anti-smoking industry has dragged us back centuries.

Thanks to their backward stance smokers are still being sent to prison and they say the smoking ban is ... errrr ...progressive...?

The fact is - as the evidence shows - that no matter what the anti-smokers backed with big corporate cash and the might of the bully state do to smokers they still won't quit.

Money poured into anti-smoking hate really is taxpayers' cash wasted.

GOVT BACKS RISE IN CHILD SMOKING

According to Chris Snowdon the NuGovt has shown itself to be as gullible as the last in backing moves to increase child smoking.

The government is currently planning to ask retailers to cover up their displays of cigarettes from next year to protect children. But now cigarette packets could also be made a standard colour like grey, rather than the existing bright colours.


In effectively announcing the tobacco display ban they have taken control of tobacco sales from the beleagured small shop owner and put them into the hands of criminals who won't check ID to see if their customers are under age.

But then that socially backward organisation ASH - which lies to achieve it's ideological aims - wants more children to start smoking to ensure that ASH can continue into the next generation and beyond.

The above video serves as a reminder that criminals all over the world will be celebrating this news and setting up business plans for when tobacco becomes illegal and smokers are criminalised.

I mean hiding things that are bad from you from shop displays immediately leads to lack of sales doesn't it? Just ask the millionaire black market drug dealers. They'll tell you that no one uses illegal drugs - not even the 12 year olds - because they don't see them on the shop shelves.

The most disturbing part of the news that NuTories/ConDems have taken this on shows just how thick our leaders are. I really expected them to have some intelligence. Perhaps I expected too much. But then when you are as anti-smoking as health persecutor Andrew Lansley, I'm afraid that intellect flies out of the window chased by pure and unadulterated hate.

Meanwhile, ASH demands that no-one is allowed to see a pack of cigarettes and yet happily advertises them on it's Flickr page Can this disgusting group get any more despicable and hypocritical?

Parents who don't want their children to smoke now have more to worry about. Not only will the black marketeers offer cigarettes to the under age but other products in their stash bag as well.

Oh my Govt, what have you done?

* - Regular readers may have noticed that I've removed the "defender of liberty" image of Philip Davies MP. Not one Tory will get space on my page until I see some kind of tolerance being shown towards smokers from the NuGovt. Philip is great in that he has said and done as much as his party will allow. Frankly he is in the wrong party and until he moves over to one that is more Libertarian, then there is no point in backing him. His masters are not listening to him either.

The same goes for Karl McCartney. I'm grateful that Karl - my MP - is not Gillian Merron and he did vote for choice in pubs, but unless he starts taking real moves to end persecution of smokers then he will never get my support.

I'm sick of smokers and their representatives being frozen out of all negotiations. Permitted lip service to keep us quiet from Govt representatives like Karl and Philip is simply not enough. Tolerance or war - nothing between.

THEN AND NOW

Righteous folks who care about people are often offended by the comparison between how smokers are treated in the healthist 21st century and how Jews were treated in the fascist 20th century.

The offence is caused because they believe the propaganda about smoking and want to try and save people who smoke from themselves. Their stance comes from a caring perspective but they don't realise that they have been lied to by those who not only hate smoking but people who smoke too.

They say that it's outrageous to compare not being able to have a fag with what happened to the Jews and I actually agree with them. But for smokers the issue is not about being able to smoke or not. It's about how anti-smoking propagandists backed up with Govt money and resources are inciting hatred against people who smoke to turn wider society against them.

Even if they stopped smoking the hate would continue. Their alleged rotten teeth wouldn't suddenly be clean and white would they? Any fatal illness they might have picked up wouldn't suddenly get better would it? They'd still be considered as a smoker even if they had stopped smoking wouldn't they? They'd still be accused of having contributed to global warming and the deaths of millions to come from their past "passive sharing of smoke" or "passivrauchen."

That is where the comparison with what happened to the Jews - motivated by the same kind of hatred - is relevant. After all, even some Germans back in the days of Nazism believed that all Jews had to do to stop the hate was change their religion. After all, religion is a choice isn't it?

Their Govt told them that Jews were as poisonous as mushrooms and like a bad mushroom could kill a whole family, Jews could murder a whole village, a town or even a nation. Perhaps it was the righteous of those times that cared about people who jumped on the bandwaggon of hate against Jews for the "greater good" and allowed the holocaust to happen by passive compliance.





Just as Jews then were promoted as greedy, selfish, dangerous, and fat smokers, so are smokers today compared in similar terms.

What was missing from wider society then to enable to climate of opinion to swing with the Nazis against the Jews - and other undesirables - was the principles of tolerance, fair play, and compassion.

Just as it is missing from THIS intolerant person who refuses to believe the world is big enough to share because he personally hates smokers - ie: people now defined as a lifestyle group.

Just as protection of the Jews and positive comments about the Jews was banned in the 1930s, so is any protection of or positive comments about smokers banned in the 21st century.


Whatever people might think of smoking, how ever much they may fear it, hate the smell of aromatic tobacco, or care for those they want to save from themselves, no-one can deny that the bottom line on this issue to keep both sides happy, and to end hate, is tolerance, choice and respect for people's differences and beliefs.

I don't believe that this will end in the gas chambers for smokers but how far down the road of hate do we want to go as a society? I believe the constant attacks on smokers by the state with public support will end with them being forced into sub-normal classes, criminalisation with laws made against them, and ultimately being locked up as the Jews and other undesirables were before the holocaust happened.

I find it ironic that ordinarily fair minded and compassionate people who are offended by the comparisons of hate directed at smokers now and Jews then are persuaded by the tool invented by Himmler - propaganda.

THE NEXT TARGET

Now healthists have smokers under control they are swiftly moving on to the next target for profit and general propaganda using the same formula.

It took them 40 years of Big Pharma funding to make the lie of SHS a "fact" and then hype up it's dangers year on year to the point where there is now an hysterical fear of smokers and smoking.

They had to make other people believe that smokers could harm them before Government would take them seriously. They are now using the same format on fat people who they've only recently started to persecute.

Apparently :

"It looks like obesity is becoming more infectious," said Alison Hill, a graduate student at the Harvard-Massachusetts Institute of Technology Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

What next? Banning anyone over a certain size from entering public places in case we "catch" their fatness? Do they really think we are that stupid?

How the lifestyle of this man doesn't make him 48 stone is beyond me. He's doing everything the healthists say will give you the obesity you could pass on to someone else.

At least people are getting wise to the manipulative political methods of self interest groups, fake charities and the Pharma Industry in exaggerating the threat of "passive obesity."

Meanwhile for smokers the insults continue in the name of everybody's else's good health. ASH is now promoting them almost daily in news releases as child abusers using the usual tactic of telling a lie often enough that it becomes the truth.

This kind of approach is motivated by hatred with no scientific grounds to justify what is a disproportionate "threat".

Hot on the heels of accusing decent, law abiding, considerate and caring parents past and present in the most despicable terms, the anti-smoking industry now has to show how much of a financial burden they are on everybody.

Of course all of this is part of the "Denormalisation" plan to promote :

Smokers as malodourous
Smokers as litterers
Smokers as unattractive and undesirable housemates
Smokers as undereducated and a social underclass
Smokers as excessive users of public health services
Smokers as employer liabilities

But they are looking for even worse language in the hate campaign.

I told them that to "reframe quitting as “breaking up” with a deceitful best friend " was patronising. I said they had to learn to live with lifelong smokers who would not quit and if they wanted to reach them, they should stop the propaganda.

I said their language offended. They short listed a comment about cigarettes as "a deceitful best friend" to the top six of a voting poll to find new insults to use.

Failure to engage with smokers is proof in my opinion that they don't want to work with smokers but against them by promoting language that promotes smokers as weak and all the rest.

Smokers - I feel sorry for you, Fatties - I feel sorry for you too. Fat Smokers, it looks like you are public enemy No 1 but I am on your side.

STOP DENORMALISATION NOW!

I am none of these things so stop denormalising me. This is a programme that aims to encourage hatred against smokers - a minority group and all it's about is fat cats getting rich on the misery of others.

Wasn't "denormalisation" by another name what the Nazis used to make the majority believe that Jews were sub-human beings,.

Sorry for those of you who believe that smokers are less human than Jews and are offended that we complain about where the Govt backed hatred of smokers is leading but when we are promoted as ...

Smokers as malodourous
Smokers as litterers
Smokers as unattractive and undesirable housemates
Smokers as undereducated and a social underclass
Smokers as excessive users of public health services
Smokers as employer liabilities

...then perhaps you can see where this anger and fear of the future as a dedicated,lifelong and cultural smoker comes from.

Denormalisation should be illegal. Why is our Govt and our countrymen not standing up for us against this programme? Those of you who are fat or like an alcoholic drink will be next and then what? Denormalisation of those who have dark hair, dark eyes, and as far from Arian looking as Romanian Gypsies?

FFS - Wake up! This must stop. This is THE most important issue this century.

WHO'S IN CONTROL

A must-watch, common sense video. Beware contains some violence but please share. This is a very important message.



H/T Simon Clarke at Taking Liberties.

The video was made by a tobacco company. I think the industry knows more about it's business and it's threats better than health professionals - like smokers know more about smoking than anti-smoker political lobbyists who claim to be doing it "for their own good."

Clearly they are not. They are kidding themselves.

JUSTICE FOR ALL WOULD BE NICE

I guess smokers would be considered to have made "frivolous" claims under new Hate Crime rules despite the fact that they most surely are targets of hate.

I'm against hate - whoever and whatever it is directed at but isn't this all a bit silly?

We have crimes that already cover hatred and they don't need an extra tag if we only treated people equally and imposed a punishment on offenders that really gives the message that hate - any hate - is wrong.

No-one is saying they love you when they smack you in the face, beat you to a pulp, call you names like "filthy smoker, nigger, paki, wop, spic, goth, polak, northern monkey, southern twat, ..." or smash up your property.

I may hate the anti-smokers who make my life so miserable with their bigoted campaigns aimed at "denormalising", excluding, marginalising, and isolating me but I would defend them from violence which I hate even more. I don't think they would do the same.

I feel like I'm on a merry-go-round of madness in NuBritain. I just want some simple common sense, fair play and justice to be fashionable again, and then maybe the ConLibLabTwat Govt would wear it, promote it, and bring peace to a country that has never been so divided.

PUBS WANT SMOKERS

So now it's official. We know Nulab and their anti-smoking paymasters in Big Pharma lied to push through the blanket smoking ban.

You may remember that they only asked anti-smoking groups for their opinions and even then when the ONS survey was done it showed more people in favour of choice.

NuLab turned the figures around and then conned the public into believing that it was acceptable and desirable to hate smokers and call for their social exclusion.

Now the truth is out. 70% of pubs want to cater for smokers.

Will the bigoted and discriminatory coagulation govt that has ConDem-med us all listen? I sincerely doubt it but if they were honest and really did care about equality then they would.

The next election can't come soon enough for me.

Meanwhile, I've just put my script out in the hope that I can change my career and earn enough to buy my freedom from a country that despises me and is working towards my criminalisation - but only after it has first turned my family, friends, neighbours and colleagues against me and so far it is doing a damn good job of that.

ASH LIARS SHOULD BE PROSECUTED

WANTED FOR LYING AND INCITING HATRED. Deborah Arnott of the discredited Big Pharma owned organisation ASH UK.

So the huge drain on public resources that is the astoundingly bigoted organisation ASH is yet again spouting lies about smokers - this time in a bid to make them unemployable.

This comes from an organisation that depends on tax payers money and Big Pharma money or it couldn't survive. It is a well documented fact that the public does not support this group or it's hate mongering. Donations from the public amount to £11,000 a year and my guess is that comes in from the swivel eye paranoid freaks who are not representative of what the great British public wants and are very much in the minority but Nanny Nulab gave them a big voice with our cash and dismissed dissenting voices. We were not even asked during selective consultation that only asked... errr ... anti-smoking charities and orgs dependant upon the persecution of smokers for their income.

What most honest Brits hate are liars. ASH's bleating untruths about the smoking ban has led to the legalisation of exclusion and discrimination but that's not enough for them. The hypocrites pretend to "care" about "the poor" who they say are too thick to speak up for themselves and too stupid to know what's bad for them so they need the bigots at ASH to "protect" them. This ASH argues, will lead them to live to be 200 years old safely in the poverty that makes them proper miserable while fat Debs at ASH and her over paid chubby chums in Scotland and Ireland get even fatter on our money.

Yes, it seems they care about "the poor" so much they want to tell even more lies to ensure they never get work again, starve to death on the streets, probably. ASH's so-called "caring" will then be exposed as they celebrate hounding smokers out of their jobs, their homes and onto the streets, because of telling lies like smokers spend too much time having fag breaks.

Before this piece of filth was put out by ASH, readers of this blog would have read how I don't smoke at work because I'm just too busy. I don't have time to go outside. ASH wants people to believe we are pathetic addicts like those on heroin and we can't do a morning's or afternoon's work without a fag. Wrong. So Wrong and if these twats knew anything about smoking, they would know it's wrong ... but hang on... of course they do but it doesn't matter. That doesn't fit their hate agenda.

What legal activity I or any other smoker does in our own time is no business of ASH, or our employers. It is our business. And besides, didn't we used to have legal breaks for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon? I wouldn't know. I've never taken these breaks since about 1981 when I worked for British Rail. Perhaps NuLabour stripped the working class of this right as well as many others hard fought for by the working classes that the party despises.

I wonder how much time the greedy bigots at ASH spend surfing the net, booking their smoke-free holidays, visiting social network sites like Facebook, on Twitter, or simply stuffing their fat faces with chocolate or satisfying their Caffeine addiction with coffee

Of course this kind of hate propaganda spouted by ASH is what they intended all along and it appears to be working judging by what Leg Iron has to say about revolting comments on the story of smokers and working breaks elsewhere on the internet.

These people at ASH should be prosecuted. If they spread these kind of lies in a bid to get an ethnic, gender or sexuality minority sacked from work, then they would rightly face the wrath of our courts for inciting hatred.

Smokers are people too. We work hard. We have put up with too much from this lying shower. When will we be treated as equal in our own country and when will these bigots be brought to account for their lies?

My guess is when we finally get a Govt in this country that really does care about people and NuTory and ilLiberal Demotwat it's not.

I guess there's nothing for it. Vote UKIP with hope and when all else fails kill yourself rather than face the poverty, hate and discrimination that Govt is legislating for and ASH is planning for those it despises - smokers.

I wonder if the fat twats at ASH have been promised nice personal bonuses if they give it a final push and get more money for Big Pharma through forcing us all to use their ineffective nicotine replacement products. I really wouldn't be surprised as nothing else they say makes sense. And I should know. I am an expert on smoking. I've done it all of my life.

We in the Blogosphere have a record of being able to raise cash when it's needed. Does anyone know how much a private prosecution would cost against Deborah Arnott and her anti-smoker haters? Do we have any criminal lawyers in this movement willing to donate some time?

I am sure there are a myriad of charges we can raise including inciting hatred against a minority group, fraud, causing alarm, harassment and distress, offensive behaviour, anti-social behaviour ... oooh ... there's loads of criminal charges she should face but the point is can we do it and how?

HISTORY REPEATING

Perhaps daytime TV viewers can enlighten me further on a story I heard today from the brain dead numb skulls that put my gender to shame - Loose Women.

I'm told that this morning, one of the presenters was trying to incite hatred against lifestyle groups after the finger wagging antis came up with yet another stupid idea to get people to stop smoking and eat healthily. Pay 'em with taxpayers' money.

One of these women reportedly said that "smokers should be lined up against the wall and shot because they are killing themselves anyway." Whoever it was should be reported to the Broadcasters Standard Agency. It's disgusting that main stream TV companies can incite such violence against a minority group!

It looks like those bigots on the programme have outed one of their members and then shamed her into quitting. I feel sorry for her. They have just forced her into a 60% greater chance of getting lung cancer

If it is true that the presenter of that awful show did say this, then she deserves to go into Dick Puddlecote's Bigot Bin . Sorry I can't find a direct link to it. I know DP is currently compiling a list of all those anti-smoker comments urging death and murder to their fellow human beings.

To my friends, family and colleagues I say, if it truly came to lining up smokers and shooting them, would you stop them? Would you still stay silent because you despise the smell of smoke and believe the worst of what is told to you about smoking?

I know we are not Jews. I know smokers are thought of as lesser people and we have no right to claim to be a group. I know that what happened in Nazi Germany was one of the worst ever human atrocities - but it still happened to people whatever their tag because inhumane and bigoted people didn't like them - the look of them, the smell of them, their habits religious or otherwise, their lifestyles.

Somewhere at the beginning of that tragedy, which is such a relatively short time ago, was a Loose Women type person saying that Jews could choose not to be Jews and killing them was probably doing them a favour anyway.

Have we learned nothing? Why is the state encouraging this bigotry? I truly despair.

And this is worth a look. H/T Timbone

OUTRAGEOUS!

I can't remember if I was blogging back in July 2008 but I did post this outrageous photo on Facebook at the time and it stirred quite a debate - or rather a lot of agreement about the hate campaigning of the anti-smoking industry.

I asked if this sort of propaganda can ever be justified and pointed out that it is quite wrong to compare smokers with those who committed the worst terrorism act ever.

Dick Puddlecote has noticed it's back again and this time they've made a nice little video of abuse aimed at inciting yet more hatred against a minority group.

As Dick points out : "To finger-waggers the world over, 9/11 wasn't so much an unspeakable act of evil, more a handy occurrence on which to exercise their mentally disturbed fantasies."

Some events are just so harrowing they should not be undermined by advertisers in this way. What next? A video of children in Dunblane being shot at school to persuade people not to join gun clubs? How about a photo of a battered Baby P and all his horrific injuries to advertise parenting lessons?

I haven't been to see my GP since the twin towers anti-smoking campaign came out. My doctors surgery is always writing to me and inviting me to come for a smear test, a flu jab, holiday innoculations etc so when I was called in for a health check, I took up the offer.

The nurse I saw asked if I smoked. I replied with my usual : "I do not give details of any of my lifestyle habits on the grounds that I may be discriminated against. I will not say if I smoke, or drink, or eat 10 cream cakes a day or five apples and two pears. Neither will I tell you if I climb mountains or ride horses..."

She stopped me there. I explained that I was a pro-choice campaigner and told her about the above twin towers campaign and how offensive it was.

"Whatever you think about smoking, it is quite wrong to equate smokers with those who committed the worst act of terrorism ever," I said.

She said : "Well, there are many people who would disagree with you. Smokers are as bad. It's a good campaign."

This nurse, and others like her who infect the NHS with prejudice, is one reason why I don't go to my GP anymore and why I'd really rather drop dead than go to hospital if I was ill, suffering a heart attack or dying of cancer. I am not a terrorist, nor a murderer, I am a lifelong cultural smoker and I simply wish to be left alone to live my life as I please.

I really think it's time that the Government got some balls and stated clearly that it will not support such blatant hate groups.

The smoking ban of 2007 encouraged this hatred, legalised discrimination, and gave a licence to bigots like ASH to be as abusive as they like. That is the only reason I was ever against it.

I don't want to smoke near anyone who doesn't like it but I can co exist and there is room for both of us in this world. Tolerance is a virtue. It's such a shame that our Government doesn't encourage that.

STUDY TO "PROVE" SMOKERS ARE LEPERS

When the idea of THS (A load of bollox to you and I) or Third Hand Smoke, first reared it's bigoted head, most people laughed it off and saw it for what it was - a cranking up of anti-smoking propaganda aimed at encouraging fear of smokers and further exclusion of a minority group.

In fact, to be fair, it was greeted with the same derision as SHS 40 years ago. Like the concept of SHS, the antis have thrown money at "research" into THS to come up with results they paid for so no doubt it won't be long before we smokers are forced to shower before we can even be allowed to speak to a fellow human being.

Just imagine what that money could do in actually doing some proper scientific research into what causes cancer and how to cure it instead of spending it on inciting fear and hatred of a minority group.

It's another case for me to put my fingers in my ears and start with the la la la because it's just too terrifying to see the lies that will be created to incite such hatred. They really are going all out to "prove" we are lepers judging on the "expected" plan to prove standing next to us suddenly causes open sores to appear on those within a mile of us.

Sheesh - I've had five Ceasarians and the medical staff caring for me after the birth of my children were always astounded at how quickly I was on my feet and how quickly I healed. By way of information, for those who don't know, only two are recommended so it looks that the anecdotal evidence doesn't tally with this latest bigoted study which aims to use the same familiar tactics of junk science.

As someone on DP's blog points out, if this study is "true" then how come smokers are not walking around looking like lepers, full of sores and holes with their skin dropping off? But then, isn't that what the anti-smoking industry wants? It wants to prove smokers ARE lepers and then get the general public on side in treating them as such. Smokers should be given legal protection against the propagation of such hatred but then that isn't going to happen under the hateful coalition ConDem party is it?

Still think direct action is not necessary to make ourselves heard? I think it is.

THE END GAME BECOMES CLEAR

Back in the mid 1990s, I used to write a paid for health supplement for a local paper.

This used to feature such things as arts projects involving people with a mental handicap (sorry no PC here!), new staff appointments, and various health related bits of information such as how to deal with flu. Very useful stuff and no propaganda unless you call promoting things like a breast cancer awareness propaganda but then it was very informative too.

You see, back then there was no hatred of smokers. We were allowed choice even if we were constantly told that what we did was bad for us. The loons who believed the scam of passive smoking were very much a minority in those days although it's fair to say their nonsense was taking ground.

Before I took on the writing of this supplement, I saw each year the huge No Smoking Day promotional stuff which only ever presented one side of the debate and even then it used to wind me up. So when the day came around during my time, I told my editor that I simply could not write it unless the perspective from the smoker was featured alongside it. I said, after all, that as a journalist, I had a duty to add balance.

The editor wasn't so sure because she said it was paid for. Basically the then health authority decided what went in and what didnt so I was advised to speak to the health promotions officer whose remit included such things as AIDS awareness as well.

He ummed and ahhed a bit but then said : "Why not. We know there is a bastion of hardened smokers who don't take on board what we say and we will never reach them. It will be interesting to see how they think."

By the end of the 90s, the pressure to quit really began to squeeze smokers. No longer could they be afforded a sealed room inside hospitals, for example, and soon after banning them from inside, the hospital tried to stop them smoking outside by calling them filthy, dangerous to others, and well, just damn untidy standing around in nightgowns etc..

The war suddenly changed from trying to get us onside, to a kill or cure attack method to eradicate us.

Black market tobacco began to surface, I think, here, anyway, in the early 1990s when the EU border rules changed. I find it odd, that the anti-smoking industry is only now trying to get to grips with it. But the truth is that the Black Market has thrived simply because of the anti-smoking industry's pressure on govt to hike tax on fags so high few can afford to buy them.

The end game for smokers is now in sight. That's why the idiotic campaign by Smoke Free North West uses lies and misinformation in a bid to criminalise those they cannot reach - The 25% of hardened smokers - without having to explain where the figure pulled from thin air of 75% comes from.

So when you see statements such as "75% of people want something doing about this," you know that they are trying very hard to marginalise the 25% of law abiding smokers.

The claim that "fake" tobacco is doing the rounds is yet another lie. There is nothing fake about it except that it is being dealt to the customer through the manwithavan rather than Govt. The baccy is real enough. I've seen it and tasted it.

Personally I don't buy Black Market baccy because I simply don't know where to get it from - certainly our ice cream man doesn't sell it - but I do have friends and acquaintances who do. They buy from other friends and acquaintances who legally go abroad on holiday and think of their friends while there and buy a few packets to share. After all, we're poor, and they do us all a favour. The smoke free bigots also claim it is foreign. Of course it is. It comes from abroad. I should add that I know of none who would sell to kids. It's simply not worth wasting when it is so scarce anyway. Do the smoke-free wallies really think we're that stupid - oh, yes, of course they do. We're smokers.

History shows us that when tobacco tax gets hiked, people don't stop smoking, they find cheaper ways of getting tobacco. Back in the 16th century, King Charles*, who personally hated tobacco and believed it made smoker's brains black, banned it in all London alehouses. He also hiked up the price something silly like 1000% The result was the peasants began to grow their own and the loss to the treasury was so great, he had to rethink his policy for the good of the country.

I say take heed politicians. We smokers will not be eradicated however much lying propaganda is put out about us. However much you try and criminalise us, demoralise us, eradicate us, we will continue smoking. And we intend to hit back by buying our tobacco abroad legally for personal use so that our taxes are no longer used against us to fund the lies and misinformation from the anti-smoking-smoke-free-ASH self interest industry.

Join the Resistance! Stop buying UK tobacco and cigarettes. Do not fund the anti-smoking industry any longer. Enough is Enough.

* NOTE - Sorry, I can't remember if it was Charles I or II and I don't have time today to look it up but anyone who doubts my word check out Chris Snowdon's excellent book - Velvet Glove, Iron Fist from the link on this blog on the left.

COMMON SENSE FROM FOREST

Well done Simon Clark over at Taking Liberties for his excellent response to the Mirror article about actress Billie Piper smoking outside a pub when a child was nearby.

His words make common sense - despite the fact that he was misquoted - as opposed to the righteous ranting of the anti who uses the same old blah-de-blah crap about the "4,000" chemicals etc... Yawnnnn

Of course these "4,000" chemicals can be found in just about all things around us today although in tobacco, they have a much lower risk factor than those exaggerated by the anti-smoking industry and nowhere near as harmful as those found in everyday cleaning products for example.

There is also Rich White's excellent book which puts the risk of chemicals in tobacco into its true perspective.

It also nice to see over at Simon's blog that the Save Our Pubs and Clubs amendthesmokingban.com campaign has stepped up a gear.

For those of you who don't me, I am in the group photograph, with dark hair, next to the blonde lady on one side and Anthony Worrall Thompson on the other.

WHY SHOULD I QUIT SMOKING!

There I was on a beautiful sunny day in the middle of nowhere talking to a very nice chap from the RSPB about a wetland project when my mobile rang with an invitation to go live on air and talk about why I refuse to quit smoking.

On one side was Dr Wendy Richardson, who had loads of predictable, offensive, and inflammatory things to say and the other was me just trying to stick up for myself and other smokers.

Anyone who wants to listen in can find the link to BBC Radio Humberside's Peter Levy show The debte between the good doctor and myself comes about half way through.

Now I'm about to disappear for a few days again as the annual festival I work at starts today. EcoFest is held in the beautiful Lincolnshire Wolds. There will be great music and a great atmosphere and I can't wait.

* I should say for the sake of clarity that the radio interview had nothing to do with the RSPB but I was out on a job for a feature I've written about their project when the call came through.