END FAKE CHARITIES NOW!

There have been some great posts on Taking Liberties this week such as the interview with former director of FOREST Stephen Eyres who Simon Clark interviewed back in the days when life was normal and being weird wasn't.

Today Simon features a post about fake charities and concerns by Blad Tolstoy regarding throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Now ASH is most definitely a fake charity and does not work for the good of anyone but the political pressure group's own self interest and I agree with every word that Simon says.

I also accuse Cancer Research UK (CRUK) of being fake. It has jumped on the anti-smoker bandwaggon and realised what a nice little earner it can be but spends far too much money on inciting hatred against smokers than raising cash to actually do some research into what causes cancer and how it can be cured.

I keep thinking that one day I'll put this to the test. If I had a sponsored 24 hour smoke-a-thon for CRUK with promises of cash for every cig I chain smoke in 24 hours would CRUK take my money?

As for ASH, they are so clever but I wonder if the Coalition is really that stupid. When NuLab was in power, ASH pretended to care about "the poor". Oh how they crowed about "healh inequalities", the poor being "too stupid and too poor" to know how to make the "right" decisions.

Now, lo and behold, we have a Tory led govt and suddenly ASH is all about promoting how much the smoker costs the public purse knowing that for the Tories money talks and bullshit about the poor walks.

This organisation is scum because not only is it a fake charity, it is a criminal one. ASH incited hatred against people who smoke by telling lies and funding false studies with money that the smoker pays.

I for one will pay no more. I've just booked my latest baccy trip abroad and another country will get the benefit of my tobacco money. I will never buy tobacco in the UK again until this Govt shows it has a brain and it stops funding the anti-smoking industry whose only purpose is to make its individual leaders rich by persecuting those too vulnerable to stand up for themselves.

In short, ASH and it's "smoke-free alliance" are liars, bullies, cheats, thugs, and criminals.

It's time they were prosecuted for fraud. Benefit claimants who lie to get more benefit get prosecuted. ASH lies to get public money and it should also face the criminal courts for taking this money under false pretences.

And THIS by Mr Puddlecote explains better than I could how the science does not support the lies promoted by such fake charities.

ANTI-SMOKING INDUSTRY WRONG AGAIN

I was very sorry to hear about Charlie the Chimp who has outlived his fellow apes by 12 years.

These anti-smokers keep getting proved wrong don't they - or could it be that a smoking chimp lives longer than others because smoking does not make smokers die younger or maybe because he's a chimp and not human. I suppose they could use that one as an excuse.

At least they didn't try and "denormalise" the poor old chap and I'd have liked to see anyone tell him he couldn't smoke inside his zoo.

I think I'd rather be a chimp than have to put up with the bullies who are still trying to get into our private homes and cars

They can't do it without using chiiildren but they don't give a stuff whether there are children around or not.

It's their usual tactics. Hype up the fear factor, make parents feel like child abusers and then tell the world that they are, then when they've got the required number of smokers compliant, they move onto legislating against them chiiildren or not.

When the ban came out the only thing that I was grateful for was these moaning bullies would finally back off. Yes. I know I was naeive. This will not end until tobacco is illegal and smokers are criminalised. Make no mistake it's where this issue is heading.

And tobacco is not the issue here at all. It's about freedom. The right to live in your home in peace. The right to choose what you do behind closed doors without fear. If you stand by and let this happen without taking to the streets - whether you smoke or you don't - you are opening the flood gates of oppression on any health whim that any vested interest has in mind to impose upon you.

Next will be the food police who come round to check your fridge - for the Chiiiildren of course. Hot on the heels will be a cut off point at bars and pubs when you've had your state allotted "safe" number of alcoholic units in one week.

This has to stop and now. Is there no one in this country that cares about freedom and fair play? Is there no one with their Oxford and Cambridge education in Govt with half a brain to see through this shit? It seems to me that their parents wasted a shit load of money on thick zombies who will always be thick zombies. I've seen brighter graduate from the University of Life and HM prisons. Money can't buy intelligence that's for sure.

On the positive side, because I have been in despair about this issue for some time and news for us is rarely good, it seems some support is coming our way but even then I'm depressed at how few MPs care about their smoker constituents.

I've given up on mine Karl Mccartney. I am afraid he is a typical cowardly Tory. Behind the scenes he says he supports choice. In public he is too scared to show it. What use is he? I know one thing. He only won this seat from St Gillian of Merron by 1000 votes. If he wants to win it next time, he better start listening. The smoker people of Lincoln are vastly losing patience with him and so am I.

I'm beginning to think that Charlie the Chimp has more intelligence.

A RANT ABOUT WATER

Sometimes I can be thrown into an utter state of ranting and swearing by the simple act of a letter from a huge organisation that makes me feel completely out of control of my ability to make my own choices.

A few weeks ago, for example, my water supplier Anglian Water, wrote to all households in the area to say they were coming to fit a water meter. Eh? I thought. No-one's asked me about this and one thing I know is that I don't want a water meter, not now, not ever.

You see I have this idea that water meter equals rations and I'll still be charged through the nose for it. I won't change my mind. When we moved a couple of years ago, we looked at various properties and some we discounted because they had water meters. We didn't want one.

Anglian Water said that once the meter was fitted, if we didn't like it we could change our minds. Hmmm. It all sounds very simple but having been a customer of AW for about two decades, one thing I know is that the customer does not come first. If they did, for example, then they wouldn't screw us for payment of water that we haven't even had yet. We have to pay a year in advance OR ELSE!

So, I'm thinking, once AW gets everyone on this meter, and time passes, and I'm the only one who decides I don't want it will they change it back? I'm sincerely doubtful. Choice, over time, will be gone so I'm not even going down the road into eventual forced compliance because I've allowed the means to use that force in my house at this stage.

I phoned the water company to tell them of my views.

"It's my house. I own it. And I don't want your meter," I said. "I'm also responsible for the pipes outside of my property so don't even think of touching them to create your meter network."

The person who took the call feebly indicated that all she could do was make a note on the file and there I left it.

Yesterday, I received yet another letter from AW telling me, along with other residents, that I had to be home on a certain day to meet the contractors who would want access to my property and grounds to do a survey before my meter is installed. That's where the swearing and ranting came into it. Grrrr.

I rang the contractors. No note on file. I explained my position and warned them that should they come within an inch of my grounds or property I'd have 'em, for trespassing and if they touched my pipes, I do 'em for criminal damage.

Again it was explained to me that I had a choice and if I didn't like the meter, I could change back. I told him I didn't care. My mind was already made up. He tried to persuade me that just allowing a little survey to be one wouldn't hurt. I said I didn't want a meter, not now, not ever, so no point. I again warned him that should his people come any where my property, I'd sue.

He said he'd make a note on file.

On re-reading the second letter from AW, I noted the small print which did indeed say that if I didn't like the meter once it was in, I could change back. But - and there's always a "but" - if I move into a house already fitted with one, then I can't have it changed.

So, AW intends to put water meters everywhere, pretend the householder has a choice, and then pull that choice from them once they have normalised meter use.

I'm afraid I can't be persuaded by any nonsense about lack of water in reservoirs either in a country where it rains almost all year except for about a month of scorching weather dotted through summer if we're lucky.

JOIN THE RESISTANCE

It's useful to see this weird little street sign has appeared in the centre of my city directly outside of the NHS Stop Smoking services in a building that also invites people with sexually transmitted infections to seek the services of the NHS. Charming!

I always make a point of standing oustide of this building at lunchtime as I enjoy my Lincolnshire sausage bap, cup of tea, and at least two smokes outside of its front door.

I've never seen many people in there and personally one doesn't know whether the customer is there to quit or to seek help and advice for the pox.

But as I'm getting a tad rebellious in my older age, and this new Speaker's Corner facility, is right outside of the place that deserves some protest, I'm aiming to spread the word about our Resistance Movement which aims to starve such organisations of our tax which we will no longer pay because of our refusal to buy tobacco in the UK.

Oh, yes. I want a Join the Resistance Pirate Poster on a wooden placard and lots of leaflets explaining the campaign to the many smokers I see passing by this building most days.

And as my local council has seen fit to provide a place where, allegedly, freedom of speech can take place, then I plan to stand outside shouting "Stop funding the anti-smoking industry. Join the Resistance!"

So can someone tell me where I can get my hands on as many leaflets that I'll need and that big poster? Oh my, this is going to be such fun :)

ASH BAN FUNDS TERRORISM

So ASH are stamping their feet and demanding a tobacco display ban.

Perhaps they should be warned that THIS could be the result.

Does the NuGovt really want to take the risk of falling for ASH's folly in the face of such warnings - especially given that they lied to push through this particular bad economic idea?

Now supporting it in the face of these warnings would be an act of monumental stupidity, would it not?

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.

ASH SPOOF BLOG PINS DOWN LIES

News that ASH Scotland's main harridan Shiela Duffy now has her own blog has been met with astonishment that she closed the comments which is just not part of blogging etiquette.

With this in mind, someone has set up a spoof copy to enable people to take her to task for her lies and misinformation.

A lot of the comments HERE are angry ones and not related particularly to the debate of how ASH conned the public with false information on the tobacco display ban but fair enough.

We have taken insult after insult from this organisation so I, for one, have no problem in seeing them get back some of the anger they have created in their long history of lying.

At least Ms Duffy can't get away with just telling us what to do and how to think based on her blog. We will have our say!