TRUE SPIRIT OF THE RESISTANCE

Smokers have been pushed to the to the edge of reason and beyond but with the threat of criminalisation looming the line has been drawn and they will go no further.

Leg Iron has written a powerful piece showing how we are are not prepared to play the game any more. Stuff tobacco control, stuff the anti-smoker's false "caring", stuff the lies about smoking and health, the false studies, the emotional blackmail, and stuff the state-paid bureaucratic idiots who think they can force us to quit by controlling our supply.

Many of us have taken to growing our own tax-free, chemical-free, home grown tobacco and we intend to spread the love and share the seed. I live in the countryside and have plenty of places where I can begin a new tobacco crop for anyone who wants to go and pick it. If I throw the seeds next spring, then I imagine there will be a strong colony of plants within a couple of years all around where I live. We have three commons close to town for those that live in the city.

And as Rose says in the comments on LI's post, if they stop us doing that then we'll just find something else to smoke because, in the true spirit of The Resistance, we will never surrender.

Our tax is being withheld because of a lack of political representation in more ways than just growing our own product. We are buying our personal stock in EU countries and the Govt's tax yield from us will get smaller and smaller as more people hear about and join The Resistance until it eventually disappears.

Companies and businesses that actively seek to exclude us will lose our trade. We will, for example, work towards bankrupting those ferry companies that fail to recognise their core customer base while treating their paying passengers worse than farmyard pigs.

We will not support fake cancer charities that plunder donations on anti-smoker propaganda for a share of the Govt's funding pot rather than research on how to cure cancer. We won't stay in hotels on holiday or visit bars and pubs that don't adequately cater for our needs.

We demand to be treated with the same respect and consideration as any other person in this country. We will not obey any new laws made to restrict us further including car bans. A car is our private property, our private space, our choice whether we smoke or not inside it, our friends, our families, our personal community, our lives to control.

It is the same with our homes and we will not let the anti-smoker industry bully us via the scaremongering fear they pump out in TV propaganda ads night after night. The current "please stop for Xmas" exploitation of young children being forced by Big Tobacco Control to read words they can barely pronounce from auto-cues is disgusting and immoral.

Our Resistance is growing and getting stronger as anger bubbles into organisation and focus with each offensive new piece of propaganda. This only inspires zealots to think they have the right to dictate our lives and bully us because we don't agree with them or pander to their paranoia. It is shameful and wasteful.

The waste of public money on anti-smoker propaganda is taking food out of the mouths of other more vital public services in these austere times that the Uk can ill-afford. It's a shame our politicians haven't got the sense or courage of their Dutch colleagues who recently did the decent thing and stopped throwing tax-payers cash down a black ideological hole.

Smokers have said enough's enough and action is now backing those words. One day The Resistance will bring this nonsense to an end.

CAN'T WAIT

I'm really jealous of Leg Iron and others who are ahead in home grown tobacco stock. Those flowers sound lovely.

I can't wait until my indoor crop starts to grow but it could still be some time yet as the first two tiny leaves only came up a couple of days ago and haven't grown any more since.

Patience has never has been one of my virtues but I'm trying and I'll learn more than one lesson during this home grown experiment.

How exciting this all is. In five years tobacco has gone from being just the thing I bought in the shop with my paper and other bits and pieces to becoming a full time hobby of great interest, driven by a passionate cause.

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.

THS and SMOKER MONEY

Apologies to Dick Puddlecote and Leg Iron because I can't remember the post that carried a conversation between the two about smoker's money.



I do recall that Dick said he used to write SMOKER'S MONEY across his notes in the early days of persecution when the anti-smoking industry put out the myth that only Non-smoker's money was worth having in pubs.



He thought it would be particularly useful given the push to further outcast smokers from civil society, make them homeless, unemployable, and devalue their own private properties with the invention that is third hand smoke - THS.



Well, I'm up for that. It was my intention to scan in my very first Smoker's note and post a photo here but the purse is empty until I get to the bank tomorrow. I also thought that if it involved money, and technically the copying of that money, it was bound to be illegal somehow. Hence I used another image to illustrate the point I'm trying to make.



I can't find The Smoker's Arms in Grimsby on the Lost Pubs site so it must still be open. I'd go there just because of the name and in spite of the ban if I lived locally. I wonder how long it will be allowed to keep it in this current climate.



Even though the anti-smoking industry is still lying about the effect of the loss of Smoker Money, and Govt is in denial about it, most normal people and those pub owners made bankrupt by the blanket ban do recognise there is a valuable link.



The Angry Exile makes a good point about smoker to smoker services in the comments section of Chris Snowdon's post on the dangerous delusion of anti-smoker quango ASH It's a great idea and one worthy of organising. A reference list by profession or service, with contacts of smokers and tolerant non-smokers, would be handy.



AE said : I mentioned a bloke in Ireland who refuses to hire smokers because he thinks they're all lazy, stupid, smelly and sickly. Fella who commented today said he was considering using that company for a £50K project but has decided against because, in his own words:



"...anyone stupid enough to make comments like he did is obviously not bright enough to handle our needs.

Please pass the word so others are not tempted to employ a company led by such a cerebrally challenged individual."



An accountant who posted a comment on this blog once told me that he is being constructively bullied out of work because he is a smoker. Despite the fact that he does not take breaks, nor smokes at work because it's illegal, his employer demands that he doesn't smoke in his own time "because he doesn't want clients to see employees smoking out of work."



I am sure that there are plenty of self employed smokers who would rather commission the services of this tax expert than his pious boss's company which is happy to take their Smoker Money while he bullies smoker employees who may handle their account.



And now that Tobacco Control is discussing how best to put padding on the invention of THS (thanks Dave Atherton for the link) it may well be that society will be encouraged to refuse Smoker Money in future for fear of catching something awful.



In the TC discussion, they concede that nicotine and "other harmful substances" can be found in a variety of other everyday products and they need to be sure that they can single out the smoker as living in an "infected" property.



It seems the only language that Govt listens to is financial and so perhaps the use of SMOKER MONEY may speak greater volumes than the common sense and reasonable arguments we have used to date to stop our persecution.



UPDATE My other half just came back with a tenner from the ATM so what the hell. I made my mark in the blank bits around the note for fear of devaluing it by writing over something important like the number which I have erased because it seemed wise.

BLOGGER'S NEW NOVEL

He's one of the best bloggers in the sphere and so this, his first published novel, has got to be great read. It's out in April.

Congrats Leg Iron.

GOOD READS AND LIGHT BLOGGING

I have a bit of this today so I'll link to some other great posts instead.

By way of update on the horrendous Ciggy Bastards - err - Busters campaign, this post from the Filthy Engineer sums it up nicely.

And this post by a real, proper and unbiased doctor PHIL BUTTON should be read by everyone in Govt or with a link to those in Govt. It is an education.

Anyway, I'm off. I'm inspired by Leg Iron's news so I'm working hard on getting my script out this week. Hopefully it will result in similar good news but I'm prepared for the fact that it could take a while.

Meanwhile, if any writers among you, including Mrs P whose other half keeps this excellent blog have time to read it, and give me feedback on it before it goes, I'd be very grateful.