DON'T LET COUNCILS BULLY YOU

Here's a piece of good news to take us into the New Year and something that all smokers should be aware of as local authorities try and use bully-boy tactics to force smokers out of their communities as discrimination against them continues unabated.

Freedom2Choose has revealed that councils have no legal powers to stop people smoking in the open air although in Coventry at least, they will be forming Nagging or Bullying Policies in a bid to deny smoker council tax payers from using the very facilities they pay for.

They believe that Nagging smokers into submission justifies the discrimination they use against law abiding people they want to exclude from their communities.

So if approached by some Jobsworth paid to harass you if you smoke, your response should be that you are not breaking the law and they should just go away. But even though they may put you under severe provocation through their harassment, don't bite because they can then criminalise you under public order offences if you raise your voice or take issue with them.

Just be polite, smile and continue enjoying your cigarette** and tell the Jobsworth that you are breaking no laws and such council policy has no basis in law. In fact, ask them to quote what part of the Health Act 2006 they are using to stop you acting legally because they simply won't be able to tell you.

Meanwhile, as this awful fourth year of the ban is almost over, The Resistance fight continues and the anti-smoker fascists are being exposed further as their fraudulent junk science is revealed as not standing up to scrutiny

Let's hope 2012 is the year when discrimination ends against our lifestyle group and others and that the Govt starts actually funding patient care in the NHS and not propaganda designed by the bigoted ASH.

Don't forget that in Labour's term of office ONE BILLION POUNDS was thrown into the anti-smoker black hole of TV propaganda and various smoke free groups that were dying on their feet before this immoral piece of legislation was enforced through threat of criminal prosecution.

That money could have been so much better used in public service in all sorts of ways

** And don't forget to use your own pocket ashtrays.

CUT FUNDING TO TOBACCO CONTROL INDUSTRY

We've all been told to tighten our belts and there is no doubt that the lowest paid among us will suffer the most in the spending cuts round.

So why on earth is so much public money still being thrown into that black hole of Tobacco Control?

Forest - the group that represents 12 million consumers - points out in the link above that scam charities and a myriad of smoke-free organisations are sucking the public purse dry and getting millions of our cash from Govt to lobby Govt to - errr - do what the Govt wants.

It's time this stopped. We ALL have to tighten our belts including those in the anti-smoking industry who leech and lie for a living.

HELP US FIGHT DENORMALISATION

I haven't heard if any smoke-free quangos have been axed in the public spending cuts and bearing in mind the multi agencies have already had half a billion pounds off us in five years, then I would have thought it would be ripe for plucking.

Imagine what much needed public services could be saved if we stopped giving almost £1 million to ASH Scotland - an organisation that couldn't survive without Govt funding because the general public does not support it.

Certainly Simon Clark at Taking Liberties makes a sound, reasonable and common sense argument for trimming costs at ASH Scotland which has come up with 33 more torturing ways to finally deal with the problem of smokers.

They have the hate crime denormalisation to cause us to be shunned and avoided by our friends, neighbours, and employers even though they know the aim of denormalisation is to create hate and shame.

This explanation from a poster in the comments section on Simon's post shows they really mean business. Smokers must quit or they will be legally discriminated against and hate against them will be legally backed up with Govt funds to public health.

Tobacco Denormalization and Stigma

"In fact, many tobacco denormalization programs tend to embrace the stigmatization of smokers as a public health tool.

Stigma is achieved through a moralization of smoking. For instance, public education campaigns on the adverse health outcomes of smoking paints those who smoke as engaging in morally reprehensible behaviour.

The philosopher Martha Nussbaum, for instance, has argued that humiliating or dehumanizing the victim is “central” for stigma to be enacted, and, following Goffman, the stigmatized person has to recognize this humiliation (spoiled identity) as a reality.

Such an effort at manipulating the mores of society has clear implications for persons living with psychiatric illness. As UBC‘s Kirsten Bell and colleagues notice, “denormalization policies have the effect of sanctioning stigma implicitly directed towards a particular segment of the population: the segment with the least ability and/or willingness to quit”

Interestingly, denomalization programs are antithetical to public health efforts which are focused on eradicating stigma – particularly around eliminating negative public perceptions of people who use illicit drugs.

However advocates such as Bayer argue that the burden of stigmatizing denormalization policies imposed on vulnerable populations (e.g., individuals living with psychiatric illness) is justified by the (potential) benefits to that population."
http://neuroethicscanada.wordpress.com/2010/05/02/tobacco-denormalization-and-stigma/

That's why people have to do that huddled and shunned without adequate shelter thing, if they want to smoke a cigarette in public.
In obeying the law , you conform to the desired stereotype."


This denormalisation is certainly working in already criminalising smokers as can be seen here by another Smokers as litterers case - and get the tone of the piece. The media has bought into denormalisation without even realising it. It makes me ashamed to call myself a Journsalist when my "colleagues" can turn on their readers without fighting the big Pharma companies that fund this hatred or even questioning the necessity of this kind of action.

Yes, I know I've debated this before - litter is litter but smoking litter is somehow worse than dropping chip papers, beer cans, or chewing gum that takes a decade to clear. Cig ends are biodegradable. It's like dropping a leaf. SHS is an invention. It does not kill. The truth in their game of smoker hating really doesn't matter anymore. After all tell a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.

I have talked on here of raising funds to prosecute these people for hate crime and I am still waiting for an offer of legal help. I'll keep repeating it until some comes forward. There are fears, I know, that if we lose this legal battle then we'll be fooked. We have nothing to lose. We're fooked anyway. This could be the turning point we need to be treated as equally as other people and to make the hate stop. If we do not, they will hound us out of our homes and jobs.

I say again, if you don't smoke or don't like smoking and you support this programme of denormalisation, then you ARE supporting the same kind of hate as the Nazis began to show towards the Jews long before the holocaust - the final solution - came along. That took time. Smokers may not end up in the gas chamber but we will end up locked up in very uncomfortable places when tobacco is made illegal and it will. It is simply a question of time and is already on the bigots tick list of things to do.

First, like the Nazis made the German people accept hate of the Jews, the likes of ASH Scotland and ASH UK are making ordinarily decent people hate smokers with the same passion. Ask yourselves this. If ASH et al really cared about helping people to quit and they really cared about people full stop, they would not promote this programme of denormalisation. It is inhuman. It comes from a standpoint of hate. It promotes and legalises hate. Please make this hate stop and stop supporting this.

The smoking ban is only part of this. Choice means just that. We can choose to be the people we are. It matters not whether we can smoke in a pub or not. What matters is the smoking ban lays the groundwork for the next phase to finally rid the world of smokers. It legalises hate and discrimination. Is this really what you want?

If you want to save the services that matter, then join us. Stand with us. Write to your MP and demand that hate crime against us stops and denormalisation ends. If you do not, you will have to live with the shame of criminalising law abiding people because of who they are. If you do not, it will be your turn next.

Is this really what you want?

* UPDATE - Smokers are now deemed a terrorist threat I despair.

BLACK HOLE

Yet more money being thrown into a black hole. Sheesh - £44,000 for a smoking policeman? How much better that money could be spent than on a jobsworth created by Labour who are funding public sector jobs for votes. Corruption of the highest order!

The story is carried by the Mirror