It's been a terrible week for smokers with relentless attacks that would be laughable if they weren't designed to incite hatred and disgust of consumers to put people off them if they won't be put off from smoking.
It seems that almost every day there is a new "study" or "report" that tells us that smokers are undesirables. The most offensive is the one that says our children are likely to grow up as criminals.
Dick Puddlecote came across this disgusting promotion of smokers as all of the horrible things that "normal" people are supposed to hate. It's all part of the 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
Globally, this hate is oppressive and it is worse in other even less tolerant countries. This anti page links to instructions of how to get law abiding smoker neighbours chucked out of their own homes in Australia.
The effect of "Denormalisation" in the UK is division in every aspect of our lives. It separates us from our family and friends and turns neighbours against us when the science does not justify it. All that backs up "Denormalisation" is paranoid fear, hysteria and hate and these are supported by Govt when it backs the programme with laws such as tobacco display bans, blanket public smoking bans, approving the use of "non-smokers only" in job ads, and allowing councils to discriminate against smokers when fostering children.
Denormalisation also rips families apart and family relations are not something Govt should be involved in.
The story told by June on Simon Clark's taking liberties is one that most older smokers can identify with.
I had issues with two of my children in the past but things have improved as they have got older. I don't smoke at their homes and they accept that I will smoke in mine. I don't let them chew gum in my house. I tolerate it when I visit them.
The thought of June being banished as a leper to a specially designated area of her own house saddens me a lot. Perhaps my family knows that there is a line that I won't cross and to push me would end disastrously and cause huge emotional fall out that could last a lifetime.
They know I've been hounded from everywhere else. My home is my last refuge. I will not be humiliated here. I'm grateful that all of my children, two of them, however, really don't give a damn if I smoke around them or not, are level headed and intelligent enough not to buy totally into the anti-smoking propaganda.
One was particularly intolerant in her early 20s based on her dislike of the smell but not from fear of harm. The other became difficult when she had a boyfriend who appeared to object to her parents' lifestyle. My kids are impatient with my politics of choice but as they mature more they appear to understand where I am coming from - particularly in light of the slander against them as potential career criminals because I smoked.
They also know that my smoker mother, their grandmother, was the most loving person in the world and her smoking while pregnant with me, and my smoking while pregnant with them, caused no harm then or over four generations that I know about.
I recognise the signs that "Denormalisation" of fat people has started. It looks like they're going for "Fat people as a public health liability" first. I guess it won't be long before some new "study" suggest some sort of body chemistry scam that says they smell too.
It's the same format used to hype up fear of smoking and then smokers. First they come up with some "shocking stats" followed by fear of the future, backed up with calls "to do something".
I'm pleased to see that Lansley is not buying the crap about the need for a fat tax. I don't know if that is because the Govt just thinks it won't work or it doesn't support "Denormalisation" - a tool about as ethical for public health use as water boarding is during interrogation.
Govts that do support its use and development are not progressive. Govts that make its use illegal are.