Let's remember in part what we are talking about here. Hate campaigns. The opening of this film includes snippets from an anti-smoking advertising feature (withdrawn by the NHS after protest from Freedom2Choose), which showed a young man's smoking habit compared to him being viciously and wantonly assaulted:
THE ANTI by wes_hrv
The Guardian reports a personalised hate campaign against personnel from Action on Smoking and Health by bloggers and campaigners. One such report, on the blog affiliated with the UK Freedom2Choose, was removed shortly after publication. It was a direct retaliation to the story linked above in Simon Clark's blog, which jokingly speculated that if smokers faced the threat of being randomly shot down by a sniper, they might be keener to give up. I don't remember anyone taking seriously the idea that smokers might feel under threat from crazed members of the general public as a result of either this, or pictures of a smoker being hammered to a pulp (metaphorically) by his smoking habit.
The denormalisation agenda has a lot to answer for. While blithely condemning smokers to social ostracism they say: 'An obvious escape from this negativity is to quit smoking'.
While I don't personally agree with threatening people in the course of their work, the authority that tobacco control has assumed, on a global scale, to reshape social attitudes against smokers, ostensibly in order to save their lives, is quite despicable. Seeking to marginalise anyone who has even a passing interest in tobacco-associated trades is profoundly anti-democratic. If tobacco control advocates agree that this kind of behaviour towards not just smokers but people at all degrees of separation from tobacco interests is objectionable, they should distance themselves from it publicly. To paraphrase a summary of the tobacco control position in the BMJ, an obvious escape from the negativity of the denormalisation campaign and the anger it engenders is to condemn that agenda.
As far as I'm concerned, the gloves are off.
5 comments:
"As far as I'm concerned, the gloves are off. "
I'll second that.
Well said, Belinda. I have seen this personal attack on smokers strategy growing apace for twenty years at least. well, it seems the anti smokers are like bullies the world over; they can dish it out but they can't take it.
As for the argument that the obvious way to avoid these attacks is to stop smoking, I wouldn't be surprised to find 'moderate' members of the EDL saying something
similar to Muslims.
I took the gloves off the day the MF'S said your now an outlaw,a criminal for smoking and your no longer allowed in the public domain. You will lose all your friends,your family your own being in a social setting. Some of you smokers may die due to the strength of the ban but its you we despise!
Tobacco control NAZIS can go str8 to hell and I will continue to fight those bloody bastards until final repeal is achieved around the world!
Harleyrider1978
Look in vain in this article for a comment on these quotes from Frank Davis, Freedom2Choose or Dick Puddlecote: the authors of all this incendiary material. Hint to Guardian: there are two sides to every story. But perhaps no self-respecting mainstream newspaper would ask a mere blogger for their view of a situation!
They bully and denormalise us. We speak out against it on our blogs. They falsely claim they are the ones being targeted. Standard fare for the haters. Not one anti-smoker has ever been harmed or harassed. Not Dreadful, not Bauld, not Gilmore not any of them. We just reprint their words and comment on them.
It is my sincerest hope that this latest hate campaign backfires on them. I will endeavour to continue exposing their hatred of us.
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