Wednesday, 15 July 2015

Tobacco Control: Criminal Economic Vandals

Back in 2011, Linda Bauld released a 'review' of the smoking ban's effect on the UK hospitality industry. Here are some quotes from it.
"International evidence suggests that, after allowing for short-term costs associated with the legislation (e.g. new signage, employee training), the introduction of smokefree legislation has a net positive effect on businesses." 
"These reviews show that smokefree laws do impact businesses in the hospitality industry in a number of ways, many of them positive."  
"overall, however, existing evidence from developed countries in particular suggests that smokefree laws have a net positive effect on businesses (IARC, 2009)."
I know. Utter bollocks, isn't it?

Now, Bauld claims that she was only reviewing the 'evidence' at the time, even though it went against every observable measure of pubs falling over in their dozens per week. However, 11,000 pub closures later - and with politicians and consumer groups agonising over how to save the very concept of the British pub -  it is crystal clear that the 'evidence' was appalling and, as a result, so was Bauld's review. If you study crap, you are going to produce crap yourself.

But then, I'm pretty certain she knew what she was doing. In every jurisdiction, in every country on the planet, smoking bans coincide with huge damage to cafes, bars and restaurants. It's hardly unpredictable considering any smoker will tell you that the cigarette they smoke in their leisure time over a beer or coffee are the sweetest and - if they choose to quit - the most difficult to do without. Bauld's remit, then - which came with a price tag of £41,000 per page from our taxes - was to produce an astounding piece of Alice in Wonderland fantasy to pretend the dismantling of the traditional British pub wasn't happening.

I mention this whitewash because I can't wait to hear the junk science Aussie tobacco control liars are going to concoct to explain away this - entirely unnecessary and morally despicable - carnage that they have visited upon Sydney businesses.

The mendacious tobacco control industry - as well as denying the basic rules of economics - are wilfully ignorant about business too. It is incontrovertible that if you throw your best customers out of your establishment by denying them something they enjoy, they ain't going to give you their money. The hilarious myth of non-smokers replacing them in droves is nicely illustrated as poppycock by the lifeless and empty tables in the news story above.

What I am saying is that I know 'public health' want their smoking bans - because they want to bully smokers, there's no other explanation for outdoor bans - but I wish they'd be honest about it. Isn't it well past time they admitted that was the point? Admit that bans kill businesses in their thousands wherever in the world they are tried, and have courage in their conviction that health matters more than the public's choices and the rights of business owners. Anything else - like Bauld's fraudulent review - is not only lying, but also rampant cowardice.

They are not any friend of smokers, they're not 'encouraging' or 'supporting' them, they're just nasty fucks who happily derive income from deliberately inflicting misery and penury on others.

In any other area of life, we jail people for that.

UPDATE: There's one more facet of the New South Wales law featured in the clip above - which I commented on here - that further illustrates the insanity of tobacco controllers.

The law demands that smoking and eating should not happen in the same place, and designates fines for the smoker or business owner who allows it. But, as we see from the news report, owners are putting up clear signage saying that food must not be eaten in the smoking area. So what does any particular enforcement officer do when someone takes a sandwich from the eating area and goes to sit with the smokers to eat it?

Apparently, it has been noted that the law doesn't provide for fining eaters for eating in the wrong place. So what can they do? Fine the smoker for not moving, the owner for not stopping them from choosing where to sit?

It is, however, a recipe for disruption and enmity for people who just want to be left alone to enjoy their leisure time. As I've said many times before ...
Stick them all in clink and throw away the key.


JLTrader said...

Just like in any other field of science, the anti-smoking 'science' would not be considered.

nisakiman said...

Yes, bravo DP. As usual, you cut through the crap to expose the reality. They are such a bunch of lying charlatans, it astounds me that they have got away with it for so long.

Of course, the only reason they can maintain the myth is because the MSM is in collusion with them (although why, I have no idea), and the masses have this blind faith in the veracity of the MSM. If journalism was what it should be, that is, honest and investigative, we wouldn't be where we are now. So they are as culpable as the Baulds of this world in misinforming us and destroying those things which should be inviolate.

Come the revolution, brothers...

Vinny Gracchus said...

The health risks from second hand smoke are near zero. The economic risks from bans are guaranteed.

Smoking bans aren't about health; they're about social control. There is no discernible health risk from second hand smoke outdoors. (Even indoors only very weak associations with extremely small relative risk have been demonstrated.) Essentially there is no health risk to others from second hand smoke. Smokers are demonized and persecuted based on the manipulation of fear.

Tobacco control advocates deny and understate the economic impact of bans. Never mind the hundreds of pubs in the UK, hundreds of bars and taverns in the US, they claim there is no negative impact. Recently in the build up to the New Orleans (NOLA) bar and casino smoking ban studies projected losses in revenue to the bars and casinos. (The same projections noted that the earlier New Orleans restaurant ban also led to revenue losses.) Other research also demonstrated economic losses from bans:

See a good qualitative review at "The Economic Impact Of Smoking Bans," . Also look at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Study: "Clearing the Haze? New Evidence on the Economic Impact of Smoking Bans" which demonstrates economic losses. Available at .

Of course in NOLA the proponents denied the studies that demonstrated economic losses and the ban passed. Even after the ban passed and the Casino recorded actual losses the proponents denied their occurrence. It seems typical losses are in the range of 20-22% but they are routinely ignored. Mention of losses is suppressed and discussion of losses is frequently censored.

Instead of truthful reportage, tobacco control produces propaganda pieces that tout the benefits of bans and activist literature encourages antismoking activists to disseminate stories of success for smoking bans (this is properly called propaganda) while business calls for repeal and relief are ignored.

jude said...

In my remote little town, of the three pubs that were open when the smoking bans came in, one has closed completely, (they had no outdoor area where smokers could go, apart from standing in the street, so smokers just stopped going, and the business went into bankruptcy after more than 30 years of good profits. The remaining two pubs have halved their business takings, and the pub without the "night club" (I use this term very loosely), attached, now closes at 10pm on the weekend, for lack of business, something unheard of before the smoking ban. There are real concerns that this pub, operating for more than 100 years, will soon close. The most popular cafe in town, which used to have outdoor smoking, has now closed.

People see first hand what has happened, non-smokers have not made up the shortfall, and were never going to. Tobacco control lies have destroyed lives and divided communities and families. This is the reality of the bans.

Then there is the "responsible service of alcohol", another divisive and draconian policy designed to make policeman of bar tenders and publicans. Recently I went with some friends to the local pub for a meal and a couple of drinks afterwards. One of my friends has cerebral palsy, but is not in a wheelchair, he was refused service because he "looked" drunk. (we hadn't even had our first drink). Even after explaining the reason why my friend had trouble walking and why his speech was slightly slurred, the bartender still refused to serve him alcohol, because, "its not worth losing my job over, and the pub would get a big fine". This is what the reality of the bans are producing. I will never patronise that pub again.

Jay said...

Since the smoking ban I've remonstrated with any medic/nurse/dentist wagging their finger at me about smoking. But I've done it gently. From now on my message will be that public health has cried wolf, they've lied about health dangers of passive smoking, economic impact of bans, everything, so I wouldn't believe them if they told me night follows day. I therefore also now don't believe anything said about active smoking.

If that message - that smokers just don't believe the dangers of smoking because of their lies - were being fed back to the medics responsible for policy maybe, just maybe, they would have to change their tune....but I wouldn't hold my breath - and that's a terrible indictment of the medical profession.

truckerlyn said...

Sadly, the journalists of the past decade or so, who may or may not be graduates, show the same ethics as graduates in many businesses. They can be tasked with looking into making a section of the business more efficient, which is fine - EXCEPT they NEVER set foot in the area they are working on, they just perform magic with the computers and voila, solution found!

Managers are just as bad because without thought, many of them just implement it and thereafter chaos reigns.

It is rather like where my husband works. He drivers tipper trucks, sometimes working alongside planers on our roads, taking away the ripped up tarmac and other times 'muck shifting'. They have a new chap in the office who does not hold an HGV licence, but is terrific with a computer! He tells them their job and says they have to do X number of loads. The drivers tell him it is not possible, but he insists that the computer says it is, so it must be! They then point out that the route he is looking at is weight limited and the way they will have to go is 20 miles further, each way! Every day they have the same argument with him. In fact, one of the drivers suggested that if the computer is so damn smart, tell the computer to go and do the job as it has specified and he will have the day off!

God help us all!

truckerlyn said...

Terrible, but sadly 100% true!


The smoking ban is doing just what it was intended to do ,close thousands of pubs!!

Gray Cooper said...

If politicians waste tax on false information,doesn't that make it a criminal offence?

Gray Cooper said...


alan said...

The smoking ban has done it's job, I don't know if it's consequence or intent.
but the net result is the reduction of people gathering together to discuss how the government is shafting everyone.
We can't have people gathering to discuss politics now can we.

Richard Riewer said...

Linda Bauld. Another Public Health Activist with no medical credentials:

jmshigham said...

Sam Brett! I used to correspond with her.

nisakiman said...

Ah, there is a delicious irony in the aspect you point out in your update! It would be interesting to see the law tested on this. I do hope a few Australians read this blog and decide to dip a toe in this legal pond. It would be most entertaining to see the idiocy of this legislation held up in public view.

jude said...

It would have to be someone with a lot of money, anyone challenging tobacco control in this country is fighting the government, that uses our taxes to fund their persecution of smokers, and vapers. People are not always willing to be financially destroyed to make a point.

It will be interesting to watch. This is always the eventual downfall of a fascist state, they end up spending so much money policing all their business destroying laws, at the same time as destroying those tax producing businesses, that it eventually eats itself.

The level of control of the population, that this current fascist government desires, takes a lot of money, and an awful lot of hard work to maintain, particularly now that the lies of tobacco control are being exposed.


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