Fake Charities, 10 Years On

We reached a significant milestone recently which should not go unmarked. It was just over a decade ago that legendary blogger Devil's Kitchen and his co-author The Filthy Smoker began the fightback against the widespread abuse of government funding being handed to lobby groups to lobby government. 

2009-01-19T03:47:08Z 

That was the date and time that your humble Devil first registered the fakecharities.org domain—19th January 2009. I built the first fakecharities.org site that night, using a simple Open Source CMS called WebsiteBaker. 

I then populated this simple site with a few organisations that I, and Kitchen contributor the Filthy Smoker, had identified as being particularly egregious specimens of the type we called "fake charities". 

The fake charities site may not be around now but it was the first step in shining a light on the sly deceit on the public that state-funded lobby groups had quietly worked to build for many years.

Even government ministers were not aware that taxpayer money was being shovelled to single interest lobby groups to spend on attacking the government and demanding legislation that the government - who awards the cash - wanted to see passed.

It is one of the most corrupt aspects of the way this country is run and should have been banned years ago. The blogosphere-originated fake charities site exposed the de facto corruption - because that's what it is in all but name - where mainstream journalism had not only failed to even notice it, but actively encouraged it whether unwittingly or not.

As DK explained in 2012, it was (and still is) a stain on the way the country is run.

Some years ago, your humble Devil and his Kitchen colleague, the Filthy Smoker, noticed that more and more charities were being cited by news media—and, most especially, the BBC—in connection with government initiatives. 

These charities almost always reinforced these policies: and these policies were almost always ones that aimed to reduce freedom and liberty in this country. 

Out of curiosity, we started to investigate these charities in a very simplistic way: when a charity was quoted as being in favour of yet more grossly invasive legislation, we went to the Charity Commission website and looked up the public accounts. 

In the majority of cases, we found that these quoted "charities" were, in fact, largely funded by the government whose policies they were enthusiastically endorsing. 

I would like to say that what we unearthed shocked us, but that would be a lie. What did surprise us was just how many of these organisations there were. 

People tend to think of charities as being... well... voluntary organisations, doing actual, physical good deeds in the community—whether that be running soup kitchens, cancer hospices or homeless shelters. 

But most of these organisations were indulging in little more than flat-out lobbying. And they were using our money to do it. In our view, these charities were being deliberately disingenuous. 

And we came up with a name for these organisations—"fake charities".

DK's initiative has since moved on and now these organisations are described more as "sock puppets". In 2012, a report detailing "how the government lobbies itself and why" eventually resulted in a law which caused uproar among those who were incensed that their mouths might one day be removed from the comfy taxpayer teat they had suckled on for years.

Naturally, the term fake charities was resisted by fake charities and the troughers tried every condescending trick in the book to derail any criticism of their grubby antics, as DK described in 2016.

When we were (inevitably) attacked in various articles by the BBC and the Third Sector, they tended to ignore the "lobbying" clause—we were horrible, sweary, libertarian bloggers who wanted to do down the valuable work that charities were doing. Nevertheless, all these protests did was to bring the concept of fake charities to a wider audience—with the phrase becoming regularly used amongst the politically-aware.

The rearguard action against this abuse of public money has continued and just last week an update on the corruption was produced by the IEA with a report named "Still Hand in Glove" (which you should read, by the way).

The ten year anniversary of the fake charities site is one that we should not forget for two reasons. Firstly, it highlights that only the blogosphere can highlight these things, the idea that mainstream journalists are somehow investigative and able to tackle abuse like this is a fantasy. There are no Woodward and Bernsteins around anymore, anything that pretends to be investigative journalism nowadays is more likely to be conspiracy bullshit directed at those who oppose a big state.

Far from exposing the corruption of government lobbying government, the mainstream press has singularly failed to get any handle on it at all. Even now we are seeing pliant articles from lazy hacks - who have lost the ability to distinguish between state-funded activism and real life fact - simply regurgitating press releases from organisations funded by the government, to lobby the government.

Secondly, just about every liberty that we have lost in the past 20 years has come about because of fake charities and sock puppets. Government has actively used fake charities by handing them cash to lobby for their latest public-bashing schemes as I illustrated during the plain packs 'debate' with the gloriously now defunct Smokefree South West.

Fake charities/sock puppets take your taxes and lobby for more government, more restrictions, more bans. Not one of them has ever lobbied for a liberalising of laws or a de-regulating of restrictions, and they never will. When government doesn't ban something they are in uproar, but even when the fake charity community is caught out, they just stay silent for a while and come back regardless. No-one is punished, no-one loses their job.

As I wrote just the other day, there is a huge elitist monolithic hegemony in the public sector which self-perpetuates and its existence depends on not upsetting the tax-funded apple cart. The result is rules being applied on a whim against our liberty while any relaxation of rules will be resisted as if their lives depend upon it. In the case of lobbyists whose income is in the fake charity sector, this is undoubtedly true from a financial standpoint. If their scam is extinguished they might have to go get a job that doesn't involve shitting all over the choices of ordinary people.

Fakecharities.org was a ground-breaking blog-led awareness raising campaign which opened many people's eyes to how government is feeding an unelected, unaccountable and unregulated prohibitionist gravy train with your money, whether you like it or not. It's creation 10 years ago was a much-needed breath of fresh air. 

The Grey Miserable World of 'Public Health'

Life still exceptionally busy with Puddlecote Inc, I'm afraid, but I see that the 'public health' bandwagon is still accelerating down the slippery slope they claim doesn't exist.

I find this kind of thing quite staggering.

Cadbury, Chewits and Squashies sweets have become the first companies to have online adverts banned under new rules targeting junk food ads for children. 

The Advertising Standards Authority said the companies did not do enough to prevent under-16s seeing the content.

Now, if you were around in the 80s or 90s, did you ever think we would be in a position where kids are not allowed to see adverts for things that they like to eat, and have for decades? All based on a fantasy panic whipped up by repulsive self-enriching tax thieves?

The Telegraph carried an article which is equally astounding.

The Easter Bunny cannot be used to market chocolate to children, the ASA has ruled after finding against Cadbury. 

The chocolate company marketed a storybook, featuring eggs and the Easter Bunny, on its website, which broke the rules against promoting food that is high in fat, salt or sugar to children under the age of 16. 

Cadbury was banned from marketing The Tale Of The Great Easter Bunny, written by pop singer Frankie Bridge, on its website, after the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), decided it was aimed at children.

The Easter Bunny? This is a character that parents have thrilled their young kids with for hundreds of years, but in the new joyless, grey, miserable world that 'public health' have planned for us, this is now illegal.

The hold that 'public health' has over politicians is astonishing, but then it's because politicians are weak, cowardly, and ultimately incredibly stupid, as I have mentioned before.

Chocolate Oranges are one of life's little treats. The overwhelming majority of the public like them. Indeed, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't like chocolate. 

Yet here we are with two leading politicians arrogantly competing to be the one who appears toughest on making that treat more difficult to enjoy. This isn't a mind-altering drug we're talking about here - legal or otherwise - merely a fucking Chocolate Orange!

But back to today. The trouser-stuffing tax spongers were elated, of course.

Obesity Health Alliance lead Caroline Cerny said: "Whilst today's rulings should be celebrated, the complaints demonstrate the blatant ways in which the food and drink industry attempts to exploit loopholes in the rules."

They are 'celebrating' another little bit of joy being eradicated from children's' lives just so they can keep their snouts in the trough. There is little more vile than that.

And who, pray, was it who complained anyway? What disgusting type of person is so miserable as to be driven to complain about something kids like? Well, fortunately, the rulings are on the ASA website. Here is the one ruling against Cadbury.

The Obesity Health Alliance challenged whether the ads were for products that were high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS product ads) that were directed at children.

In other words, no-one at all cared about the ad except the Obesity Health Alliance themselves, a collection of mostly state-funded organisations who would be out of work if they didn't continually promote scares to keep their funding stream.

The complaint about Chewits is much the same.

The Children’s Food Campaign (Sustain) challenged whether ads (a), (b), (c) and (d) were ads for products that were high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS product ads) that were directed at children.

Sustain is a taxpayer-funded parasite which is also, strangely enough, a member of the Obesity Health Alliance.

And who complained about Squashies? You guessed it.

The Children’s Food Campaign (Sustain) challenged whether the Squashies World advergame was an ad for products that were high in fat, salt or sugar (HFSS products) that was directed at children.

In each case, there was only one complainant, and it was from people who fabricated the moral panic in the first place and took government money to lobby the government to come up with rules to take as much joy out of children's lives as possible.

It is surely about time politicians woke up and realised the destruction these self-centred bastards are doing to society. They are draining the joy out of kids lives for financial gain and are entirely unrepresentative of public opinion.

Where is this bonfire of the quangoes we were promised? It's the least that should happen because some of these obnoxious parasites deserve to burn for eternity.  

Scotland Plans To Gold-Plate The TPD And Further Restrict E-Cig Advertising

Yesterday I wrote about the tobacco control industry's habit of cherry-picking evidence and - more recently - disbelieving real life evidence because it doesn't agree with their wild, junk science-led fantasies of how the world works.

Today sees a new low, though, as the Scottish Government released its Tobacco Control Plan. Snowdon has highlighted some of the blinkingly barmy aspects of it, so do go read his piece.

He said that he had only skimmed it and that there is bound to be more crazy in there, and he's correct. There is. For example, how much does this send your hypocrisy detector buzzing?

In the ministerial foreword, Minister for Public Health and Sport Aileen Campbell boasts about NHS services and how "there are new, more effective medications and our services are now more e-cigarette friendly", while further down the document it states:

On the basis of current evidence vaping e-cigarettes is definitely less harmful than smoking cigarettes. So, e-cigarette use as a means to quit should be seen by health professionals as a tool which some smokers will want to use. 

It also says about "smokers in mental health settings":

Raising awareness of the need to take a new approach in these settings and particularly about the possibilities which e-cigarettes being made available in appropriate non-NHS prescribed ways could have a big impact on the physical health of these patients.

So what are they going to do about these products which they have obviously recognised as being something which smokers are choosing to use and which have led to smoking prevalence tumbling?

Well, they're going to ensure that almost no-one knows about them, of course.

Providing protection through regulations and restrictions 

We will consult on the detail of restricting domestic advertising and promotion of e-cigarettes in law.

The key word there is 'domestic' because the EU's article 20 of the TPD specifically banned cross border advertising, therefore broadcast and online media. Domestic advertising such as posters, leaflets, direct mail, cinema and ads on buses are not covered by EU law.

So, the Scottish government is consulting with a view to gold-plate the EU regulations by placing further restrictions on 'domestic' advertising; that very e-cigarette advertising which is currently not burdened by the ignorant, lobbyist-led stupidity of Brussels.

With the UK's advertising regulator recently having given evidence to the UK government's Science and Technology Committee that they are looking at allowing e-cig vendors to make truthful claims about the safer nature of vaping - as in, relaxing the regulations - the Scottish government is planning to go the other way and make sure as few people know about vaping as possible.

The Calvinist puritanism being displayed in Scotland right now is jaw-dropping, but this takes the biscuit. We have a tobacco control plan for England committing to "maximise the availability of safer alternatives to smoking", at the same time that Scotland has decided it only wants safer alternatives available via state-run channels. If they can't control it, they'd prefer you don't even try.

There are also sinister hints that they intend to go even further down the rabbit hole of anti-vaping moral panic.

Over the course of this action plan it is likely that the markets for e-cigarettes and novel heated tobacco products will develop further. This could mean that the current focus of tobacco control enforcement changes over time to take account of these newer markets. For example if there were changes to the law on restricting the sales of non-nicotine containing e-liquid for e-cigarettes this would have implications for enforcement.

If markets for e-cigs and heat not burn increase, that is a good thing! But not for Scotland, it seems. There is also a hint there that there might be more regulations on the horizon for nicotine free e-liquid, again not covered by the EU TPD.

Have I got your attention yet, Scottish vape reviewers? Yep, that could be the end of short fills.

There may also need to be programmed initiatives on ensuring e-liquids are authorised products ...

Well, considering the TPD created a new category for e-cigs so they are already kinda "authorised", could they mean yet another gold plate layer on top of EU regulations? Or maybe they just mean the whole hog and enforced medicinal licensing. We shall have to see.

... and perhaps even on whether these age-restricted products are being marketed in a way which primarily appeals to young people. 

They've really swallowed the anti-vaping Kool Aid in bucket loads, haven't they?

And as for this ...

During the summer of 2018 we will work with health boards and integration boards to try to reach a consensus on whether vaping should or should not be allowed on hospital grounds through a consistent, national approach.

It's not illegal, it's not dangerous, the same document talks about smokers using e-cigs to quit. Where is the debate?

I reckon the best take I can offer to you is that if you are Scottish and a vaper, remember that ASH Scotland - who will have advised the government in detail on production of this plan - is not your friend. Neither, I would suggest, is the SNP. Worth remembering next time some politician asks for your vote.

Like Snowdon, I have only skimmed the document and - like him - I think "these people are off their heads". I'll leave it there for now, though, but I'm sure I'll be coming back to this utter insanity, maybe tomorrow. Watch this space. 

Public Health Minister Endorses Government Lobbying Government

As mentioned by Simon Clark yesterday, ASH spent this past week trying to whip up a frenzy about the 'NHS Pledge' that is seems to have organised as part of its role with the Smokefree Action Coalition.

It's been a great launch of the #NHSPledge today. For more information, and to learn how your organisation can sign, please visit this page >> https://t.co/N2hCAUW0z7

— ASH (@ASH_LDN) January 11, 2018

You can see a copy of the 'pledge' here, it is basically yet more bullying of smokers and is based on the usual tobacco control industry truth-bending nonsense. However, the briefing note that accompanies it contains a direct call for help from the NHS to lobby the government in favour of policies advocated by state-funded organisations like ASH.

There is further action that is also needed to regulate the tobacco supply chain to ensure children cannot purchase tobacco and to further control the illicit market. Currently no licence is needed for the sale of tobacco. NHS organisations can support calls for full licencing of the tobacco supply chain from manufacturers to retailers to help further drive down smoking prevalence. 

NHS organisations can also support calls for the tobacco industry to pay to address the harm they cause. Tobacco companies collectively make an estimated £1 billion in profit in the UK alone while playing a major burden on the NHS and other public services. In the US companies are forced to pay a fee based on the number of cigarettes they sell which is used to fund tobacco control work. The same policy introduced in the UK could provide sustainable route to fund efforts to end the smoking epidemic.

In fact, the citation for the first paragraph is a report written by ASH.

This 'pledge' been signed off by the public health minister, Steve Brine, the very same person who is ultimately in charge of signing off the government's annual grant to ASH.

It is a condition of the grant that fake charity ASH receives every year that they are not allowed to lobby politically, yet here they are organising a 'pledge' of which one of the items in the briefing notes states that NHS trusts signing it will "support Government action at national level".  That's all well and good but those paragraphs above talk about licensing of tobacco sellers and applying a levy on the tobacco industry, neither of which is current government policy. So this is blatant political lobbying, and ASH are co-ordinating NHS organisations to promise to pester the government for more restrictions from government; more stigmatisation of smokers; and more funding for anti-smoking NGOs like ASH.

This is effectively Brine shovelling money to ASH in order to produce reports asking for more regulations and more money to be shovelled to, you guessed it, ASH and their equally tedious and obnoxious chums. Now, I don't know about you, but it doesn't seem right for NHS organisations - another arm of the government considering they are funded and run by centrally-granted money - to be lobbying, or to be encouraged to lobby, for ASH's demands by ASH and a government minister.

The 'NHS pledge is just yet another example of government lobbying government by ASH. Instead of signing this off, Brine should be telling ASH they are in breach of the terms of their grant and removing it from them.

Remember when a former Conservative minister condemned "government lobbying government"? It seems a world away now a fellow Conservative minister is lending the full weight of his endorsement to it and tweeted how "delighted" he was to do so. 

May As Well Smoke Tons, Says Fresh North East

The echo chamber of tobacco control can be a quite remarkable thing at times.

Yesterday, entirely state-funded anti-smoking sock muppets Fresh North East published possibly the worst advice I've ever seen from an organisation of their kind.

Warning to light and social smokers

SMOKERS who've cut down are being warned they are still facing significant risks of cancer and heart disease unless they quit or switch as a campaign launches today. 

But with many smokers cutting down to ten or fewer cigarettes a day, or to hand rolling tobacco, Fresh is warning people not to ignore the substantial risks from smoking only a few cigarettes a day.

As well as record numbers of people quitting in the North East, a survey by Fresh found many smokers have cut down - with 1 in five smokers consuming five or fewer cigarettes a day compared to 1 in 10 smokers in 2009.

This is entirely down to the tobacco control fallacy that smoking one cigarette a month is on a par with smoking 40 a day. It is scientifically preposterous and puts them into the same category as 15th Century knuckle-draggers who opposed Paracelsus's claim that the dose makes the poison.

They don't actually believe that, of course, because most of what the tobacco control industry comes out with is cleverly-worded lies. This is no exception.

[Ailsa Rutter, Director of Fresh, said:] "Cost and awareness of the health risks are both factors. If you only smoke a few cigarettes a day, it must be tempting to hope the risks don't apply. However, the evidence is clear that even a few cigarettes a day can cause cancer and heart disease, and change lives forever.

That may or may not be correct, but it most certainly is true that if you smoke a few cigs every now and then the risks will be far lower than if you walk around like a human chimney.

So wedded to the quit or die approach are these idiots that they cannot even contemplate celebrating the fact that smokers are smoking fewer cigarettes and cutting down their exposure.

Prof John Britton, director of the UK Centre for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies and a consultant in respiratory medicine, said: "Many smokers who are aware of the risks will cut down on how much they smoke, hoping this will reduce the harm."

Well, it will, John, there is absolutely no doubt about that. There might still be a potential for harm, but - just like you have far less chance of being run over by a bus if you run in front of it once instead of 20 times a day - the potential is much reduced if you smoke less. To deny that is right up there with anti-vaccination fuckwittery.

Yet this is the state of corralled anti-scientific groupthink that the government funds these days. Utter garbage presented as sage advice and with unintended consequences written all over it.

It's clear, as usual, that these anti-smoking organisations don't understand smokers even one tiny bit. It's often like they've never actually fucking met one! If you are, or have ever been, a smoker you'd know that there is only one message this sends; don't bother cutting down, the risk is the same so you may as well carry on smoking lots.

For committed smokers who enjoy tobacco - like those studied by Neil McKegany for his Pleasure of Smoking report at Christmas - this is exactly the type of thing they will seize on to explain why they carry on smoking with abandon. Why cut down if there is no benefit, eh? May as well just smoke as many as I like.

There are times when ideology trumps sound thinking, and the tobacco control industry is guilty of that on a daily basis. However, this advice is so pathetic and utterly poor that you have to wonder if it's designed specifically to keep smokers smoking. I can't imagine why a state-funded organisation that relies on there being smokers for its income would go for that approach, of course, but maybe you could enlighten me.

Someone did ask them for more information but there's not been a reply thus far.

@FreshSmokeFree
Is 40/day more dangerous than 5/day?

— Stuart F (@stuart180) March 20, 2017

I'm sure it will be forthcoming. 

The Exception That Proves A Fool

Surely today has seen the funniest load of disingenuous bollocks ASH has ever released.

ASH research shows corner shops don’t need tobacco to be profitable

Well actually, their report, Counter-arguments (geddit?), would be funny except for the fact that - in the absence of anything useful to do with the taxes government regularly shovel this wasteful bunch of parasites - you paid for it.

Snowdon has already sliced and diced it (a simple task since their economic acumen alone wouldn't even merit a GCSE E grade) but I did find this part particularly hilarious.

Newcastle-based small retailer John McClurey agrees, but says corner shops have little choice but to sell tobacco: 

“I have little choice to sell tobacco as many of my customers still smoke. But tobacco makes me very little money while tying up plenty of cash in stock. Tobacco is a burden to me.

Now, this is the best supporter ASH could find in the trade and he admits that he cannot stop selling tobacco because it is a necessity to his business.

It's very simple, John. If you believe what ASH says - that "corner shops don’t need tobacco to be profitable", simply stop selling it.

He believes it’s time for change and welcomes the ASH report because it challenges retailers to consider whether tobacco companies and their local reps really have retailers’ interests in mind. 

McClurey added: 

“The decline in the market, the disappearance of cigarettes behind gantry doors and the shift to plain packaging have made the traditional approach to selling tobacco out-dated. A better alternative for retailers is to reduce stock, shift the gantry and free-up space for products that actually turn a decent profit.”

Well off you go then, Johnny-boy, what's stopping you?

Here's the guy, next to those products he's been selling for over 30 years and which, it would appear, he doesn't intend to stop selling anytime soon.

Why? because, on the same day as ASH released their report, buried at the bottom of their bastard cousin ASH Scotland's daily news round-up was this article in Wholesale News (emphases mine).

“Independents account for 50% of all tobacco sales in the UK and this has been driven by PMPs which have around 80% of the market and have proven popular with both retailers and shoppers. By premium pricing tobacco products, many retailers are only forcing smokers to go to the multiple retailers who are still charging at the RRP or below. Offering a compelling price on tobacco will keep customers coming through the door as it is the primary driver of footfall into c-stores. We do not need to give the multiples a hand-up when it comes to attracting customers. Instead retailers have to protect and develop their own businesses. I firmly believe that it’s ‘RRP or RIP’ for many independent stores as their businesses are at risk if reduced traffic comes through their doors. 

“We have seen from Australia that retailers who price at RRP or below have had no adverse effect on their tobacco sales. This is critically important as the tobacco shopper visits c-stores more regularly than non-smokers and spends almost £1,500 per year more in store. As a customer group, these shoppers are vital to your business and for your continued success, you need to retain these shoppers rather than drive them to rivals.”

ASH, it would seem, would prefer corner shops to commit business suicide just to satisfy their extremist feud with tobacco companies. Needless to say, if that were to happen, salaries of the hideous tax-scrounging trolls at ASH would not suffer one little bit.

But it's not going to happen anyway. If even the anti-smoking lobby's only supporter in the retail trade (they stick him on the end of a broom handle quite often to spout their shit as a result) admits that his business needs to sell tobacco and would suffer if it didn't, what the hell is the point in ASH's report today?

Meanwhile, in the real world, newsagents and tobacconists will be lobbying MPs tomorrow with a manifesto entitled "Fair Deal for Small Shops", which will doubtless include criticism of the many abuses their trade has suffered at the hands of the selfish, ivory tower, empathy-free extremists at ASH. And will be backed by every small retailer up and down the country with the exception of John McClury ... who still sells tobacco.

Now, who would you believe about the economics of the convenience store business? Those who work in it day to day, 99.9% of whom believe ASH to be a force for evil? Or ASH, who would find it difficult to push beads around an abacus without a detailed manual and have never had to turn an honest profit in their lives, and their lone retail supporter who says convenience stores should stop selling tobacco even though he can't himself without going bust?

Please! Someone cut off ASH's fucking funding, for crying out loud, they're beginning to embarrass themselves.

A 44 Year Monopoly

Via this blog's esteemed mascot, it has been revealed that ASH has yet again been thrown a wad of our taxes with which to bully smokers and generally be a right royal anti-social and destructive pain in the arse.

The figure this year - a regular annual occurrence since ASH's inception in 1972 - is £160,000.

You can view the award letter below.

ASH Grant Award Letter 2016-17

As usual there are a couple of laughable clauses in the document, most notably ... (emphases mine)

This award has been made under the provisions of Section 64 and may not be used for lobbying or to fund original research and consultancy services must not be offered under this grant. ASH has confirmed that the grant will only ever be used for tobacco control delivery and not for any activity that could be considered as lobbying, nor will it be used to fund research or provide consultancy services.

This is political sophistry of the first water! An organisation like ASH does very little else but lobby, it is exactly what officials and staff at the Department of Health set it up to do in the early 1970s.

This was most evident recently with the monumental lobbying effort Deborah Arnott and her fellow tax-spongers put in to convince politicians to bring in the pointless tobacco control gravy train-perpetuating plain packaging policy. They were in and out of Westminster tapping up MPs so often that they would have felt less exhausted if they'd pitched tents and sleeping bags in committee rooms instead of commuting!

It will also come as a hell of a surprise to vapers that ASH don't involve themselves in lobbying considering the extraordinary and sustained lobbying campaign they have directed towards first trying to get e-cigs banned, and then ensuring Article 20 of the TPD was rammed through in the face of perfectly logical and entirely reasonable objections.

Quite simply, if ASH didn't lobby, there would be no need for them to exist.

You might also be amused to read this condition of the award.

[T]he Department [of Health] has no commitment to renew financial support after the term of the grant;

Well, erm, considering this is the 44th year in a row that ASH has received free cash from taxpayers - without any kind of competitive tendering process as is supposedly required for all government-awarded contracts - we can take that one with a pinch of salt, can't we?

You may have noticed a familiar name signing off the award letter too, that of Jeremy Mean, the former head of pharma-funded MHRA who so nearly succeeded in strangling vaping at birth. Perhaps, then, this part of ASH's grant application appealed strongly to him and his former associates.

"Identify and communicate opportunities for local enforcement to support the effective implementation of the TPD including Article 20 on electronic cigarettes."

Yep, if you thought common sense and a new direction from PHE & RCP towards harm reduction might lead to a blind eye being turned towards the daft TPD regulations, think again. ASH is there to make damn sure any transgressions are properly punished, and promised to do exactly so when they were holding out the begging bowl.

Additionally, since Mean is now Deputy Director of Tobacco Control at the DoH, he could feasibly form part of the UK's delegation to the similarly pharma-funded WHO's COP7 jamboree in Delhi in November. You know, the organisation which currently wants to see e-cigs banned worldwide. Nothing like being given another bite of the cherry, now is there Jeremy?

There really is no other racket quite as blatant as the 'public health' racket.

Pretend Harm Reductionists

Having been busy, I only yesterday read an excellent article published by Carl Phillips on Friday. This section in particular is very well drawn on the subject of harm reduction (emphases mine).

But notice that the IHRA/HRI definition — and that of anyone else who really believes in harm reduction — refers to also reducing the “economic” (read: financial) and social costs of drug use. In the case of tobacco use, as with many drugs, the great majority of the financial and social costs come not from the drug use itself, but from government actions. Smoking is expensive because of taxes and restrictions on the free flow of goods. More social harms from smoking are caused by government restrictions than by the act itself. Unlike with illicit drugs, few people are imprisoned or executed over tobacco (though not none), but unavoidable punitive taxes are not necessarily less harmful than rolling the dice on a small chance of getting arrested. 

And yet, many people who fancy themselves supporters of tobacco harm reduction actively support most of those caused harms. They actively support punitive taxes on cigarettes, social opprobrium heaped on smokers, prohibitions against publicans being able to offer smoking sections, etc. Indeed, those individuals often celebrate or advocate for the caused harms because they create further incentives for the only aspect of harm reduction they actually support, switching products. It reminds me of the Orwellian themes of about half the anti-smoking propaganda I see these days: “Quit because it is so expensive and forces you to take breaks from hanging with your friends!” Um, yeah, and whose fault is that? It is the same as those messages of “if you smoke weed, you might lose your student financial aid and future employment prospects, so don’t go saying it is not bad for you!” Needless to say, you will never hear a peep of condemnation of this hypocritical “concern” for users’ well-being from the faux supporters of harm reduction. 

The bottom line is simple: Anyone who supports punishing smokers does not actually believe in tobacco harm reduction. None of those “but for the greater good we need to…” protests changes this. Causing harm is not harm reduction.

Indeed.

This is what happens when you have a colossal state-funded machine which views life solely through the lens of health. Other pleasures and benefits in consuming the products in question are completely ignored, therefore the prohibitionists simply cannot comprehend the huge social and financial damage their rancid policies are causing ... as I have mentioned before occasionally.

1.1 million people in England are in poverty because of tax policies demanded by @ASH_LDN https://t.co/4Yvx03yUE1 pic.twitter.com/kG1fL91NxS

— Dick Puddlecote (@Dick_Puddlecote) November 3, 2015

... along with others.

ASH admit their tobacco taxes have plunged a "dramatic" number of smokers into poverty. https://t.co/YL5uPZDVQH pic.twitter.com/6egbGAdA3G

— Christopher Snowdon (@cjsnowdon) August 5, 2016

But I'd go further than that. You see, tobacco controllers are also often very happy to land body blows on even the one part of harm reduction - switching to low risk products - that they claim to support, as long as it means increasing the harm they wish to inflict on smokers. Pointlessly bullying smokers is considered far more important than supporting products which deliver reduced harm.

Here is ASH Scotland view on smoke-free children's playparks.... https://t.co/CkfFTr2JK9

— ASH Scotland (@ASHScotland) July 12, 2016

The full tobacco control fake charity set is complete when you remember that ASH Wales also "fully welcome" bans on vaping in outdoor, windswept settings for the purposes of denormalisation. No, these are not my words, they are theirs.

And, as far as we know, ASH Wales's logo still proudly and shamelessly sits on a "No Vaping" sign on a beach in Pembrokeshire.

Nothing is too extreme for these people. They will happily throw vaping to the wolves as long as their drive to impose harm on smokers by any means necessary is protected.

No-one, but no-one, in any of the three UK ASH branches can ever claim they are supportive of harm reduction while these vile priorities still prevail. They should be reviled every time they try to pretend that harm reduction is in their future plans. They may believe they are supportive, but - as Phillips rightly says - they betray themselves and reveal the truth every time they stigmatise and inflict harm on smokers with financial punishment, prohibitions and ostracism.

Other tobacco controllers are even worse! Not only are they happy to turn a blind eye to the junk science which is behind the harm visited on smokers, but certain Scottish/Canadian tobacco controllers, for example, also want to extend that harm onto the lives of those who enjoy a drink and those who choose to eat food they disapprove of. And they are far from alone!

As Phillips explains very well, none of these people can ever claim to even understand the concept of harm reduction, let alone say they are supportive of it or are advocates. All the while their only approach is to punish the public for making free choices which 'public health' believe to be wrong they are anything but.

Puritans, yes; prodnoses, yes; prohibitionists, yes; hypocrites, yes; ghastly bullies, yes; repulsive anti-social arseholes, yes; but supportive of harm reduction? Absolutely fucking not!

You Scratch Our Back ...

Over the weekend, Simon Clark has been highlighting the pathetic and incestuous obsession that the tobacco control industry has with awards.

From the ASH PR.

Responding to the Minister’s award, Deborah Arnott, chief executive of ASH, said: 

“Despite relentless tobacco industry lobbying the Public Health Minister made sure that the government proceeded with the introduction of standardised ‘plain’ packaging of cigarettes. Her commitment to tackling the harm caused by tobacco is unquestionable and we are delighted that her work has been recognised by the World Health Organisation.”

So, here we have ASH declaring that they are "delighted" that the World Health Organisation - who wish to ban e-cigarettes - is honouring Jane "addiction to nicotine, we would consider harmful" Ellison with an award.

Hmmm.

Others honoured by the WHO include French Health Minister Marisol Touraine who wants to ban e-cigs in public; vaper-hating Mike Daube, an anti-smoking lunatic who was denounced by the entire Australian establishment for closing down a production of Carmen because it is set in a tobacco factory ... and then lying about it; and Melanie Wakefield, for producing a review of plain packaging in Australia that the government down there couldn't go on record as endorsing because they know it was incredibly biased bullshit.

This, in 2016, appears to be the best that the tobacco control industry have to offer. Ignoramuses, crooks and liars.

But it shouldn't come as much of a surprise because, as you can see above (and in Clark's blog on Sunday), it's just the same old names being circulated over and over. Instead of being a measure of success, these awards simply prove that the tobacco control trough is populated by a tiny handful of elite extremists for whom rigour and truth are irrelevant. It doesn't matter how shite their output is; how astonishingly inept, transparently biased, or openly mendacious they are; they'll still get a slap on the back from their small clique of chums. An echo chamber within an echo chamber.

Clark also makes an interesting point.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't ASH who nominated Ellison for this award. They're pretty good at lobbying government so lobbying WHO to give an award to the minister they lobbied to introduce plain packaging in the UK seems a pretty natural thing to do.

He's only a few degrees off because it was CRUK - another organisation in the tobacco control circle-jerk - who nominated on this occasion, but it's exactly how it works.

Let's dip into the ASH emails again, shall we?

If you're a tobacco controller and you want a bit of adulation, do you wait for gushing praise from your peers? No, of course not, you ask for it (October 2013).

How better to fully utilise a direct line to Andrew Black than by chivvying him along for praise from his boss, eh?

Of course, this doesn't come for free. The Department of Health will obviously want something in return, but that's OK because Deborah is quite happy to provide it (March 2015).

"You scratch my back, Andrew, and I'll scratch yours. Shall we share a bath and a loofah too?"

Yes, I regretted that the moment I wrote it, do feel free to bill me for the mind bleach. {shiver}

So it seems that - judging by how long these things take - another 'award' is on the way for some tobacco control trouser-stuffer to reward their services to the intolerant, anti-social and vile. I wonder who it will be this time? The tobacco control glitterati consists of so few people that they would fit into a single-decker bus if they ever held a global get-together, so I'm sure the name won't be someone we haven't heard of before.

Place your bets.

The Extraordinary Extent Of ASH Lobbying

Last week Guido highlighted what we in this corner of the internet already knew; that ASH lobbies the government with money government, erm, gives to ASH.

Arnott is not averse to using cash to influence government policy – our cash. ASH waged a half-decade campaign, involving top Civil Service officials, to introduce plain packaging. In a string of emails between Arnott, Hunt, the Department of Health’s top ranking official Andrew Black and surprisingly the PM’s Chief of Staff – Ed Llewellyn, the organisation appears to have broken the department’s rule on the use of its grant money. The Department of Health rules, as stated in November last year, prohibit government lobbying at the taxpayers’ expense: 

“Funding applications from voluntary sector organisations are assessed against a number of criteria, but Departmental policy clearly states that grants will not be awarded if there is any indication within the application that some or all of any funding awarded will be used to support political activities, including political lobbying activity.”

Between 2011 and 2015, ASH received a whopping £745,650 in taxpayer funded grants from the Department of Health, their £200,000 grant last year was specifically for assisting the department to implement the “Tobacco Control Plan” (page 22). In that same period, documents seen by Guido highlight 74 separate incidents of lobbying contact, reaching as high as the PM’s office. Taxpayer grants form by far the largest donations given to ASH, and it would appear that they have been used to lobby the government against the Department of Health’s own regulations.

74 different instances of Deborah Arnott using a direct line to the Department of Health to promote plain packaging? Wow! Were those opposed to the policy afforded the same facility? Well of course not, it's just Debs and her buddy Andrew carving up the democratic process.

But that's only scratching the surface! I've been kindly sent the FOI results that Guido was working from and they are quite astonishing. Deborah Arnott contacted Andrew Black (the Department of Health's tobacco lead) so many times that the files had to be split into five volumes. I've spent three days on and off reading them and I'm still only halfway through. There are so very many emails that they would have been better off keeping an open channel on MSN Messenger to save time.

ASH would claim to be independent of government, but on this showing they are acting as a government department and might even have an internal phone line between their offices and the Department of Health as far as we know.

But then, when even government ministers consider Arnott as part of the Department of Health 'team', why should we suspect different.

That's Andrew Black (far left) next to bessie mate and email pen pal Debs

Yet ASH would still deny that they are engaged in the practice of using government money to lobby government (in fact, Arnott denies exactly that to Black explicitly in one email I've read). Quite astonishing.

There is so much info in the files it's a real revelation. ASH have their fingers in so many pies that one day they might be telling Black to order the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to change their policies (yes, really), and the next complaining about signage at sports grounds. There is almost nothing Arnott would not write to Black about. Some of it is daft, almost comical at times, and some of it - in my humble opinion - is borderline illegal.

It's a great insight into the shenanigans of these hideous people and it would be mean of me to keep it to myself ... so I won't. It's the sort of thing that should be exposed to the public who pay for it, so let's start, shall we?

Considering the IEA is holding a debate tomorrow on the damaging (and pointless) provisions in the Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) towards e-cigs, shall we examine ASH's role in it?

Last week, there was outrage that ASH had attempted to support the indefensible TPD by throwing hundreds of thousands of vapers down the drain.

The needs of more than a quarter of a million people don't matter, according to ASH.  

The ASH survey finds that "only" 9% of the UK's 2.8 million current vapers use strengths above the 20mg/ml limit imposed by the TPD. That in itself is bad enough, however the point which ASH so spectacularly miss, is that this cross sectional survey tells us nothing about what strength people used when first using vaping devices. It is entirely possible, indeed probable, that a much larger proportion of those 2.8 million vapers used high strength liquids when they initiated use and then reduced the strength as they became more experienced and learnt the quite different techniques involved in vaping.

But these emails show that ASH's current position on e-cigs is merely a fallback one of nobbling the devices after being frustrated at not getting them banned entirely.

We already know that in 2010 ASH recommended that the devices should be compelled to be deemed as medical products or banned entirely in an MHRA consultation response. It wasn't until three years later in June 2013 that MHRA advocated exactly that, just as ASH had been badgering them to. Now, I don't know about you, but I think those two things might be related, whaddya reckon?

But then came the TPD which threatened to throw that proposed de facto prohibition in the bin. So what did ASH do? Talk to vapers? Establish their expert opinion? Change their minds and research more? Nope, they held a round-table discussion with the medical community to ask what the hive mind of 'public health' thought of harm reduction. And guess who introduced it and summarised at the end? Yes, Debs did.

Her conclusions were conveyed to Jeremy Hunt in September 2013 (and co-signed by John Britton). She was adamant that recreational use of nicotine was just an industry myth and that vapers used e-cigs for the same reasons as NRT marketed by her friends in the pharmaceutical industry (as with all these images, click to expand).

What's more, there would be no problem with medicines regulation for vaping suppliers because they were earning loads of money, so they were. It was easy peasy!

Regulation won't undermine growth? But will simultaneously entrench existing players? That's some weapons grade goalpost-moving right there isn't it?

But even if it wasn't easy peasy, Arnott wasn't too bothered about medicines regulation putting small companies out of business anyway. In shades of the FDA deeming regulations across the pond, the letter from Arnott and Britton appeared to say "well Big Tobacco will buy these companies anyway in time, so why not just hand them the industry now?".

In correspondence shared with Andrew Black in December 2013, Arnott went even further in her desperate drive to get e-cigs included in the TPD as medicinal products. Writing presumably to the Labour Party or a shadow cabinet researcher (redacted), she exhorted them to support medicines regulation in the TPD and sharpish. Because, you see, without really taking any consumer views into account, Arnott had concluded that where vaping is concerned, making e-cigs available only as drab smoking cessation aids via stifling medical regulations was the "best use for them".

The urgency just leaps off the page, doesn't it? A "priority" to push the TPD through by 22 May 2014 no matter what damaging shit is in it. If that was the approach of ASH - with their open line to government - is it any wonder why Health Minister Anna Soubry, flanked by Arnott's best pal Andrew Black and no doubt accompanied by him in Europe, panicked and voted for something she knew nothing about; arrogantly bypassing parliamentary scrutiny in the process.

The rest is history. No doubt pressured by ASH and other rancid organisations in Europe behind the scenes, the public and the EU Parliament was ignored and the TPD that is now causing havoc in the UK and beyond was formulated in secret and therefore, to no-one's surprise, delivered in February 2014.

With that background in mind, is it any wonder that ASH are now trying to pretend that the TPD isn't really that bad for vapers? They are responsible for the TPD Article 20 and have been since the first time someone rang them up and said "have you seen these odd plastic things that I've heard are being hawked in pubs?" from 2004 onwards.

Corrupt? I'll leave that up to you to decide.

There's tons of this stuff you know, anyone up for more?

Gosh, No Idea

Yesterday I saw a tweet which fair astounded me.

Wonder why these harm perceptions just keep going in the wrong direction? Gosh, no idea :( #UKCTAScpd pic.twitter.com/1nqHTl4HLt

— Linda Bauld (@LindaBauld) May 9, 2016

Bauld is no doubt referring to those in her industry who like to spread misleading information, junk science and lies about e-cigs, and she is correct to do so.

However, the world's prime promoter of such things - Mad Stan Glantz - has been a star in the tobacco control industry firmament for a very long time. Bauld and the rest of the UK tobacco control community have known he's a weapons grade lie machine for decades, but have been quite happy to let it all go without comment.

Glantz has been falsifying data and producing jaw-dropping junk research (like this, for example) since many of the current crop of career tax-sponging anti-smoking prohibitionists were in nappies, yet not one of these fine upstanding 'experts' and 'scientists' has ever bothered to pull him up on any of it before.

So there is some vague hint there by Bauld that some tobacco controllers like Glantz have been a bit naughty, but that'll be all it is; a vague hint. To make it any more than that would - quite rightly - call their own expertise and impartiality into question.

@CaeruleanSea His previous junk has been very useful to PH people. They can't suddenly admit that he's a clown.

— Christopher Snowdon (@cjsnowdon) May 7, 2016

Of course they can't, they've feasted on his crap for years and actively encouraged him. And that includes Robert West who produces the Smoking Toolkit study that the slide in that tweet is taken from.

The hypocrisy is staggering enough on its own, but let's consider something else. Y'see, for a long time the tobacco control industry has considered bans on the use of tobacco as being a prime tactic in the 'denormalisation' of smoking. Read World Health Organisation documents and public bans are regularly praised as being instrumental in making smoking unacceptable in the eyes of society.

Here's a good explanation of the concept.

Smoking restrictions, in addition to protecting non-smokers from the harms of environmental tobacco smoke, can contribute to denormalisation because they reduce the acceptability of smoking (Albers et al. 2004;Department of Health and Human Services 1991); in fact, some commentators regard smoking restrictions as the most effective way of denormalising tobacco use (Bell et al. 2010a;Brown et al. 2009). Many countries have now adopted legislation that bans smoking in work-places, restaurants and bars (Mackay et al. 2006) and, more recently, bans in outdoor spaces have also been considered (Chapman 2000; Bloch and Shopland 2000; Thomson et al. 2008;Colgrove et al. 2011). 

One mechanisms through which smoking bans can contribute to denormalisation is by reducing the general visibility of smoking. One study finds an association between the frequency with which youth observe smoking in different locations and the perception that smoking is socially acceptable; the authors conclude by recommending smoking bans specifically as a means of reducing the social acceptability of smoking (Alesci et al. 2003). Smoking bans in bars and restaurants also help undermine the association between smoking and exciting life-styles promoted by tobacco marketers (Hammond et al. 2006). Thus, smoking bans help establish non-smoking environments as the ‘norm’ (Brown et al. 2009). 

In addition, introducing smoking bans can in itself express and promote a negative attitude towards smoking and contribute to its denormalisation. As Glantz suggests, ‘clean indoor air legislation reduces smoking because it undercuts the social support network for smoking by implicitly defining smoking as an antisocial act’ (Glantz 1987, my emphasis).

Yes, that's the same Glantz in case you were wondering, 29 years ago!

The ways in which such bans are communicated can contribute further to these effects. For example,Chapman and Freeman emphasise that smoking bans on flights are announced in a way that emphasises that smokers are addicts:

At the start of every airline flight to, from and within Australia passengers are warned via onboard announcements that smoking is banned in-flight and, evoking memories of warnings given to schoolchildren about toilet-block smoking, an added warning is given that they must not smoke in aircraft toilets … When each flight ends, it is then seen as necessary to remind smokers that they cannot light up until they get outside the airport buildings. Again, the subtext of the message is plain: here are desperate addicts counting the seconds until they can smoke. (Chapman and Freeman 2008).

And there is Simple Simon too, presumably one of the people Bauld would blame for the public perception of vaping due to his Luddite attitude towards harm reduction.

Now, consider recent bans on vaping that we have seen. Erm, where was the public condemnation from those tobacco controllers who claim to be "supportive for quite some time" of e-cigs? They all know very well - because they have plotted for years to make it happen - that the smoking ban is the single most important measure for conning convincing the public that smoking is dangerous to bystanders.

Prior to the UK-wide ban there was an avalanche of articles pumping the line that passive smoking was harmful but the public really didn't care. They went about their daily lives watching soap operas, going to football, attending Weight Watchers, avoiding the news like the plague, all the usual stuff, but the vast majority would have barely read past a headline of a passive smoking article, and most just dismissed it anyway. They still went to pubs, met and socialised with smokers and simply weren't concerned.

There's a reason why ASH and the rest of their tobacco control chums were cock-a-hoop about the implementation of smoking bans in the UK ... because all of a sudden the state had legitimised what the tobacco control industry is well aware is a purposely-created myth. Few bothered to listen to them though, until the power of the state sent a loud message that a wisp of smoke is lethal.

Of all people in our society, ASH and the tobacco control industry are the most acutely aware of how damaging vaping bans are to the acceptability of e-cigs; yet they have sat on their hands and said absolutely sod all as ban after ban is installed. In Wales they even "fully welcome" such things and are unapologetic that the ASH Wales logo is on signs that tell the public that vaping has now been deemed a dangerous and abnormal habit which should be hidden from the eyes of children.

So Linda, if you want to know why "these harm perceptions just keep going in the wrong direction", it's very little to do with a few sparsely-read articles and the quotes of a few lunatics, it is far more the public perception which comes with vaping being banned on trains, buses, NHS premises, pubs, restaurants and just about everywhere else while your fellow "supportive" tobacco controllers do nothing about it. See, I'm pretty sure ASH and others know very well that the rantings of an aircraft mechanic from San Francisco will have far less influence on a housewife in Aberdeen than a vaping ban in a car park which, unsurprisingly, ASH Scotland have stayed staunchly silent about.

So why are those graphs going in the wrong direction while vape-friendly tobacco controllers say nothing? Why is public perception of the safety of vaping deteriorating, all the  while what tobacco controllers know very well is the most powerful denormalisation tool is employed against something they claim to support? Gosh, no idea!

ASH And Tobacco Control Caused All Vaping Bans

An article published today in the Leicester Mercury highlights just how nasty and intolerant a world self-serving tobacco controllers have created for us.

Leicester City fan banned from last home game of season after smoking e-cigarette 

A Leicester City fan has been banned for two home games due to smoking an e-cigarette in the stands.

Erm, why?

No harm has ever been attributed to e-cig use indoors let alone outdoors, so there is no harm being inflicted on anyone and no victim. There is no problem here, so a guy has been deprived of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of seeing his team win a miracle Premiership Title because of a rule applied simply for the sake of having a rule. This is the vile state of modern Britain - where the intolerant and prodnosed are pandered to - and it has been created and encouraged by the tobacco control industry for no other reason than their own bigotry and bank balances.

As I've written before, the only reason e-cigs are included in stadium bans is thanks to a bunch of pharma-funded 'public health' charlatans at Healthy Stadia and the Health Equality Group deliberately spreading false information to sports clubs.

But there's more to it than even that. Consider this zombie argument that you will see repeated often.

Erm, why would anyone need to "differentiate between people using e-cigs and people smoking normal cigs"? The ban on smoking in stadia is purely a vile bullying policy imagined, lobbied for and supported by grubby, tax-sponging organisations such as ASH and others in the same mould.

There is, and never will be, any measurable harm to others from passive smoking outside, it is a fantasy demon that the tobacco control industry has created amongst the public. Worse still, those in tobacco control who promote this fear are very clever with their words because they know very well that they are purposely lying about the potential 'dangers'.

So what if someone slips under the radar and smokes amongst others who are vaping? Neither is any kind of a problem we should be worrying about. If it is, we sure as shit need another war to illustrate what discomfort is really all about, and to remind many that a lot of people fought very hard to protect the freedoms that the selfish and affected amongst us are now seemingly content to flush down the toilet.

Ah but, I hear you say, some people don't like the smell of smoke, so it's only fair they be catered for. Well of course, but did anyone consider smoking and non-smoking areas? Well of course not because that wouldn't sit with ASH's chosen policy of bullying and 'denormalisation' of perfectly law-abiding people consuming a legal product. It is only the effete, snobby and repellent who ASH cater for.

Besides, if the smell of smoke is so rancid and identifiable, it wouldn't be much of a problem to spot, now would it?

Naturally, now ASH and other tobacco control industry organisations are "supportive" of vaping, I'm sure they'll be along soon to condemn Leicester's policy of banning fans who are using a product which Public Health England & the Royal College of Physicians say are a boon for public health.

Only a matter of time before ASH publicly voice disapproval about vaping bans instead of supporting them; likewise ASH Wales will ride in all guns blazing at some point to criticise vape bans instead of "fully" welcoming them; and I'm sure ASH Scotland's deafening silence will soon end as they use their clout to publicly shame the idiots who are creating anti-vaping policies up and down the nation on an almost daily basis.

In fact, I'm sure ASH are, as we speak, writing to Leicester City FC to tell them how absurd their policy is towards this fan and how cruel the punishment for something which they and others recognise as being conducive to improved public health. The public statement will follow soon after, I expect.

@ASH_LDN You're still being very quiet about the Notts Council vaping ban. When can we expect you to publicly condemn it?

— Fergus McFergface (@FergusMason1) April 28, 2016

Yep, anytime soon.

I mean, considering ASH and the tobacco control industry are responsible for every vaping ban ever implemented, it's the very least they can do, isn't it?

Sheila Duffy Cheesecake

An article appeared at the Scotsman this morning written by Sheila Duffy of ASH Scotland.

You may remember her dictating who elected Scottish MPs should and should not listen to in November where the reaction was her being quite rightly described as "part of the tobacco industry".

Well this morning she was in a philosophical mood. Philosophical but occasionally in the dishonest, economically and scientifically illiterate way that tobacco controllers are, that is.

The problem with talking about smoking as a lifestyle choice is that in most cases it’s not.

Erm, yes it is Sheila. Everyone currently alive in Scotland is well aware that smoking is risky, because groups like ASH Scotland have been paid handsomely by government to tell the public so.

If you're interested how much, it's around 85% of their total revenue.

I think it's fair to say that Sheila's organisation is the archetypal state-funded sock puppet, the type of shameful abusive fake charity which has compelled Westminster to introduce rules on lobbying with taxpayer funding that have so enraged the voluntary sector. In short, a damaging embarrassment to real charities everywhere and a self-enriching waste of your taxes.

Yet here she is seemingly admitting that her organisation is a failure because smokers don't make a choice based on the 'information' her industry lobbies to be plastered everywhere and spouts incessantly, but instead are seduced by some evil spirit floating around on the Scottish air or something.

Certainly there are informed adults who make a proactive choice to smoke and, so long as they cause no harm to others, that is their business.

Well, firstly, no smoker harms others because passive smoking is a fantasy deliberately created by her industry chums over decades. However, it's interesting to see that she accepts smokers smoke by their own informed choice and that they should be left alone to do so.

I might be wrong but I don't remember seeing this before from tobacco control, so let's give a mini-clap for that.

There is always a 'but' though, isn't there?

Yet we have known for some time that most people who smoke started when they were children and that most people who smoke say that they want to stop.

And here we have one of their favourite tricks. The 'stated preference' sound bite illusion so favoured by anti-smokers worldwide. Carl Phillips mentioned this just the other day in a slide from a recent presentation he made to real scientists as opposed to pretend tobacco control ones.

Phillips has also described how this zombie argument is flawed many times before, a perfect example of which is this from 2013.

It is commonly claimed that most smokers want to quit. The surveys that support this are actually quite suspect, since smokers know that they are supposed to say that, and thus often just give that answer as cheap talk. But while this explains a large portion of the responses, there are definitely some people who sincerely assert that they want to not smoke, even as their actions show that they are choosing to smoke. But what can this obvious contradiction possibly mean? It almost certainly means, in most cases, that their second-order preference is to be someone who wants to not smoke, even though the reality is that they are someone who really wants to smoke.

Because, increasingly so, it's a fact that only a small fraction of smokers actually quit smoking each year, and stats on quit attempts are pretty paltry compared with the numbers of people who actually smoke too. The verifiable fact that nowhere near a majority of current smokers who Duffy claims want to quit even bother to attempt it proves that their stated preference is not their actual preference.

As in, most people who smoke do so because they enjoy it. Just imagine that, eh? Phillips expands further ...

There is nothing horrible, or even the slightest bit unusual, about this second-order preference pattern. We all have countless preferences for different preferences. I would prefer to like going to the gym as much as I like playing computer games, and I would prefer to like unsweetened iced tea as much as I like Coke.

Just think about the things you'd prefer to do rather than what you choose to do and you get the idea.

Duffy then moves into this unseen demon theory a bit more deeply.

The more we look into the figures the further we move from the picture of free adults enjoying smoking tobacco. While the smoking rate has reduced to around 20 per cent in the general population it is four times higher in the poorest areas than in the richest. Almost 50 per cent of people with a registered disability, or those who are unemployed and seeking work, smoke tobacco. The rate is nearer three-quarters in the prison population and amongst people with severe mental ill health. In every one of these groups most of those who smoke say that they want to stop. 

With the likelihood of smoking so determined by social and economic situation, this is not a matter of people making free lifestyle choices but instead about responding to their circumstances in a way that is rational and understandable yet ultimately damaging, expensive and regressive.

Now I don't know about you, but this looks very much like "they're poor and not that bright, so they're incapable of making an informed choice". And as for smoking being a "regressive" choice to make, erm, who lobbies for eye-watering taxes to destroy household budgets in the less well off? I'll give you one guess and the answer in Scotland is Duffy-shaped.

Still, I don't want to leave you on a downer because there are odd glimpses of Duffy being almost reasonable.

The clear implication is that we must reject any suggestion of blaming people for their “lifestyle choices”, health or poverty.

Of course we should. Perhaps Duffy and her friends could come out with the odd research or lobbying paper about why people who spew repulsive bile about smokers are disgusting individuals who should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves (and in many cases confined to mental health institutions). I won't hold my breath though considering ASH Scotland's accumulated 'scientific' canon has actively encouraged the most vile and intolerant in society to vent their spleen at law-abiding people consuming a legal product without Duffy or her predecessors lifting a finger to discourage it.

Nor should we abandon people to an unfair distribution of the social and economic pressures which lead some groups to smoke and make it more difficult for them to quit. But we should question why so many vulnerable people are left without more effective, and less damaging, alternatives to reach for.

And is this a hint that smokers should be given a suite of options to choose from instead of being subjected solely to the angry bigoted clunking fist of fascist tobacco control coercion? I think it is, you know.

This analysis may help us resolve the perceived conflict between improving public health and respecting personal liberty – leave the very small number of informed adults who may choose to smoke and address the factors which cause the majority of the smoking population to be drawn from young, unwilling or vulnerable groups.

This also looks like a first for me. A career prohibitionist talking about "respecting personal liberty" and leaving alone those who are informed of the risks of smoking but choose to anyway? Wow! That will be every smoker then considering ASH Scotland is shovelled 85% of their income from the government to inform the Scottish public how risky smoking is.

It's an odd article from Duffy, and almost as eclectic as I've seen from any UK tobacco controller. It was like a political cheesecake. There's the solid base of anti-smoking rhetoric which ASH Scotland are wedded to from years of pumping out crap and science-free sound bites like "most smokers want to quit" and "poor people are addicted and too stupid to make their own choices"; but a fair amount of the softer cheese bit of saying that other options should be available apart from coercion; and, surprisingly, the thin layer of tasty flavoursome coulis topping in the form of admitting that many smokers have made their choice and should not be any concern whatsoever of state-funded harridan groups like ASH Scotland.

Now it's only an optimistic theory, but d'ya reckon Sheila is sensing that the days of just ignorantly bullying smokers and holding the hand out for government cash might be coming to an end? is she realising that tobacco control 'science' is so derided and ridiculed now that she feels the need to try to present something at least resembling thoughtful comment instead of 100% vacuous sound bite-driven bollocks? Has the joyous demise of Smokefree South West focussed a few state-funded minds to consider their potential financial mortality unless they buck up their ideas and live in the real world?

One to watch, isn't it?