Tobacco Controller Condemns Tobacco Control Methods As "Pathetic"

If you've ever spoken out to object to any anti-tobacco measures whatsoever on blogs, forums, newspaper comment sections or - God forbid - the Guardian's Comment Is Free pages, at some point you will have been accused of being in the pay of Big Tobacco.

Here is a perfect example directed at hugely-respected political commentator Iain Martin.

Yet another BigTobacco errand boy runs false line that #plainpacks are"proposed plain white packet" ow.ly/bcVGe
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) October 14, 2012

This is because a planned tactic from the earliest days of tobacco control has been to place this debate-avoidance tool into the mind of every raving anti-smoker on the planet. It is, as Michael Siegel explains, Tobacco Control 101.

In the 20 years that I was a member of the tobacco control movement, I was led to believe that there were only two sides to any anti-smoking issue: our side and the tobacco industry side. Therefore, anyone who disagreed with our position had to be, in some way, affiliated with the tobacco industry. I was also taught to respond to their arguments not on any scientific grounds or on the merit of their arguments, but by simply discrediting the person by attacking their affiliation with the tobacco companies.

Moreover.

If you take part in secondhand smoke policy training in the tobacco control movement, chances are that you will be taught that all opposition to smoking bans is orchestrated by the tobacco industry, that anyone who challenges the science connecting secondhand smoke exposure and severe health effects is a paid lackey of Big Tobacco, and that any group which disseminates information challenging these health effects is a tobacco industry front group. Consequently, the chief strategy of tobacco control is to smear the opposition by accusing them of being tobacco industry moles. And in no situation should one say anything positive about an opponent, even if true.

Who is this rogue? A tobacco shill himself? Well, no. Quite the opposite, in fact.

How do I know this? 

Because for many years, I was one of the main trainers of tobacco control advocates in the United States. And this is what I taught, because this was what I was led to believe. I attended many conferences and trainings and this is precisely what I was taught. I accepted it for the truth, and passed it along to others. 

But it's OK. One of the world's most prominent tobacco controllers has now seen the light and declared the tactic "quite pathetic".

Frothing anti #windturbine crowd busy circulating factoid/lie that I'm funded by Big Wind. I am not. Quite pathetic. tobacco.health.usyd.edu.au/assets/pdfs/Ot…
— Simon Chapman (@SimonChapman6) March 23, 2013

So there you have it. Next time someone accuses you in such a way, you can confidently call them pathetic and cite Mr Chapman the proud law-breaking sociologist as your 'expert' source. 

It is inevitable that he'll be condemning the website set up by Bath University - precisely for this "quite pathetic" purpose - very soon. 

Yep, won't be long now, for sure.