Smokers are now being attacked for being too good….

You really couldn’t make it up….

A “Research Study” (oh how I hate those words) in New Zealand has concluded that “The tobacco industry may be using websites such as YouTube to get around a ban on advertising cigarettes” (note the word “MAY” in that sentence).

How have they arrived at this conclusion? Well, the researchers searched for five tobacco brands on YouTube and analysed the first 20 pages of video clips containing any reference to the firms. They looked at 163 clips in total and concluded that “20 looked very professionally made” .

Evidence of well-made pro-tobacco videos onYouTube is, according to these people who really ought to get a proper job, “consistent with indirect marketing activity by tobacco companies or their proxies,”

How disappointed must they have been? All that time slaving over a hot pc looking at shed loads of evil…. and their smoking gun (excuse the pun) is …….that 20 pro-smoking videos on YouTube look great ?

Who is to say that these brilliant videos were NOT made by a number of motivated, gifted individuals, with a video camera and/or some editing equipment, sharing their passion with the wider world? Why is it that the quality/brilliance of the videos is taken to mean that they are bound to have been made by the tobacco giants or their ad agencies…. Have these people not checked out just how many brilliantly made, professional looking, videos are being put out there on YouTube these days?

Of course not,  they are too busy looking for problems relating to tobacco. Get a life people.

It is no surprise to find of course that this, frankly laughable, report was funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand, and that one or more of the authors of this report has several anti-tobacco “reports” under their belt. Well that explains the conclusions….

Conclusions Pro-tobacco videos have a significant presence on YouTube, consistent with indirect marketing activity by tobacco companies or their proxies. Since content may be removed from YouTube if it is found to breach copyright or if it contains offensive material, there is scope for the public and health organisations to request the removal of pro-tobacco content containing copyright or offensive material. Governments should also consider implementing Framework Convention on Tobacco Control requirements on the internet, to further reduce such pro-tobacco content.

Yep that’s it folks. A research study that proves nada - apart from the fact that a lot of people, passionate about smoking, make videos about their passion, and some are rather good at it shock horror - concludes that public health organisations should press YouTube to remove the videos on the grounds of copyright and/or offensiveness.

Copyright is the domain of the tobacco companies frankly. As for offensiveness… If it is genuinely offensive - oh I don’t know like forcing a puppy to smoke a cigarette for example - then I can see a reason for YouTube to remove it.. But if offensive is defined as those videos that  health quango’s don’t like - then I trust YouTube will tell them where to go.

But some good may come of this….. I am thinking of emailing the authors of the research study - Lucy Elkin’, knilu381@student.otago.ac.nz , Dr George Thomson george.thomson@otago.ac.nz, Dr Nick Wilson nick.wilson@otago.ac.nz - asking if they wouldn’t mind posting links to the 20 videos that looked “very professionally made” so that we cant put them up on LV.  Long live freedom of expression.

Tags: internet, New Zealand, smoking, tobacco, Youtube

Govt proposals written on a back of a fag packet..

Andy Burnham today announced his plan to cut the number of smokers from 21% of the population to 10% in the next decade. This seems to be at the cost of intellectual property rights and freedom of trade of tobacco companies; will result in a huge increase in counterfeiting, causing pain for legitimate companies and consumers; put money into the pockets of organised crime, whilst reducing government tax revenue; and will impinge on our rights as European citizens to move goods and trade freely around the EU. How many lawsuits will follow? Plenty I reckon.

 To be specific. Todays illiberal plans announced by Oberführer Burnham include…

*A review of the law to consider if areas like entrances to buildings should be included in the smoking ban as part of further measures to protect children which would include the promotion of smoke-free homes and cars.

Yes folks they really are thinking of banning people from using a perfectly legal product within their own homes. If Government had its own way we would have neighbour spying on and reporting neightbour. Remind you of anything? Mr Burnham has said that he thinks that banning smoking in ones own home may be a step to far against freedom of choice - ha! - but you can tell he would do it if he could. More likely this will involve a ban on smoking within say 10 (20?) yards or so of any entrance to a public building. Assuming that is in anyway enforcable, non-smokers entering a pub may not have to walk past a dozen cold and wet individuals puffing on their smokes - but where does anyone expect smokers to go. You may say glibly “into the side alley”. But if you are really proposing that young women are forced to stand in dimly lit side alleys to indulge in a perfectly legal activity - then be prepared to see a increase in assaults, rapes and goodness knows what else as a result. Expect a further reduction in smokers visiting pubs - and therefore another swathe of pub closures - as people choose to stay at home.

* Stopping the sale of tobacco from vending machines, considered a significant source of tobacco for young people.

The argument is that this is to stop easy access of cigarettes to children. Never mind that solutions such as machines requiring a token to be handed from the owner of the vending machine for the machine to work would solve this problem. And if kids want to smoke - trust me they will find a way - they always do.

* Immediate investment in extra overseas officers to stop 200 million illicit cigarettes entering the UK every year.

I dont have a problem with this - except I can think of ooh about a hundred ways to spend the money on things that actually matter. And by the way has no one told Mr Burnham we know , even if he doesnt,  that we dont have the money for this sort of frivolity. And if this becomes an excuse to stop the ordinary consumer from purchasing large quantitities of cigarettes for their own consumption from countries within the EU then I do have a problem - you cant pick and choose which bits of free trade within the EU you are going to allow and which bits you are not.

* NHS support for every smoker who wants to give up, at times and in places that suit them.

Did no one tell this Govt that we are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy - yet here we have a government spending money like a man with no arms. This is because, we are told, that the NHS bill of smokers is £2.7 billion a year. Whats the Government income from excise and VAT from tobacco companies? About £10 billion? What is the government doing with the other £7billion that’s what I want to know?

* Government consideration of the case for plain packaging for cigarettes.

The most obvious result of such a move will be mass counterfeiting - mainly from organised crime I imagine, and it will impinge on intellectual property rights and freedom of trade of the legitimate tax-paying companies.  This will surely be vigorously challenged in courts of law -and rightly. I wonder how much tax revenue the Government will actually lose as  result? Consumers will no longer know if they are buying authentic or phoney products. Lawsuits aplenty will follow. I also fail to see what real EVIDENCE there is that branding on cigarette packets is causing people to take up smoking. Sure, without branding people may SWITCH from an expensive brand to a cheaper one - but that is about market share, not the size of the market. Cigarettes are sexy to kids because they are not allowed them - not because Marlboro or Silk Cut have marketing skills on a par with Derren Brown.

CONFUSED?

I am . The Health Bill 2009 was introduced to Parliament on 15 January 2010. It already includes proposals to tackle smoking. Specifically it proposes to remove tobacco displays in shops and to restrict the sale of cigarettes from vending machines. So why are the government proposing a DOUBLE ban on the sale of cigarettes from vending machines or is Andy Burnham and this decaying Government up to their old tricks - cobbling together new iniatives that are not throught-through and rehash old initiatives ( just not THAT old on this occassion)to make it look more impressive than it is. Why introduce a HEALTH BILL dealing with tobacco on January 15th, then introduce FURTHER regulation on smoking a couple of weeks later.? I will tell you why. Because this sad and sorry Government has announced yet another set of “initiatives” cobbled together on the back of a FAG packet to grab a few cheap headlines.

So muggers, rapists, crime lords, counterfeiters and lawyers rejoice.This charter is for you. Liberals, law-abiding citizens, young women, pub-goers, parents, taxpayers, publicans and newsagents, be afraid because its you they are out to make your life a whole lot harder if not down-right dangerous.

Tags: Andy Burnham, Cigarettes, tobacco