Tuesday 21 March 2017

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.


I'm sure it will be forthcoming. 



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