smoking

Andrew Sullivan make a good point on talk about prohibition of tobacco:

Crazy talk. Can you imagine the costs of prohibition? Let alone the power of a government dedicated not to providing liberty but to extending life, regardless of liberty? I hate cigarettes, partly by growing up an asthmatic in a house where cigarette smoke hung always in the air. But I find the attempt to ban them, stigmatize them and ostracize smokers to be creepily authoritarian. Sure, keep them out of the public. But if you want to die young because you love tobacco, who on earth am I to tell you otherwise?

Hone Harawira demands such a prohibition. After the Exclusive Brethren smokers are the most vilified people in New Zealand society. Yet they contribute to this nation far more than non-smokers. I think smokers should have a “Gold Card” instead of pensioners.

tupeka

(loan) (noun) tobacco.

hikareti

(loan) (noun) cigarette.

pūahi

(noun) cigarette lighter.

Modern Usage:

The Maori party want to ban the word tupeka.

They hope that their people will then stop using the pūahi to light up their hikareti.

Using this approach the maori party will also seek to ban the words tūkino, kōhuru, apuapu and waipiro.

That will stop the child abuse, the murder, obesity and alcoholism in Maori for sure.

That will fix it bro, ban them nasty words that make our people suffer.

Maori troughers at the ready....get set...

bureaucracy

Well, well well, what have we found here. It seems the MOH is wanting to hand out potentially hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to “investigate Maori tobacco control”. Hang on a minute, isn’t that a job for the MOH. Oh silly me, of course not. Let’s fire out a government tender and dole out taxpayer money by the trough-full to people who never have and who will never be able to measure any success or reduction in the number of Maori smoking rates. But hey, we need to look as though we’re doing something.

But wait, isn’t the Maori Affairs Select Committee holding an inquiry into the tobacco industry and trying to come up with new innovative solutions? The answer to this is yes, but the MOH knows far better than the MPs on this Select Committee and, at the end of the day we (the poor taxpayer via MoH) will be the ones who have to control this, so lets get in early. Plus it will help us in our relationship with Auntie Turia and Honest Hone for sure.

So what’s all the fuss about? Have a look at the Services specification. Wow, haven’t we seen this before???

1. Facilitate another series of hui to “scope out the Terms of Reference of the Maori Tobacco Control Steering Group” Read that as travel to exotic locations to discuss tobacco issues, such as Hawaii, New York etc
2. Set up a Steering Group of Maori tobacco control leaders and/or tobacco control sector leaders. Let me guess, veteran trougher Shane Kawenata Bradbrook?
3. Support the Steering Group with secretariat and project management services. We can really cream it here, bro, all the cuzzies can score a “job”.
   
4. Undertake sector scoping exercise… including a stocktake of Maori tobacco control services and a needs analysis of the Maori tobacco control sector. Mmm isn’t that the role of the MOH, or are they incompetent?
5. Build effective network including face to face communication that’s supported at national, regional and district levels. Chooooice, free travel around the country to see the whaaanau…sweet azzz bro.
6. Develop strategic plan…which will enable informed decision making by the MOH. Shit bro, that’s a bit of work, never mind our white cuzzies in the Smokefree Coalition will do that for us, for a little bit of kai and some brown envelopes.

But they must have to deliver something for the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars about to be doled out. Let’s take a look…

Key outcomes

Oh how choice is this bro? Here’s what we have to deliver…

1. Raise awareness of Smokefree lifestyles. Sweet azz…that’s so easy bro
2. Bash a few mokupuna who have been caught smoking out the back of the Marae and say we’ve prevented the uptake of smoking among Maori youth
3. Travel on the taxpayer around the country, waving tinorangitanga flags, have some koreo and kai with the distant whaaaaanau and charge it all to the government. Maybe they could give us those cool azz credit cards like Parekura used to have?
4. Bring a Maori voice to inform public debate about Smokefree Aotearoa – We’ll get Shane Kawenata Bradbrook to do that – he’s an expert bro
5. Build on our knowledge of how to trough the $57 million the government throws at trying to stop people from smoking, and we should be able to wrangle some choooooice business class seats to exotic destinations like Shane does.

Only problem, cuzzies is that this contract is only for a year, azz if bro… but (smirk), bro don’t worry about that cos Auntie Turia will look after us…

But wait, there’s more, and this is the really, really good bit. We can set the price for all our extensive and hard work we haven’t even done yet! Cool one bro. Shit, if Shane can get $250,000 per year, we must be able to get a bit more than that?

Let’s get into the trough. Whoooho

(P.S. Don’t tell Ryall or Key about this and we’ll say it’s all part of Auntie Turia’s Whanau Ora policy and hide it in there).

Prisoners with alcohol and drug addictions have to deal with it. We don’t offer alcohol to prisoners with alcohol addictions or P to prisoners with methamphetamine addictions. This is a prison, it’s not a home.

Judith Collins

The hand-wringiners are out in force.

A comprehensive cessation programme must be available to prisoners if smoking is banned in jails, the Rethinking Crime and Punishment group says.

The Government is reportedly looking at making prisons smokefree from next year, with Corrections Minister Judith Collins expected to make an announcement early this week.

The Corrections Department is concerned taxpayers could be liable for legal action from prison officers exposed to inmates’ second-hand smoke and also the potential threat of lawsuits from nonsmoking prisoners, bunking with prisoners who do smoke.

Corrections Association president Beven Hanlon told Radio New Zealand prisoners did not like change.

“People coming off nicotine can be very unpredictable, can be very anxious, aggressive and we’re going to have a large part of our prison population going through that and we’re (prison officers) going to have to manage them,” he said.

You can’t get a more comprehensive cessation programme than cold-turkey. Once the crim enters the doors of the prison, they stop smoking, and they stop for the entire stretch. My bet is that troughers like Shane Bradbrook will be lining up to line their own pocket to provide smoking cessation programmes to criminals in jail. They are not needed. Cold Turkey will stop them smoking for sure.

Implementation is simple too. Announce a date when smoking ceases, enforce it, end of implementation  programme.

I don’t like smoking, well actually I do, but the health issues mean I don’t smoke. Still a fine cuban cigar is something to be savoured.

For me smoking has always been a personal choice issue. However our governments over the years have deemed tobacco to be evil and that people shouldn’t smoke. Despite all the evidence about the negative health effects there are people who still choose to smoke. The government doesn’t want them to smoke but no politician, until today, has ever had the gumption to ban tobacco outright.

Smoking will be banned in all prisons from next year, the Herald on Sunday has learned.

Corrections minister Judith Collins is expected to announce this week that a 12-month preparation plan will be rolled out that should see all prisons go smoke-free by July next year.

Department of Corrections bosses found taxpayers could be liable for lawsuits from prison guards exposed to inmates’ second-hand smoke.

The potential threat of legal action was heightened after the Government’s decision to “double bunk” inmates in a single cell, raising the possibility of non-smoking prisoners suing the Government for being housed with smoking inmates.

There goes another cushy reason for life-time criminals to want to be banged up. No more baccy, and their health improves along with it so they get to feel the effects of being banging up a whole lot better.

The dangers of legal action were found after Collins instructed Corrections staff to investigate a ban, and its success rates overseas.

They found tobacco was used as currency inside prison and was the cause of disputes. Further reasons for the ban included the use of cigarette lighters and matches to melt plastic into which blades could be embedded, turning cell possessions into weapons.

Anti-smoking Maori Party MP Hone Harawira supported the move but warned a total ban could lead to an outbreak of violence among prisoners.

Hone Harawira is at least consistent in his approach to tobacco, but the threat of violence in prisons should be no barrier to making them smoke-free.

To my mind this is a move long overdue. If our veterans aren’t allowed to smoke in the RSA then why should criminals be allowed to smoke in prisons. Judith Collins is clearly a politician of her own personal convictions, and she will fight tooth and nail for things she believes in rather than the politically expedient. Oh that other politicians would have a spine such as hers.

I will be called a racist for saying this but I don’t care. I have come to the conclusion that Maori are thick. Dumber than your average bear. Stupid. Dumb and Dumber rolled in one. Dumber than a sack of hammers.

Exhibit 1: Tau Henare, whinging and moaning about Phillip Morris. Fuck’s sake man take some personal responsibility and man up. You deserved the kicking you got on Facebook too. Only Maori would be the best in the world at quitting being quitters.

Exhibit 2: Foreshore and Seabed. Only Maori could take venality and pimp it out.I say in the Gisborne theatre last election and listened to Derek Fox explain just exactly what it was that maori wanted. The right to go to court like everyone else, and Helen Clark got scared and legislated that away. National offered to listen and provide a solution, and did exactly as they promised. Now Maori have decided that national’s solution isn’t good enough, that IWI really does mean I Want It, all. Well they can get fucked. My patience with Maori is at an end. They are venal, corrupt, lying, lazy useless fuckers. If I was National I would give them exactly what Derek Fox explained, the right to go to court and nothing more. Fuck them.

Exhibit 3: Veteran troughers who manufacture puff pieces about “strategies” to stop maori smoking that repeaters dutifully repeat. FFS Shane Bradbrook is a legendary rorter of tapayers money and it sounds like he has done it again. Time for some more OIA’s. “Developed a strategy“, pah!

The strategy will prohibit tobacco from events under control of the iwi’s governing body, including the annual general meeting, kapa haka, and various celebrations, tournaments and festivals.

The timeframe indicated by the strategy is within two years, although the exact date is yet to be set.

Four years is the suggested time for persuading the iwi’s whanau and hapu to follow suit and ban tobacco from their marae, cemeteries, sacred places, ancestral mountains and rivers.

The bans on tobacco possession will be preceded by prohibitions on smoking.

These moves will be coupled with greater promotion of smoke-free homes and vehicles, and greater encouragement for smokers to make more attempts to quit.

Four Years! To do what should take fucking five minutes, only a trougher would develop a stragety that enables him to cream it for 4 years when the description consists of no more than a sentence here or there. Dear taxpayer this is what you undoubtedly will have paid for:

The Ban:

* Not just a smoking ban.

* Tobacco to be prohibited from events under direct control of the iwi’s governing body.

* The iwi will encourage members to ban tobacco from their marae and other places.

Whoopie, fucking group hug and a big fuck yeah we’re cool high fives and hand signs!

Actually I take it all back it isn’t Maori that are thick, It is National and white middle class liberal pany-waist New Zealanders, can’t even tell when the Maori is up with with their dog as well.

Maori? They is cunning eh boy?

PRESS RELEASE from WHALEOIL

For Immediate Release

Date: 9 March 2010

WHALEOIL to Appear Before Select Committee to Expose Ministry Incompetence & Troughing

Well known New Zealand blogger Whaleoil (Cameron Slater) is appearing before the Maori Affairs Select Committee to expose the excessive troughing of tax-payer funding by anti-tobacco groups.

“I expect the Committee to be shocked and outraged when I present my findings to the Committee tomorrow as they hold their inquiry into the tobacco industry” said Mr Slater.

“I will be bringing along a wine box of documents obtained under the Official Information Act to demonstrate a complete disregard for the accountability of taxpayer money by the Ministry of Health, alongside the incompetence of anti-tobacco groups who have received millions of dollars with little to show for it.”

“Groups like Te Reo Marama and its director Shane Kawenata Bradbrook received hundreds of thousands of taxpayer funding from the Ministry to help Maori stop smoking, yet spent most of the time on overseas junkets to exotic destinations like Hawaii (3 times), Bangkok Thailand, Durban South Africa, Helsinki in Finland and Mumbai India.

“And all the Ministry got from Mr Bradbrook was a couple of reports and a performance which resulted in a “damning” internal Ministry audit report.

It simply is not good enough for New Zealand to continue pouring $55 million into stop smoking programmes for little or no return. The only people it is helping are the NGO troughers rorting the system, who are now asking the select committee to recommend they get more money.

Of all the submitters I am the only one with zero conflicts of interests, there is nothing for me to gain or lose by my submission. The rest are either involved in receiving government money, or deciding who gets the government money or in a few cases doing both.

……….

Whaleoil

(Cameron Slater)

whaleoil@gotcha.co.nz

The Broadcasting Standards Authority has found that Michael Laws;

…unfairly represented Mr Broughton’s views.

Mr Broughton had said that “Pakeha continue to allow [smoking] in the country and make profits from it’, but Laws told his listeners that Mr Broughton believed, and told his clients, that smoking is a “Pakeha plot to kill Maori’, an assertion he made several times during the course of his programme.

“The authority is firm in its view that such blatant misrepresentation cannot be regarded as `fair comment’, as argued by the broadcaster,” the decision said.

The authority considered whether upholding the complaint would infringe on the broadcaster’s freedom of expression, but decided its decision would remind broadcasters to ensure they dealt with people referred to in a programme fairly.

With my submission to the Maori Affairs Select Committee on Maori smoking highlights the culture of the Maori anti-smoking lobby. I hope to present a full submission to the Select Committee in person and table my evidence of Shane Kawaneta Bradbrook’s epic failure along with other Maori anti-smoking campaigners.

Mr Broughton is on my list of people who are part of a nasty spiteful list of anti-smoking adherents discovered via the OIA.

The last fews days have seen me expose Te Reo Marama and Shane Kawaneta Bradbook as troughers extraordinaire. The organisation so far has lightened the taxpayers pocket to the tune of almost $2 million dollars and there is more yet to come. Despite a damning audit report the Ministry of Health continued to fund Te Reo Marama to the tune of $500,000.

Yesterday I revealed that Te Reo Marama had also gone dipping in the DHB troughs for additional funding and today I will reveal an extraordinary programme that they received funding, not once, but twice for that the Outcomes report for each of the programmes show little was actually achieved.

In July 2007, just months before the damning audit report was to be released, Te Reo Marama applied for and was granted two contracts to deliver what they describe as Tika/Pono Programmes, one for Wairoa ($29,560) and one for local schools ($27,160) in the region.

These programmes are designed, according to Te Reo Marama’s description as acting as an intervention enabling maori youth to halt smoking or if not yet smoking resist the evil advertising onslaught from the multi-national tobacco companies.

Yet the Output reports suggest that the Hawkes Bay District Health Board might have better spent the $60,000 on putting up posters saying “Stop smoking you Thickies” for all the good these programmes did.

Output Report Schools
Output Report Wairoa

If you look at those reports they are actually damning. Worse if you look closely at the contracts there is far more reporting requirements stipulated than a couple of two page reports. For $60,000 the HBDHB essentially received 4 pages of output reports at a cost of $15,000 per page and no discernable or measurable reduction in smoking in Maori Boarding schools or in Wairoa. Hell’s teeth for $60,000 you could have employed a security guard full time to check school bags that would have been more effective at stopping smoking at school, or paid a bonus for the teachers to actually remove their prodigious arses from the the staff room and patrol the grounds.

Bear in mind that the HBDHB has refused to release many more documents regarding the contracts and performance and costs of Te Reo Marama.

We are still awaiting the OIA documents from NZAID and other DHB’s to see the total size of the trough that Te Reo Marama built for itself. Te Reo Marama is jut the tip of the iceberg though. Next week we will release documents that show other Stop Smoking organisations are troughing it up even worse from the Ministry of Health and reveal documents that show that ASH and the Health Sponsorship Council are amongst the worst troughers again with little measured results. On a more serious note we will show serious discrepancies in reporting of expenditure and the reluctance of the Auditor-Generals Office to get involved.

What is clear from the case of Te Reo Marama is that there is a division in the Ministry of Health that simply doles out money willy-nilly in vast quantities and then cares not a jot for any outcomes. Only when the troughing becomes obvious do they get audits done but then they bury those and continue funding.

What is also clear is that there is an organised anti-smoking lobby out there working together to push funds the way of their mates, pat each other on the back and run interference whenever someone comes poking their nose into their cozy, comfortable little state funded world.

Only the most stupid person in New Zealand would now choose to take up smoking with all the evidence that is before us. Sure once started on smoking it is an addictive product and difficult to stop but the point is that at some point an individual made a conscious  choice to have a cigarette.

The actuarial evidence would suggest that instead of maligning smokers we should in fact be congratulating them on sacrificing themselves for the better good of the nation. Their early death and paying of extra taxes ensures that there is more to go around to those smart enough to never have smoked in the first place.

Next week we will also name Ministry of Health officials who have turned a blind eye and signed off on reports that were clearly, obviously and demonstrably false in their declarations.