tobacco

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.

The Greens are big fans of banning things. There is even a massive list of things they want banned. In the past several days they have posts adding more things they want banned. controlled or taxed.

Today they are talking about banning and controlling again, this time it is the Super Fund and where they invest.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman today said the fund had a “long record of complacency towards ethical investment” and it was no surprise it been caught investing in tobacco.

“The fund directors have been caught out previously for unethical investment behaviour after it was revealed they were profiting from the whaling industry and the cluster munitions industry,” he said.

“This is not a professional way to manage a $19 billion investment fund and risks serious damage to our reputation as a responsible member of the world community.”

I totally support the Greens attack on the Super Fund for investing in a company with a subsidiary that makes cigarettes .They should instead invest in cannabis and Kronic production which the Greens tell us is totally healthy and is about the only things they want un-banned.

Psycho Milt exposes Peter Dunne’s rank hypocrisy over the banning of synthetic cannabinoids:

Stuff, 2 August 2011:

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.

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?

Tonight the government has used extraordinary urgency, not to ditch the ETS, but to raise taxes yet again. Again on tobacco under the pretext that they are trying to stop people from smoking and as a sop to the Maori Party. The highest tax increases were also on loose tobacco, socking the poorest even more.

Tobacco tax goes up 10 per cent from midnight, raising the price of a pack of 20 cigarettes by about a dollar to around $11, and two more hikes are in the pipeline.

The Government brought the legislation to Parliament under extraordinary urgency today and it will go through all its stages, putting in place three excise duty increases of 10 per cent – one at midnight, the next on January 1 next year and the third on January 1 2012.

Loose tobacco used by pipe smokers and to make roll your own cigarettes is being socked with a 14 per cent increase immediately to bring it into line with cigarettes.

Associate Health Minister Tariana Turia, a strong anti-smoking campaigner, introduced the bill and said the debate on it was going to be about life and death.

This is of course not at all about life and death, it is simply about taxing people who are addicted to a legal product and freely chose to suck into their lungs. If it was truly about life and death then the Government would have made cigarettes illegal and unable to be sold in New Zealand and classified tobacco as a Class A drug. As they didn’t do that it is only about revenue.

The National party used to be about personal responsibility and freedom of choice, now it is nothing more than a nanny-statist over-lord deciding what is and isn’t good for you.

Only the congenitally stupid amongst us would willingly take up smoking given all the available information about the deleterious health effects. The fact that in the past 5 years the numbers of smokers has remained constant at about 700,000 people shows that previous tax increases are meaningless, especially to the truly stupid of this country.

Since the government are going to raise taxes I thought I might share with just where those taxes will probably be going. The increased taxes will go to more Maori troughers, like Shane Bradbrook,  intent on spending as much of the poor addicted tobacco users cash as humanly possible on themselves, carting their useless arses around the sights of world so they can un-furl protest flags and promote the palestinian cause by wearing a keffiyah at the same time.These pictures are from his state-funded tours around the world saving Maori smokers, in India at the Taj Mahal, in the Washington DC and in Tokyo.

It is kind of ironic that Shane Bradbrook identifies closely with Palestinians because there are huge similarities between palestinians and Maori especially when it comes to troughing and grievances. Maori are still wailing over injustices perpetrated more than 100 years ago, palestinians are still creating greivances and living in refugee camps. Maori suck massively off the public tit and palestinians suck massively off the UN. The longest running welfare system in the world is the UNDP mission to Gaza, sucking literally billions of dollars off the world and giving it to palestinians as “aid”. The fact that the money has not made one single zak of difference to them escapes almost everyone, and Maori have had millions spent on them trying to stop them being fatties aand smokers and that too hasn’t made a zak of difference. Palestinians and Maori are perhaps the biggest beneficiaries and aggrieved peoples in the world and yet they will not make personal choices that will stop them from getting the same deal. Palestinians won;t stop chucking bombs, rocks, missiles and bullets at Israel and Maori won’t stop chugging on booze, quaffing vast quantities of poor quality food and puffing up large on as many ciggies as they can get their hands on.

The pity is that this measure won’t do a thing except increase the power of the gangs in New Zealand’s poorest neighbourhoods and make tobacco a much more profitable drug to sell illegally than even methamphetamine. This measure is only making larger profits for gangs and smaller profits for legal tobacco companies. Chinese tobacco merchants will be making a killing.

Politicians lie when they say this is to pay for the cost of smoking. The Smokefree Coalition and the Cancer Society provide figures that show that revenue from excise taxes on tobacco raise more than $900 million per annum and the government spends about $250 million on smoking related health costs. Smokers, unlike the rest of New Zealand society actually pay their own way. We should be giving these folk medals for killing themselves before they take a pension. New Zealand benefits economically from having smokers in every-way.

National disgusts me. They have betrayed their founders, their constitution and their own beliefs. It seems that this country no longer believes in personal freedoms or personal choice and no longer believes in personal responsibility for ones own actions. It is all about the state and what it believes is best for you.

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