WHO cares?

Some months ago, we asked our readers (tongue-in-cheek) to rate their own health and well-being.

The dictionary variously defines health as ‘healthiness’, ‘fitness’, ‘good condition’, ‘good shape’, ‘fine fettle’; ‘strength’, ‘vigour’, ‘wellness’ etc.

However, the World Health Organisation takes it a step further. In a corner of their website, in answer to the question, "What is the WHO definition of good health", they offer an excellent description. "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity".

Smokers may find this ironic however, given that the WHO is rabidly anti-smoker. They are behind a framework designed to hound and marginalise smokers all over the World. They are strong supporters of smoking bans which force the innocent smoker out of their social surroundings. They are right behind efforts to "de-normalise" smoking and by extension, the smokers themselves.

One wonders then how they square the idea of making smokers socially abnormal with their stated desire of "social well-being"?

Payback time

Many of those fighting smoking restrictions around the World have speculated for years that the pharmaceutical industry has been the driving force behind these restrictions.

Links have been made between certain companies and the so-called 'charities' in several countries.

The thinking is that the charities receive funding to agitate for restrictions which they achieve through expensive lobbyists. Having got the ear of the politicians, they then push for the funding of 'Quitlines', which they themselves offer to run. Once this is in place and unsuspecting smokers call them, the charities recommend cessation products from their benevolent funding pharmaceutical company. The belief is that the charities, bloated with funds from both government and big pharma, can buy a lot of influence in the media and in the corridors of power.

Indeed in some countries the charities have actually convinced their governments to buy vast quantities of these cessation products from their chosen pharmaceutical friend at full market value. These then are offered free to smokers at chemists’ shops. Last year, one of our home grown zealots said on radio that they would be talking to Dr Reilly about introducing such a scheme in Ireland in 2012. It's payback time maybe?

So it was with great interest that I read this little piece of breaking news. The University of San Diego carried out a research project into the effectiveness of the aforementioned cessation products and concluded that they didn't work. Their damning verdict ends with, "There is an urgent need to revisit public policy on smoking cessation".

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Positive attitude = long life

It's not often a smokers’ website can give optimistic news to its readers.

We are regarded as distinctly unhealthy due to our choice of consuming a legal product.

But as the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggests, "Good health is not merely the absence of disease but is about complete physical, mental and social well-being". And so say all of us.

So, a new study from the University of Zurich, reported in the Journal this week says that "Pessimism about health could lead to shortened lifespan". This was no flash in pan thing either. They followed 8,000 people since 1970 and found that those who worry about their health, are three times more likely to die than those who don't.

Among other things, they took smoking into account too. So, there you have it. If you think you are fine, you are three times more likely to be so, whether you smoke or not.

All over the place

Here are some examples of the dodgy numbers used in the smoking debate.

In June 2009, The Irish Independent reported that "New figures from the Department of Health put the overall smoking rate at 29%, compared to 27% in 2002". So smoking rates went up after the ban (in 2004). No great surprise there then.

Then in Feb, 2011, they report that "23.6% smoke; down 3.8% since 2008". So, the best brains at the Indo will have you believe that the smoking rates were running at 27% in 2002, 27.4% in 2008, 29% in 2009 and 23.6% in 2011. If you add the Office of Tobacco Control claim of 23.5% in 2006, and Brian Maurer from ASH putting it at 29% in 2011, we Irish are all over the place.

If you are a bit of a cynic, you might suggest that all of this is guesswork, at best. What is not guesswork however, are the hard numbers from Customs & Excise. The Revenue from tobacco for 2008, 2009 & 2010, were a constant €1.5bn. This figure does not factor in smuggled goods of course.

The Indo apparently will not print anything from Forest Eireann, but if they did, I could further confuse them with the following fact. In August 2011, Eurostat reported that 31% of the Irish population smoke. And I could confuse them even more by suggesting that any smoker today, that was asked if they smoke, would most probably deny it to avoid disapproval.

Gas isn't it!

Smoking a public bonus, according to Czechs

One of the many accusations thrown at smokers is that they are costing non-smokers a fortune from treatments they receive for illnesses arising from their habit.

This is a knotty problem because on the one hand we have clear unambiguous figures for the smokers’ contribution to the Revenue. Every year, for the last three years, Irish smokers coughed up (if you'll excuse the expression) €1,500 million in taxes exclusive to smokers.

However, in public debates with our persecutors, I have been told that we cost the health service anywhere between €200 million and €2,500 million, depending on the mood they are in. The figures from this quarter are notoriously difficult to find, as smokers suffer no ailment exclusive to themselves. Certainly, smoking may be a contributor to an illness suffered by an individual, as would bad diet, lack of exercise, stress, genetics and a whole variety of other things that interact in a most complex way.

In the absence, therefore, of hard figures, I suspect spokespersons from the dark side simply make up figures on the spot. They have been doing this so successfully for so long now that the ordinary person believes that smokers do cost them money, and they understandably resent that. And hard figures from elsewhere have been hard to come by to, so I have not had anything I could compare us with, until now that is.

This little nugget from August of last year passed me by, but I'm delighted to share it with my readers now.

"An analysis the Czech Health Ministry has made shows that Czech smokers pay in consumer taxes and VAT dozens of billions of crowns more than what their treatment costs, the Czech Television (CT) public broadcaster Sunday quoted Health Minister Leos Heger (TOP 09) as saying".

The piece goes on to show that Czech smokers pay six times more than they cost their health service, which, you would have to say, is a bit of an eye-opener. Put another way, Czech smokers cost one sixth of what they contribute to society.

Now it is important to point out that the Czech Republic is one of the cheaper destinations in which to stock up with reasonably priced cigarettes, so their levels of excise and VAT are far lower that ours. On that basis, you could estimate that the Irish cost figure for smokers is about one tenth of their contribution (c. €150 Million).

So, the next time some busybody has a go at you about costing the decent non-smokers their hard earned money, you can rightfully show that, in fact, you are looking after them, even as they insult you about yourself.

The appeal of fear

Cancer has been in the news now for over a week, for all the usual reasons.

Normally, some interest group (or charity) is having their annual knees up, calls a conference, and about a month beforehand, they give some bored researcher a ball of notes and the findings of a research project that has never been done. "There are the answers", they tell the researcher as they wave the wad of money under his nose, "Now tweak the numbers to get those results and be a guest speaker at our conference".

The week of the conference itself, their propaganda machine cranks up, and delighted journalists get press releases, commonly known as "my next article" among hacks, from these interest groups. The formula is the same for every conference and press release. The headlines scream, "Something-or-other increases the risk of cancer (or heart disease) by 10,000%".

Everyone’s a winner with this. The conference gets to deliver their lie to the wider population and increase their chances of even more grant money. The journalist gets his 'shock, horror' headline, talk shows get ready made material, and the grateful public gets to buy more fear.

Just why the Irish public has this perverse need to live in fear of everything is not well understood, but the propaganda machine knows it to be true and is happy to stuff the press full of lies for a suitable fee. So, the papers recently ran headlines like "Two big glasses of wine a day triples cancer risk" and "Cancer cases in Ireland could soar by 72%, warn experts". The heat is off smoking now, because as one cynic put it, that has been milked dry for funds. The attention now has switched to the demon drink and all the heart-attacks and different types of cancer you will get if you even pass too close to a pub.

Now, I can understand the propaganda people, they are getting well paid to say what they are told. I understand and even know some lazy journalists and they are merely cogs in the wheel. The conference holders (or experts as they prefer to be known) are only feathering their luxurious beds with their lies and that is a national pastime.

But, what motivates the general public to seek things to be afraid of? Why does the normal average person want so badly to believe a lot of nonsense that is designed to frighten the living daylights out of him? Why do we need to be scared and feel that we, and our families, are living under constant serious threat? Why would anyone willingly buy into obvious propaganda, falsehoods, exaggerations and outright lies?

The big smoking lie is the alleged danger of ETS (passive smoking), and for ages I tried to steer people towards the research itself, which shows clearly that ETS is of little or no harm to non-smokers. This is the self same research that anti-tobacco zealots claim proves the danger. And it took me a long time to realize that decent ordinary people didn't actually want to know the truth. The awful realization finally dawned on me that they wanted to believe the lie, wanted to soak up the propaganda and seemed to need to feel in fear and danger from a harmless wisp of my tobacco smoke.

But then, an old wag of my acquaintance suggested a possible reason to me. "Fear", he said, "makes for good politics". Confidence and independence are the great enemies of fear, so when the free thinking Irish electorate voted against the Lisbon Treaty, democracy was sidelined and they were sent back full of fear to vote again. When everyone knew in their heart and soul that the property bubble could not go on, they preferred to believe the cheerleaders of it, such as the government, the banks, the auctioneers and developers, rather than rely on their own common sense.

He might just have something there. Perhaps when Enda was explaining to our European neighbours that "the Irish went mad", he might have more correctly stated that "the Irish are mad". Could you imagine the reaction in France if he'd told them, "The Irish believe that two big glasses of wine a day triples cancer risk"? Certainly the canny Germans could see how the "Irish brats", having nicked Mom's purse, went mad in the sweetshop and are now on the naughty step of Europe.

Like all bold children, the Irish love their lies!

The ‘leave us all in peace’ tendency

Christopher Jackson’s article about the futility of prohibitionist policies that John pointed to last Tuesday has certainly struck a chord.

Check out the comments that have appeared on the Independent’s site. Some are priceless, such as “hedonism is on our make up”.

It makes you wonder: if some politician had the nous and the balls to tap into the ‘for heaven’s sake leave alone for once will you?’ tendency, he might be onto a winner.

Lies, booze and statistics

There was a strong sense of deja-vu at the launch on Monday of the report of the National Substance Misuse Strategy Steering Group, delivered by Dr Tony Holohan, Chief Medical Officer and Chairman of that group.

Remember the bold Tony? He said in the Irish Times last October that the smoking ban had not worked and the constant force being applied to smokers was counter-productive. Well, it turns out he is cheerleading a crowd who now want to do the same to drinkers.

One aspect of this 'Brave New World' we inhabit is the amount of people who want to interfere in our affairs for our own good. They will tell any lie and use any tactic to get a shot at regulating how you like to live your own life. These busybodies come mainly, but not exclusively, from the medical sphere.

They are one dimensional, doctrinal and very often too well-fed. Contrived, tortured research is their chosen weapon to justify their actions (and earn their rich rewards of course). Like Mary Harney, they believe that ‘they are worth it’, regardless of how much public money goes into their greedy pockets. These well off parasites want you to believe that they can hardly sleep at night worrying about how you feel. They have a lot in common with the politicians if you think about it.

And this concerned bunch of Government-funded busybodies have got together with the politicians to invent more taxes for you to pay. Today's event would not be complete without the dark hand of Fiona Ryan from Alcohol Action Ireland, a sort of ASH of booze. This rabid prohibitionist had – you guessed it - Dr Tony Holohan to open their annual conference last year. At this bash, paid for by the taxpayer, the bold Tony rolled off all of Fiona's figures like an actor who knew his lines.

He was at it again yesterday in Dublin, claiming that "alcohol related illness cost the health care system €1.2 billion in 2007 with alcohol-related crime costing an estimated €1.19 billion in the same year.” Fiona herself might have been disappointed with this as her organisation wants you to believe that the total figure is €3.7 billion. She makes this claim in several places and always attributes it to an "HSE Research Project". Now, try as I might, I cannot find any such research project. But then, that's how the anti-tobacco scammers did it. The nasty tactic is to turn one section of the population against the other, and what better way than to tell one crowd that the other lot are costing them money, and this is proven by research. It also provides the politicians with the motivation to interfere in the marketplace and make a bollox of it.

Fiona's figures are bolstered by adding fantasy figures of work down-time, absenteeism and accidents, and she also adds that "each fatal car collision is estimated to cost the state €3 million". How in God's name did she arrive at that figure? But on a roll with this one, she goes on to claim that, "In 2007, alcohol-related road collisions cost an estimated €526 million". That amounts to financial carnage on our roads. You're talking horeshit, Fiona.

I have heard commentators claim that smoking related illness costs the HSE €200 million a year and I have heard them say it costs €2 billion, (and many things in-between). Everybody seems to attribute their numbers to the HSE. This is the same HSE that can cost a scanning machine at €1.5m but forget to factor in the cost of somebody to operate it (there's one lying idle in Cork for three years for just this reason). So, you would have to say that any figures coming from that quarter are almost bound to be way off.

But, the big problem comes when the fools in Leinster House legislate price increases and minimum pricing based on these falsehoods. Like the smoking restrictions then, the war on alcohol has been started, based on a bunch of lies, told by people who want us to look up to them and respect them. Another great smuggling opportunity is born.

Telling corkers

This mornings screaming headline in the Irish Independent reads, "Two big glasses of wine a day triples cancer risk".

That's right folks, if you are the sort of person who thinks it's bad luck to put the cork back in the bottle, you are going to die in horrible agony, probably tomorrow afternoon.

Of course, as has become the norm, the headline bears little relation to the accompanying article. The article is all about a survey of more than 2,000 drinkers in Britain. Note, a survey of these people, not a clinical examination of them. So, it was a questionnaire not a medical. That is important because the screaming headline is never explained.

Nowhere do we get an explanation as to how two glasses of wine triples your chances of getting cancer. Instead, we learn all the things that these 2,000 people didn't know. I could confidently put out a piece of propaganda like this on smoking. Under a headline, "Smoking found to be essential to healthy living", I could claim that "83% did not realise that smoking boosts your immune system", or "92% did not realise that nicotine reduces the risk of cancer by 99%". The statements themselves are probably totally incorrect, but it is a fact that respondents wouldn't know that if they were presented with it as being the absolute truth.

So, we read instead, "The survey of more than 2,000 drinkers in Britain found that 85% did not realise that drinking more than the recommended limits increased the risk of developing breast cancer" Nowhere is this verified or referenced. It goes on to say, "About 65% were unaware it increased the risk of bowel cancer, 63% did not know about a raised risk of pancreatitis and 59% did not realise excess drinking increased the risk of mouth, throat and neck cancer".

Doubtless this piece of junk science will become part of the bedrock to penalize and de-normalise drinkers very soon and the fatties are waiting in the wings for a good hiding from the healthiest too. Prepare for the so-called 'experts' on radio & TV soon saying that, "Research has shown that a single glass of wine can give you cancer in ten minutes", and it will be an exaggeration of the garbage above.

Common sense on work breaks?

Last week I was contacted by a researcher from Classic 4FM, inviting me to talk to David Harvey on his show.

Apparently a company CEO in Austria was so incensed at his employees taking smoking breaks that he wants them to make up the time to the company by working longer hours than their non-smoking co-workers. You can read the whole sorry tale here.

Taking the opportunity to stick his oar in also was Dr Brian Maurer of ASH Ireland. Doctor Brian is an unusual specimen, coming as he does from that particular organ. Believe it or not, he does have a humane side and agreed with me on radio one morning that banning smoking outright in cars would be a step too far.

I made my usual points about this being the thin edge of the wedge and wondered whether workers who sit back at their desks and stare at the ceiling from time to time might also be asked to stay back for time wasted. A year ago, though, I was on another station and a caller rang in with his story. He was foreman in a large warehouse and complained that four or five of his lads regularly downed tools and stood at the door having a smoke. He made it sound like an hourly event and pointed out that the others had to work doubly hard to make up for them.

That is probably unfair and I made this point too. Smokers need to be responsible, even though it is not their fault that they are no longer permitted to smoke indoors. So, I took a mature measured approach, saying that neither legislation nor company rules needed to be invoked to sort out this minor problem. Like any issue in the workplace that a management figure has with an individual employee, a simple heart to heart aimed a reasonable compromise is all that is needed.

As an unfortunate fallout from this reasonable approach, we had the unedifying spectacle of your freedom fighter from Forest Eireann and the top man from ASH being in total agreement on the national airwaves. David, the presenter, sensing there would be no kicking or gouging to entertain his listeners, quickly put a stop to the topic and moved on.

But what do you think?

What a waste of money!

An item in the "Journal" caught my eye a few days ago. It appears the Retailers Against Smuggling were to brief the Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform tomorrow, on the reality of tobacco smuggling.

The end user, the smoker, is not invited of course. Were I allowed to make a representation on your behalf, I might explain that the causes of the success of the smugglers are economic. "Just say for example, you were told that if you retired tomorrow, your pension would be worth €20,000 a year more than if you waited until retirement age", I would ask them, "What would you do?" I think they would understand that analogy. Then I would continue, "Just say you are about to go into a shop to buy a commodity costing €9.15 and a fella outside shows you the exact same thing and says you can have it for €3.20. What would you do?"

"Why would the smoker go into the shop and waste two thirds of his money?" I would ask them. Even an idiot would understand the high price in the shop is at the root of the problem. Well, not an idiot who works for one of our favorite charities of course, but everybody else can see the ‘causal link’, if you'll excuse the expression.

But, speaking of waste, the Journal article informs us that "Last year, officials seized 109.1 million illegal cigarettes with a retail value of €45.9 million, and 11.157kg of tobacco worth €4 million". So what did our public representatives decide to do with €50 million of a legal commodity then? Well, "Michael Noonan said he had been informed that ‘all cigarettes and tobacco seized by Revenue are securely destroyed under Revenue control.’”

Can you believe that in these straightened times? The retailers group has 3,000 members, and their gripe in the main is that they are losing money. If the swag was divided evenly and split between them all, they would each get €16,500 worth of legal resaleable products. Or, the lot could be returned to the tobacco companies, their rightful owners. Or, a quit line could be set-up that actually works. A copy of Allen Carr's book could be given free to those trying to quit, accompanied by 200 free cigarettes for the reader while they wade through the book. Now that would be an inducement.

But no. Official wisdom dictates that €50m worth of a legally re-saleable product must be destroyed, with no care given to the cost of nabbing them in the first place, or the value of the goods themselves. And these are the very people who might pompously declare that "Smokers are in denial".

An article for free thinkers

Aside from Davis McWilliams, there is rarely a brilliant article in the Sunday Independent, Ireland's largest selling newspaper.

However, this week (Jan 29th, 2012), there is a cracker from journalist Christopher Jackson entitled, "The futility of running a war against vices".

Comments such as "The argument of this Government, and the one that preceded it, seems to be predicated on the wholly fatuous assumption that the general public are saddled by such crippling naivety that they can barely comprehend the severe ramifications of drinking to excess. The same assumption seems to hold true when it comes to discussion of all other forms of vice: drugs, tobacco, sex, etc" are dotted throughout the piece. Free thinking smokers will love this one. If you (ahem), enjoy the drink as well, it will give you pause for thought!

The anti-fun alliance

Following on from John’s blog on Tuesday, it’s getting ever clearer that there’s a burgeoning conspiracy to clamp down on any activity that might conceivably be medically risky.

First it’s smoking, and now drinking. Also, the pressure is on eating: lobbyists are forever floating ideas for calorie taxes, enforced food labelling, government warnings and so on. And the same people seem to crop up time and again with the same ideas for ruining our pleasures. They have formed a semi-overt anti-fun alliance.

Who knows what’s to come after that? The range of voluntary activities that are potentially hazardous is almost unlimited. Living in a city (air pollution). Gambling. Going on holiday. Sport, driving, running, walking. Life itself is full of hazard, and you end up logically with only one conclusion – we shouldn’t live at all (which of course introduces a neat circular argument).

The point is that no consideration is ever given to the upsides of risky activity. Getting completely hammered, for example, can be enormous fun. Not just chemically speaking. Drunken parties where everyone’s smoking are often the basis of lasting friendships, forming those crucial shared experiences which provide the source of such mirth and gossip early on in a relationship. If you go around as a po-faced youth refusing to drink more that 3 units or whatever and staying indoors when everyone else is out the back having a fag, then you would be miserable. If everyone did it, society would disintegrate.

Of course, it is possible to have fun without taking intoxicants. Watching a film is okay, as is playing chess or reading a good book. You can have a good chat over a cup of coffee (sorry, redbush tea) in the lunch hour. So I suppose it is possible to envisage a society where everyone enjoys themselves simply by playing backgammon (sorry, that’s gambling, err, Monopoly). But to get there requires such social engineering that the whole point of the relatively free society we’ve created is ruined.

For booze, read fags

What is striking about health minister Roisin Shortall's crusade against alcohol is the similarity between the tactics there and those employed to combat smoking.

I have alluded before to the identical statements from Alcohol Action Ireland and those coming from ASH, differing only in the target commodity selected.

As with ASH, our Roisin is trying to convince anybody who will listen that drinking (alcohol) is now a serious problem in Ireland and the Government has a duty to intervene. And again, her recommendation is for Government to raise prices through further taxation. This has not worked for tobacco and it will not work for alcohol either. Indeed, I predict that should alcohol price increases be as high as those imposed on tobacco products, a whole new branch of smuggling will be created by our junior minister, though she will vehemently deny any responsibility when it happens.

But what truly amazes me is why the real question is not asked. Why do some people simply drink to get drunk? These are, by definition, the very people Roisin wishes to "help", by making alcohol prohibitively expensive for them, and the rest of us must suffer because of it. Surely if you explore the problem not the symptoms, you have a better chance of devising an action that could ease it. I would suggest that drinking to excess is the manifestation of personal issues, and is not the problem in itself. In the case of young people, it might be due to peer pressure, lack of education, low self esteem, escapism, depression or the desire for a feeling of euphoria. Whatever the motivation, that is where the problem lies and not inside a bottle.

A cynic might suggest that for a politician, it is more important to be seen to be doing something rather than actually making a difference. Many of the anti-smoking crusaders are cast from the same mould. They will agitate for measures to be taken against smokers that will marginalise that substantial minority even further but will make no difference to the amounts smoked. The attendant harm and criminal activity that their very actions create are left to others to clean up, while they deny any responsibility for it.

So, Roisin, it just may be that complicated social issues are at the heart of excessive drinking and fiddling with the price of booze does not address these issues. Indeed, you run the risk that your actions might make things worse.

Smoke Screens is a must read

I am reading Richard White's excellent book, Smoke Screens: The Truth About Tobacco, at the same time that the Irish Cancer Society is running their latest campaign around lung cancer.

As I put the book down just now to put the kettle on, an ICS ad came on the radio. Coincidence again that I had just read the author's account of lung cancer in the great tobacco debate. Basically, the ad tells us to ring them first, to find out if we have lung cancer. The symptom they are playing up is a cough. If you have a cough then, they will send you for tests. Leave aside that we all get an odd cough at this time of the year, but having just read about the bias the medical profession have against smokers, if they know you are a smoker, they will be pre-disposed to discover a lung cancer in their tests.

This is bad enough on its own, but the other problem is that if you don't smoke, they will be less inclined to check the test findings closely or to believe that you could possibly have lung cancer. Richard White illustrates this all very convincingly in the book, and it is worth a read for that chapter alone.

But, back to the ad. It is full of promises of miracle cures for lung cancer and ends with the legend, "if you don't have lung cancer, we can show you how to avoid it". Now, I'm not normally one to make wild assumptions, but my guess is that their magic recipe boils down to smoking. I am ninety nine per cent sure that you would be left in no doubt by them that if you don't smoke, you won't ever get lung cancer. If I'm right, it is just bald headedly wrong of them to mis-lead people like this.

But, right or wrong, Smoke Screens is a must read, if like me, you still pinch yourself and wonder where all this anti-smoker nonsense came from, why and how they justify it all.