As a reaction to the round of protests against the European antitobacco policy antismoking gangsters want to accelerate the pace. The call now is for draconian smoking bans in the whole of Europe by 2008.
“The European Parliament’s Committee on Health and the Environment has asked the Commission to propose, by 2008, an unrestricted smoking ban in all enclosed workplaces, including catering establishments, public buildings and transport in the EU.”
The crooks bring forward the usual load of false information on the effects of active and passive smoking on health as justification for their call. A pan-European smoking ban would bypass local governments and democracy to serve the interests of the pharmaceutical multinationals. To Big Pharma, a Healthist dictatorship is a dream come true, one great sales gimmick for palming off worthless smoking cessation drugs.
The idea here is to establish comprehensive bans before popular reaction can establish itself as an effective political force. The Health Committee’s report is characteristically dogmatic, claiming a “right” to work in a smoke-free environment and ignoring, as a matter of course, the right of smokers to work in a smoking environment. Diverse workplaces and easy accommodations were the norms in normal times.
The Committee further urges the European Commission to produce "a report on the cost incurred to national health systems and the EU economy as a result of smoking and the effects of tobacco smoke." They really needn’t bother. We can well guess what the bogus results would be. Such a report can only be false because "deaths" and "diseases" "caused" by tobacco are incommensurable: it is scientifically impossible to demonstrate that even one death is caused by active or passive smoking.
The proposed European Union bans, in common with those which have preceded them, would be based entirely on unsound premises, among these the assumption that smoking bans reduce cigarette consumption. In Europe, in America, in far-flung areas of the globe: the Irish, New Yorkers, the Bhutanese: all those most afflicted with prohibitions still smoke in similar or often greater numbers than they did before. At the same time they become experts on finding discount sources for cigarettes. Smokers are dignified persons, they have their place, and they are not going away. The more Anti hectors us the better every cigarette tastes.
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