Nothing to celebrate as campaigners call for more measures to tackle smoking
Monday, March 24, 2014 at 14:05 Predictably, campaigners are using the tenth anniversary of the smoking ban in Ireland to repeat tired old propaganda and demand further action against smoking.
This morning at the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland they were lining up to celebrate legislation that has done enormous damage to pubs and bars throughout Ireland.
Michael Martin, the health minister who introduced the ban, was there to bask in the applause.
Current health minister James Reilly, who wants to secure his place in history by introducing plain packaging, was also present.
Luke Clancy, former chairman of ASH Ireland, was there along with Professor John Crown who has supplanted him as Ireland's leading anti-tobacco campaigner.
Meanwhile the publicans who went bust and lost their livelihoods as a result of the ban were conspicuous by their absence.
Smokers would have been absent too had it not been for Forest Eireann's John Mallon standing outside the RCPI talking to RTE News. (They had to interview him outside because the RCPI wouldn't let him in the building.)
To give you an idea of the propaganda that's been doing the rounds these past 48 hours, consider the claims reported – without fear of contradiction – in this BBC report:
Ten years of workplace smoking ban in Republic of Ireland (BBC News)
Or try this report:
Smoking ban saves 4,000 lives since 2004, says Martin (Irish Times)
Anyway, not content with pumping out these contentious and frankly unbelievable claims, tobacco control campaigners have spent the day calling for more measures to tackle smoking.
The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, for example, wants the Irish Government to get a move on and ban smoking in cars carrying children.
They also want a smoking ban across all publicly funded institutions (ie outside all public buildings).
I wouldn't have expected anything less, of course. After all, this is what tobacco control does.
See: Reilly aiming for smoke-free society by 2025 (RTE News)
Update: TheJournal.ie which makes no effort to disguise its anti-smoking bias ran this article today:
Heart attacks fell by more than 10 per cent after the workplace smoking ban
It is also inviting you to vote on this poll:
Has the smoking ban changed your attitude to smoking?
You know what you have to do!
Reader Comments (4)
So how is Reilly going to square the fact that smoking rates in Australia have increased since the introduction of plain packaging?
It's going to be a little difficult to claim that PP is a 'good idea' and 'will save thousands of lives' when the Australian experiment is obviously failing.
Did the smoking ban change your attitude to smoking?
I'm not going to respond to that poll because my answer is a very definite 'yes'. The smoking ban caused me to actually research the evidence and I discovered a morass of scientific abuse, prejudice and eugenic ideology. My position now is that I will never, ever give up smoking and I want the anti-smoker's prosecuted for the enormous damage they have caused. Such as economic harm, social harm, cultural harm, scientific harm, medical harm, media harm and political harm.
They are liars. This type of hate campaign would be illegal if aimed at any other group.
Lying bastards the lot of them, its very dispairing trying to live life nowadays while watching our freedoms disappearing in front of us, its like living at the start of nazism.