Primary school children recruited to fight war on smoking
Wednesday, May 16, 2018 at 20:17 I recorded a short interview for ITV Calendar News this afternoon.
It was in response to this story – 'Barnsley schoolchildren urge parents not to smoke':
A 'peaceful playground protest' by primary school children, none of whom would be older than eleven. What the hell's going on?
The first word that came to mind was 'exploitation'. How dare the council use children in this way.
One, I doubt very much that many of the children would have given a moment's thought to parents smoking 'around the school grounds' until they found themselves taking part in a staged 'playground protest'.
Two, can you imagine the pressure this puts on the young children of parents who do smoke? Effectively they are being press-ganged into fighting the council's war on smoking.
Three, I'm pretty sure most headteachers have many more things to concern them than a handful of parents smoking outside the school gates.
If the words 'Barnsley Council' sound familiar it's because I wrote about the council only a couple of weeks ago. (See 'Trouble at market' and 'Hypocrites!'.
It's clear that councillors are determined to create a 'smoke free' borough, whatever that means, and they'll do whatever it takes to achieve it, even if it means putting market traders out of business or exploiting children in local primary schools.
What a truly disgusting thing to do.
Update: Just seen this on Twitter. Note the way the woman with the megaphone is coaching the children to chant "Keep our schools smoke free".
Kids in #Barnsley are taking a stand against parents smoking in their school grounds. @LaithesAcademy are launching a smoke free campaign pic.twitter.com/b2MvYpMmAp
— Hallam FM News (@hallamfmnews) May 16, 2018
Reader Comments (4)
Shameless grooming and exploitation of children. Disgusting.
This is absolutely a case of shameful exploitation of children. Sadly, this type of abuse and violation of trust is common in the antismoker movement. In the US antismokers increasingly use children in Boys and Girls Clubs and the Girl Scouts for example to champion smoking bans.
Of course the children are guided (groomed might be moire accurate) into their intervention and have no understanding of the actual social consequences of furthering societal division and the resulting persecution of smokers. They [the children] get a certificate, perhaps a pizza party, and their picture on the news,they also get taught that hating smokers is a positive value and consequentially the derision of smokers is potentially engrained in their memory.
The historical parallels to the exploitation of children by the Nazi's Hitlerjugend (Hilter Youth) and the Communist's Young Pioneers is chilling. Of course the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids is a classic (and corrupt) example of tobacco control exposition children to further the persecution of smokers. This type of activity exploits children and is tantamount to child abuse.
On its face, this activity glorifies bullying and has the potential of inflicting psychological abuse on the children (the intentional infliction of emotional distress) which likely violates Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Those orchestrating these shameful demonstrations are violating the children's trust and their abuse should be sanctioned.
Thank you for exposing this hateful exploitation of children and its totalitarian abuse and societal harm.
Sounds like Barnsley Council has a little posse of antis who've wormed their way onto the Council and done the usual of subverting its real purpose (i.e. running the borough) to use it as a tool to push their own favourite hobby-horse. To my mind, it is something of an abuse for any councillors to use the power vested in them in order to push their own personal preferences on everyone else. I guess they're only copying politicians in this respect, but that's no excuse. Perhaps if the "leading lights" in this respect could be named and shamed, they'd get voted out at the next election. Because I bet there aren't many of them - just a small handful of zealots, and all the others just going along with it without thinking what's really going on, because it sounds like a "touchy-feely" thing to do. Oooh - look at how much we all care about the ickle cheeeldren ...
I have to agree that this is grooming/exploiting/indoctrinating children at its most disgusting, and, given the historic precedent (as has already been pointed out), frightening! "The authority wants to ensure the next generation of children are born and raised in a borough free from tobacco and where smoking is [smokERS are] INVISIBLE".
Have they considered how this could aversely affect the future mental health of their children? What happens if they find out that by harassing their parents to quit, they could have been responsible for their deaths? Recent research suggests that quitting increases the risk of developing lung cancer by over FIVE times, compared to when the were active smokers!
Lung cancer ratios, California (Chung et al 2010); Active smokers 11.3%: Never smokers 23%: Quitters 65.7%, a mean 18 years after quitting.
I hadn't realised how badly Barnsley has been suffering with such an aggressive form of anti-smoker cancer. This is only the latest symptom of an alcohol/tobacco prohibition agenda that ignores adverse consequences. The disease here, is becoming more virulent
https://www.barnsleychronicle.com/article/smoking-ban-will-be-rolled-out-to-glass-works
Jan 2018; "A BAN on selling smoking products which has been slapped on market traders will be rolled out across the whole of the £130m Glass Works development... the council is committed to achieving a smoke free generation by 2025 and this includes reducing visible evidence of smoking... making smokING INVISIBLE to children" (They don't want children to see smoking - or - SMOKERS).
They also want to paint over evidence of the fallout caused by smoke bans, claiming that "Many pubs have become victims of social change" NO! these are victims of an insidious anti-smoker cancer and ENFORCED 'social change'!
https://www.barnsleychronicle.com/article/time-could-be-called-on-empty-pubs
May 2018; "ACTION could be taken against the owners of empty pubs in Barnsley to force them to put the buildings back into use - potentially to provide additional housing. Redundant pub buildings have sometimes stood for years in the town, causing what Barnsley Council describe as ‘blight and disamenity’ for the surrounding area."
I can't work out whether these people are evil or just gullible!