A member of the House of Lords has written to us, pointing out an anomaly in the British Government’s testing rules for people travelling to the U.K. which he uncovered via a Parliamentary Question to a Home Office minister.
You may be interested in the written Parliamentary Question below. During Covid I have been travelling regularly to Brussels for business meetings. Despite being double vaccinated, every time I return to the U.K., even if I have only been abroad for two days, I must take a PCR test before returning as I am told that the lateral flow test is unsatisfactory.
Yet here is HMG giving illegal migrants who almost certainly are unvaccinated no PCR tests at all. Also, HMG is quoting as its source for advice Public Health England – the same people quoted by HMG as advising business people and holidaymakers that lateral flow tests are not a satisfactory safeguard.
Next week when the House returns I will put down some follow-up questions.
Best wishes,
Richard Balfe
Baroness Williams of Trafford, the Home Office, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL2330):
Question: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what percentage of COVID-19 PCR tests on illegal immigrants to the U.K. have returned a positive result; and of these positive samples, what percentage have now been genomically sequenced. (HL2330)
Tabled on: August 18th, 2021
This question was grouped with the following question(s) for answer:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether immigrants entering the U.K. from France illegally are required to have a COVID-19 PCR test upon detection by police or immigration officers. (HL2329)
Answer: Baroness Williams of Trafford: The Home Office is following guidance published by Public Health England, Health Protection Scotland and the NHS with regards to Covid testing for migrant arrivals.
All migrants are tested on arrival with a lateral flow test, any refusing are treated as if infectious and isolated. Lateral flow testing is a fast and simple way to test people who do not have symptoms of COVID-19, but who may still be spreading the virus. Arrivals who present as symptomatic or who provide a positive lateral flow test are allocated to an approved quarantine site.
Due to the small possibility of false positives associated with lateral flow tests, any individual who receives a positive result at a residential short-term holding facility in England or an Immigration Removal Centre, will be offered a PRC test to confirm the result. Any detained individual with symptoms of COVID-19, or testing positive for COVID-19 will be placed in protective isolation for at least 10 days and Public Health England informed.
We do not hold information regarding the percentage which have been genomically sequenced as this is the responsibility of Public Health England.
Date and time of answer: September 2nd, 2021, at 15:55.
If any readers have suggestions for follow-up questions, please email us here and we will pass them on.
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I’d have thought that, given the relative numbers involved, the obese are much more of a public burden than are smokers.
(Declaration in the interests of transparency: I did smoke for a few years, several decades ago. In addition, I have often been somewhat overweight, but never obese.)
That’s covered in the article chap: perhaps you might consider reading it in full.
It didn’t make the point that the number of obese has risen greatly, while smokers have declined in number.
More obese just means that they save us more in total. Of course the “overweight” are healthier and live longer than the “ healthy”, so maybe that’s who we should tax more?
Not worth reading at all IMHO.
I’ve been reading and heard all the arguments pro and con for fifty years and know them inside out, better than their proponents.
My Health, my wealth, their health, balance of payments, slavery, racism 3rd world employment, life insurance, “Third Party Fire and Theft.” My employment, bans on The Tube*, On The Buse, ‘private’ taxis, any interior space that requires a paid cleaner, including bus stop shelters backed by tatty 15 year old stickers
“Smoking is illegal in these premises”
{itself illiterate}
as though we didn’t know. Might as well pay the advertising poster companies and their Marketing hangers on to prattle about
The Ten Commandments
*First they confined smokers to the front carriage of tube trains only so that in the event of a crash we were ones who got brutally maimed or killed.
They hoped to use infringements of the Smoking Ban to recruit a small army of paid informants (as though anticipating the need for such a body to inform on Lockdown breakers) but such was the level of public compliance they couldn’t.
I remain an enthusiastic smoker since age 14 (now approaching pension). 20 a day minimum, sometimes approaching 60 in times of crisis. Adopted on the way to Teen Swim Club (oh the irony).
Never been remotely obese, more generally skinny; their part time residential Stop Smoking efforts fail for the same reasons as their laughable Fat Clubs, relying as they do on guilt rather than enthusiasm.
As a youngling pressured onto a couple of government backed Smoking Reduction* programmes, more to spite the taxman than for any other reason. They don’t work because they are generally fronted by 2nd or 3rd rate people (hardly a career enhancer is it?) who’ve never smoked but just want a (then) weekly State or Soviet cheque in the bank.
* Not Smoking “Cessation” because The State needs our money. Can’t remember the details but it’s several £Billion more than our cost to the NHS.
Same goes for the Private Sector whose pills and patches and potions don’t work because they are profit motivated rather than customer/patient health.
The only interior space in which I can now legally smoke is my own living room; I chose not to smoke eleswhere in my own private apartment.
Thanks for the unexpected opportunity to rant.
Nice rant- my wife would agree wholeheartedly! As a non-smoker smoking and the banning of it has been an interesting debate I have had many times over the years. I used to work in bars and can say that modern air con systems in most pubs kept the atmosphere pretty decent, (apart from the horrid viruses that we were all breathing in of course!), and never accepted the argument for banning smoking in pubs. I maintained that if there was a genuine want or need for non smoking pubs they would exist already and that there was nothing stopping anyone opening such an establishment, also pointing out that no one is forced to enter a pub if they feel that there are too many smokers inside but of course this is 21st century Britain and we demand that others conform to our our ideals and remove all risk for us- heaven forfend we tolerate someone else’s right to choose. My wife has always smoked and the pressure on me to ‘make’ her stop is constant. I point out that she smoked when we met and I accepted this and have no right to make any such demand. Absolutely no one agrees with this- I should make her stop, I’m responsible for her, (assumed), early death if I don’t, what about the children, etc. The fact that she is a grown woman who understands the risk seems to be lost on them. The best reaction is usually when I’m asked why I’m happy with her smoking; I say that I’m not particularly happy about it but that I respect her enough to accept it and I love her as she is- it is not conditional on her lifestyle. The idea that I can accept her doing something that I don’t and having different thoughts on it seems to cause their brains to overheat!
Hmmm…a downvote for saying I don’t force my views on others.
Don’t worry; it’s just the hobbyist downvoter.
The pub smoking ban was never about health (cf lockdown) but rather control freakery.
Being overweight extends lifespan. Being slightly obese is still better than being “normal”. It’s the morbidly obese who should worry and, above all, the underweight.
That is, if you put weight (!) on observational data. Which in this case are all we will ever have.
I was surprised to learn – from Dr Malcolm Kendrick – that those in the “underweight” category had the lowest life expectancy: not what we’re meant to believe.
There can be conflating factors. Weight may not drive health. Health might drive weight. Cancer patients can slim without being healthy, for example.
The japanese are generally a slender people and they beat the US in life expectency. https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Japan/United-States/Health/Life-expectancy Of course there are other factors.
Do you have a link to Dr Kendrick’s statements?
“Do you have a link to Dr Kendrick’s statements?”
As I didn’t get them by googling, no.
I’m old fashioned: I read books – in this case, “Doctoring Data” – and have a memory
Go see his website…..?
You can base weight on any (adult) age and get the same results; they don’t depend on using the weight of sick people. Also you might want to check your dictionary and look up the meaning of conflate.
Why are we “meant to believe”…anything, especially from the smoking lobby?
I suppose that would depend on what he defined as underweight. Since I shed some body fat, the charts tell me that I’m on the ‘lean’ side, rather than ‘ideal’ for my age. Since I’m faster at my sports, I’m prepared to take my chances.
The overweight also have both a higher probability of surviving surgery and of surviving an encounter with the health service.
It’s almost as if animals which lay down sufficient fat reserves to carry them through lean times survive longer overall but Nah! – couldn’t possibly be true.
I gave up smoking two decades ago, but with the present state of the world, I sometimes feel inclined to resume it. Unfortunately, the days of whipping over to Zeebrugge for a few dozen 50g pouches of Drum at about £1 each are long gone, and the cost is now outrageous.
Oddly enough, when I was smoking pipes and roll-ups for years, I rarely had a cold, and my weight was the same as when I was 18. Since stopping it, I’ve had coughs and colds, and the less said about weight gain (without any dietary changes) the better.
Smoking now attracts so much opprobrium, and, judging by the poor so and so’s huddled in cold shelters or other smoking ghettos, is impossible to enjoy much except on or in one’s own property, that I doubt it’s much of a pleasure any more.
My brother now in his late 60s has smoked heavily all his life and yet I have never known him to be ill.
Matches up with smokers being at lower risk of catching the dreaded Coof:
“Fancy that.
A new study (‘Association between smoking, e-cigarette use and severe Covid-19‘) published by Oxford University’s Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences has concluded that ‘Current smoking was associated with a reduced risk of severe Covid-19 but the association with e-cigarette use was unclear’
http://taking-liberties.squarespace.com/blog/2022/2/28/huge-study-finds-current-smoking-associated-with-reduced-ris.html
Researchers found that ‘Compared with never smokers, people currently smoking were at lower risk of Covid-19 hospitalization’. Former smokers however were at ‘higher risk of severe Covid-19’.”
My aunt smoked from age 18 until age 84 when she gave up for reasons unknown to me. She died aged 97 from old age. Maybe not a role model but interesting nonetheless.
“Smoking is not as lethal as you think and also smoking is good for health services because it’s lethal.”
I can’t help but feel this is an addict speaking.
Look, I agree with the premise that risk should be a personal choice. But I’d argue it on that position, not on some sleight-of-bean-counting which is unlikely to be persuasive to either of the people who read it in full.
I can’t help but feel this is an addict speaking.
That’s the precise reason why this addiction thing was made up: To disparage reasoned statements with somewhat clever personal attacks: See, you can’t trust those people, they’re addicted, ie, secretly controlled by uncontrollabe base desires. I’ve been smoking since I was 16 (I’m 49 now) and I can assure that nicotine additiction is entirely made-up as there are no withdrawal symptoms. None. Of course, assuming you’re in a situation where smoking isn’t possible for a long time, say, a long distance flight (or an hour long sequence of short-distance flights with no opportunity to get outside of an airport in between) you can drive yourself up the wall by constantly thinking about cigarettes. But you can as well not and do something else instead (I usually prefer reading).
This contrasts with certain a lot more common recreational drugs (sort-of), namely, coffee: Someone who’s drinking a lot of coffee will very dearly regret finding himself without access to it for more than a few hours, due to developing a very nasty kind of headache (I used to have this problem but have meanwhile reduced my coffee consumption to levels where this doesn’t occur anymore — something so-called addicts are supposed to be incapable of). And also, with massively more popular recreational drugs, namely hashish/ marihuana. There, withdrawal can last for some weeks and is usually bad enough that there’s a strong reflex to end this sorry state as quickly as possible (unless one conscioulsy undertakes this while getting rid of the – after some time pretty boring – habit).
Right, so you’re not addicted to your filthy cigarettes, oh no, that would be a terrible thing to say, but all those people, doing everything else, that you don’t do, they are addicts. Got it.
You got nothing, person-being. I was writing of personal experiences with all three. And you don’t have to trust my word. You can try it yourself.
Haha, right so the things you gave up, their shockingly addictive, but the habit you couldn’t quit, filthy cigarettes, that’s not addictive. A little cognitive dissonance there, but carry on.
You keep changing (or trying to change) the topic from what I was writing about to obnoxiously worded guesses about me. That’s typical for people without arguments who want to bury a discussion under a lot of noise.
You’re last pseudo-argument is also circular. You assume that nicotine addiction must exist. Consequently, it must have caused me to fail when I tried to give up smoking. And hence, what you presumed to be true must exist.
Even the hardcore Covidians can to better than that.
HAND.
I tried to give up drinking brake fluid, but I just couldn’t stop.
RW, who cares about Doop. This comments section shows where right leaning people with the same personalities as the left wing “woke” ended up.
Perhaps you don’t realise? By adding the word ‘filthy’, every single time you write the word cigarettes, makes you sound like a bit of a nutter.
I gave up 12 years ago, so no longer have a dog in the fight.
Just saying.
Filthy cigarettes? That’s a bit OTT isn’t it? I can’t understand why anyone would drink whisky or similar as I think it smells awful, but I don’t think I’d call it a filthy habit just because I didn’t like it.
“No withdrawal symptoms”…..there is your evidence of addiction straight away; try giving up then report back. As with other drugs that are not addictive or so we are told ( surely not by the Pharmaceutical industry..?) eg SSRI’s – just wait until you have to stop using them, which is when the fear, anxiety and dread kicks in – or addiction/withdrawal response.
I know SSRIs are mind altering; but did not realise nicotine is too. Thank God I saw the light.
Nicotine causes mental addiction, not physical, as far as I know, which is what that constant fixation on cigarettes is. Even so, this is a cigarette problem. Cigar and pipe smokers don’t get nearly as much nicotine, so they do not get addicted at all.
But, saying that, my mom did quit abruptly. One day she said that the pack she was smoking will be the last pack she ever smokes. Everyone laughed at her, but she hasn’t had a cigarette since.
That was my experience, after numerous failed attempts, some 40 years ago. However I was particularly sensitised to smoke, to the extent that I avoided pubs until the indoor smoking ban was brought in and spent visits to my parents in another room when my Dad lit up a cigar.
To the best of our current knowledge, there’s nothing mental in the body which isn’t physical in nature, we just don’t (yet) understand how it works. Hence, mental addiction is a misnomer. That’s also not what’s commonly claimed and what many people believe. And this constant fixation is also non-existant or rather, it’s nothing but an acquired habit.
The story of your mom matches those of numerous other people I know or knew who also quit smoking overnight because they just didn’t want to smoke any longer.
“Mental addiction” is not a misnomer. It refers to addictions which cause mental side effects during withdrawal. Drugs which cause physical addiction will manifest with physical symptoms. Drugs which cause mental addiction will only present as a psychological need. The former produces actual, real pain, while the latter produces need and desire. In the case of nicotine, the mind craves the same calming feeling it gets from nicotine. As far as I know, there are no physical side effect of nicotine withdrawal. You don’t get a nicotine hangover like you do with alcohol.
It is a misnomer for the reason I gave: The duality body/ soul is a religious concept, not a biological one. Hence, so-called mental effects are necessarily physical. As to no physical side effects, ie none which are wrongly classified as non-physical, just try googling that. A plethora of these are supposed to exist. Except that they don’t.
So your whole argument is that psychologists don’t exist? I can only wonder what you put in your pipe…
You need to ask the people in a quitter’s life about withdrawal symptoms! Often there is a foul mood that they don’t remember.
Having a foul mood is a mental symptom, hence mental addiction. Have you read my comment?
An addict speaks.
Please tell me that was satire.
If you crave, you’re addicted. The proof you offer of non-addictiveness shows only that you have the willpower to keep your subconscious in order during long flights. Possibly you are asleep during much of each flight anyway, and in any case presumably you are doing something you know you must do given that no alternative method of travel would be suitable. You also know that someone in uniform would lay down the law to you were you to light up. Dopamine levels would be an objective method of determining the presence or absence of addiction.
How do you know that “you can drive yourself up the wall by constantly thinking about cigarettes”? Since most smokers do say they are addicted and you seem not to trust other people’s views that much, this sounds as though it is from personal experience and that you read a lot on flights precisely in order to keep your craving under control.
The term “withdrawal symptoms” can cause confusion. Addiction is primarily psychological. We’re talking about dopamine spikes and the psychological association of certain activities with them. This is why good advice on ending a bad habit often includes creating a new good habit. Physical withdrawal symptoms from say heroin are unpleasant but they are not the big problem in kicking the addiction.
“If you crave, you’re addicted.”
I often crave pickled herrings – no one ever warned me that they were addictive, but now I’m hooked on this oily, omega3 rich fish. And it doesn’t stop there, the herrings are merely a gateway to Aalborg Akavit, a drink my Danish pipe-smoking wife introduced me to. I’m Beowulf and I’m a sildoholic.
The proof you offer of non-addictiveness shows only that you have the willpower to keep your subconscious in order during long flights. Possibly you are asleep during much of each flight anyway,
Unfortunately, I can’t sleep on planes because I’m seriously uncomfortable with that many strange people so close to me for prolonged periods of time and I’m also incapable of sitting motionlessly in a business class seat for prolonged periods of time, hence, this guess at something I might have been lying about is wrong.
How do you know that “you can drive yourself up the wall by constantly thinking about cigarettes”?
Because I know people who do that. Or claim to do that, at least. And it seems plausible. People are generally really good at driving themselves crazy by concentrating on some annoyance they can’t get rid of, anyway, instead of simply not doing that.
If someone wants to smoke somewhere that non-smokers aren’t present fine.
I don’t want to be in the presence of smokers for many reasons:
If smokers try and force their habit on non-smokers, then a very real discussion needs to be had as to what levels of response non-smokers should be allowed to take.
A bucket of cold water straight over their heads would be annoying, but non-violent.
If that doesn’t work, then we start to discuss what violence has to be inflicted on smokers forcing non-smokers to tolerate their disgusting habit.
Just a little thought experiment.
How false is the equivalence?
A downvote confirms the point, with added salt.
You could substitute any number of human activities that affect others.
Driving a car? Speaking or making any kind of noise?
Where the hell does one draw the line? This is a question I have been pondering a lot on over the last couple of years for obvious reasons, seen as breathing in public has been deemed a potential public hazard – the pinnacle of intolerance, I would say.
And as we’ve seen, the intolerance stance leads to absolute misery. But what sturdy argument is there for people to accept and tolerate what someone else might deem antisocial behaviour?
The best I have been able to come up with is this:
Before asking someone who is doing something that bothers or offends your or even threatens you to change their behaviour, you need to ask oneself what you can do yourself to avoid it. If you can get away from it with little loss except your “right” to not be bothered, then I think in a tolerant society you just avoid the antisocial behaviour or you put up with it.
I would go further as to say that if the cost of putting up with the behaviour of others comes out of the public purse, then that is again no reason not to tolerate it. I don’t want to be getting into a debate about whether my antisocial behaviour is more acceptable than yours.
The only instance where I consider I have a right to demand that someone changes their behaviour is if it is imposing a private cost on me that I cannot easily avoid.
That seems to me to be the principles of the world I grew up in and which only recently seemed to have changed.
Yes, how about that one though? It seems relevant to he discussions that we’ve been having here, and isn’t an entirely unrelated situation.
I agree with you that it’s better to distance yourself where possible rather than try to impose you will. Both with muzzles, and with smoking.
If we take the position that it’s fine to use force to end what we perceive as a threat, then we can’t very well argue against it when the (imagined) noxious vapours are of a different sort.
According to the Dutch study cited ATL, jogging (or other healthy activity) causes a cost on the public purse and should therefore be regarded as antisocial behaviour…
Unless the jogger dies of a heart attack in the process of course – then it is fine.
Agree especially with your point on what you can do to avoid things that offend or threaten you.
I used to smoke roll ups. I always found it amusing to invite dinner guests who disliked cigarette smoking, or were judgemental about the habit, to step outside into my very nice little garden for a few minutes while the smokers stayed at the table and enjoyed an after dinner ciggy. After the initial surprise at the suggestion not one non smoker ever got up and left the table…
Now I’m an ex smoker I can’t bear guests feeling they have to leave the house and conversation to stand outside and smoke.
Your point on competitive anti social behaviour made me smile.
I would love to have been at that table…
I think you are right. The trick is to have enough self possession to not need to dictate to others in your environment. If only to go elsewhere. Short of avoiding violence and screaming abuse people don’t exist to conform to our needs.
I love the smell of pipe tobacco in the morning – it smells of The Shire.
Too bad McClelland is no longer around. They made the most Shire-like tobaccos. If there was ever anyone capable of making Old Toby or Longbottom Leaf, it was them.
My wife is a pipe-smoker (which for some reason some people seem to find amusing, but there you go, so much for our Age of Enlightenment) and being an avid reader of Tolkien, at one time managed to buy a McQueen’s ‘Gandalf’ style pipe. It was a devil to clean, being so long, but I don’t think she ever smoked McClelland tobacco, which is a shame.
You don’t often see a woman smoking a pipe! Which is too bad, really. A lot of people would benefit from pipe smoking. As someone said once: “Have you ever seen an angry pipe smoker?”
I recall Harold Wilson could be a bit tetchy at times, and would jab his pipe at people for emphasis.
I spent time in Scandinavia, mainly Norway, in the Sixties, and although not common, I met several lady pipe smokers. Just after the last War, my father had a live-in girlfriend, a cousin of a noble family, who wore trousers and smoked a pipe; in rural Suffolk.
I spent time in Sweden in the eighties and was truly disgusted by the habits of tobacco chewers. I recall a train journey one Sunday with a family all done up in their Sunday best standing on the platform of a rural station. One pretty young girl was chewing tobacco, and having contest with her brother, seeing who could hit one of the rails with tobacco laden spit. A charming rural sight.
My wife’s Danish, which I never thought to mention. Now I think about it, on a recent trip to Denmark she one of her sisters were feeling pleased with themselves because they had just bought two new pipes for 600 Kr. (a bargain) from a tobacconist. I thought her sister only smoked ciggies, but I was wrong.
I used to love the smell of tobacco. It was only when people start burning it that I find it unpleasant. I have lost my sense of smell now, but that is unaffected by smoke.
It is actually very nice. I have a small smoker’s cabinet which has been passed down over the years, (it was a gift to my Grandfather around the time of WW1 it seems), and although I have never smoked it has always fascinated me and to this day still smells of tobacco when opened.
The problem is that non-smokers have been forcing their habit on smokers. It used to be that all public places were available for smokers. People even smoked on airplanes. Then non-smokers complained and smokers, kind hearted and understanding as they are, conceded and accepted the idea of non-smoking areas. But as ever with these things, the non-smoking areas have gotten bigger and bigger, until now there’s almost no smoking spaces left. They’re even made up to be demeaning. I’ve seen smoking cubicles in the airport in Stockholm that look like fish tanks. It’s like you’re walking by, looking at the almost extinct species of Smokeris Familiaris.
But it goes even further than that. It’s not just an effort to remove smokers from society. The effort is about stopping the consumption of tobacco altogether. People won’t even be able to smoke in their homes soon, because tobacco will be banned. And if that’s not an abuse of power, I don’t know what is. Studies have consistently shown that nicotine has many beneficial properties. Consumed in moderation calms and focuses the mind. It is only in very high concentrations (as found in cigarettes) that it causes addiction. And the main problems with smoking doesn’t come from nicotine. It comes from tar and other such chemicals found in tobacco. This can be easily mitigated by simply not inhaling.
And one last thing: If you think tobacco smells bad, then you have obviously never been around a pipe smoker.
Have never smoked, but have always been against the banning of smoking in public areas. It thought the argument that it harmed other people and so should be stopped (as opposed to people being left to willingly stay away from smokers) would just be the thin end of the wedge and used again in the future.
Wasn’t wrong.
‘If that doesn’t work, then we start to discuss what violence has to be inflicted on smokers forcing non-smokers to tolerate their disgusting habit.’
Most disgusting comment I’ve ever read here. For shame.
I can’t stand the smell of cigarette smoke and having to breathe it in is something I consider unacceptable.
I can’t stand the smell of stale piss on trousers, of dried shit on people’s asses and of unwashed feet. In short: All the odours common among non smokers with poor personal hygenie. I don’t think they should have a right to force this onto me, either.
Are you really suggesting that only non-smokers suffer from poor personal hygiene? My personal experience is that many smokers suffer from this, and I have always thought that their smoking was, in part at least, to cover up the other personal odours.
I can still remember the weekend smoking became banned in pubs. All you could smell was stale farts without the tobacco to mask it
Did you also stick to the floor covering (formerly known as carpet).
And see all the doors closing on traditional pubs as the simple joy of a pint and a smoke was banned.
In an ideal universe, absolutely so!
In the real world, obviously not. I should have written common among groups congregating in places where smoking is prohibited, ie, among people who are not smoking, not among people who never smoke.
It was always possible for there to be non-smoking pubs where you and like-minded people could socialise.
It was always possible for pubs to have smoking and non-smoking rooms . The Prince Albert in Ely did that, and the smokers room had an excellent extractor: my girlfriend objected to cigarette smoke much more than I did but was perfectly happy to eat lunch in the no-smoking room.
The smoking ban made small pub gardens much less pleasant for non-smokers.
In what situation do you ‘have’ to breathe cigarette smoke? You don’t like something, you move on- you don’t demand other people do what suits you. I used to work in a rock pub and often we would get people complain about the volume of the music because they couldn’t talk to each other properly, despite the fact that everyone else was clearly enjoying themselves. They came into a noisy pub, bought a drink, then complained. The idea that they could simply go elsewhere seemed lost on them. We never turned the volume down.
Stinks though… innit.
You have clearly never been around a pipe smoker.
I’m 55 I’ve been around loads of pipe smokers and I agree that pipe tobacco smells very pleasant indeed. I never minded smokers in bars. In fact I used to enjoy a social ciggie when drunk. But once they introduced the no smoking rules in bars I realised how much fags stink. My clothes were unwearable the following day after a night on the drink and I would never want to return to those days. Plus the price of a box of tabs is extortionate and an absolute waste of money. However I couldn’t care less whether a person smokes or not. As long as they don’t blow their smoke in my face.
The price of cigarettes being high is not an argument. They’re high because they’re forcing people to stop smoking. And if it was just cigarettes, I’d at least understand. But it affects all tobacco products. I just did a quick check and it is 10-15% cheaper to import Irish tobacco from the US than buy it in a UK shop.
OK, ok, correlation may not be causation….. but I’m not so sure.
Thought provoking at the very least.
I’m pretty sure you can’t legislate away the propensity of people to do harm to themselves through overindulgence.
I rather enjoyed overindulgence until age caught up with me. But I still enjoy it vicariously.
Nor should we even try. It is nothing to do with anyone else. This should not be the business of government.
My cigar and pipe-smoking Dad was nearly spherical and died in his nineties.
What I would really want is for people to stop bunching all tobacco into the cigarette category. Studies have consistently shown that smoking pipes and cigars does not carry the risks associated with smoking cigarettes. Because pipe and cigar smokers do not inhale, they are not at risk of lung cancer. Studies have shown that smoking even a couple of cigars a day will not significantly increase your risk of dying over non-smokers. And very few people have that much money to smoke cigars every day. And a study has shown that, on average, pipe smokers live longer than non-smokers.
On the other hand, cigarettes are designed to cause addiction and nothing else. The average cigarette is made up of about 50% very poor tobacco and about 50% nicotine impregnated paper. There is nothing natural about them. Cigars and pipe tobacco are, for the most part) entirely natural. And because of the lower nicotine intake, you don’t get addicted to them any more than you would with coffee.
Meanwhile, cigars and pipes have been bunched together with cigarettes, unjustly demonized. The taxes on these products are absolutely ridiculous. A cigar that would cost $5-6 in the US can cost over £20 in the UK.
Yes, they get mouth cancers instead.
The rate is exceedingly small. Studies have shown that smoking up to a couple of cigars a day has no increase risk of mortality over non-smokers.
You don’t inhale???
Of course not. Go on any page or forum about cigar or pipe smoking and every single one will be very clear: Don’t inhale.
How I love to see morbidly obese people with a fag in their mouths and a chin warmer (face mask) ready to put back in place once they have had said fag. But hey, us non obese, non smoking, but selfish “anti vaxxers” are the problem to the NHS.
Yet another costly blunder from the central planners.
Tobacco is like food, the gits stuff it with chemical additives.
In the past if you dropped or left down a cigarette which contained natural tobacco it went out almost immediately. Then around the 1970s they started putting chemical additives in the tobacco to make cigarettes burn faster. With the additives added, when you left down or dropped a cigarette, it quickly burned away – which meant more profit for the tobacco companies.
But this brought on a problem. Prior to the additives being added to cigarettes, if one was dropped (think someone after a few drinks) in a home it usually went out before it could generate enough heat to start a fire and burn the house down.
But after the additives were added a dropped cigarette stayed burning and thus could generate enough heat to start a fire and burn the property to the ground.
To stop homes being burned down they added yet more chemicals to the tobacco so cigarettes went out quickly if they were dropped.
I suspect that if tobacco was natural like the stuff that was smoked in the 1920s it would do less harm to people and fewer would become addicted to it.
Anyway, I’m fretting about this Professor of Psychology’s real intentions here. It looks like the powers-that-be have spent the last two years trying to get us peasants to commit suicide with lockdowns or poison us with gene therapies.
And now this Professor is feeding us peasants an article that promotes smoking!
Hmmmmmmmmm
Both my mom and my dad told me that back in the ’60s and ’70s it used to be a pleasure to sit next to a cigarette smoker because the cigarettes had a very pleasant smell. And even today, when I smoke a pipe, my girlfriend enjoys the smell even though she doesn’t smoke at all. Natural tobacco does not smell bad at all. Cigarettes are not natural tobacco. As you say, they are filled with all sorts of additives. And on top of that they contain nicotine impregnated paper, to cause addiction.
Media in US are acknowledging an increase in myocarditis but blaming it on the war in Ukraine!
Media Says Spike In Myocarditis May Be Linked To Ukraine Crisis | The Babylon Bee
You know that the The Babylon Bee is spoof news, right?
Ooops – Just realised. I saw the article trending on Linkedin, sad thing is it is hard to tell the difference between satire and what is printed in the msm!
Yes, but it is based on fact. (Most of the Bee is a twist on something true.) Look at all the excuses the MSM has come up with for increased heart problems. Now they are willing to say that lockdown and associated factors were harmful so they can use lockdown to cover for vaccine issues.
Yes- and it’s absolutely brilliant!
Skimmed through it all, I don’t think it mentions the amount of tax that smokers pay in the UK which helps pay for the NHS.
Indeed. Just checked right now, out of curiosity. A tin of Peterson pipe tobacco made in Ireland (Connoisseur’s Choice, to be precise) costs in a US online store $10.99. The exact same tin costs in an UK online store £16.78. That is over twice as expensive, and we don’t even have to fly it in over an entire ocean! Even with shipping included, I’d be saving 3 quid by buying from the US. Ridiculous.
If a team of British Docotors led by a businessman develop a radical method of treating numerous types of cancer where conventional medicine sent the sufferers home to die would the British authorities –
1) Hail this man as a hero and fast track his treatment or
2) Declare him to be a criminal and put him in prison?
(Please note the treatment was proven nontoxic, never harmed anyone that used it and cost about £250 with a near perfect success rate)
GcMAF and the Persecution of David Noakes, Lyn Thyer & Immuno Biotech
https://www.ukcolumn.org/article/gcmaf-and-persecution-david-noakes-lyn-thyer-immuno-biotech
Budge up fellah and skin a fat one
I’m with you!! I’m so dedicated I started 35 years early.
I think it was John Mortimer who said “there is no pleasure worth foregoing to spend an extra year or two in a care home”.
He famously restarted smoking cigars when the smoking ban was extended to pubs.
Yes, the German Nazi government was anti-smoking and took several measures to discourage it. And the US army encouraged it. And the point is?
Some of us remember how Roger “Mr Freedom” Scruton tarted himself to Big Tobacco, offering some quickie help for an envelope full of money.
I find it interesting that another potentially addictive and potentially harmful via over consumption substance is not mentioned here at all: Alcohol.
While people like to claim that is only harms the drinkers, I would point out that roughly 5 people a week are killed by drink drivers in the UK. And if you have the misfortune to visit a hospital accident and emergency ward on a Friday or Saturday night, do you think it will be full of smoking related injuries, or alcohol related injuries? Afterall, we don’t have dozens of coppers patrolling city centres at night because of anti-social smokers.
Maybe those rabid anti smokers could consider that their same arguements could be applied against their beloved alcohol?
Oh, I used to drink. Also, occasionally enjoy a cigar on long car journeys. I stopped both in my early twenties, but only miss the later.
5 people a week are killed by drunk drivers. How many are killed by sober drivers?
Alcohol has a very fundamental importance to human culture. It is so fundamental that people don’t even realize it. Did you know that people have brewed alcohol before they were baking bread? Beer and wine are intertwined with our oldest myths and legends. Christianity still uses wine to symbolise the blood of Christ. Banning alcohol is just one more step in the cultural erasure that’s been going on around us for decades.
“5 people a week are killed by drunk drivers. How many are killed by sober drivers?”
True! I always took great care driving drunk… Sober people feel entitled to accidents.
Smokers are ignorant cunts. One blew his smoke into my face as I left a shopping centre, so I gobbed in his face in retaliation and he suddenly got upset about it!
I don’t mind cigar smokers, pipe puffers, or snuff takers. It’s cancer stick users who upset me – they make my eyes smart and my clothes stink. Their bad manners therefore justify their being marooned in the bicycle sheds.
But I like liars even less so the proponents of the passive smoking dogma should be marooned among cigarette smokers for the rest of their days.
This superb extract from Yes, Prime Minister is the best explanation I’ve come across. I particularly like the part from 3:50 …..
The Smoking Ban | Yes, Prime Minister | Comedy Greats – YouTube
How much of this great comedy programme that we used to laugh at is now sadly a fact of life?
There’s no doubt many government policies have a disparate impact on the poor, who the government really exploits for always-needed extra revenue.
In my view, the level of taxes put on a pack of cigarettes is legalized theft. In New York City, the most popular brands of smokes retail for over $10 with city, state and federal taxes probably comprising about 85 percent of this cost.
And these huge taxes can have tragic and unforeseen consequences. I still remember the case of the African-American man in New York City several years ago who was killed by police when they attempted to arrest him and put him in a choke hold.
What was this man’s “crime?” He was trying to sell “loose cigarettes” outside of a store.
The man had bought a pack of cigarettes and was selling these cigarettes one at a time outside of a business. He was doing this because there clearly was/is a market for a 50-cent single cigarette (as opposed to would-be customers spending $10+ for a pack of 20 cigarettes). The man’s real crime was that he wasn’t paying the local government its “cut” (i..e taxes) on this sell.
I think I’m the only person in the world who had this thought upon reading about this disturbing story: This man wouldn’t have been killed if three levels of government hadn’t made cigarette so expensive in the first place. One could argue that the police were called in to ensure that no one was going to move in on this government “racket.”
Like others, I’ve even opined that government has essentially taken over many of organized crime’s best “rackets.”
The lottery is my favorite example of this. In America, I think something like 45 states have legalized the lottery. A lottery is actually a version of the Mafia’s “numbers racket.” The only difference is that the government’s version gives players a much lower chances of winning the “jackpot” and, if you do win the big jackpot, the state and federal government are going to take 60 percent of “your” winnings. The lottery largely targets the poor who are fantasizing over some “get rich quick” scheme and often spend the proverbial milk or diaper money to buy their tickets. The government of course has a legal monopoly on lotteries (for example, I couldn’t start my own lottery – offering better odds of winning and giving lottery fans more lottery choices). The government also uses some of its take to run constant advertisements, encouraging citizens to spend their money buying a 1-in-1-million chance to get rich.
My libertarian side says let people do what they want with their own money. My gripe is that the version the government “lets” the public enjoy is a relative rip-off or scam with no or little competition allowed.
As far as the government “taking over” other “rackets” once profitable to the Mafia, you could add alcohol, marijuana, all kinds of gambling, etc. I’d argue that in America OHSHA and the EPA are a form of “protection” rackets. If you want to stay in business, you have to do what these agencies say you have to do.
Even driver’s licenses have become a money-making scam. You have no choice but to get a license, which used to cost $10 and now cost $40. You used to have to renew said license once a decade and now, in many places, it’s once every three to five years.
Of course in the “drug rackets” nobody comes close to competing with Big Pharma. Here the government doesn’t get a direct cut but gets massive kick-backs from the companies it allows to sell these drugs legally.
End vent.
All true- except that the odds on a multi-million lottery win are more like 14 million to one I believe. It always amazes me how so many of the people that complain about ‘them wi’ munneh’, (a Northern English phrase), or ‘the rich’ can’t wait to buy a ticket because they secretly love the idea of being rich but can’t be bothered to actually do something about it- or at least try to. It’s much easier to convince yourself that the wealth is due to something dodgy that you would never dream of doing or just dumb luck- that way you avoid responsibility for your situation and feel quite pious about your situation. The Government know this full well and so will sell you a ticket to your dream on a weekly basis.
I’m pretty sure that’s why drugs have never been legalized- they’re too difficult to tax and regulate.
There is a reason many of the historical paintings & pictures of the great thinkers, inventors and leaders of yesteryear are seen smoking a pipe or cigar.
For whatever reason the physical action or the action of Niacin from the tobacco is perceived to aid cognition.
It’s the nicotine. And it’s not perceived, it is well proven that nicotine is a mind stimulant.
We know that governments can’t ban cigarette smoking … because governments and Big Tobacco make too much money from cigarettes. Still, if “public health” was the all-important function of government, it would do exactly this.
I wrote a piece in July 2020 arguing that the Powers that Be in sports should NOT cancel sports. I said (correctly of course) that COVID posed no health risk to healthy young athletes. I also pointed out that if these crusaders doing everything they can to save even one life were sincere, they would outlaw the sport of American football, which causes up to 12 deaths/year (from heat strokes, broken necks, etc.). And that’s just deaths, thousands of participants suffer very serious injuries.
They’re not banning them. They are using taxation in what I consider to be an immoral manner. Taxation is meant to be payment to the government in exchange for services rendered. The government is using taxation to deter people from doing things.
Taxing people’s endeavours is immoral full stop.
I love American Football and motor sport- about the only sports I enjoy watching because they’re exciting and fun, so I’m sure they’ll be banned in due course.
I feel sorry for smokers, hooked after just a few puffs on a filthy and hazardous habit that many find hard to break. I still remember the agonising weeks it took me to wean myself of the weed half a century ago.
Isn’t the answer to force manufacturers to remove nicotine – which I gather is as addictive as heroin – from all cigarettes and smoking tobacco? After all, brewers managed to take the alcohol out of lager to help drinkers who wanted to drive without fear of being breathalysed.
Yes, but have you ever tasted alcohol free lager? It is absolutely disgusting, not to mention pointless. If you don’t want to get nicked for drink driving, don’t do it. Simples.
I have to put in my two cents, only because of evil antismokerism and abuse of smokers. Smoking is far from the worse thing a person can do, but society behaves as though it is and lies about it as well. Smokers are not supposed to be able to rent, and are discriminated against in making the attempt. If smoking were an addiction, as *they* say, it would be an “illness” and discrimination ought to be illegal. I believe smoking is a habit, and people are creatures of habit. It is also a strong symbol of freedom. I think smokers should receive preferential treatment and be given free homes since they suffer such abuse and discrimination. Anti-smokers should consign themselves to rental properties with signs such as, “This is a smoke-free property”. Then they can be proud instead of directing their own lack of confidence by attacking others. It is politically correct and a fabulous narrative to despise tobacco smokers and tobacco, but to embrace marijuana because that’s just so okay to smoke. I mean, it’s medicine!
The article doesn’t seem to say that smoking is a source of revenue for the Treasury – unless it assumes that they all avoid excise duty with VAT on top.
It reminded me of the script for the old “Yes, Minister” comedy some years ago, in which the Permanent Sec tried to educate the Minister about it, along the lines of reducing the costs of the NHS (because life expectancy is reduced), and it brings forward revenue. You win both ways, Minister!
“Supposed lethality”?
Does the author really work at Duke University, rather than the Marlboro University or the Benson & Hedges College?
Freedom of speech is great – I’m going to exercise mine – this article is the acme of shameless, meritless cynicism.
I reckon this is about 3 weeks or so early.
I have argued this for some time. Everyone tends to incur most of their medical costs just before death, whenever that may come. However those who are fat, smoke or generally don’t look after their health, generally die earlier, saving the state considerable amounts of benefit and pension costs. They are doing the rest of us a favour.
I’m not a smoker, don’t want it near me. The cost burden: we all, including smokers, pay by compulsion for the NHS. When the cost of a good is socialised, we are subject to Marx’s rule: according to the means of each; according to the needs of each. Don’t like it? Don’t agree to socialised medical care. A private system would mean, as with motoring, that higher risk, and/or repeat claimants pay higher premiums. Oh what about the poor? Boo hoo.
In any case, the argument goes thus: smoking reduces life expectancy; related diseases cost more to treat. Well, if smoking reduces time on Earth, their lifetime requirement for medical care and pensions is reduced, so on balance they cost less than ‘healthy’ people.
Furthermore, the diseases smokers get are also associated with old age, so if they didn’t smoke, and thus live longer, they would still get some of the ‘smoking related’ diseases.
If smokers want to smoke, that’s fine as long as others don’t have to share the experience with them.