Forces International's battle against Anti-Tobacco has been long. Their exhortation to 'keep smoking' is logical – anti-smoking is based on flawed science and outright misrepresentation, it has damaged businesses beyond recognition or hope of recovery, disrupted social routines and engendered enormous hostility against smokers – and submission is no way to respond to tyranny.
The story provides commentary on the recently reported rise in smoking rates in Ireland. A smoking ban in 2004 followed by the tobacco display ban in July this year have led to a rise in smoking rates, despite retailers reporting plummeting tobacco sales in some shops.
Our highlighting the main story (follow link below) will provoke our opponents to accusations that we are pro-smoking. But as Søren Højberg points out, it is human nature that has resisted the influence of anti-tobacco:
There has been no coordinated effort to achieve this wonderful result. The press belongs to the enemy. No organisation has moved the masses to revolt. Human nature has revolted on its own.
Søren is correct – the general public has responded to the conditions prevailing as a result of anti-tobacco restrictions and their natural defiance to being deprived of social interaction and being consigned to second-class citizenship.
He is also correct to point out that the less tobacco is purchased from official sources, the more impoverished the Treasury will become. It should not take a rebel to point this out, it is plain common sense, and the government has the remedy – it should engender some loyalty from smokers by treating them like human beings and stop threatening to raise taxes on tobacco. (Freedom2Choose cannot endorse a call to buy illegal tobacco as we are a law-abiding organsation.)
It is ironic that at the time that tobacco is being demonised, calls are growing to legalise drugs that have been banned for years, on the grounds that prohibition policies fuel the black market. How odd it would be if all drugs were legalised and dealers were left only with alcohol and tobacco.
A clear conclusion is that anti-smoking policies don't lead to the results envisaged by their supporters. They cause far more problems than they solve.
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