Simple Simon Blatantly Lies To Australia

As I touched on in the last article, the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) yesterday decided to continue with their ban on e-cigs containing nicotine. Part of their flawed reasoning cited evidence from the US which is hardly surprising.

You see, one of the prime Australian 'experts' in tobacco control Down Under is the vandal-turned-clown Simple Simon Chapman, whose prejudice against e-cigs runs so deep that he has scoured the globe for straws to clutch in his attempt to obstruct vaping.

Increasingly he has been drawn to the US where the CDC continues to lie about the subject by classifying e-cigs as a "tobacco product" despite containing no tobacco. That way, they are able to pretend that tobacco use remains unchanged as more youth vape and fewer smoke.

I highlight 'tobacco use' because it is a clever manipulation of statistics, however it's quite clear when you look into the data that youth smoking in the US has been falling to record low levels. For example, here is a graph taken from CDC data by Reason's Jacob Sullum in April last year.

Yesterday, though, Chappers appeared on Australian national broadcaster ABC's PM show and declared this to the nation.

"The fall in youth smoking that we saw for many many years in the United States last year, for the first time, stopped falling; and while that was happening, e-cigarette use was rising dramatically."

As you can see above, even if the CDC may try to argue that tobacco use remains overall the same if you fraudulently include e-cigs in the same category, it is completely untrue to say that youth smoking has stopped falling.

It's the same if you look at National Youth Tobacco Survey data, as Chris Snowdon did last month ...

... and also if you look at US Monitoring The Future surveys.

Contrary to what Simple Simon told Australia yesterday, nowhere is there a hint that youth smoking rates have stopped falling in the US. Yet if you're an Australian citizen who is largely uneducated on the subject of e-cigs, yesterday you would have heard someone called Professor something-or-other declare a falsehood as fact on Australia's state broadcaster.

In many professions, this kind of behaviour would be punishable by suspension or even dismissal. But in the unregulated Wild West world of 'public health' - where you would think accurate information should be far more important than in any other sphere - Chappers will get away scot-free with deliberately lying.

Sadly, he is just one small part of a broken and corrupt profession in which lying is viewed as an acceptable tactic, and which is actively harming social cohesion and liberty the world over. 

Pokébollocks

The tobacco control industry, in its relentless pursuit of factual impurity, has just released a junk study which accuses vape shops of using the Pokemon Go game to attract kids to using e-cigs. Yes, as with everything they do it's quite obviously bullshit and designed to panic the gullible by way of screaming "children" as much as possible. 

Now, I don't know a lot about the game myself but a fellow jewel robber does. Here is a guest post from Pokemon Go-playing Neil Robinson to explain how their alarmism is not only utter nonsense, but also shows that they understand even less about the app than I do ... and that's really saying something! 

Over to Neil.

July of 2016 saw a social revolution unlike anything that has been seen previously. Large swathes of the population were spontaneously getting off their sofa’s and engaging in exercise, many walking several miles each day. Disparate groups were forming in public places exchanging happy and excited conversation; a real sense of burgeoning community was to be felt in the air.

Were these Remain protesters? Was this the start of the inevitable overthrow of the patriarchy? Were the masses seizing the means of production?

No, we were all playing Pokémon Go.

And I do mean all. In its first month after launch, it was getting 45 million daily players whilst still being rolled out worldwide. By August 1st, it had reached 100 million downloads, and was earning $10 million a day through in-app purchases.

So why the hell is this on Dick Puddlecote's blog you ask? Because even tobacco controllers can't miss that sort of hype. Cue the inevitable “study”.

“Electronic cigarette retailers use Pokémon Go to market products” extol the authors with breathless excitement. Unfortunately, the rest of the pitch is garbled nonsense, Joe Camel and unfounded accusations.

The gist of the paper is that those evil peddlers of death, vape companies, are latching on to this childrens' game to market their 'deadly' wares to kids in an attempt to hook the next generation, despite the fact that their own source of demographics (a Forbes article!) shows that a full 78% of players are over the age of 18.

An important element of gameplay in Pokémon Go are things called Pokéstops, where gamers can visit the physical location chosen by the games creators, Niantec, collect free in-game goodies such as extra pokéballs for catching more Pokémon, health potions etc. You also stand a much better chance of catching a Pokémon near each pokéstop, so its common to find players hanging around near them waiting for yet another Pidgey, Rattata or Weedle (gotta catch ‘em all!).

Each pokéstop is chosen because the location has an element of significance about it, be it a church, a monument or statue, or even if its a pub, they’re all commonly chosen by Niantec to act as pokéstops. To activate these pokéstops and get your free goodies, you must be within range of it, which is a circle of approximately 100m. This means that should a pokéstop happen to be on a pub, a vape shop, or as in my local area on the Masonic Temple, you don't have to go inside to catch the wee beastie.

If you own a vape shop, you can't just decide that it’s going become a pokéstop – it’s not going to happen (there was a period of 10 days back in July when Niantec did accept suggestions, but they were quickly swamped and withdrew it). So its not like evil vape shop owners are deliberately placing “child friendly” pokéstops in their shops, Niantec has always and will always be the final arbiter of where they appear. If there's one near a vape shop, its entirely down to luck.

The average player is a white, female 25 year old earning over $90,000 a year, yet these happy clowns try every trick in the book to make it sound apocalyptic:

This game-based promotional strategy could increase tobacco marketing exposure among adolescents and young adult non-users, increasing their risk for future initiation.  Further research is warranted to determine whether non-tobacco users visit vape shops and/or initiate e-cigarette use after being exposed to these advertisements via game playing, and whether current e-cigarette users increase use as a result of game play. 

If I were a vape shop owner and hordes of rich 25 year old women started hanging around my shop, I think I’d try and get some inside, wouldn't you?

several vape shops and online retailers have incorporated Pokémon Go as part of promotions on Twitter, linking game performance with discounts on their products (eg, “…show us a rare Pokemon that we don’t have and get 10% off entire purchase!”; “Check out our Pokémon Go sale! Level 10=5%, Level 20=10% OFF STORE WIDE!!!!”; “Come to our store, we just dropped a lure out…”).  

Vape shops have also staged in-person events combining Pokémon Go play and interactive e-cigarette promotional contests. Figure 3 (left panel) shows an advertisement for an event at a vape shop in the Los Angeles area featuring “Lures, Pizza, DJ, Giveaways, and Prizes all night long at the Cloudscape Mural PokeStop”.  

Additionally, Planet Vape sponsored an event (“Pokemon Go Planet Vape Meetup!”) announcing that their store was a PokéStop (“We are lucky to have a Pokéstop just outside the front door!”) and offering prizes for best Pokémon caught in their shop. 

The clear assumption here is that the vape shops in question will happily sell to anybody who walks through their door - which is of course nonsense - and is backed up by precisely zero evidence. What it really shows is that vape vendors are connected to their community in ways that Tobacco Controllers can only dream of (or possibly have nightmares about), and are using the popularity of a game that a large proportion of their customer base are already using to try and increase their market share and make a few bucks. To anyone not intent on overthrowing capitalism, this would seem like a good business move, and indeed it was widely publicised as such at the time.

They also throw in a snapshot taken from Joyetech’s Instagram as proof of e-cigs being marketed to kids, once again failing to realise that the image would only have ever been seen by those who already subscribe to Joyetech’s content. The internet is not a broadcast medium, but they just can't seem to get that through their pointy little heads!

Realising the weakness of their argument, our stalwart heroes of the common good decided to throw in some scary looking pictures to help make their point.

Anyone who has ever seen the game played will recognise this as a Pokémon being captured, which can occur randomly at any location. The background image comes from the camera of the phone being used, in a sort of augmented reality way; meaning that the authors have deliberately pointed their camera directly at the store front of a vape shop in order to make it look as scary as possible. They could equally well have used either of the following two pics to illustrate their point, but chose to manufacture that one.

But then I guess they’re not too well known for their sense of humour.

In a final desperate attempt to justify the waste of electrons, the “researchers” turned to Yelp (not welp). They found 19 vape shops in their area which could potentially be in reach of a pokéstop. For some reason, they decided to only visit 8 of these 19. Perhaps the others were in areas they promised their Mom they wouldnt go to. Of the 8 locations they could bring themselves to visit, 6 actually were lucky enough to be within range of where Niantec decided to put the pokéstop, and of those 6 only 1 was using it to their advantage.

One shop. With one A3 poster outside it.  Oh wait, there's more…

while another promoted their products using other cartoon images. 

which I can only imagine was a roaring political lambast from Gerald Scarfe. Given that they neither provide a photo nor description, I have as much chance of being right as anyone.

You can imagine my horror at these blatant underhanded industry tactics. *yawn*

This however did not deter our insipid intrepid investigators, who went on with the usual demands for more research (money), and the usual policy “recommendations”.

Policies specifically prohibiting the use of Pokémon Go and other cartoons/video games to promote e-cigarettes and related products should be considered, as this would be consistent with both current US legal agreements by major tobacco companies to avoid the use of cartoons in their advertisements (ie, the Master Settlement Agreement) 

Despite the fact that vaping is not smoking, contains no tobacco and is not covered under the MSA agreement. And all for a game where 78% of the players are over the age of 18.

Spot the kid at a Pokemon convention

The Children, You Say?

I'm sure you'll all remember how plain packaging was sold to governments as a way of stopping children from taking up smoking, right?

Well, that quickly morphed into deterring adults once the liars in the tobacco control industry had gotten their way, but they did always say that there was no threat to freedom of choice. In fact, it was often stated categorically that they had no intention whatsoever of interfering with the choices that smokers make!

Like everything else anti-smokers say, though, that was untrue as well. Consider this from News.com.au:

Mystery shoppers hired by Imperial Tobacco are sent to retailers with a very specific script. 

“I normally smoke Winfield 30s but I am looking for an alternative, what would you recommend instead of Winfield 30s?” the shoppers are instructed to ask, in a job summary seen by news.com.au. 

When asked how much they want to spend, the mystery shopper says “maybe something a little cheaper”. 

If asked about their preferred cigarette’s strength, the shopper replies: “I usually smoke the blue ones.” 

Then it’s over to the staff member who says the magic words and steers the “customer” towards John Player Special, a brand imported by Imperial. If the staff member does not mention any other brand, they score points towards the company’s incentive program. 

At this point, the mystery shopper identifies him or herself and informs the staff member that the results will be tallied at head office and prizes awarded to those with the top scores.

Note that this is a 'shopper' - an adult one at that - entering a shop with the express purpose of buying cigarettes. A current smoker, too, since there's a clue there when they say "I normally smoke Winfield 30s".

So what's the problem?

[Scott Walsberger, the head of tobacco control and prevention at Cancer Council NSW, said] “Every time we’ve brought in legislation, you see the tobacco industry push the envelope, continually trying to make their product attractive and market them as much as possible,” he said. 

“They’re always focused on selling more cigarettes, more people getting addicted and they go to all lengths to do that — so it’s not surprising that, as we tighten up regulations of how they market their products in some ways, that they’ve sought out the channels where they’re not regulated and exploit them to continue to promote their product.”

So, Scott, quick maths quiz for you. How many more cigarettes would be sold if a person who usually buys 30 cigarettes of one brand is guided into buying 30 cigarettes of another brand? Additionally, if one smoker enters a shop to buy cigarettes and the same one smoker exits the shop with a packet of cigarettes, how many more people have been "addicted"? You can use a calculator if it helps.

He called for new laws to better regulate how tobacco products are sold and marketed and made available through retail outlets, and rejected the argument that trade marketing only targeted customers who were already smokers. 

“They say they’re not marketing to new customers, just getting people to switch brands or building brand loyalty; we know that’s not true,” Mr Walsberger said.

Erm, Scott, all marketing is about brand share unless you're a vested interest knuckle-shuffler who fundamentally fails (deliberately) to understand the advertising industry.

Look, for argument's sake, let's pretend - as you do - that shiny packets are so alluring that they turn innocent and health-conscious people into automatons who simply must buy a packet of fags. Well, you haven't got those anymore in Australia so problem solved.

This case, however, is of a shopper who clearly states their intention to buy a pack of 30 cigarettes anyway and will walk out with a packet of 30 cigarettes, just maybe a different brand. How is the marketing not about brands; how is it "untrue". How is this marketing to new customers if the consumer has already decided to buy cigarettes?

Oh, I see, it's just another tobacco control industry lie, isn't it? You just can't fucking help yourselves.

As usual these days, it is left up to the tobacco industry to inject some honesty and integrity into the debate.

A spokesman for Imperial Tobacco Australia said the company sold a legal product and defended its trade marketing practices. 

“The program in question sees shoppers specifically identifying themselves as adult consumers of tobacco products who are seeking a brand recommendation from a retailer. 

“This clearly neither ‘circumvents legislation’ nor has any bearing on the choice of an adult to consume tobacco. It simply addresses which brand that adult consumer might choose.”

We're a long way from "protecting children from glitzy packets" here, aren't we?

The simple and unavoidable truth now is that the tobacco control charade is just one long and never-ending catalogue of lies. They lie when they wake up, they spend their day lying, and then they lie some more. Once they think they've done all the lying they are capable of for the day, they squeeze out a few more lies just for good measure. Then they go to sleep and dream about what lies they can tell the next day.

Here we see them not protecting children because no children are involved. They are also not protecting adults from starting to smoke because the buyer is already a smoker and intends to buy cigarettes. They are also not protecting people who want to quit smoking because the consumer has every intention of buying cigarettes. They are not encouraged to buy more, simply the same amount but of a different brand.

So, as we all know, this proves pretty convincingly that the tobacco control monstrosity - and their daft and pointless plain packaging makework exercise - is not, and never has been, about protecting kids, nor even about protecting adults. The only possible explanation for this fake fury is that they simply despise industry and hate the idea that smokers might be allowed to benefit from useful advice since there is none available due to the bans 'public health' has brought in.

It is mendacious bullying, nothing more, nothing less. They are the criminally-dishonest, we are the angelic truth-tellers.

It also shows that to be a tobacco controller you must act every day as if you are wearing shit-stained glasses and complain that everything stinks. Every one of them should be stuck on a spike somewhere very public pour encourager les autres. How the entirely disingenuous 'public health' racket still has the ear of governments is anyone's guess, perhaps one day - after a few more electoral surprises - politicians may work out that we've had enough of their shit. 

Tobacco Control Fantasy Evaporates In Court

Great news from those spunky Dutch!

Cafes and bars can continue to set up special smoking rooms where customers can light up, judges in The Hague said on Wednesday. 

Good. As it should be.

Anti-smoking lobby group Clean Air Nederland had gone to court in an effort to have all smoking rooms abolished. 

Yep, that's what disgusting anti-social fuck-knuckles do. They would never go into these rooms themselves, but they went to court to stop everyone else from choosing to and to stop businesses choosing to provide them.

And the reason?

It argues that allowing cafes and bars to sanction smoking in certain areas conflicts with international treaties signed by the Netherlands.  

Note the absence of any mention of bar staff? That's old hat now. What this hideous bunch of interfering spooge-gobblers were complaining about is that the elected Dutch government was not adhering to a rule laid down by a cabal of unelected extremists at the WHO.

Fortunately, the Dutch court system recognised a very salient fact that tobacco controllers would prefer politicians didn't know.

The court ruled that CAN cannot call on the World Health Organisation treaty which requires signatories to actively combat the use of tobacco and to protect people against tobacco smoke.

The text of the treaty does not state that there should be a ban on smoking or that countries are obliged to introduce one, the judges said in their ruling.

This is article 5.3 of the FCTC (and even the FCTC in its entirety) being called out for what it is ... a big empty threat that the lying bullies in tobacco control wave around as if it were legally enforceable. Now, I don't know if they're just incredibly dense or that they actually believe their own lies, but we should thank the Dutch legal system for stating the bleeding obvious and ruling that FCTC guidelines (the clue is in the name) are nothing to do with the rule of law or legislation in any country which has ratified it. They are quite simply a mendacious tool that the tobacco control industry uses to control dissent and ensure their incompetence isn't challenged by people who know what they are talking about.

As Snowdon explained last year, tobacco controllers have built an elaborate fantasy around article 5.3 which they regularly try to use as a club against civil consultation and common sense policy-making.

Local councils have been sold a bill of goods by ASH about what they can and cannot do. I've been reading a document entitled 'Guidance for Trading Standards on engaging with the tobacco industry' which is endorsed by ASH and Public Health England. ASH has its own list of tips entitled 'Developing Policy on Contact with the Tobacco Industry'. Both of them offer highly misleading advice to local authorities based on a misrepresentation of Article 5.3. The first of them says:

This document articulates the legal obligations placed on public authorities by the Treaty and illustrates established best practice for those working in the sector.

The 'Treaty' has never been enshrined in law in Britain or the EU, so this is wibble from the outset. There are no 'legal obligations'. From a legal perspective, the FCTC is nothing more than a bunch of aspirations, but even if Article 5.3 was the law, it clearly refers to health policy, not trade policy, smuggling or waste disposal.

None of this stops ASH from making thinly veiled threats like this...

[Article 5.3] could be relied upon in legal proceedings brought by an individual or other non-state body against a public authority. An authority that does not act in compliance with the convention may be exposed to risk of judicial review. If a local authority decides to diverge from the guidelines it is suggested the reasons for doing so should be documented.

This is intimidation, plain and simple. It raises the spectre of lawsuits (that will never be filed) to coerce councils into taking an extreme position to suit ASH's comic book worldview.

Except, of course, in the Netherlands a bunch of deluded cranks thought that FCTC guidelines were so powerful that they could file a court case. They have now found out that their fantasy of legislative status for a wish-list written by vile tax-spongers, and a puerile "na-na-na-not listening" clause drafted by some of the world's biggest lunatics, aren't actually legally enforceable after all.

CAN said immediately that it would appeal.

Of course they will. The illusion they are trying to create dies and reality gets noticed if they don't.

Let's all look forward to their lying asses being whipped again in due course.