Anti-smoke campaigners as fascists???

An unusual site that popped up on my alert today is Smokers News, a website which states that it is dedicated to being anti-anti-smoking. At first I thought that the site was amusing, but after browsing it for a while I decided it was either crackpot or dangerous and nasty.

The site is actually dedicated to selling low-cost tax exempt cigarettes & tobacco – and I doubt whether it is completely legal, as the site promises users that there is “No risk of being reported to ANY Government Agency”.

Presumably as a selling point, the site makes a point of being anti-anti smoking site, which is fair enough, except they go as far as to describe the anti-smoking campaign as being fascist, comparing anti-smoking campaigners’ efforts to prevent children from smoking to Hitler gaining control of the children in Nazi Germany.

Now, we at the Ashtray blog have no objection to smokers smoking if they choose to do so. In fact we have pointed out that smokers pay several times over for the cost of their healthcare, and that in fact smokers subsidise the health care of non-smokers in the UK.

However, the fact of the matter is that the vast majority of smokers want to give up – surveys often suggest that the number is 75-80% but are unable to do so because of the addiction. The majority of smokers also take it up when they are young and impressionable, a fact which they later regret, and anything that can be done to stop this is admirable.

And then there is passive smoking. Surely, the right and freedom to smoke does not extend to forcing children who have no choice to inhale smoke which will cause them damage in the future To compare people who are concerned about the health of children to a monster who forced children into huge ovens and then forced carbon monoxide into the rooms and the lungs and bodies of these children until they choked to death is the work of a sick mind.

Related posts:

1. Electronic Cigarettes in Nursing Homes
2. Smoking & the Brain

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