First of all, I have often wondered and have been mystified on how even you can sleep at nights. Stop the marketing to African American bandwagon. No racial group is singled out over another. I just left upstate NY where I witnessed several people smoking menthols and believe me, these people are as white as the driven snow. I seen the same people smoking, no one quit due to a tax increase. Everyone, smokers and nons are still living in perfect harmony with each other. There was one staunch anti in the group and I accidently dropped an ashtray on her and she lived. I had made an effort to walk 15 feet away from her when I lit a cigarette. We talked from a distance, she was fine. I finished the cigarette and we stayed on our topic of conversation, holding a cold cigarette that had been put out 15 minutes earlier. I reached over her to place it in an ashtray and she coughed. That is when I decided the ashtray needed to be emptied and lo and behold, it slipped out of my hands and landed in her lap. She then had something to cough about, but instead sat in stunned silence. She is doing okay now. I am now back in CT, smoking in my hotel room. Just recieved an email from her saying that she misses me already. Maybe because I am not afraid of her? Has she met her match? I also smoked in my rental car, a 2009 model. There was no little stickers telling me not to smoke and there was a manufacturers ashtray in the dashboard.
So going back to the topic, the cost of the new Marlboro brands is no big deal. Maybe eventually we will see all the brands dropping their prices and people from all races smoking them.
Dr Siegel,do you see packs of Marlboro in your sleep ?
Where can you buy the new Marlboros for $2.39? Your ad for them today convinced me to buy some. I had not yet seen an ad for the new Marlboros until you ran it TWICE on your blog. Perhaps PM should hire you in their marketing division cause you make a great pitchman to WHITE menthol smokers like me. BTW that .62 increase pisses me off, but it does not keep me from buying cigs when I want some. I don't understand why you hate menthol so much or why you particpate and are obsessed with the racial aspect of menthols, but I do know that your protest against menthols on a ban wagon based upon racial stereotype makes you sound like a racist. I know many white people like myself who love menthols. I know many black people who prefer Reds (I believe that is Obama's brand) It is simply a matter of taste preference. If menthols go, I will simply go back to non-menthols like the ones I started smoking when I was 18.
I should add that had you and other anti-smokers actually have gone to smokers to find out who buys menthol you would have saved yourself a lot of time and your "science" in analyzing the matter would have been sound. As it is right now, the "science" stinks.
Where are these 'virtual' packs of cigarettes being sold for $2.39?
That's wicked cheap, I might go back to pre-mades at that price, as long as they aren't FSC.
Tell us where they are please.....do the job that Big Tobacco isn't allowed to do - market their products.
I only hear of new brands of cigarettes on TC websites and read about them on TC posters at schools and government buildings.
Michael;
Your groupings are not to be believed sometimes. In just as many ways as Blacks vary in their choices, so too do whites and any other culture. The Black menthol smoker was devised utilizing the same statistical charm as many of the other myths surrounding smoking.
Group think produces groups and positions one against the other. The fact that group think among anti-smoking lobbies produces only negative consequences of smoking represents a product of their culture and never science.
The bigotry of "Blacks do this or that" is only revealing of your and others fears, because you know nothing or very little about your stereotyped victims or their choices.
Similar to nicotine menthol acts as a limiter when smoking, it forces the user to take smaller draws and inhale less deeply.
Funny I thought you expressed a belief that would be a good thing, with less exposure to the rest of the product ingredients. Of course the circle has come about again; reducing the exposure to other ingredients, and you don't believe adjustment is ethical because it entails human experimentation.
If Blacks suffer higher consequences than white or Hispanics due to their smoking alone [causative?], and menthol is the preferred choice of Blacks, you now are stuck with explaining if someone inhales lightly and takes lighter puffs [the two finger smoker] how does less equate more? Common sense would tell us if less smoke results in more disease perhaps more people should be smoking more.
It all comes down to what you really believe doesn't it?
The trouble is that is hard to understand at times what you do believe, because the circle seems to collide with itself producing changes, every time you go around.
It's weird - I love the smell of clove cigarettes but yet hate curry....what demographic do I fall in? What culture do I hail from?
Wait...I got it....Caucasians who smoke Menthol cigarettes also enjoy Okra...that's it, right?
Someone quick---do a study.
If Philip Morris were really as smart as you routinley give them credit for being, they would cut the cost of ALL of their brands in half.
That would send Tobacco Control into a panic wouldn't it?
That alone would be worth the price of admission.
Maybe even REQUIRE Big Tobaccco to cut the cost buy exactly the same amount of any proposed tax increase.
That way you could drive them out of business because eventually, cigarettes would be free and you could finally achieve the full blown prohibitionist utopia you so desperately desire.
Right?.....it makes at least as much sense as the campaign against tobacco itself.
Nahhhhhh, ...lets focus our short attention span on dead celebrities instead. That's soooo much more important.
When you describe people [and they are all just people] according to the color of their skin as indicative of their risks, or even their level of fitness or longevity, you attach moral designations that only exist because you created the group, primarily in your own mind, in keeping with the group think around you [Cultural perspective].
That is called caste designation and bigotry. The belief in many cultures you can never marry below your position in life, which much like the "Black American" is identified by the color of turban or the color of the dot placed on your forehead.
We find ways of making ourselves feel superior to the Dot people, yet when it comes right down to it; the shared ignorance is not something either will easily relinquish, because it is our culture and our culture has always produced ways by which we can separate ourselves from each other, into sub cultures, neighborhoods and groups, which think independently of those "others" they fear.
"Smoker" and "non smoker" is now thought to be a designation of negative versus positive. The term "smoker" was always an insult, however it was accepted by it's victims only because it represents camaraderie with the others being grouped and hopefully a strength in numbers against attack.
The fact "smokers" are no different than anyone else in this world is being erased an indignity at a time and for what?
Because some people have risen above the fear mongering and accept the comfort of a smoke, as a comfort, and not a sin against others.
People no longer feel comfortable expressing their hatred against Jews, Blacks and others in recognition of the damages they do to innocents, so we now have a new means of expressing that negative feature of our culture, so few have the courage to live without.
Oh Dr. Siegel, Philip Morris and your health groups sleep the same way greedy, anti-tobacco pros sleep in Quebec and Ontario (soon to a province and state near you) where children can get contraband cigarettes delivered to them in the school yard for as little as $1.50 - $2.00 a pack all because of the extortionist price of legal cigarettes.
If PM doesn't do it, contraband will with cigarettes of unknown ingredients and nicotine & tar yields. If children want to smoke, someone will make sure to sell tobacco to them without any of the gains going towards youth programs, or any other government programs taxes can buy.
As a public health practitioner, concentrate on honest education as it's the only measure that has any chance of success and stop looking for a culprit.
Marijuana at much higher prices, with no advertizing exposure, with no Philip Morris tactics behind it, with no legal status, has become common with our youth all over the ''civilized'' world. Who or what do we get to blame for that?
So PM is selling their new brand at cost and the $2.39 per pack is what the taxes amount to. So this endeavor could be described as philanthropic for menthol smokers. I wish RJR would sell my brand at cost!!!
The trouble with walking the talk?
The lobbies have criminalized most of what we do; from your tap water to your garbage can and of course your choices of comfort and recreation can never go unchallenged.
From the Canada free press? A plea to respect and appreciate American traditions?
We certainly do not live in silos...my freedom is entirely reliant on preserving yours.
http://canadafreepress.com/index...p/article/
12564
"“Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.”
John Quincy Adams
It’s more than just a banner
Framed in azure skies,
And more than just a country--
This land o’er which it flies.
To call this day a birthday
Is to miss its deeper worth:
‘Twas more than just a nation born,
This Day of Freedom’s Birth.
This day a blessed nation was
Conceived in liberty
And sprang forth from a concept
Unique in history:
God granted no king power
To rule by tyranny,
For men are better governed
By consent than by decree."
Continues...
Doctor Siegel, - "The introduction of Marlboro Blend No. 54 is a chilling reminder that the real work of tobacco control is not going to be accomplished through the political scam that is the FDA tobacco legislation. In fact, the FDA legislation actually makes the real work of tobacco control much more difficult."
I think that paragrapgh speaks volumes of where your head remains.
A "chilling reminder?". Given the nature and scope of the fraud to date, that's a little over-dramatic don't you think?
"the real work of tobacco control?"
Puhleeeeze. The "real work" is clearly establishing conformity, homogeny, and/or forcing the capitulation of sovereigntry of ones self to the "health authority"
Moral, ethical, and cultural diversity is allowed in name only, and even then, only if it reflects the "healthy" choice.
Your socialist tendencies are never very far beneath the surface are they?
"How the health groups can sleep at night, however, is even more mystifying to me."
It clearly doesn't take a whole heck of alot to keep you mystified Doc.
The "health groups" likely sleep just fine because they are working the failed "built in obsolesence" policies practiced by the American Auto Industry in reverse.
As long as Tobacco remains a viable revenue stream, "the real work of tobacco control" will NEVER be done.
They have secured their future and their paychecks for a little while longer.
I have found that dreaming about piles of cash given to me without having to lift a finger to earn it is extremely invigorating.
It's no wonder they never stop.
O/T but today I am shameless.
Check out this victory for our Dutch friends:
http://www.freedom2choose.info/n...wer.php?
id=1042
Happy, HAPPY day!!
Marlboro Blend No. 54 is selling for as little as $2.39 per pack, a price which is affordable for many youths and will certainly help entice youths to try this particular product.
I hate to tell you this Doc, but in this economy and so many people taking pay cuts, reduced hours, or just plain out of work (like me)...........THAT makes those smokes affordable and attractive to more adults than anyone else.
Stop playing the friggin emotional blackmail and racial card. Get real already.
Better yet, stop concerning yourself with other people's FREE WILL....take care of your own glass house.
It seems the author likes to complain a great deal about what other people/groups are doing but otherwise accomplishes very little.
Selling tobacco to children is illegal. The government should focus on ENFORCING that instead of instituting prohibitions! Why aren't they prohibiting margaritas, daquiris, rum/cokes, etc...?
Selling tobacco to children is illegal. The government should focus on ENFORCING that instead of instituting prohibitions! Why aren't they prohibiting margaritas, daquiris, rum/cokes, etc...?
Epidemiology is a process of selecting your choice of human groupings, or demographics as they like to call them and comparing one group to another.
When you progress to using the results as a weapon against the group you defined, what you accomplish is nothing more valuable than bigotry with an identical process of division and valuation.
TC has never amounted to, or been more valuable than bigotry and all the denials you can muster, can never change what we all know to be true.
Public Health is a largely Fascist process of hatred and ratcheted down convenient divisions, creating deliberately manufactured conflict in otherwise peaceful communities.
That has nothing whatever to do with how the Tobacco Industry earns their profits but has everything to do with corruption and self service.
Playing the race card is only a confirmation of who you really are and where you really stand.
"cigarettes which have been addicting and killing our children."
...................
You anti-smokers have been tossing that 'killing our children' blathering,bull-crap around for a long time.
There are NO children dying from smoker related diseases;nor for that fact,is there anyone under the age of 35 that dies from a smoker related disease.
Here,we find that the CDC does and has not found such a death.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...ml/ mm5745a3.htm
In the provided 'Table',the CDC has found some rather small numbers.
For instance,13 female deaths due to perinatal respiratory distress.
If there were smokers' deaths below the age of 35, I am very certain that the CDC would list them!
The 'killing our children' blathering,bull-crap,agenda-driven,pack of lies is why people do not believe what you have said or will say.
You antis are forever trying to force smokers to quit.
Many smokers will agree with what was said here,by a woman talking about her body and abortion.
http://spectator.org/archives/20...-end-of-roe-v/
2
Keep Your Hands Off My Body!
I'll make it simple for everyone.
MY BODY belongs to ME
I make decisions alone (or with the help of my family, my doctor, my God) for MY BODY
KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY BODY!
A blog google search on Marlboro blend no 54 gets this article as the first 'hit'. The next hit is some anti-snus site.
Great marketing, got the name right, the price point advantage and savings to smokers - going to get a bunch of people to try them.
Google it any-which-way and TC pops up all over the place - hawking the new cigarette. BT is sleeping well, with their marketing budget in the black.
The introduction of Marlboro Blend No. 54 is a chilling reminder.....
Yes it is, a chilling reminder to try Marlboro No. 54....chilling! It's Mentholated!
"KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY BODY!"
..............
This would include ALL of the nanny,anti-smokers groups!!
Kevin "self service" is this the same as BANSTURBATION ?
While Mike is correct that CTFK, ACS, AHA, ALA and other FDA tobacco law cheerleaders have misrepresented mountains of evidence and deceived the public about the ramifications of the FDA tobacco law (in order to win votes and demonize opposition), Mike is repeating their unsubstantiated accusations (without providing any objective evidence) in claiming that Altria is target marketing Marlboro 54 to youth (especially black youth).
As one who has campaigned (more aggressively than anyone else) during the past two decades to reduce tobacco industry marketing to youth, I'm not aware of any tobacco company that is violating any of the many MSA advertising/marketing provisions or any state law (prohiting sales to minors).
If Mike knows of any, I urge him to contact the appropriate State AG or Health Department for enforcement.
While a signficant amount of tobacco advertising and marketing targeted youth more than a decade ago, the overwhelming majority of tobacco advertising and marketing now targets adults, primarily current tobacco users, urging them to switch to another tobacco brand or product (e.g. smokeless tobacco products marketed to smokers as alternatives).
Youth tobacco use in the US has declined by 50% to 70% (depending upon age groups and product) during the past decade. Most youth who now use tobacco (especially daily users) have a parent or older sibling who uses tobacco.
While price discounts may make any product more appealing to youth, the overwhelming majority of new users (i.e. >95%) of discounted tobacco brands are adult tobacco users.
If Mike truly desired to reduce youth smoking, he would advocate (instead of oppose) cigarette tax increases.
Youth smoking would decline another 50% - 70% in the US if the all states taxed cigarettes above $2.50/pack (the average state tax is now $1.27/pack), if Congress raised the federal tax by $1.50/pack (to $2.50/pack), and if all 50 states enacted comprehensive smokefree workplace laws.
Its also clear, however, that there are limits to cigarette taxation, with a retail price of $9-$10/pack about the limit where cigarette smuggling negates the health benefits of cigarette taxation.
High School smoking rates have decreased by only 16% and the absolute number of smokers has increased slightly.
..................
Have bans ,price increases,or billions of dollars of anti-smoker ads caused a drop in teen smoking?
Not really!! 
The figures below are for high school kids,about 30% of high school kids drop out of school and would not be included in this.
About 60-70% of the drop outs smoke.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...ml/ mm5526a2.htm
In 1991(27.45% of 6% of the population) about 4.11 million high school kids smoked.
In 2005(23% of 6% of the population) about 4.14 million high school kids smoked.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/ ce...stpopcounts.htm
Alaska and Utah had the highest percentages of high school-age population (7 percent each) among all states . Nationally, 6 percent of the population fell in this age group.
For youth tobacco use data, see pages 38-41 at:
http://
www.monitoringthefuture.o...verview2008.pdf
SMOKING BANS HAVE NOT DECREASED THE NUMBER OF ADULT SMOKERS!
Since about 1990 we have seen thousands of federal,state, and local smoking bans passed. Due to increased excise taxes and MSA costs,the price of cigarettes has gone up tremendously. Billions of dollars have been spent trying to force smokers to quit.
The result?
In 1990 about 43.125 million adults smoked cigarettes, in 2007 about 45 million adults smoked cigarettes!!
That is a 4.16% increase in the number of adult cigarette smokers!!
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss/T...0000&
SUBMIT1=Go
1990 the population was 250 million, 75% were adults = 187.5 million, 23% smoked is 187.5 x 23% = 43.125 million.
2007 population was 300 million, 75% were adults = 225 million, 20% smoked = 45 million cigarette smokers.
Bill;
"Youth smoking would decline another 50% - 70% in the US if the all states taxed cigarettes above $2.50/pack (the average state tax is now $1.27/pack), if Congress raised the federal tax by $1.50/pack (to $2.50/pack), and if all 50 states enacted comprehensive smokefree workplace laws."
Canada leads the States by a number of years in the tax racket and contrary to your belief we saw no large scale reductions, as were predicted here too at the time. When governments vowed to make smoking too expensive for children, they were buying Michael Jordan running shoes for a hundred dollars a pair?.
What is surprising is that many of those predictions came to the WHO from Canadians, Such as Neil Collishaw who observed the opposite of what he was preaching.
The Underground market is flourishing today it was almost wiped out in the mid 90s when the Gov. Repealed the abusive taxation, driving it at that time. The smugglers were caught with millions invested in products that cost them more than they were selling for in the stores.
This time out there is a lot more caution on the part of the black market and the prices are far lower than they were in the 90s. The vendors now hold their pricing below the price without taxation, in case it happens again. The prescription from the WHO designated a 5% increase beyond the price of inflation in order to hold the line on smuggling and produce the maximum derisive effect.
For the first time in decades we see children smoking rates rising and the only real effect of the taxation beyond the secondary market, was an increase in inflation across the board, negating the punishing feature.
Today it is the norm to see an eight dollar package of cigarettes along with a dollar for a liter of gasoline. Energy prices and utilities are all through the roof. As the effects of enabling ridiculous pricing is spawning envy and repetition among other industry sectors, who's perceptions of the value of your dollar is reflected in what you get for it.
When cigarettes are driven to eight dollars a package in the states a McDonalds burger will likely cost nine. It all comes down to what you want and how much you really want to eventually have to carry your cash in a wheelbarrow, just to buy a loaf of bread.
Beyond that, how much begging you will have to do in the bosses office, in order to just keep up, with what you have now.
Since all these bans are for health reasons, they should be required to put the Chantix warning on all of the government issued “No smoking” signs to prevent lawsuits by forcefully coercing residents into using a dangerous product.
www.marketwatch.com/story/fda-orders-harsher-
warnings-on-zyban-chantix-2009711538360
OT- but interesting for the blame the baby boomers mentality. THEY reaped the benefit of our lifetime of work and when it comes time for the payees to reap the prepaid benefits...we are victims of lifestyle choices and far too costly.
http://www.wthitv.com/dpp/
health...7030632_2602035
Excerpts:
"The obesity epidemic clearly goes beyond being an individual problem," said Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust, a nonprofit public health group.
It's a national crisis that "calls for a national strategy to combat obesity," added Robert Wood Johnson vice president Dr. James Marks. "The crest of the wave of obesity is still to crash."
While the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills. In every state, the rate of obesity is higher among 55- to 64-year-olds — the oldest boomers — than among today's 65-and-beyond.
Health economists once made the harsh financial calculation that the obese would save money by dying sooner. But more recent research instead suggests that better treatments are keeping them alive nearly as long — but they're much sicker for longer, requiring such costly interventions as knee replacements and diabetes care and dialysis. Medicare spends anywhere from $1,400 to $6,000 more annually on health care for an obese senior than for the non-obese, Levi said.
"There isn't a magic bullet. We don't have a pill for it," said Levi. "It's not going to be solved in the doctor's office but in the community, where we change norms."
His group is pushing for health reform legislation to include community-level programs that help people make healthier choices — like building sidewalks so people can walk their neighborhoods instead of drive, and providing healthier school lunches to help fight the childhood obesity that turns into adult obesity. The pending House and Senate bills address obesity in different ways; one provision would particularly target baby boomers.
Many states have begun programs to try to tackle obesity, and there are hints of improvements, Marks said.
"We're still getting fatter, but maybe a little more slowly than before," he said: Last year's report found obesity rates rising in 37 states compared with 23 this time around.
He's encouraged that 19 states have implemented nutritional standards for school meals that are stricter than the federal government's; in 2004, just four states did. Some are requiring nutritional information for restaurant food, he added.
States "recognize the solutions will lie outside traditional medical care," Marks said.
The problem with the youth of today,is that they can't decide as to whether to buy a packet of fags or a standard size bottle of the hard stuff.For the morons who want to see further increases in tobacco taxes,i'll ask one question,do you prefer to see a teenager pissed off his/her rocker or smoking a fag ? Perhaps rather than causing these problems,these ranti smoking idiots would like to start dealing with aggressive and potentially dangerous teenagers boozed out of their minds.
Hey SuperSi, I really don't think the idealists actually have contact nor awareness of teenage angst and subsequent behavior. The perspective of the children mentality is one of wishful thinking and parental blinders. In the idealist view if the society is judged to be "healthy" there will be no angst and the children will live happily ever after. Most children leave behind these stories with their toys and lessons from life experience. I have no clue why anyone would pull this trick on a child who will have no knowledge of existing in the real world. The freedom to make bad choices and learn from them is the essence of being human. Sometimes you must simply back off and let it be while refraining from saying "I told you so".
By far the most important data for public health analysis of youth tobacco use is "daily cigarette use" (as monthly or ever use are not accurate or reliable public health indicators).
According to:
http://www.monitoringthefuture.o...ta/
pr08cig1.pdf
Daily cigarette use among 8th graders in the US declined from 10.4% in 1996 to 3.% in 2008, a 70% decline.
Daily cigarette use among 10th graders in the US declined from 18.3% in 1996 to 5.9% in 2008, a 68% decline.
Daily cigarette use among 12th graders in the US declined from 24.6% in 1997 to 11.4% in 2008, a 54% decline.
But as long as cigarettes can legally be sold to 18 year olds (in 46 states), cigarette use among 12th graders will be far greater than among 8th and 10th graders.
"...the health benefits of cigarette taxation"
And there is the big lie. The one told countless times...and rolls so easily off the tongues of people doing unsolicited good. It gives them comfort to claim the noble stance of the do-gooder...when in fact their life's work is to selfishly leave their mark on the world. What hubris! That I regretfully have to fund...take a bow, I just made a donation via my purchase to the Noble Moochers Fund...spend it well. I can afford more...your plan does not work.
In claiming that more smokefree workplace laws haven't reduced the number of adult smokers, Gary K. conveniently fails to acknowledge that the US adult population increased significantly during the past two decades.
But Mr Bill, the 1 in 5 statistic still is true. 20% of the population smokes.
Oops! 300 million people in the USA, 20% is actually 60 million smokers.
Smoking ban on cartoon characters too!
4 Jul 2009,
If you thought it was only a certain former Indian minister who zealously wanted to put an end to smoking on screen, you’re wrong. Popeye
For a health group in the UK is trying to one up the ex-minister. Yes, it is planning to certify cartoons that have smoking scenes as 18+!
And, people are equally flabbergasted by the move like many across the world. “It’s quite funny to hear this because the cartoon Popeye single-handedly made spinach a craze in the US, and created awareness about healthy eating among youngsters. If you mention the word Popeye to any kid, I’m pretty sure a pipe will not figure even in the top five terms that they associate with the cartoon,” says software professional Nirmal Venkatranghan.
VJ Pooja, who is a self-confessed Popeye fan, says, “As a fan of Popeye, I can safely say that he doesn’t exactly smoke, in the truest sense of the word.” “Kids would not even notice the fact that a cartoon character is smoking. The creators of the characters are sure to turn in their graves. Steven Spielberg is currently directing a movie on Tintin. So, should he conceive Captain Haddock as a squeaky clean person sans liquor and cigar. If not, will it be certified as fit only for adults? This move is certainly, like Haddock would say, a ‘crackpot contraption’,” fumes college student Subalakshmi.
But, don’t cartoons hugely influence children? What about the numerous ads that use cartoon characters to target children? Says an advertising professional on condition of anonymity, “Yes, cartoons are influential. But that happens only when you use them for a product that caters to their needs. ”
Agrees a volunteer from an NGO that preaches against smoking, “These are actions being taken by a few over-zealous individuals who are misguided in their efforts to restrict smoking.” He also offers a constructive alternative, “Instead, governments across the world should use these cartoons constructively to preach about the evil effects of smoking to children.” Now, here is someone talking reason. But will the folks who matter listen?
In her haste to be argumentative and to deceptively imply (as Gary K. also did) that that cigarette smoking isn't declining in the US, ladyraj fails to acknowledge that only about 228 million of the 300 million people in the US are 18 years or older. Twenty percent of 228 million is 45 million smokers, not 60 million.
Also, adult per capita cigarette consumption in the US has declined from 137 packs/year in 1990 to 73 packs/year in 2008, a decline of 47%.
Its difficult to engage in a objective discussions with those who repeatedly misrepresent facts in an attempt to promote their selfish opinions and ideologies.
In claiming that more smokefree workplace laws haven't reduced the number of adult smokers, Gary K. conveniently fails to acknowledge that the US adult population increased significantly during the past two decades.
Bill Godshall | 07.03.09 - 3:36 pm |
..................
Awww Bill,
What part of this is to much for you to understand? 
That is a 4.16% increase in the number of adult cigarette smokers!!
http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/brfss/T...0000& SUBMIT1=Go
1990 the population was 250 million, 75% were adults = 187.5 million, 23% smoked is 187.5 x 23% = 43.125 million.
2007 population was 300 million, 75% were adults = 225 million, 20% smoked = 45 million cigarette smokers.
Gary K. | 07.03.09 - 2:33 pm
"I really don't think the idealists actually have contact nor awareness of teenage angst and subsequent behavior" That's the truth Ladyraj,i'm trying to help cope with a 16yo and 13yo twins lol.To see them at this age compared to how i remember myself is comparing apples and oranges,coining a much used phrase.The shit they have to put up with at school,and i'm supposed to "support" these teachers who should be put out of their misery.Nannyism is being instilled in them from kindergarten.No wonder they rebel,it's perfectly understandable.
"Its difficult to engage in a objective discussions with those who repeatedly misrepresent facts in an attempt to promote their selfish opinions and ideologies.
Bill Godshall | 07.03.09 - 4:08 pm | # " WTF,bollocks spouting from a person who deems smokers to be oral rapists,child abusers ? Your moral higher ground Bill is swampland,and you're sinking.
Also, adult per capita cigarette consumption in the US has declined from 137 packs/year in 1990 to 73 packs/year in 2008, a decline of 47%.
--------------
Population increase and MYO/RYO and blackmarket might have something to do with that!!!
---------------
Its difficult to engage in a objective discussions with those who repeatedly misrepresent facts in an attempt to promote their selfish opinions and ideologies.
Bill Godshall | 07.03.09
------------
Amen to that!!
Bill says:
In her haste to be argumentative and to deceptively imply (as Gary K. also did) that that cigarette smoking isn't declining in the US, ladyraj fails to acknowledge that only about 228 million of the 300 million people in the US are 18 years or older. Twenty percent of 228 million is 45 million smokers, not 60 million.
.............
20%(cigarettes) + 6%(cigars) + 1%(pipes) = 27%.
225 million x 27% = 60.75 million SMOKERS total.
"Our Dutch comrades in the struggle for choice have emerged victorious!!"
...........
That should make Colin's week-end!
"By far the most important data for public health analysis of youth tobacco use is "daily cigarette use" (as monthly or ever use are not accurate or reliable public health indicators)".
..............
Since being a smoker will not cause one teen-ager or young adult to die, the fact that they smoke is none of your damned business in any area of concern.
For instance; SuperCallousSi has enough to take care of, without your telling him how to raise his kids.
"Its difficult to engage in a objective discussions with those who repeatedly misrepresent facts in an attempt to promote their selfish opinions and ideologies."-Bill Godshall
Yes Mr Bill my opinions are selfish expressions of my world view. I am not interfering in your right to partake of substances in the guise of doing good...I merely want to be left alone from the people attempting to make a name for themselves at my expense. And your group continues to make it more expensive to me. Yes I selfishly would like to keep my cash, not fund a campaign against myself, and be free to selfishly live my life as I see fit. I seek no rewards or awards for telling others how to live I would rather support the individual choices that people make. I never put much emphasis on group think and I am ever the rebel...so selfish will do for now, I'll own it because last time I checked...I was the captain of my own ship. You need to step carefully though because hubris has it's own reward. It comes before the fall.
"Since being a smoker will not cause one teen-ager or young adult to die, the fact that they smoke is none of your damned business in any area of concern."
.............
Antis will claim that a youth's smoking may some day cause that youth to die a pre-mature death and that they(society) care about that pre-mature death.
However; a pre-mature death is one which occurs before the average(median/50th percentile)age of death and,by definition, fully 50% of the youths are going to die 'pre-mature' deaths whether they smoke or not!!
Not all of the 45 million adult smokers will die a pre-mature death; but,fully 90 million of the 180 million adult non-smokers WILL die a pre-mature death.
Just living causes at least twice as many pre-mature deaths as does smoking and the cost to society is twice as great.
Gary K. wrote:
"Since being a smoker will not cause one teen-ager or young adult to die, the fact that they smoke is none of your damned business in any area of concern."
Since children of smokers are at least twice as likely to become smokers than children of nonsmokers, parental smoking encourages and teaches children to smoke.
While Gary K. may not appreciate the field of public health (despite the fact that public health advocates have sharply reduced his and everyone else's risks of disease and death), reducing both adult and youth smoking are perhaps the two most important public health priorities for reducing preventable disease and death in the US and many other countries.
Hey SuperSi, I understand exactly what you're referring to, I raised 3 men and I'm currently raising a grandson. The schools are filled with teachers that fail to value parents and some overstep their boundaries. Charitable organizations have taken over the consulting for many schools and individual differences in development or ability are classified as "at risk" children. There are many fruitless referrals for interventon which is very frustrating to work thru. Many hours are spent dealing with singling out a child as different for "preventative" intervention. As a caregiver, I have to intervene with the programming of my grandkids because I want them to question everything in a respectful manner. It usually gets on the teachers nerves because they hear..."my grandma says". Some may call it a control issue and it is but I'll be the judge of how my off-spring are forming...that is my job, my responsibility, and I will defy anyone who interferes.
Sorry for going off topic again! Ruth Ann
Bill, what makes you think that you are in charge of the lives of the nation's population?
While Gary K. may not appreciate the field of public health (despite the fact that public health advocates have sharply reduced his and everyone else's risks of disease and death), reducing both adult and youth smoking are perhaps the two most important public health priorities for reducing preventable disease and death in the US and many other countries.
Bill Godshall
.............
Medical Science and public health advocates are not one and the same and no one can 'prevent' death.
Most of the diseases that have been prevented are mostly childhood diseases and the diseases of old age still remain.
As for the health care establishment, nosocomial infection deaths alone way out number the claimed deaths due to SHS/ETS exposure.
Jorge Armenteros: "Selling tobacco to children is illegal." Why should that be illegal? Are you in charge of my children?
If you have children yourself, would you want somebody else to tell you how to educate your children?
I often had to go buy a pack for my father when I was in my early teens. I never touched them. So what's your problem when I don't have one?
Bill,
Your medication might be wearing off. I’m hoping this is the case. Otherwise, what you’re writing represents your actual (natural) thinking.
“may not appreciate the field of public health”
Contemporary public health is not in need of appreciation. It is in urgent need of critique. It represents domination (a social bulldozing) by the allopathy machine that has spent the better part of half a century medicalizing (monopolizing, dumbing-down) the human condition. Even well people are ‘patients’ – everyone’s a patient. The global population has been manufactured into an ‘experimental quantity’ at the disposal of allopathy. This is sick! The little good that allopathy can do is being used to hold the public ransom to its more sinister side.
“Its difficult to engage in a objective discussions with those who repeatedly misrepresent facts in an attempt to promote their selfish opinions and ideologies.”
I’ve never heard public health folk express the view that they believe they are countering ‘ideologies’. What ‘ideologies’ are you referring to?
“reducing both adult and youth smoking are perhaps the two most important public health priorities”
Given the sheer amount of propaganda that PH foists on the public in its pet quests (its membership demonstrate no concept of psychological, social, and moral health), the most important [actual] public health priority of the time is discerning fact from fiction. At the moment you’re not helping. Your comments are the standard PH spin. You should be looking after typical, hard-working people (whose taxes you are using) who trust you, as a PH official, for accurate information, not deranged ideological quests.
“reducing preventable disease and death in the US and many other countries.”
What does ‘preventable’ mean? Does reducing preventable [specific] disease, mean that persons will experience other diseases (‘rearrangement of the deck-chairs on the Titanic’ scenario). What does ‘preventable death’ mean? – Does it mean that someone following PH rhetoric will never die?
Bill,
Do you believe there is any danger in how public health operates, particularly its view of Health® and its utter incognizance (or maybe not) of the danger of communistic/socialistic frameworks? Do you believe that health is more than arithmetic?
_
Bill: "...despite the fact that public health advocates have sharply reduced his and everyone else's risks of disease and death..."
Have they, really? I don't see how they could have done that, I never listened to them.
Mr Bill it isn't that public health efforts are not useful. By all means get the message out. But when a group is attempting to set societal norms... a minority is always made. When that minority has to fund the efforts against themselves...they feel victimized. Surely you would have predicted this outcome in your statistical models. Some people shun conformity and are resistent to all efforts that others think are good for them. The message goes in one ear and out the other. The media has reached saturation and efforts have plateaued. Your answer is to make us pay more...as usual, pick on the minority they have no lobby.
Also, adult per capita cigarette consumption in the US has declined from 137 packs/year in 1990 to 73 packs/year in 2008, a decline of 47%.
Ummmm Bill? Since myself and every smoker I personally know smokes 1 pack per day at a minimum, that means we smoke 352 packs per year.
Where exactly do you get your numbers from? Using your numbers that means most smokers smoke less than 10 cigarettes per day. I know very few people who smoke LESS than a pack a day. Where exactly do you get your numbers from?
"Since children of smokers are at least twice as likely to become smokers than children of nonsmokers, parental smoking encourages and teaches children to smoke." I could stick my head in the sand and say to my kids,do what you want to do/are going to do,but outside of my house.I have never said that,nor will i,but ALL my kids have decided to smoke.They started BECAUSE their friends smoked.My wife caught my eldest out,my daughter admitted that she smoked when she went out with her friend,and finally my youngest son admitted to smoking.The school of course went into panic mode/meltdown and tried the usual arm behind the back nico therapy,they never did increase the population as my kids demanded of them.My kids know that the shite spouted by public health doesn't add up in the real world,and no,they don't read this blog.Children are being forced into growing up too soon,this is a result of that pressure.My kids,do not do drugs,that is all i care about.They don't carry concealed weapons and they don't hang around in gangs looking for trouble.They smoke cigarettes,big deal in the scale of things.Did my father (a smoker) influence me ? No,i smoked a pipe at the onset,still do,but cigarettes are a whole lot easier and faster,so i chose the cigarette brand my grandfather smoked,Senior Service,though i could never match his 5 packets a day.I then sought out the strongest cigarette i could find.I never lie to my children,there is no point,Public Health are only deceiving themselves,so if it's for the children,my lot would like to know where the free fags are.
PS knowing my own kids,they aren't "kids" as such,they are young adults,they know their own minds,like their old man, they will fight tooth and nail for what they believe in.Reasoned argument and discussion is the ONLY way to get them to change their minds.Bullying them,intimidating them,DENORMALISING them just makes more determined.Show them the way Public Health and TC.
"Since children of smokers are at least twice as likely to become smokers than children of nonsmokers, parental smoking encourages and teaches children to smoke."
Bill, is this alleged behavior specific to smoking only? How much of your parent's lifestyle do you propagate?
And how likely is it that children of nonsmokers become smokers?
OT? Next on my agenda: Getting rid of FSC's
http://usgovinfo.about.com/b/200...-
regulation.htm
FDA Seeks Public Input on Tobacco Regulation
Friday July 3, 2009
Have an opinion or idea on how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should exercise its new power to regulate tobacco products? If you do, the FDA wants to hear it, advertising in the Federal Register that they are accepting public comment on tobacco regulation and enforcement under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, signed June 22 by President Obama.
According to the Federal Register notice, the FDA is looking for the public’s view on topics from the contents of tobacco products to advertising and marketing of tobacco products.
“We're interested in receiving input from across the country as the FDA begins to implement this important new authority intended to reduce the enormous toll of suffering and death caused by tobacco products in the United States,” said Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, Commissioner of Food and Drugs in a press release. “We look forward to the public's response.”
Keep in mind that the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act did not give the FDA the authority to ban tobacco products altogether.
How to Submit Comments: Comments must be received by Sept. 29, 2009, and can be submitted online at the Regulations.gov web site, or via surface mail to:
Division of Dockets Management (HFA–305)
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fishers Lane, rm. 106
Rockville, MD 20852
Comments submitted by mail should refer to Docket No. FDA-2009-N-0294.
"I often had to go buy a pack for my father when I was in my early teens. I never touched them. So what's your problem when I don't have one?
benpal | 07.03.09 - 6:23 pm | # " I used to go to the shop for my grandad,and i was only seven the first time i went,the counter was taller than i was.I too used to regularly purchase cigarettes for my father.I had to remove the packaging and the foil insert,so they didn't appear to be a brand new packet,if my mom saw them.I held lit cigarettes if my father needed both hands and couldn't leave the cigarette in his mouth.No,i never took a crafty pull,never even thought about it.
Per Bill Godshall, "reducing both adult and youth smoking are perhaps the two most important public health priorities for reducing preventable disease and death in the US and many other countries."
I disagree. "Public Health" covers a broad spectrum of issues with varying levels of priorities. While there have been significant reductions in tobacco consumption over the years I think that, short of prohibition, "Public Health" has reached a dead end as far as reducing tobacco consumption in the future goes. The Federal Government is now in the tobacco business via the MSA and "Tobacco Control" has partnered with Philip Morris so that PM can regulate the FDA.
"Public Health" has been a dismal failure in other areas and, because this blog is mostly about tobacco, I offer the following links without further comment. You tell me if there is any success to be claimed by "Public Health" here?
http://www.ashastd.org/learn/
lea..._statistics.cfm
http://www.ashastd.org/pdfs/std_rep.pdf
Tobacco is FDA approved and insuring the healthcare of millions.®
(Excuse me - I'm just trying to get Gary's links to work) He wrote:
The figures below are for high school kids,about 30% of high school kids drop out of school and would not be included in this.
About 60-70% of the drop outs smoke.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/...ml/
mm5526a2.htm
In 1991(27.45% of 6% of the population) about 4.11 million high school kids smoked.
In 2005(23% of 6% of the population) about 4.14 million high school kids smoked.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/
ce...stpopcounts.htm
.
Y'all have to excuse Billy, he only knows how to spew the stuff that TC spoon feeds him. Independent thought or research is foreign to him.
Excuse me - I'm just trying to get Gary's links to work) He wrote:
.................
Sorry,Some of the links are rather old.
None the less,'Happy 4th of July' to everyone, folks here are awesome!!!
It's Friday and Bill has been tipping the jug again obviously.
Public Health is a political organization which produces nothing viable that could ever save a single life, it is all about being the repressive scold everyone loves to hate and likely the most significant reason children start to smoke. From personal experience they certainly influenced my decision to start years ago, because like everyone else I knew, I didn't want to be like them.
Stress kills more than any of the risk factors you preach about Bill including smoking, so it seems by your demeanor, your attempting to be a significant factor in creating more death than you could ever hope to prevent.
As if you have any interest in how many are killed or for what. Your a pitchman and a shill for smokeless, AKA Spam in pants. FDA regulations just put us all in the same boat; on the outside looking in. Hate it don't you? Well it serves you right. As an ex extreme smoker yourself, your impetuous scold has always sounded somewhat more than hypocritical.
Smoking taxes are simply opportunistic theft that only breeds more opportunism. Your just acting out as one of the "useful idiots" Chapman described, being used to promote a better world for Big Tobacco executives, by shifting the financial burden and any punishment to their clients.
You know, the same people you claim to be "helping."
“Its also clear, however, that there are limits to cigarette taxation, with a retail price of $9-$10/pack about the limit where cigarette smuggling negates the health benefits of cigarette taxation.”
Sure its clear Bill, as many people who smoke make only minimum wage; that is why the Fed waited until the full minimum wage increase came in to effect ,and then raised taxes on tobacco. Negating smuggling was the least of Gov’s worries, filling the coffers is and always has been priority.
Your kicking sh3t for politicians Bill. ($9-$10/pack).
That’s all.
On the original topic:
Hmm, A cigarette that's mild but full of flavor. Sure sounds good (and the last time I looked in the mirror, I was an adult). How dare PM produce and advertise a cigarette that sounds good! What rotten SOBs. Had they any conscience at all, they'd produce a cigarette that tastes like yak dung so that not one child (or adult, for that matter) would ever want to smoke them. Or, wait a second-- maybe adults would smoke them since you appear to think seeking a pleasant cigarette is limited to kids.
Its difficult to engage in a objective discussions with those who repeatedly misrepresent facts in an attempt to promote their selfish opinions and ideologies.--Bill Godshall
Why am I hearing Twilight Zone music? (Ding-ding-Ding-ding) All opinions are, per se, subjective, and so, in that sense, are broadly "selfish" and ideologies are literally a collection (ie, a logos) of ideas-- a kind of generalized subjectivity. In that sense, all opinions and ideologies are created equal, including yours and Siegel's. However, in the sense you undoubtedly mean "selfish," (promoting your own interests while destroying those of others) it's yours that fill the bill. Your opinions and ideology are entirely centered on forcing your own personal prescriptions on others -- annihilating their selfhood and self-determination. No smoker or property owner on this board has ever expressed a desire to mess with anyone else.
:
“Since children of smokers are at least twice as likely to become smokers than children of nonsmokers, parental smoking encourages and teaches children to smoke.”
I’m the boy of a smoker, my wife gave me this, sorry Bill boy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b...24303AA&
index=4
God bless you Kim.
I fully subscribe what Walt says.
Why should a company market a product that finds no market? There is no evidence that PM "markets" to youths. They market to consumers and youths are not different from adults.
If menthol was really THE hook for youths, we would see an ever increasing consumption of menthol cigarettes among adults, unless there is an age at which youths suddenly switch their preference from menthol to regular.
With the same reasoning one could claim that PM targets nonsmokers (and youths) by putting addictive substances into their cigarettes. Ban nicotine ... except in pharmacological delivery devices!
"Ban nicotine ... except in pharmacological delivery devices!"
benpal
Do be careful, we may be punitively taxed because of the scientific ignorance of previous centuries and the face saving cover ups in the 40's,but though we pay dearly for enjoying a vitamin, it would be unfair and unnecessary to deprive everyone else.
Cauliflower 16.8 59.5
Eggplant (Aubergine) 100.0 10
Potatoes 7.1 140
Green tomatoes 42.8 23.4
Ripe tomatoes 4.3 233.0
Pureed tomatoes 52.0 19.2
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/cont...tract/329/6/
437
The average values for nicotine in tomato and potato were 7.3 ng/g wet weight and 15 ng/g wet weight, respectively.
Black teas, including regular and decaffeinated brands, had nicotine contents ranging from non-detectable to greater than 100 ng/g wet weight. Instant teas yielded the highest nicotine contents observed (up to 285 ng/g wet weight).
The possible sources of nicotine in these foods are discussed.
A range of potential values for urinary cotinine concentrations (0.6 to 6.2 ng/ml) was calculated based upon estimated average and maximal consumptions of these foods and beverages. Because of the potential for exposure to nicotine by way of these routes, the use of urinary cotinine as a biomarker of exposure to environmental tobacco smoke may be compromised.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubm.../pubmed/
1765327
Dietary Contributions to Nicotine Body Burden
"Recent USDA food intake surveys are used to perform a probabilistic analysis of dietary intake of nicotine. Using limited data on nicotine content of foodstuffs (tea, tomato, potato, green pepper, and eggplant) and the 198991 Continuing Survey of Food Intakes by Individuals (CSDII), the absorbed dose of nicotine is shown to be significant compared to present day environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) nicotine exposures
The dietary contributions of absorbed nicotine dose are significant when compared to present ETS exposures. A recent study of workplace ETS exposure results in mean and median absorbed nicotine doses of 11 and 3 mg/d, respectively. Thus, ETS exposure analysis based on total nicotine absorption needs to consider dietary intake. This includes the use of cotinine (a major metabolite of nicotine) which has been a widely used biomarker"
http://www.riskworld.com/abstrac...95/
ab5aa174.htm
"Many plants of the Solanaceae family, which includes the genus Nicotiana, of which the tobacco
plant is a member, contain solanesol; particularly those that contain trace amounts of nicotine.
These include the tomato, eggplant, potato, and pepper. The potential interference due to these
sources is negligible, cooking being the only likely potential source of interference. An
interference of this type would bias results high, overestimating the contribution of ETS to RSP." http://www.coresta.org/Recommend...hods/
CRM_52.pdf
I daresay TC's associates would welcome the opportunity to genetically modify the nightshade vegetables to remove all trace of nicotine, equip them with terminator genes and patent the lot.
“Since children of smokers are at least twice as likely to become smokers than children of nonsmokers, parental smoking encourages and teaches children to smoke.”
I’m the boy of a smoker, my wife gave me this, sorry Bill boy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b...?v=b...24303AA&
index=4
God bless you Kim.
Haaa
Oh dear too late.
Many commonly and widely consumed vegetables of the nightshade family (Solanaceae)
such as potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants and capsicums naturally contain low levels of nicotine.
Nicotine has also been detected in cauliflower and tea – two non-solanaceous plants.
"A report on the safety of nicotine has been prepared. Nicotine at the exposure levels obtained
from tobacco smoke, is a powerful psychoactive drug" ????
A concern expressed by health authorities is that the addition of tobacco or nicotine in food
may promote or legitimise the smoking of tobacco or the use of smokeless tobacco products.
1.Prohibit the use of Nicotiana species and all substances derived therefrom in all foods.
2. Allow the use of Nicotiana species, in all foods but restrict the level of nicotine to the
level demonstrated to be safe.
3. Allow the use of Nicotiana species and all substances derived therefrom in all foods.6.1
VicHealth proposed a modified Option 2 – Allow the use of Nicotiana species in all foods but
restrict the level of nicotine to the level demonstrated to be safe and not to be therapeutic or
psychoactive.
The option was raised to prevent foods such as the nightshades, known to naturally contain low levels of nicotine, from being banned.
Option 1 in this Proposal
addresses the concerns of VicHealth by preventing the addition of nicotine to food, while
permitting the sale of foods that naturally contain nicotine, such as the nightshades.
National Council of Women of New Zealand.
With respect to the VicHealth Centre for Tobacco Control, the NCWNZ raises the question of determing a safe level for children.
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/
...e_FAR_Final.pdf
When you discover that you have made a hideous mistake, that you realise WILL have widespread unintended and adverse consequences, you shouldn't try to brazen it out.
Finally, some politicians are getting it:
Arizona is now close to becoming the first state to outlaw smoking ban. The state Senate voted Monday, 19-10 to approve a bill banning the Department of Public Health from enacting or enforcing measures with language pertaining to environmental tobacco smoke. The bill is now awaiting House approval.
The bill will likely pass and be signed into law thanks to a switch in power.
http://snipurl.com/lr3bq
Wouldn't that be nice? Unfortunately the bill is about climate change, not smoking bans. It shows nevertheless that policy changes are possible once the public has seen the fraud on which policies are based.
Come on Benpal, you have to know that it is that little waft of tobacco smoke that is melting all those icebergs and fossil fuels plays sbsolutely no part in it. Smoking bans in Arizona will never be relaxed! Pretty sure that will be Al Gores take on it too.
Bill;
Rumor has it the yellow cheese color once seen in the late 50s and early 60s when viewing the moon, was a result of third hand cigarette smoke.
Today since smoking bans were implemented in many places the moon has returned to its former pristine blue white coloring. Proof is seen in an unexpected growth in the population, due to many teens spending to much time exposed to moon rays. Unfortunately the tidal effect of unrestricted moon beams is causing global warming.
Unintended consequence? or a plot to sell beach front real estate in Alaska? I believe Sarah Palin's resignation at this time is no coincidence.
Trust no one; especially if they call themselves authorities and scientists.
BOO
I just have to ask.
So Doctor you being in Public Health and all, could you answer the National Council of Women of New Zealand, and tell them what the "safe level for children" is of a "deadly addictive" and "powerful psychoactive drug" in their lunches.
Or that there might just possibly be something ever so slightly wrong with your science, aka hogwash from beginning to end.
Or that there might just possibly be something ever so slightly wrong with your science, aka hogwash from beginning to end.
Rose |
..................
Ah now,not all of the science is bad.
What is bad, is that the antis make their claims from pre-determined ideas with no regard to science that shows them wrong.
Gary
Now this I can understand, though I don't agree.
"With secondhand smoke, the main concerns are exposure to levels of carbon monoxide and respirable particulate matter"
"The wider public health aims of the legislation – to denormalise smoking with a view to reducing uptake and to support smokers who are trying to quit"
But to carry the nicotine addiction theory( as hard to give up as heroin, cocaine, deadly drug etc etc ad infinitum ) over into the World's food supply at a time of impending shortages,is another thing entirely.
Rich countries launch great land grab to safeguard food supply
"Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.
The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, has warned that the controversial rise in land deals could create a form of "neo-colonialism", with poor states producing food for the rich at the expense of their own hungry people"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/enviro...fuels-land-
grab
"World production of potatoes is about 316 million metric tons each year, making it the fourth leading food crop after wheat, rice and corn. Furthermore, production of potatoes is increasing, particularly in developing countries." http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/
...Unit15Notes.htm
"What is bad, is that the antis make their claims from pre-determined ideas with no regard to science that shows them wrong.
Gary K. | 07.04.09 - 9:13 am | " Methinks that sounds like Dr Siegel's ETS studies that firmly established him as the golden boy of TC.
We have seen this misinformation turn previously rational people into petrified creatures who think that a wisp of burning leaf smoke will instantly give them cancer.
If they believe that their food is similarly "contaminated" what happens then?
"The head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, Jacques Diouf, has warned that the controversial rise in land deals could create a form of "neo-colonialism", with poor states producing food for the rich at the expense of their own hungry people"" Isn't this where the demand for the reduction in growing tobacco to be replaced by a food crop is occurring ? The only problem is that tobacco achieves a greater price than many foodstuffs for the beleaguered farmer .Subsidization is merely for political purposes .
Si
It gets worse
"Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil."
"Since April, all petrol and diesel in Britain has had to include 2.5% from biofuels. The EU has been considering raising that target to 10% by 2020, but is faced with mounting evidence that that will only push food prices higher." http://www.guardian.co.uk/
enviro...renewableenergy
"schools are filled with teachers that fail to value parents and some overstep their boundaries." As a public school teacher, I have to address this. Teachers were ordered to begin involving themselves in the parenting of children when parents removed themselves from that role in many of our nation's schools. As a high school teacher, I can attest to the fact that only a small minority of parents continue to take an interest in their children's education. Those parents who have removed themselves EXPECT the public schools to educate their children, give them breakfast and lunch, teach them about sex, observe and solve emotional problems in their children, teach them to avoid drugs and tobacco and alcohol, babysit, provide transportation for school and extracurricular activities, give children after-school activities and chaperone them, provide a winning football team to entertain both parents and their kids, etc. etc. Parents demanded the expanding role of teachers in their kids' lives because frankly, a good percentage of parents just don't want to do it. They have lives, after all. Giving control to the schools also means that they have a scapegoat to blame when things go wrong. As a teacher, if I do not report bruises and other suspicious injuries, I am guilty of a crime. I am also likely to be sued by the abusive parent himself if a child's traumatic injuries lead to death and were unreported. A few years ago, I taught at an urban school. Our school had a massive campaign to get more parents to conferences and involved in their kids' lives. Parent/teacher conferences required teachers to remain after school from 3:00 to 8:00 PM...without dinner. The most parents out of 150 possibilities who showed up was four. Those four parents were actually two sets of mother/father representing two students. Actually, I was happy to see anyone. We could not get enough parents to have an athletic booster club, so the teachers were the booster club. For prom, teachers donated money so that the kids could have a prom. Teachers also donated prom gowns so that the girls could feel special on this night. Teachers become involved in the lives of their students because someone has to. Is this true of all schools? Absolutely not. It is, however true in the schools where I have worked. In some of those schools, it is the norm. In other schools, there is a percentage where it is so. Find me a public school where teachers do not need to get involved in their students' lives outside the classroom, and you will find a high level of achievement both in and out of the classroom. I don't know of a teacher anywhere who would not mind his/her own business if it were possible, legally, contractually, and morally.
Sheri, it goes farther than the classrooms when it comes to giving up parental responsibilities. While in NY last week, my great neice, age 15 attended a party where she was caught drinking beer. Her picture was taken and was posted on facebook. Her very antismoking mother was upset, more because it was on facebook, rather than the fact that she was drinking. Was she grounded or told no more parties for the rest of the summer? No, the mom wanted to have the parents of the kid who threw the party arrested. Maybe they should have been, but as the parent, neither mom or dad asked who the chaperones would be or if any alcohol of any kind would be available. It took awhile, but they finally understood what I was saying when I told them they were just as guilty as the parents of the party thrower. It is time for parents to take an interest in their childrens lives instead of relying on me to raise their kids. Incidences of sex, drinking, illegal drugs and my smoking would never be an issue if they did.
Sheri and Diane, Thank You.....Thank You.....Thank You.....You have said so brilliantly what I have been saying for years. If ALL parents gave a "shit", these discussions would not be necessary. I was in Cobb County, Ga., and they did a parent night where I was just one of the speakers about a variety of topics involving kids re; premarital sex, underage drinking, drugs, ecstasy, cocaine, bullying, tobacco, etc. etc. etc. etc. and 21 parents showed up with a student body of over 1300 middle school aged children. So just for the %&%% of it I said," lets do a program on how to get your kids in modeling and or acting" and over 500 parents showed up for that "venue". In my opinion this is the state of this country. SAD..SAD...SAD.
Again, thank you Sheri and Diane for your objective and honest commentary.
David Goerlitz
I am reminded of a high school junior who was caught smoking at school. At the time, my school operated on a demerit system, and smoking was not an automatic suspension as it is today. However, this girl had accumulated enough demerits to be suspended, so the principal called her mom to come get her. Mom was FURIOUS. She was not furious because her daughter had been caught smoking or that she had over 50 demerits. She was FURIOUS because she had to leave work to come get her daughter. When she arrived and went into the principal's office to collect her daughter, she immediately slugged the girl and knocked her against the wall. The principal had to intervene to break up the beating and threatened to call the police on Mom. For some reason, he did not do that, and he sent the girl with her mom from the building. My point is not that the mother should not have been angry at the girl's behavior, but that her anger was instead at the inconvenience her suspension had caused her mother. Personally, I believe the cops should have been called because I can only speculate at what happened when the two of them got home.
Diane, my daughter is an especially good human being who neither smoked nor drank in high school with one exception. There was tremendous pressure in her peer group to drink, but she prevailed and did not. She did, however, go to some unchaperoned drinking parties at other students' homes. One night she decided to have a couple of drinks. The party was raided by the police (120 kids there), but she left the party before the police arrived.
I gained total trust and respect for her that night. First, although she had driven to the party; she called another friend who was not drinking to come get her. Secondly, she had permission to stay the night with a friend. She came home instead. She immediately woke us up to tell my husband and me what she had done. She was clearly not drunk, but she confessed to having two drinks. I was not happy that she had decided to drink, but I was thrilled that she had made two very important decisions after doing so: not to drive and not to attempt getting away with the behavior by going to her friend's home to stay the night. She 'fessed up.
What followed was amazing. The raid made the papers, and at school on Monday, student athletes were called to the AD's office. My daughter was a top softball player, so she was called. He asked if she had been at the party and chuckled since she was always one of the "good" kids. She surprised him when she answered yes. He then asked if she had been drinking. She said yes. She was suspended for the remaining three softball games. She deserved that because she had broken policy. What followed though made me so angry I could spit. Only three of the student athletes were honest; the others lied. The honest kids were suspended from play. The liars were excused. One mother swore to the principal that her daughter had not even been at the party, although there were pictures of her drinking there. This mom picked up her daughter from the party and then LIED for her to the school. The daughter escaped all school punishment, continued with softball and became the class valedictorian. I would never lie for my kids to save them from a deserved punishment.
That punishment made a huge impression on my daughter and she never tried drinking again in high school. Insert: she is NOT a smoker either. The memory of this mom and some others who "protect" their children from consequences makes me vomit. On a side note, the parents of the girl who had the party at her home were vacationing in Ireland at the time. They did not come home early. Since they were wealthy, they managed to donate a wad of cash to the local politicians and completely avoided further publicity and prosecution. For those of us who do not have a wad of cash, there is a penalty of both fines and jail time for parents who allow unchaperoned parties with drinking teenagers
Hey Sheri I apologize if my statement offended you and your profession. My only experience as an educator comes from instructing teachers and nurses seeking advanced degrees in psychology or learning disabilty courses (self motivated).
My experience as a therapist and psychological examiner brought me in contact with identified "at risk" children with teacher/parent referrals for hyperactive children... predominantly boys who were less verbal and prone to kinetic tendencies. Some were referred for differential achievement scores that could be indicative of a learning disorder or a need for additional resources. I dealt with the families too because the "identified patient" is only part of the whole story.
As a parent and caregiver I experienced educators from a different perspective. I did the volunteer nurse and library worker thing and got to visit the teacher's lounge...the comments against parents were not pretty. One of my 3 boys was a problem for me as a parent because once or twice a year the teachers would call me in for conferences to inform me that hyperactivity was suspected right up until middle-school. He was an honor roll student who liked to talk at inappropriate times and stared out the window. I listened patiently to the interpretation of my spawn and would respond with queries based on my education and experience...which was met with much surprise. An educated parent in school psychology was evidently a rare thing. The assumption was that I needed to be educated about my son and lacking in expert knowledge. Now why was the assumption there in the 1st place? At least I could dispel the preconceived notions...others may just merely be offended and avoid contact.
Teachers have a fine education that at times make parents not educated feel inferior. The new teachers fresh from college still use language from their educated peers. It is sad to see the face of a parent who has no clue what the teacher is trying to communicate. The 1st rule of communication is to know your audience and pick up on cues that your message is understood. That is sometimes lacking and is developed over time.
In the old days there was normally 1 wage earner in the family and a parent was a phone call away. Society has changed...the average household has 2 working parents. Throw in after school activities and a host of other obligations and you have some very stressed out parents. If they take the easy way out using the teachers as the holders of expert educational skills to inform them of potential problems they are viewed as poorly as if they are problem parents that try to tell teachers how to do their job. It APPEARS to be a lose-lose scenario in which parents, as a whole, are viewed in negative terms. It seems to be a rare thing that parents step correctly via the educational setting.
These views are my opinion based on experience from various perspectives of education. We can be free to disagree. As always, I view teachers as the underpaid fuel for our future generations who often fund school projects from their own pockets. They care and at times serve a thankless endeavor.
Sheri you wrote: "She was FURIOUS because she had to leave work to come get her daughter."
That might have been what was said but there is always a message underlying the words. Taken literally, as someone not enmeshed with the family dynamic, it appears the mother wasn't concerned. What if the concern was for being able to feed, clothe, and shelter the child via the job the mother had to leave which was an hourly position. In this scenario, the child is well aware of the expectations from the parents, the importance of earnings, and the effects of inappropriate school behavior. All families have their silent agreements and it seems the superficial comes to mind and mouth initially in the process.
The child's behavior may be simply acting out or a cry for help with an in your face behavior because one knows when their demerits are getting high. It has been my experience that referrals to counselors occur at the onset of repeated infractions after parents are notified of pending suspension before full suspension.
The mother hitting the child in the school reveals a parent in crisis who lacks the ability to differentiate appropriate behavior. Anger is an common symptom when identifying mental health issues. The police and social services should have been called to get this parent the help needed to break the cycle of acting out.
"The option was raised to prevent foods such as the nightshades, known to naturally contain low levels of nicotine, from being banned"
Does TC really think they have the power to ban potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, capsicums and cauliflowers from the whole of Australia and New Zealand?
"Does TC really think they have the power to ban potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, capsicums and cauliflowers from the whole of Australia and New Zealand?"-Rose
Perhaps they will address it with OB (obesity control). I hear the obesity epidemic is as bad as the tobacco epidemic...I mean pandemic. First the taters with butter and sour-cream...next the cheesy cauliflower dishes with ranch dressing on the side!
ladyraj
And all containing nicotine, shock, horror!
The public should be warned, natural plants that they all eat every day, contain "deadly, addictive, harder to quit than heroin and cocaine,psychoactive drug nicotine"
That should cause some interesting psychosomatic illnesses.
When I was a little girl I was told that if I ate apple pips a tree would grow in my stomach.
Its about the same level of science.
Hey Rose, my mother kept us out of cake batter by telling us we would get worms. Interestingly, we would fight over licking the bowl without the same warning. It didn't take long to figure out that adults issued warnings for reasons not based in logic...but as a means to an end.
ladyraj
And if you were frowning, if the wind changed direction you were going to stay that way?
"That should cause some interesting psychosomatic illnesses."-Rose
I love the delicate olfactory sufferers that can smell smoke from a cigarette in an open car window from the vehicle ahead of them in traffic!!!
I once came across a blogger that was adamant that his water was contaminated by cigarette butts and poisoning him via his sensitive tobacco allergy.
Another individual was a civil service worker at the state unemployment office who used the American with disabilities act to prevent smoking anywhere around him prior to the bans. You see he could die from brief exposure!!! His paranoia resulted in a hands off approach until he was asked to retire on disabilty compensation. Now he has more time to dedicate to the fight against toxic tobacco.
You can't make this stuff up...
ladyraj
Oh I definately think we should tell them, its only right.
"the nightshades, known to naturally contain low levels of nicotine"
We can warn them about the nicotine addiction via statistical analysis on survey responses to judge the level of intervention required. We may need a complementary 12 step program to aid in their treatment. Once the individual loads up on the nightshades, caring survey takers could inquire about the level of use, abuse, dependence, and assess current cravings.
They may profess a need for a purified or distilled version of tomatos...the dreaded crack of the veggie world...tomato sauce. I've heard of people almost mainlining these sauces in sugared forms developed to addict children known commonly as Ketchup. Ad campaigns that are designed to sell this addictive substance to children on a daily basis. These substances have been known to cause premature death and virtually all children exposed to nightshades will die. Time is of the essence.
A nicotine free focus on Pub Grub could mean the end of the Old English Pub, who would be at a loss when selling Bangers without the mash, or Fish with neither the chips or tomato garnish.
Is it too soon to start the business plan for a ten steps program to get everyone off the deadly nightshade scourge?
Public Health; Imagination has no limits.
T Shirts?
Public Health; Imagination has no limits.
Ladyraj, you did not offend me. I imagine that our roles dictate our point of view where schools, teachers, and parents come together. I know that you are highly educated and able to comment more succinctly on the psychological dynamics of the situations I described. I wish you could have been there when three students committed suicide over a three month period and twenty or so students attempted or threatened to kill themselves during the domino effect of suicide within a high school. It was a horrible time in my career, a time where I felt totally inadequate and scared senseless that some person's child left in my care would hear something or sense something that would drive him/her over the edge and become still another statistic. My point is that teachers are often expected to perform jobs for which they have little training and knowledge. I have had times where I simply had to go by instinct, hoping to say the right thing to a kid who appeared suicidal, to a girl with the imprint of her boyfriend's hands bruised on her throat, to a young girl pregnant and scared to tell her parents, etc. I thought at the beginning, when I was 21 and naive that I was going to teach Shakespeare to 15 year olds. It seemed clear shortly thereafter that I would have to do much more than I was prepared for whether I wanted to or not. I am sorry that some of your experiences with teachers was negative, but I guess it is like any other job: you just have to be there to understand. I am simply weary of the bad press against the public schools. Bad things do happen there. Bad teachers do stay in the classroom, but it is its own little world, and all and all, the majority of us do try to care for your children and we do come to love them. We do not always do the right thing, but we do what we can.
Bill says: "Its difficult to engage in a objective discussions with those who repeatedly misrepresent facts in an attempt to promote their selfish opinions and ideologies."
Thanks for the opening, Bill...
Probably at least a year ago I said I felt it was very important to find out what makes people like Bill tick. If we understand it then maybe we can mold our strategies to combat it and be more effective. And so I embarked on reading The Liberal Mind by Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., MD. Let's face it, the nanny mindset is most present in Liberal minds. Remember that when the mid-term elections were over last time the antis all boasted that their agenda should see movement now that many state bodies were taken over by majority Dems. THEY believe that it takes the left to do their bidding. And we all see what has happened with a Dem. president and Congress.
We, on the other hand, who hold fast to fundamental values of liberty, autonomy, and self-determination are undoubtedly partnered with the right. And I don't care if you (the individual reader) considers himself a Dem. If you've embraced liberty and autonomy and free will then you've got a foot in the right no matter how much that idea might bother you.
So I begin to quote from this book (probably many more to come):
"[The liberal mind] suspects that conservatives are fundamentally selfish, and he is unaware that this belief is, in part, a projection of his own unconscious selfishness."
"[The Radical Liberal] seeks through the state that degree of coercion needed to redress the trauma, injustice, helplessness and humiliation experienced at the hand of his original caretakers. He hopes to do this by passing laws that indulge his impulses and exempt him from the proper obligations of mature adulthood."
"Because he does not understand the childhood origins of his pain, he projects his neurosis into a contemporary world of imagined villains, victims and heroes. Once he locates himself in this world, he hopes to find in the ministrations of the Modern Parental State what he missed as a child. He may not admit it to himself or others that he did, in fact, suffer early wounds. If he does admit this fact, he will not realize his wounds drive his political views. If he realizes this causal connection, he will not admit it to others."
"Free and productive people who remind him of his own deficits have to be reigned in: they must be taxed, regulated and penalized through the power of the state."
"Because he has not achieved competence himself, the radical liberal cannot comprehend, let alone empathize with, the autonomous, sovereign and mutual adult who joyfully embraces freedom with all its risks and responsibilities."
[Me speaking: And that's why debating antis in forums fail. There is no reasoning with those who cannot comprehend the concept]
"The radical liberal's solution to his inner demons is to be rescued by the power of parental government."
"The concept of transference [from his past traumatic experience to his current day demands] is essential to understanding the radical liberal's neurosis."
"The institutions of liberty [basically looking after and taking care of one's own self -- to nutshell it] represent to the radical liberal the cruel, withholding and indifferent parents of his childhood."
Go ahead, Bill, make my day. Give me some more openings.
OT
For those who read Pr. Molimard’s ‘’ The European Report ‘‘Lifting the SmokeScreen’’: Epidemiological study or manipulation? English version at: http://cagecanada.homestead.com/
...ueMolimard.html
One of his main criticisms was that in order to make SHS a significant public health problem and bring in the bans, and I quote the professor: ‘’The 5863 deaths attributed to passive smoking in France are including the whole population - a large majority of smokers and non-smokers alike. One is to expect that if the air is filled with smoke, of course these active smokers inhale as much if not more smoke as the non-smokers since they do not find it necessary to avoid the company of smokers. They are in effect stricto sensu exposed to environmental tobacco smoke. Inhaling smoke produced by their own tobacco is however inherent to the risks they take as active smokers. To measure the passive ratio of their mortality under the pretense that they do not only inhale their smoke directly but also the smoke laden air of the room in which they smoke, seems artificial and particularly specious’’.
For those who were doubting Pr. Molimard’s analysis and word, look what I just found. The EU admitting openly that of all 6000 deaths they attribute to ETS, 2500 were non-smokers! Doesn’t anyone else besides Pr. Molimard question this blatant and openly admitted fraud? Crazy.
Read it here:
http://euobserver.com/851/28392
‘’Last year alone, 6,000 people died in the EU just from "workplace exposure to tobacco smoke," including 2,500 non-smokers, it says.’’
In the same article, Godfrey Bloom encourages civil disobedience to gain back freedom. Kudos to him !
Mr. Bloom's words:
"Nobody pretends that smoking is a good thing, but it is legal," said UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom.
"These bullies seem to have no truck with freedom, liberty or tolerance. Well in that case we shall have to take it back. And if that means a certain level of civil disobedience, well so be it," Mr Bloom added.
"I've heard of people almost mainlining these sauces in sugared forms developed to addict children known commonly as Ketchup" - ladyraj
'Food addiction is no different from any other addiction, such as to alcohol or gambling. People with an addictive nature commonly discover a whole range of mood-altering substances and processes and may choose several at once because they find them equally effective.'
Althea Hayton, who wrote the Food Addicts Diet and more recently Food and You, holds group-counselling sessions in Hertfordshire for men and women who are addicted to food.
'There are definite reactions the body has to certain addictive foods,' she said. 'They create cravings and gets you hooked.'
Althea has identified four ingredients in everyday foods that cause cravings. Foods such as potatoes - and even tomatoes and peppers - contain a natural poison called solanine just underneath their skin. In some people this chemical causes a natural high - and can therefore be addictive.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/healt...-
addiction.html
As a precaution, ketchup eating children should be banned from playgrounds, parks and beaches.
They might burp or worse.
Iro
Civil disobedience can be tricky.
For instance, yesterday evening we went for a drive in the country, it would have been lovely to stop at a country pub,sit in the beer garden, have a bite to eat and watch the sun go down.
But then I would be complying with the law, that states I must be outside exposed to the elements!
So that was out of the question.
I'm slightly perplexed at how many here have seemingly bought the idea that a 15 year old who so much as drinks a drop is committing a cardinal sin. Or that a tempered experiment into crossing a small line or indulging a very natural curiosity, or venturing into autonomy marks the difference between a teenager who's "good" and one who's "bad." And certainly what a kid does outside of school (short of committing a felony) is none of the school's business. If the parents want to mete out punishment, so be it, but it's not up to the school (tho this is what we get when the Village raises the child).
If you actually raise your kids to think about what they do, to use sound judgment, to appreciate moderation, to understand that they're ultimately responsible for themselves, and to practice self-protection, that's the best you can do. And then you let them live. It's the failure to do the former that gets kids in trouble, not a beer or a cigarette.
:
Walt
I was regularly given a sip of wine with sunday lunch or on special occasions, at an early age.
Because there was never any fuss made about the perils of alcohol, is a possible reason why alcohol holds no real interest for me.
Tobacco was not very interesting until the righteous went on and on showing me phials of engine oil and threatening me with death, when I knew it was a plant very closely related to a tomato.
Australia, the ‘dead zone’ of thought.
Federal government looking at new anti-tobacco 'plan'. Support from the dismembered body-part (heart foundation) group and the disease (cancer council) group.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/lat...e-packs-report/
_
At the risk of putting my buttocks on the line to suffer the slings and arrows of personal revelations and probable boredom I offer this response to Sheri:
Hey Sheri, My negative experiences in school began with a teacher well past retirement who took an instant dislike for me in the 2nd grade. My 7th grade teacher, the football coach, was fired for smacking me in the face. But an art teacher in my 5th year arranged a scholarship for me at the Cincinnati Art Academy. My gym teacher recognized that I had certain flexibility and helped me develop confidence in my physical prowess and chose me to be a cheerleader. A math teacher made computation easy for me because he described the exercises as solving a puzzle which had me intrigued. When my grades started slipping in 9th grade because of social reasons I had an English teacher who called me out on dummying down my natural ability. She was right and never had to address the lack of effort on my part again. I had numerous teachers attempt to talk me out of dropping out of high school in the middle of 10th grade...to no avail. I am a high school dropout. My mother was old school and only had an 8th grade education (advanced for that era) and let me sign out of school because as a female I would marry and raise babies. A year and a half later I took my GED and passed easily because of the fine education I had from the teachers doing their jobs.
My point in all this verbiage is that I had good and bad teachers. Ask any student and you will hear the same thing. The good ones have the most impact and are fondly remembered for their caring professionalism and their ability to not act as a parent.
I grew up in a blue collar family in which my father often worked 16 hour shifts. My mother had a heart condition and rarely could attend school conferences or functions. If I ever detected a hint of negativity towards my familial situation I knew even as a child that judgment was relative and often indicative of a lack of knowledge of how others live. The lack of expected school participation by my parents did not hamper my academic achievement and future endeavors in any way. In fact, the opposite was true, learning became a habit for me which I continue to this day.
As a therapist I have done on call intakes in jails, emergency rooms, and my office to aid people in turmoil. I have spent hours finding a bed for an uninsured individual that fit the criteria for danger to self or others. I've testified in court ordered evaluations that for children have lifelong ramifications. When calamity strikes an area office hours are suspended and grief counseling and at risk evaluations are done voluntarily. It is part of my oath but also my training. I am required to carry malpractice insurance in case I am sued. As a teacher all of these resources are at your disposal you only have to make the recommendation. The resources are for teachers and administration as well. If a child fell and appeared confused when queried would your training qualify you to diagnose a concussion or would you defer to an expert trained in the field? Are you authorized to give a Tylenol to a child with cramps? You know as well as I do that advice given to a child from the teaching staff, no matter how well meaning, can bite them in the backside.
Your own words regarding the poor attendance for school conferences reveal the apparent disconnect with expectations and communication. Should the school personnel be in their own little world separate from the families they strive to work for? I know you are tired of the blame but the game works both ways. When I stated that some teachers overstep boundaries I was referring to what their certifications allow via the school board that is funded by parental/residential/commercial tax dollars. Parenting, life advice outside of ability and achievement, and therapy is not a teacher's purview. Recommendations that a child should discuss an issue with their parents or an offer to raise the subject on their behalf, as well as counselor referrals fulfill the teacher requirement for intervention. Extreme situations are evaluated on an individual case basis.
I truly mean no offense but I suspect that your big heart may endanger your position and prevent you from using resources that can relieve your burden. We all know that good teachers are susceptible to burnout and that would truly be a terrible outcome. Keep the faith but please recognize that loving a student is inappropriate and may appear to please the parent but also can be frightening to them leading to distrust.
Relating to Iro's citation of the EU claims and Molimard's anlysis.
The figures brought forward be the EU are based on a "study" by Jamrozik, mandated by the EU (no bias, guaranteed!?)
http://dev.ersnet.org/343-eu-
tob...+screen#par1597
From this report:
Table 5: Estimated numbers of deaths attributable to passive smoking in the 25 countries of the EU in 2002
Note: Includes smokers and non-smokers alike. Purposely misleading!
Total workplace: 7280
Total hospitality workers: 325
Table 7: Estimated numbers of deaths attributable to passive smoking
among non-smokers in the 25 countries of the EU in 2002
Total workplace: 2799
Total hospitality workers: 89
(Total population EU: 450 million. Wow, talk about death toll!)
P.S. regarding my above post.
Of course, there is no way, repeat NO WAY, to even guess how many hospitality workers are exposed to what levels and for which duration. You have to make up these figures.
Walt and Rose, you are absolutely right. The common believe, happily perpetrated by Pubic [sic] Health, is that having one single sip of alcohol or one single puff of cigarette makes you a lost cause. Reality and personal experience tells us otherwise.
In rural areas in the southern part of Europe it used to be custom for children to have wine (diluted with water) with their Sunday meals.
Scandinavia is known for its alcohol excesses, while alcohol is prohibitively expensive.
Hey guys, I don't have a problem with a 15 year old having a drink either. My problem is with the parents who do have a problem with it. The parents who do not ask if alcohol will be included, or if there will even be chaperones at the party. Chances are, the parents of the party thrower had no idea that alcohol was being consumed. My problem is with the parents who doesn't ask questions of their child, but expects everyone else to know what their child is doing and if they decide they don't like it, they have someone arrested for something they as parents should be doing.
I do have a problem with anyone who thinks that the teacher or a neighbor should be raising someone else's child. I do believe that if anyone seen my child doing something, they should come to me and tell me and let me deal with it as a parent. The thinking that it takes a village to raise a child is dangerous. The village has dictated so much on how you should raise your child, parents no longer do it on their own. They give up that right as soon as they step outside the hospital after the babies are born. Children are precious gifts and parents should be doing their own upbringing. This is not to say that if you should happen to see my child do something dangerous, you shouldn't come tell me first so that I as a parent can deal with it and I would do the same for you. If a child knows that you are not far behind them, knows that you are there to listen and talk to them, knows that you can be counted on when they need you the most, there would be fewer kids with the need for rebellion and fewer kids drinking at parties or deciding to smoke. I do not have a problem with giving your own child a glass of wine of a sip of beer. My problem is with the parents who do not want their kid doing it but expects everyone else to be the the adult in their kids lives.
You know, when I woke up this morning after 3 hours sleep with pains in my chest, I realised that though I have lived a quiet life,just at the time I should be able to relax a little, for the last two years its as if I've had a heavy weight constantly crushing down on my shoulders.
I wonder how many others out there feel the same.
I know that to admit this will give a little thrill to the bullies, but it does seem to get a little darker every day.
Oh well..
"Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
400,000 by smoking and who knows what they claim by second or third hand smoke, with tens of thousands of statistical or predictive population studies as the evidence.
Yet when you use death certificates as the source of your claims? Not one by either "risk factor" and the leading cause of death according to death certificates is Doctors, with the majority of incidents covered up or not recorded and never prosecuted.
Legitimately by direct observation, preventable or Iatrogenic mortality and morbidity is the leading cause by far. More than auto accidents, drug abuse, and murders combined and only two population research studies are available on the planet?
That says a lot about denials, cover up and passing the buck.
Healthcare reform is the disconnect of personal interaction and empathy between Doctors and their patients. The signal that a person is no greater than the sum of their parts.
There are many cult claims that smoking and second hand smoke cause death, but when you actually examine the claims they amount to nothing more than what a software developer calls vaporware. A product of the mind, enthused by over reaching advertising and enthusiasm.
At best in keeping within moral restrains smoking may be described as a contributing factor among many, but never within the boundaries of reality can you ever claim a smoking caused death much less a second hand smoke caused death, because there are none, not one nada.
So where is the truth in managed healthcare and the real world, where it pertains to cause of death or diagnosis and treatment procedures, which are now run by accountants and non medical ad hoc committees?
The truth is we are in a lot of trouble and at far greater risk when walking into a hospital today than we have ever been in history.
Put your faith back in the rattle shakers and dart board predictions or in the best medical prediction tool, flipping a coin, because the odds are improved over the odds whoever is about to treat you will get it right and you will survive; what they are about to do to you, or the wait while they decide if you qualify.
They say 50% of smokers will die of smoking related diseases, that is the same odds you get flipping a coin and the same odds seen among non smokers in predicting identical disease numbers.
So we have to conclude the medical profession after "healthcare reform" which once based its decisions on observation and proven technologies, now survives based in the same likely hood that most of us will retire on our casino winnings.
Cause of death?
Keeping in mind who records these numbers can you find smoking or second hand smoke identified as a cause on this list? No because neither is a direct cause of death in real terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Lis...f_death_by_rate
Smoking tops this next WHO list, but we don't have a figure on either list for iatrogenic mortality [medical mistreatment or the voluminous drug manufactured murder victims].
Why not?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Lis...causes_of_death
Denial is a likely suspect.
Public Health; Imagination has no limits.
A picture is worth a thousand words and this one should say a lot in reference to causation and fraudulent claims from the "experts".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Fil...y_age_group.png
Public Health; Imagination has no limits.
Kevin,
Lets not forget that smoking attenuates two of the biggest risk factors hypertension and BMI!
Lady Raj, just this and nothing more because we are at impasse on this, seeing things from different viewpoints. The children I spoke to in crisis came to me. Was I to turn them away? I would never do that. If the situation was critical, I turned them over to counseling and they to the proper authorities. That would include counseling services for the suicidal child and parental contact for the pregnant girl. I did not ever try to solve these complicated issues. I simply acted as an intermediary. Some parents are better than others. I grew up exactly as you did, and my parents had little interest in my work at school. They discouraged me from going to college since no other member of my family or extended family
had ever gone to college. Basically, they expected me to act right and not get into trouble. Other than that, I was alone and often wished someone would listen to me. When I was 14, I was depressed. My gym teacher came to my mom and asked if there was something bothering me. There was. It was the fact that my mother had no interest in anything I felt or did. My mom was furious and told the gym teacher to stay out of our business. Mom immediately grounded me for acting depressed and for leading the gym teacher to my home.
When I saw the girl with the bruised neck, I wondered why her mother had not noticed. I wondered two weeks later why her mom was excited that this girl was now engaged to the same boy, but in the end it was not my business.
The three suicides at the school where I was teaching brought in teams of counselors to help out. They did that, but there were still some crazy moments when kids freaked out and had to be calmed in the absence of a counselor. You did get the wrong impression in thinking I handled any of this alone. I acted in the moment and then referred the child. I know the resources available to teachers and have used them when needed. The first point of contact is always the parent, but the bottom line is many are like my mom who did not want any dirty family secrets aired. In contrast, there are mostly good parents who appreciate the school's interest in their child. I do not want to usurp that role.
In my first year, I was befriended by the filthiest child I have ever seen. She followed me, always wanting to talk. Of course she had no friends because she simply smelled so badly that no one would go near her. When she told me that the family had no running water, I suggested she take a shower at school and gave her soap, shampoo, and towels. I offered to wash her clothes. Then, she dropped the bomb, explaining that she was her dad's favorite of 7 daughters. By that, she meant his favorite sexual partner. I immediately reported that and the school called Children's Services who investigated and took all of the kids from the home. I have always been satisfied with that decision.
In over 35 years of teaching, I cannot remember one instance of parent complaint against me for what you are describing. I have had parents demanding grade changes, but never one who thought I had overstepped my boundaries. What I am having trouble understanding is what is it that the public actually expects from me and from my school? It is never clear since some want me to just teach Shakespeare (which is what I wanted in the first place). Others want me to be a mountain of resources and solve all of their kids' problems. Still others will complain no matter what we do. No matter. I believe in the public school system and feel that it has gotten a bad rap for being the cause of all bad things that happen in children's lives. Ask Mary F if she was happier before or after she was taken from her father's bed.
What people fail to grasp as defined in Vincent's [Rickdp]book; "preventative medicine" is now much more costly than medical treatments.
So costly in fact it represents the eventual failure of any socialize medical scheme and a huge disaster for world economies for countries who insist on traveling this road. The Government medical plans that have succeeded for so long, are now unworkable disasters.
The Americans are preparing to go down this road of government health scare by singing the praises, of the successes only seen in the past when we only had to treat the ill, with no public understanding of the disaster that is growing from with.
Healthcare is supposed to be about treating illness and that is absolutely manageable and affordable. Treating people who are not sick but living in fear, with no restrictions on promoting that fear, in self service? Well it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand how much it will cost and how many will die in leu of those profits.
It is the practice of treating people who are not sick? Creating fear by epidemiological risk factors exaggerated beyond reason and curing that fear, but only temporarily, with screening and testing.
The vast majority of testing confirms consistent with your symptoms; there is nothing wrong with you.
Chapter four of Vincent's book illustrates convincingly, preventive medicine is based in the idea we can prevent death by restricting people's choices.
Treating the well to the peril of the sick who are also waiting in line.
The flaw would be found in the realization, if they really knew the cause of a disease, they could treat it or cure it and people would be left to managing their own bodies as they should be, in place of being managed by accountants and industry lobby group scold.
If you know someone has AIDS your survival instincts would decide for you if having sex with that person was a wise choice. If we could cure AIDS with a pill, that decision would not be as much of a grave concern, aside from the nuisance of being treated afterward. "Preventable death" is based in which scenario?
"Informed consent" the foundation of all contract validity, rests in the strength we are receiving "accurate information" as an obligation of all parties who will see advantage of any contract, otherwise that contract is not valid. All indications are that we are receiving profit protective information, far more than we are receiving anything resembling the truth.
Supply and demand?
The World Health Organization is aggressively promoting a fraudulent enterprise, we know it as a protection racket and it is every bit identical to the shakedowns mobsters always utilized. Health intervention describes a limiting of supply while grossly manipulating demand, through false and misleading advertising.
Promoted fear originating from Government sponsored lobby groups grows the lines at the Hospitals, while politicians afford more and more cash to the process, innocently claiming "the costs have grown beyond control".
The supply and demand quotient which drives prices higher. The same principle which sets Oil prices at the pump, at levels far in excess of the actual costs of production. Global warming alarmists will drive the prices even higher and the taxes on the products will sustain larger bureaucracy with larger distribution to their political friends.
Smoking patches cost a nickle to produce including all the exaggerated prices of development. What justifies the price on the package, beyond the process of greed and manipulation? Certainly not the efficiencies as a "medical device" or "treatment" with less than a 2% efficiency rate.
I was pleased to learn that Marlboro's new No. 54 is indeed being sold cheaply for the moment. I paid $3.38 for a pack. Thanks to the people at TC and to Dr. Siegel for mentioning this sale. I did not see any ads for either the new brand in the store or anywhere else but in the anti-smokers rage against them, so I would have been clueless without that help. It comes in some attractive packaging also. I have decided to save a number of those attractive packets to replace those gruesome pictures when they assault us. Thank you TC for the publicity, the savings I would not have known without you, and for the pretty, reuseable package.
Kevin,
Since I completed the book in 2003, there have been a few other studies on iatrogenic mortality (let alone, iatrogenic injury). The public has probably not heard of these. They are rarely, if ever, alluded to by the [controlled] media. One study (including, for example, medical errors and adverse drug reactions) estimated annual iatrogenic mortality at 250,000. Another study, including more sources of iatrogenesis, estimated an annual iatrogenic death toll of between 780,000 and 1,000,000 at an estimated cost of at least $282 billion. The medical establishment is by far the leading cause of preventable death. Keep in mind that the annual death toll in the US is 2,400,000. The way structures are set up in the medical establishment ensures that much iatrogenesis is hidden. The allopthy machine is for the most part a money-making enterprise (the ‘business with disease’) that goes to great lengths to hide its horror conduct.
PH crusades, such as antismoking, serve to firstly, extort more money from smokers; secondly, it gives the impression that it is doing something about public health; and, thirdly, it deflects attention (scrutiny) away from the medical establishment.
I’ll eventually complete some writing that gives the above figures a context, and post to my website. Unfortunately, it’s taking way longer than I anticipated.
Ask Michael and Bill why they don’t spend their time in Public Health trying to clean up the terrible iatrogenic mess in their own establishment (the leading cause of preventable death), rather than denormalizing segments of the public on the basis of statistical contortions. If they did, they would notice very quickly the resistance to scrutiny by the medical establishment.
_
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/m...cine/
usamed.htm
The total number of iatrogenic [induced inadvertently by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic procedures] deaths is 783,936.
The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate is 553,251. (5) It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States.
Under-reporting of Iatrogenic Events
As few as 5% and only up to 20% of Iatrogenic acts are ever reported. (16, 24, 25, 33,34) This implies that if medical errors were completely and accurately reported, we would have a much higher annual Iatrogenic death rate than 783,936.
................
There are higher death rates still-GK
http://www.abortionno.org/Resour.../
fastfacts.html
UNITED STATES
Number of abortions per year: 1.37 Million (1996)
Why women have abortions
1% of all abortions occur because of rape or incest; 6% of abortions occur because of potential health problems regarding either the mother or child, and 93% of all abortions occur for social reasons (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient).
................
93% of 1.37 million abortions means there are 1,274,000 preventable,pre-mature deaths because the child is unwanted or inconvenient.-GK
Rick I don't know if you are aware of the SAMMEC research in Canada. Which illustrated, although not well known in the public domain, The cost estimates were actually predicated on the ten year reduced life expectancy of an individual [Applied to every person who had ever smoked] 90% of the costs were not to society, but to the smoker in lieu of lost wages.
Estimated at a time when 65 was a mandatory age of retirement. Meaning these wages were not realistic because they would in the majority be produced beyond retirement age.
So the loss was fictional and was utilized any way to this day.
Neil Collishaw produced a couple of renditions of SAMMEC that were quietly rejected, because they were so flawed and embarrassing that even the most enthusiastic of smoker haters couldn't risk reputation by signing on.
Collishaw has been "protecting children" from ETS for years, after once leading the WHO study, he described before seeing the results as "Epi the way it should be done". The study showed a reduced risk to children which exceeded the increased risks of women who lived with smokers and worked in smoking environments.
Some of the Collishaw quotes since, reflect his own ideological bias, much more than the research he was involved in, demonstrating the opposite of what he gets paid by Health Canada to preach.
The Cost of Smoking in Canada, 1991
Murray J Kaiserman
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publi...c/18-1/
c_e.html
"In Canada, the situation is very different. In 1991, smokers spent $10.45 billion on tobacco products,38 of which about 75% went to governments in the form of taxes. Excluding lost income (which costs individuals and not governments) and disability (which incurs costs for the employer), the cost of smoking for governments was about $2.3 billion in health care costs (including residential care) and an additional $96 million in lost income taxes from smokers who died in 1991. The latter number is estimated by assuming that, on average, those smokers who died in 1991 earned one half of their income at a tax rate of 19.8%.39 Even with this latter amount included, the result is that smokers paid in more than they took out by about $5.4 billion."
Since these bans are all about health, they should be required to put the Chantix and Zyban warning on all of the government issued “No smoking” signs to prevent suicides and lawsuits by forcefully coercing residents into using a dangerous product.
www.marketwatch.com/story/fda-orders-harsher-
warnings-on-zyban-chantix-2009711538360
Rick and Kevin, If you look at Table 5 Table 5 from Projected age-specific rates of smoking-attributable deaths by age, sex Canada 2000
Larry F Ellison, Yang Mao and Laurie Gibbons
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publi...c/16-2/
c_e.html
I used their figures per 100,000 and then applied the population figures by age and sex for Canada 2000
Annual Demographic Statistics, 2000 – Statistics Canada
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/91-...2000000-
eng.pdf
to obtain the total death figures.
I then used the actual deaths for sex and age for Canada 2000
Mortality, summary list of causes 2000 - Statistics Canada
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/84f...2000000-
eng.pdf
I discovered that these figures were so grossly overstated that we would have to bring back the non smoking dead to balance.
I wrote to one of the authors, Dr. Mao, and asked him if he had ever gone back to test the hypothesis and he replied no but would get back to me within a week with an acceptable answer.
Another gentlemen also answered my email stating "Yes, except for perhaps age 85+, the age-specific rates of smoking attributable deaths in Table 5 appear too large. I do not know if the high rates are related to the projection. Dr. Mao will raise this issue with the other authors."
That was back in November 2008 and I am still waiting......
Hey Sheri, Thanks for responding and I'll offer these observations:
"The children I spoke to in crisis came to me. Was I to turn them away?"
### Crisis is the operative word. One doesn't turn a troubled child away but guides them to resources trained in crisis counseling.
"When I saw the girl with the bruised neck, I wondered why her mother had not noticed. I wondered two weeks later why her mom was excited that this girl was now engaged to the same boy, but in the end it was not my business."
### This child was in crisis and reported a violent crime to you. I can only assume the authorities were not contacted and therefore could not act to protect the girl via a protection order and charges filed against the boy. A Guardian Ad Litem and a social worker would have been assigned to protect the teen, even from herself and an unfortunate professed love for her abuser.
This forum is about freedom to live and make choices as long as the behavior is LEGAL. Should a teacher or school system uses the "good of the children" as a justification to assume any "parental" role?
Some basic instruction regarding hygiene, sex education, interest inventories/manual dexterity evaluations, conflict resolution, acceptable sportsmanship, and appropriate school behavior are part of the accepted curriculum. Emotional lability is a cue to refer while offering positive encouragement.
There are non-verbal ways to deal with a system that acts outside of their credentials...passive-agressive behavior. The parents do not lodge complaints they simply ignore the perceived offender, opt out from contact, and hope the next year will yield a better fit.
I wonder if the 443,556 (the number of the beast 666 squared) annual deaths in the US that are smoking related might be a constant used in the equations of the SAMMEC computer simulation.
This number has been used for many years and isn't affected by any changes in populations or rates of tobacco consumption.
But, then again, if you like your computer simulation why would you want to replace your constants with variables?
"Idiocy - it's the new smartness" - Coke Zero commercial
Nothing in the saber rattling explains the simple logic that everyone will die. If you reduce your risk by eliminating all risk factors as prescribed, you will only increase your risk factors in other areas leading to death by another cause.
If smoking presents a CHD risk among the pre 65 age group of 2.6%, 97.4% of smokers are at zero risk due to smoking and will be demonized and denormalized regardless, for no good reason, aside from selling the treatments prescribed to reduce the risk. And of course to paint the politicians involved as motherly saviors, deserving of the higher taxes being stolen in process.
I remember once many years ago[don't ask], the school principle discovered a cigarette in the toilet. He was so enraged that he called an assembly and announced unless the guilty party came forward, the whole school would receive detention for a week. A week filled with conflict and accusations and no one came forward.
Public Health is treating total populations they claim to "protect" including primarily those who are healthy, as if they were delinquent children, If you are not guilty of one offense you far are more likely to be guilty of another, with a presumption of guilt applied universally. Health intervention requires that all are subservient to the demands of "the official word", else all will be punished as an homogeneous group of criminals and underlings.
"The truth is we are in a lot of trouble and at far greater risk when walking into a hospital today than we have ever been in history." And what makes me so annoyed is that the Medical God squad believe they are doing us (the patient) a favour. Their arrogance beggars belief.
Ladyraj, The girl with the bruised neck was 18 and free to make her own choices. She did not come to me. I observed the bruises and said WTH happened to you. She said her boyfriend choked her because he was jealous and that he was now sorry and they were engaged. I asked if her mom knew, and she said she did. Sorry but she was then free to choose. This was over 20 years ago, and the laws against domestic abuse were not what they are today. My guess is the authorities would have done nothing in those days. It was a private matter then. Today, that would have been different.
I am having trouble following some of your objections to a teacher's role in a student's life because on one hand it seems you do not want the teacher involved except as a resource person. On the other hand, you chastise them for not calling police in a situation where the injured party did not want that to happen. It was her mother's responsibility as her caretaker to take steps against the boyfriend if the girl herself did not want to do so, and most importantly, it was a different time with different laws and different responses to cases like this one. Sometimes young people have no one to trust at home and cry out to teachers. I pointed all of them to resources other than myself, including counseling, legal authorities, and children's services when necessary. It really is all I can do.
At this point, I believe that you are not reading what I wrote and simply responding negatively to my actions. For example, you say "One doesn't turn a troubled child away but guides them to resources trained in crisis counseling." I did not. I said that I talked to the children, then referred them to the resources needed. I said that I acted as an intermediary, and sometimes that is simply the only route.
"Emotional lability is a cue to refer while offering positive encouragement." Check! That is exactly what I said I did. Anyway, we need to go back to discussing smoking because I don't see any possibility of understanding each other where public education is involved. My experiences as a teacher, as a mother with two children in public school,and as a former student have been excellent. I'm truly sorry that your experiences were not.
Models for Behaviour Change.
"And colleagues of mine working in the smoking field say repeatedly "We had to denorm smoking, in the wider adult population before focused interventions for young people or specific populations could ever work."
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/
hea..._transcript.pdf
Sick, sick, people, its like they are talking about livestock.
Rose, the document is absolutely chilling.
Sheri
I still find it extraordinary that people sat down and coldly and deliberately worked out the best way to ruin a quarter of the populations lives,working from studies of stigma and trying to reproduce it in a smoking context.
"The AIDS epidemic bore witness to the terrible burdens imposed by stigmatization and to the way in which marginalization could subvert the goals of HIV prevention. Out of that experience and propelled by the linkage of public health and human rights, it became commonplace to assert that stigmatization was a retrograde force.
Some might dismiss the parallel we have drawn between the role of stigmatization in the AIDS epidemic and its use by antitobacco advocates."
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/...nt/full/96/1/
47
Well at least it shows us that the "severe risk" of SHS was just another part of the continuing denormalization campaign.
We know what they are up to and where this is going. Now, it is time to stop their game.
Sheri, yes we are apparently operating on different wavelengths which so often occurs via this format of expression. I thank you for your time in responding and attempts to clarify any of my misinterpretations. My experiences with the school system have been mostly positive and the reason I pursued occupations in formal training.
...Sorry for going off topic via rant once again!
Sheri
"Goffman described stigmatisation as the transformation "from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one", but in our case it was done deliberately.
"As smoking becomes increasingly denormalised and communities vocal about their dislike of smoking, there is abundant evidence that smokers internalise this negativity"
And then throw themselves off cliffs, because they don't understand how and why their world has suddenly changed.
http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cg...nt/full/17/1/
25
Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity
http://www.arasite.org/goffstig.html
All over a leaf.
"A taxman killed himself after the smoking ban left him a virtual recluse, an inquest heard yesterday.
Lawrence Walker, 61, barely went out when cigs were barred from his local pub.
Friend Robert Lye said: "He felt insulted to have to stand outside and smoke.
"We think the ban killed him. He was so depressed about it he hardly went out.It made him very solitary."
Mr Walker, of St Columb, Cornwall, leapt to his death from cliffs at Porth beach, Newquay, in June. Coroner Dr Andrew Cox recorded a verdict of suicide.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top...15875-20944352/
How many more I wonder.
Of course pensioners frozen to death are purely due to a manufactured fear.
"While air nicotine metabolised as cotinine provides a marker for measuring exposure to tobacco smoke, the nicotine is not present in such quantities as to present health concerns."
The more we learn of the denormalisation programme the more we understand that everyone concerned in Tobacco Control are guilty of hate crimes.The deliberate and willful attempt to make a group in society outcasts can only be compared to events in Nazi Germany of the 30's. Given much of the comments that now occur daily in newspapers .magazines and online ,incitement to hatred is happening.Appeasement and teaching your students that it "isn't right",is pissing in the wind Dr Siegel ,your credentials past and even present preclude your cleansing of your soul quite so easily.
Sheri--
FWIW, the actions you describe seem appropriate and empathetic. When I railed against The Village, I was simply talking to the point that if a kid drinks at a party, the school has no place to punish the kid by barring him from extracurricular activities, or doing anything at all. It's none of their business. We've crossed all lines in our schools today, too, with this zero tolerance cr*p. 5 year olds suspended for "sexual harassment" (holding hands with a classmate); suspension for drawing pictures of guns or even of soldiers; bringing a Tylenol to school resulting in a strip search and meanwhile, school "authorities" insisting on doping up 4th grade boys and inoculating teenage girls with Gardasil (sp?). OTOH, I agree that the number immature and/or indifferent parents seems to be increasing exponentially, while society's attitude towards Children in General is downright schizzy and divorced from reality.
As for denormalization, the Doc refuses to see the obvious connection between playing fast and loose with 220 statistical bartenders and the resultant denormalization of 46 million American smokers. Nor between his adamantly clung-to goal of eliminating smokers from every social gathering spot, indoors and out (from ballparks to outdoor cafes) and "proving" (through a study) that this is salutary for The Children™ has anything to do with it either. Further, though we've cited countless verbatim examples of how denormalization was, from the get-go, a major stated goal of his compadres in TC, he continues to express shock and surprise and injured innocence. And to say, when confronted, that he'd do it all again even seeing where it's led.
:
:
Tobacco Control: It's not about health, it's about hate.
Speak it, write it, publish it again and again.
Jsidney:
You want a definition of hate?
Check this out:
http://www.freedom2choose.info/n...wer.php?
id=1043
Ignore my scribbling and go straight to the YouTube clip at the bottom.
That this woman is (still) an alleged care worker is simply staggering.
TC can be sooo proud of themselves today.......
Well for what its worth, I slept soundly last night for the first time in two years, the full eight hours and without any nightmares.
"While air nicotine metabolised as cotinine provides a marker for measuring exposure to tobacco smoke, the nicotine is not present in such quantities as to present health concerns."
www.ashscotland.org.uk/ash/files/non-
tobaccosmokingmaterials.doc
Rant away Anti's , your words fall like snowflakes on my armoured back.
I do see a marketing opportunity for niacin gum, under the existing laws, so much more efficient than drinking all that coffee as a substitute.
Rather than troubling Pharma, we could always ask the bakers
"The Bread and Flour Regulations require that flour should contain not less than 0.24 mg. thiamin (vitamin B1), 1.60mg. nicotinic acid and 1.65mg. of iron per 100g. of flour"
http://www.bakersfederation.org..../
additives.aspx
Oh dear
Protester hijacks Trafalgar Square plinth opening
Monday, July 6, 2009
"A protester hijacked the "living sculpture" on Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth today, waving a banner.
The man leapt on to the plinth ahead of housewife Rachel Wardell, who had been due to be the first with her two young children.
His banner stated: "Save the children. Ban tobacco and actors smoking."
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/arti...0&
in_page_id=34
"The carefully-staged opening of Antony Gormley’s public art project in Trafalgar Square took an unexpectedly dramatic turn this morning as a protester slipped past four security guards to take his place on the Fourth Plinth before the first official participant could be hoisted up.
Stuart Holmes, an unemployed man who has dedicated his life to campaigning against actors smoking in films, ran precariously along the narrow balustrade abutting the plinth and leapt up to grab the safety net surrounding it."
"To cries of “Stop him!” and “How the hell did that happen?” from stunned security guards he swung his legs over the netting and clambered onto the plinth.
Boris Johnson, London Mayor, looked on admiringly. “Now this is art,” he said.
http://
entertainment.timesonline...icle6648359.ece
Walt, I agree with your assessments of zero tolerance and the "management" of child behavior at school and at home today. We are raising a nation of wusses who cry to their mommas or to anyone who might listen. They seek SOMEONE to blame for every wrong that they do, and that SOMEONE is rarely themselves. The parents of some of these children are pathetic. I interviewed years ago for a teaching job in a very wealthy district. During the long interview process, I did well until I got to the last question: what would you do if a child's lawyer demands that you change his grade? I said WTF (well, to myself, I said WTF) do you mean? They patiently explained that many kids have family lawyers who regularly challenge grades. I did not get the job. I was pleased. Later, that district was in the news when a kid in the top 5 of his class hacked the computer system and changed not only his own grades for a final exam but the grades of his buddies also. I shudder when I think that these are the very kids that will be expecting to run our country soon...hope Mom and Dad live long enough to continue babying them through tough decisions and bad publicity.
JTF wrote:
"Go ahead, Bill, make my day. Give me some more openings."
Cigarette sales in the US are down 7%-8% compared to 2008.
Cigarette sales in the US are down 7%-8% compared to 2008.
Of course they are......what you choose to ignore is that the figure you quote is probably LEGAL sales........those of us with spines who refuse to conform to your bullying tactics have just switched buying practices for less expensive (blackmarket), rolling our own-soon be be smoking our own home grown that you can't touch tobacco.
So go right on bragging Bill......sales are indeed down, just look at all the cities AND countries whining about the boom in blackmarket sales and you'll realize that sales are NOT indicative of smoking prevalence.
"Cigarette sales in the US are down 7%-8% compared to 2008.
Bill Godshall | 07.06.09 - 1:13 pm | # " How many people are pissed with the pathetic response of the Tobacco Companies to the crap being constantly spouted by your brethren ? How many show it by refraining from spending their hard earned cash purchasing from those spineless companies ? You are always going to minimise this effect to the maximum you can get away with.Switching brands from low tar to high tar would undoubtedly reduce consumption.Would you deem this a victory,presumably in your desperation to make more noise and attract much needed attention.
Cigarette sales in the US are down 7%-8% compared to 2008.
Funny the version we get in Canadian news is that sales are flat and had it not been for a 36% increase in licensed native production, [and a few more produced without a license...] the sales figures would be up as much as 3%. The increase is almost entirely attributed to an increased smoking rate among teens.
Guess where a majority of the Native brands are going Bill? With the devalued Canadian dollar and high risk should the Gov. reduce the smoking tax without warning?
They flow where the larger profits take them and at the moment that would be south of the boarder down your way I am told.
Bill is one of the guys telling legislators for years ETS kills 20-50,000 non smokers every year, without mentioning that smokers are more heavily expossed and if it produces so many mortalities among non smokers in such small quantities of exposure it has to be much more toxic than primary smoking. This begs the question of how many smokers are being killed with much larger exposures and much longer duration.
This balancing of the numbers of course would have to decrease the number of smokers killed by active smoking[smoking related diseases], since ETS has never been considered a confounder, which should significantly decrease the risk of active smoking as long as smokers avoid the much more toxic ETS. Which BTW has an assesment by meta analysis in the extreme, as a 26% increased RR while diesel exhaust carries a 40%?
So smokers are a lot safer with their smoking especially outdoors than was previously believed, now if only someone would do something about the much higher risk associated with total population risk found in Diesel exhaust.
Perhaps if one the fanatics get hold of their brain damaged egos, someone in Public Health can consider the more obvious risks found in other areas aside from smoking or the ETS Fraud. An airline pilot for instance is told the numbers in his cancer risk from solar radiation are so small they are not worthy of discussion. 75%?
It's just too funny in its validation. I ask Bill to give me more EMOTION-driven bits ("selfish") and it prompts an attempt to inflict "pain" instead. It surely was a noncomparative reaction to an action. A child's temper tantrum: "I didn't agree with (or like?) what you said so I'll hurt you." Instead of attempting some form of a reasoned verbalized disagreement. As the author says, this mindset trails back to childhood and the wrongs the child felt was inflicted on him. And so we get a child-like response.
JustTheFacts
For a moment I was wondering why Bill thought that we should even care about the volume of cigarette sales, but then I realised that it must be something Bill cares about very much.
Not that its anything to do with me, personal choice etc,but having researched the plant,I would privately be very glad to see sales of chemical laced, FSC premade cigarettes drop like a stone.
I suspect that that is what the massive rise in tax on loose tobacco was designed to prevent.
Mr. Bill's idea of a wounding comeback reminds me of an old Off-Bway revue sketch about a duel between wusses. As I recall, it entailed "nasty faces at twenty paces." Geez, Mr. Bill, is that the best you can do?
Even if your Numbers turned out to be correct, who TF cares? Your assumption seems to be that we're somehow going after "safety in numbers" or somehow afraid to go against the crowd, or are influenced by what others are, or aren't, doing. Or give a rat's A what they are, or aren't, doiing. That's the big gaping flaw in denormalization. It incorrectly assumes that an ovine nature is the natural state of man. Smokers, and certainly most smokers left standing in this hostile environment, are immune to that bleat.
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