Head Rambles

Grandad January 12th, 2012

There is a question that has been bugging me for some time.

I was reading Róisín Shortarse’s framework for tobacco control in Ireland and I came across That Figure again.  Incidentally, this is the same Róisín Shortarse who thinks raising the price of booze will cure all alcohol problems.

And what is That Figure you may ask?

“It is estimated that [smoking] related healthcare costs account for up to 15% of all annual healthcare costs here”

Strangely the paper then talks about “between 6% and 15% of all annual healthcare costs” which seems rather vague to say the least? And that would also assume that 85 to 94% of all healthcare costs are incurred by non-smokers?

But that’s beside the point.  The point is

How?

How do they estimate that smokers cost the health service €365 million a year?  What exactly incurs these costs and how do they know they are “smoking related”?

I have been smoking now for over forty years.  I have never been to the doctor with anything that could remotely be described as “smoking related”.  I have had my medical trials and tribulations but none of them had anything to do with smoking.  What’s more, I know a lot of people who smoke and they have the same story.  Sadly I did know a few people who died of cancer but the majority never smoked in their lives.

So what is this mysterious ailment that is incurring these huge costs?  Are they counting everyone who presents with a cough and assume that they are all smokers?  Are they assuming that all cancers are “smoking related”?  Is every child who presents with Glue Ear counted amongst the smoking casualties?

I would love to know where they get their figures from.

And why do I suspect that they are figures that are gleefully plucked out of the air to scare the sheeple?

• Smoking
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Grandad January 1st, 2012

Our beloved Nanny State is off to a good start.

The paint is barely dry on the New Year and they are banging on about smoking again.

Apparently 5,500 smokers die every year according to our HSE.

This is actually correct.

You see, to the best of my knowledge around 28,000 people die here each year from all causes.  And seeing as around 20% of them will be smokers then that represents 2,700 deaths which is near enough.  It’s very strange that the HSE ignores the 22,300 non-smokers who die each year.  Are they not worth a mention?

Also there is the claim that “One in every two smokers will die of a tobacco related illness”.

The problem with this line is that I don’t know what a smoking related illness is, and nor does the medical world.  They ascribe just about anything to smoking , from cot-deaths and glue-ear through to nipples falling off.  The result is that anyone who dies from any illness which is considered to be smoking related is counted a victim of smoking.  Their problem is that they have never discovered a disease that is uniquely caused by smoking so they will never know if that person would have died anyway.  It’s much more convenient to compare the actual cause of death against the long list of “smoking related” and if they find a match then bingo – another victim of the evil weed.

Of course I dispute the claim that one in every two smokers will die.  The truth is that all smokers will die.  And so will all non-smokers.

Death is a sad fact of life

• Smoking
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Grandad November 18th, 2011

There has been a bit of a furore over the last couple of days in the U.K.

The British Medical Association wants smoking banned in all cars.

There are so many things that are wrong about this that I’m not sure where to start.

First of all, the figures used by the BMA [supposedly the medical authority] that smoke in cars is 23 times stronger that the levels found in a smoky pub are based on nothing more than junk science and have actually been retracted in a very quiet press release.  Of course the damage is done now and the Antis are gleefully quoting the original figure.

All that apart, I would ask what right anyone has to dictate what I do in my car?  Maybe an argument could be made for not smoking in a car with children present but what about when I am the only occupant?  Are they claiming that my smoking produces second hand smoke that may kill me?  My car is my own space.  I paid heavily for the car and each year I pay heavily for insurance, road tax and a car test.  Every time I pull into the pumps I give the government another great whack of my cash.  I pay dearly to run my car and no one is going to tell me what I can or cannot do in it.  As far as I am concerned, if I want to do something in my car that doesn’t affect the safety of my driving, I will do it.

There is not one single justification for this intrusion into privacy.  It is just another spiteful attempt to denormalise smokers and presumably to extort more money from them in fines.

You may wonder why I am so worked up about something that won’t affect me, but unfortunately Ireland seems to have signed up to the race to see who can produce the harshest anti-smoker regime.  What happens in the UK will inevitably happen here.

One aspect of this proposed ban which I haven’t seen mentioned is the effect of forcing drivers not to smoke.  Smoking has been proved to improve concentration, and also smokers find the odd cigarette to be soothing.  Both these benefits can only be an aid to driving.  Similarly, preventing someone from smoking can produce a shortness of temper and a distraction.

I would consider myself to be a reasonably good driver.  In the forty years I have been driving I have had many accidents – too many to count, but I was to blame in only one of those accidents when my brakes failed.  I consider myself to be a calm and considerate driver.  I may pass the odd comment when I witness bad driving but I’m not one to wave two fingers out the window or even to yell profanities.

Some years ago, I stopped smoking.  One of the things I noticed was the way my driving changed.  I admit that my driving became atrocious.  I became aggressive and angry, and shudder to think of the accidents that I very nearly caused.  There were a few reasons why I went back to smoking the pipe, and one of the major ones was because I literally terrified of my own driving.  Once I started smoking again, the old placid, considerate driver returned.

I would therefore make a simple prediction.  If this ban is imposed in the U.K. I predict that the accident rate is going to noticeably increase as will the incidents of “road rage”.

You have been warned.

-oOo-

This article also appears in Smoking out the Truth.

• On the road , Smoking
• Comments(19)

Grandad July 27th, 2011

There is no need to say what this is about.

I honestly thought our Minister for Health had more sense.  I was stunned therefore to see that he is not only contemplating banning smoking in a car where there are children but is talking of going the whole hog and banning smoking in cars altogether, whether there are children or not.

I own my car.  I paid a lot of good money for it and what’s more I pay the government a lot of good money every year for the privilege of running it.  I also shell out a lot of money to the government when I buy tobacco.  It is my property and the state, or anyone else has no right to tell me what I can do in it, provided that action in itself is legal. 

There has been a massive amount of propaganda over the years about smoking, to the point where the truth has long since been buried.  One aspect of smoking which they don’t mention nowadays [purely because it would be politically incorrect] is that nicotine has a lot of advantages including improving concentration, attention and memory. [also here and here]  Now I would have thought that anything that aided concentration and attention would be a damned good thing for a motorists, but instead of that they are going to force a smoker to abstain, thereby causing irritability which not exactly desirable behind the wheel of a car?

One of the most galling aspects of this intrusion into our private lives is that this legislation seems to be less a health issue and more an attempt to “get one up on” Wales who are also contemplating a ban.  There seems to be a race on to see who can bring in the most draconian laws.  I remember when Micheal Martin brought in the ban on workplace smoking that there was much gloating at the fact that “we were first”.

This is a bad move.  There is no justification for it whatsoever other than rolling forward the agenda set by ASH who won’t be happy until we are all shelling out for nicotine patches and nicotine gum [you don’t seriously think it’s about health, do you?].  It is the final confirmation of a Nanny State becoming the Bully State.

In the meantime, Luke Clancy and his cronies are convinced that it is “safer to have the exhaust pipe on the inside of the car than to smoke cigarettes in terms of fine particulate matter”.  I would like to issue a challenge.

I am prepared to sit in a car for any number of hours if Clancy, or Reilly will sit in another car breathing exhaust fumes for the same period.

• Smoking , The Nanny State
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Grandad July 12th, 2011

In the comments on this site yesterday, TT suggested that I was “anti-science”.

Considering that over the past years I have consistently thrown the mockers at Global Warming and the Anti-Smoking crusades, that may appear to be true.  In fact, just the opposite is true.

In my school days, one of my favourite subjects was physics.  I later went on to study physics as part of my third level course.  So while I wouldn’t call myself a scientist, I do think I know a little bit about theories and experimentation.

The process in science is quite simple.  You formulate a theory, and you then design experiments to test that theory.  If the results of the experiment fit in with the theory then you know that you are on the right path, and if they don’t then you discard the theory.  Simple.

Modern science however takes a different path.  You formulate your theory and if the experiment doesn’t prove the theory you discard the experiment.  The reason for this is simple – modern science is driven by cash and ideology, and has nothing to do with the search for truth and enlightenment.

This distortion of science seems to have become the accepted norm.  I have seen advertisements for research where they have gone so far as to state the desired outcome in return for the funding.  If you don’t find what they want you to find then you don’t get the cash.  Is anyone going to find other than the desired outcome under these conditions?

In the case of Global Warming, so much has been invested that Global Warming has to be fact.  Industries have sprung up on its back, taxes have been imposed and a multi trillion industry has grown.  It is inconceivable that Global Warming could be false.  Is any government or academic institution going to back research that proves it is false?  The fact that many eminent scientists dispute it is hushed up, as it HAS to be true, whether it is true or false.

Similarly the Anti-smoking science has reached the status of a cult religion.  To speak out against it is heresy.  No doctor in his right mind dare claim that Environmental Tobacco Smoke is harmless despite very strong evidence that it is.  Even the World Health Organisation is ignoring its own research and is declaring the argument closed.  There is massive funding at stake here both from governments [via so called charities] and the pharmaceutical industry.

Science these days has become a democratic affair.  Whether the arguments are right or wrong, what counts is the number of people who believe those arguments.  We constantly hear such lines as “the clear consensus of opinion” and “the science is established”.  No one dare argue the cases they will be pilloried and ridiculed.

I would just ask you to consider one little fact -

Once upon a time, the Earth was flat and also was the centre of the Universe.  That was considered to be an “established fact” and to argue against either “fact” was an act of heresy.

Just ask Galileo.

• Global Warming , Rambles , Smoking
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