Drugs (Tobacco)

The Council House Smoking Ban

/ Sean Gabb / 8 Comments

The Council House Smoking Ban
by Sean Gabb
(8th May 2017)

I used to do a lot of radio and television. In the past few years, I have largely given up. The BBC no longer pays for appearances, instead expecting its contributors to drive to London or to remote studios for the love of being broadcast. The quality of discussion has dropped through the floor. Until about five years ago, it was still possible to go on air and make one or two comprehensible points. The presenters nowadays tend to be authoritarian hags and girlie-men whose job is to switch off anyone who fails to agree with the ruling class. Internet radio discussions are far more civilised, and may soon get larger audiences. Continue reading →

“Not Just Tobacco,” by Chris R. Tame

/ Sean Gabb / 4 Comments

Not Just Tobacco:
Health Scares, Medical Paternalism, and Individual Liberty
By Chris R. Tame

First published on the 20th April 2016
By the Hampden Press, London
© Chris R. Tame, Sean Gabb (Editor), 2016

PREFACE BY SEAN GABB (2016)

The Freedom Organisation for the Right to Enjoy Smoking Tobacco (FOREST) was an organisation set up in 1979 by the British tobacco industry for the purpose described in its name. Its first Directors were Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher Foxley-Norris and Lieutenant-General Sir Geoffrey Charles Evans. Though men of some distinction, neither had experience of dealing with the corporate bureaucrats who funded their activities. Their names remained on the headed notepaper, but they were replaced in 1981 by Stephen Eyres, who had been an effective Campaigns Director at the Freedom Association. Under his leadership, FOREST settled into a well-funded and well-connected opposition to the growing clamour against the tobacco industry and its customers. His genius lay in persuading his funders that his increasingly libertarian campaign for free choice was no danger to their own wish for a compromise with the prohibitionists. Continue reading →

Dangerous nonsense about vaping

/ Without Prejudice / 1 Comment

Adam

If you thought you already had a good contender for “most dangerous, irresponsible, and ill-informed piece of health journalism of 2015”, then I’m sorry to tell you that it has been beaten into second place at the last minute.

With less than 36 hours left of 2015, I am confident that this article by Sarah Knapton in the Telegraph will win the title.

The article is titled “E-cigarettes are no safer than smoking tobacco, scientists warn”. The first paragraph is Continue reading →