Saturday 27 March 2010

Ironic Epilogue To Nick Hogan Jailing

The Lancashire Telegraph is reporting that Nick Hogan's stand against the smoking ban has been vindicated in startlingly ironic fashion.

A MAN who was kicked out of smoke ban rebel Nick Hogan’s pub for lighting up returned brandishing a knife.

“The customer swore at him and was ejected, but he returned about 20 minutes later with a huge carving knife and was brandishing it at them. Luckily the security staff locked the doors and the man went off. The police are now looking for him."
Unless you've been on an extended potholing holiday, you'll be aware that Nick Hogan was jailed at the end of last month for non-payment of fines accumulated due to contravention of smokefree legislation.

Nick argued that it was up to the authorities to police the smoking ban, and that it was wrong, and dangerous, to force him to be an unpaid enforcer. Both Anna Raccoon and Old Holborn highlighted this unfair delegation of authority as they raised the near £9,000 required to free Nick from prison.

This incident makes it crystal clear that Hogan's concerns were far from unfounded, and that his argument has now been conclusively proven as valid.

Despite the fact that there has still not been a single identifiable death, worldwide, from passive smoke, smoking bans very quickly establish themselves as instigators of violence in their own right wherever they are applied.

For example, a mere two weeks after the New York ban was implemented, a bouncer was killed enforcing it. In England, the first murder caused by the ban occurred just 23 days after it came into force on July 1st 2007.

These were both well reported, coming as they did so soon after the infliction of an unpopular law but, as we see with Hogan's case here, the division, violence, and occasional death still occur. In the main, such crimes are not picked up by the national press, and sometimes not even locally, but are merely subsumed into the figures for anti-social behaviour.

But the constant threat does exist, and is a danger to pub and club owners, and managers, the length and breadth of the country.

Cowardly MPs can't even buy a kebab without a police escort, are continually talking of the violence which accompanies alcohol, and would never dream of tackling such a problem themselves.

Yet they are happy to see others put themselves in danger by policing the state's ideological ego trips at pain of crippling fines and, as we witnessed in Hogan's case, imprisonment.

And politicians wonder why we hate them.

Fines for not 'enforcing' the smoking ban should be repealed, immediately and without question. They have already led to more violence and death than passive smoking ever will, and they will continue to do so.


12 comments:

Jock Coats said...

On nobody killed by second hand smoke - well, they were told that by a man who should know. I always remember them quoting Sir Richard Peto as advocating the ban, when in fact what he said was that it might save the lives of up to half a million people if, as a result of the ban, they *gave up smoking*. And if anyone should know, the man who helped Richard Doll prove the link probably stands a fair chance.

There again, for a government who sacks its own advisers when they say something not on-message I suppose merely to misquote an eminent epidemiologist probably let him off lightly.

Eddie D said...

And these are the ones who push the smoking bans.

VESTED INTERESTS?

Competing interests of UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies (UKCTCS) staff.

John Britton chairs the Royal College of Physicians Tobacco Advisory Group and is a member of the board of trustees of Action on Smoking and Health

Peter Hajek undertakes consultancy for and has received research funds from a number of companies developing and manufacturing smoking cessation products.

Paul Aveyard has accepted hospitality from the pharmaceutical industry. He has done consultancy and research work in smoking cessation for Pfizer, McNeil, and Xenova Biotechnology that has led to payments to him and his research account.

Linda Bauld is vice-chair of the Cancer Research UK Tobacco Advisory Group and serves as Scientific Adviser to the Department of Health on tobacco control.

Tim Coleman has, within the last 5 years, done occasional consultancy work for companies that manufacture NRT products (Johnson and Johnson, Pierre Fabre Laboratories). He has also advised a Public Relations company on the strength of the evidence for using Nicobloc as an aid for smoking cessation.

Robert West undertakes research and consultancy for companies that develop and manufacture smoking cessation medications. He has a share of a patent for a novel nicotine delivery device. He is a trustee of QUIT. His research is funded mostly by Cancer Research UK.


http://www.ukctcs.org/ukctcs/competing_interests.php

ali said...

"And if anyone should know, the man who helped Richard Doll prove the link probably stands a fair chance."

Richard Doll got paid very well by polluting industries to 'prove' all sorts of things, which I think somewhat discredits his findings on tobacco.

He did a great job covering up for the asbestos and petro-chemical industries - tobacco has always been a convenient scapegoat to heap soaring lung cancer statistics on.

Dick Puddlecote said...

Ali: I think Jock was pointing out that Doll, despite proving the link between primary smoking and cancer, was entirely dismissive of the danger of SHS.

And, as Jock says, he should know. Yet he was misquoted.

The lies of anti-smokers are becoming more and more evident to just about everyone. Time government started to curtail their excesses.

Frank Davis said...

See also Fictional and Real Deaths

Frank Davis said...

I did a bit of investigating of Robert West last year.

Anonymous said...

None of these "freedom fighters" out there who are also closet or outright in-your-face smoke-haters are going to win their causes against the AGW Fraud, carbon taxes, excesses of MPS and EU, the whole 9 yards - because the seed at the root is the SHS Fraud. And once allegiance of false-belief which soothes the passion of a jaundiced prejudice is pledged to the first and preliminary fraud, leading to liberty taking, leading to abolishment of private property rights, leading to the relinquishment of a basic right to choose how to do with one's own body, then the rest that comes after it is unstoppable - because of the seed at the root which grew the tree.

There will be no way for people to reclaim their lost freedoms without overturning in their minds the false beliefs originating from the SHS Fraud - no way at all.

That is why this whole loss of freedom worldwide, the people made subservient to a worldly dictatorship is almost laughable - to hear the ones ignoring the SHS Fraud rant on about these other issues, without giving even a nod of acknowledgement to what was the seed root from which the others grew.

Sir Richard Doll was the first of many tools useful in creating the Nanny/Bully State that UK, EU and soon most of US have and will continue becoming.

The band is playing, but nobody is hearing it, willfully, because the prejudice is being soothed - and that is exactly why it was planned to happen that way, by those higher up who coordinated to create this mess everyone finds themselves in.

Bullsh*t is bullsh*t and once you've bought into some, the rest is just an easier sale and one can't back out, not after subscribing to the first.

Mark Wadsworth said...

I met Nick Hogan outside the UKIP Spring thingy (where all the smokers were congregating). I couldn't think of anything to say on the spur of the monent apart from "It's an honour to meet you, sir" and he was quite taken aback by it.

Anonymous said...

It would be easy to pin all the blame for the smoking ban on the
usual culprits,ASH,CRUK,LABOUR,
HEWITT ETC.The vote in the Commons was followed by 18 months before
implementation. What did 60,000
landlords and 20,000 restaurant owners do in that period ,ZILCH.
what have they done since,with a very few exceptions, ZILCH.
How many have written to an MP,
to a newspaper,to their trade body.
How many have joined a campaign,
run a petition,organised a meeting,
attended a protest meeting ,10,20
30 maximum.
They have sat back and awaited closure or scavenged custom from
nearby closure or subsidies from
PubCo's or loans from tax payer
supported Banks. In simple terms
let us firmly put the blame where it really belongs,the publicans.
If this group had one hundredth
part of the courage shown by the retired Ghurkhas in their pension battle the ban would have collapsed in weeeks.
What are they waiting for ,untill we have just one Wetherspoons
Bistroteque in each town.

Dun Fighting

Anonymous said...

Anon/Dun fighting makes a valid point.

If the publicans had organised themselves and refused to comply with the rules what would have happened? The courts wouldn't have been able to deal with all the cases and they'd probably have won the right to choose to be 'smoke free' or not. Instead they rolled over, spent money on a gazebo or two - and watched their sales plummet because who on earth wants to stand outside in a blizzard or be verbally abused by oiks who want smoke-free beer gardens for their kiddies to play in while they sip their glass of low alcohol wine.

And now the publicans are squealing because their beer is threatened.

Rob said...

"If the publicans had organised themselves and refused to comply with the rules what would have happened?"

Most run tied houses. The Government would have got the pubcos by the balls and forced them to comply.

Anyway, the Government wouldn't be that bothered that they couldn't process all the prosecutions. They'd happily prosecute 10%. They'd have happy show trials of the Hate Group every day of the week for months. They would be in heaven.

Dick Puddlecote said...

"Most run tied houses. The Government would have got the pubcos by the balls and forced them to comply"

Rumour has it that the government did exactly that with reference to competition legislation surrounding the beer tie.

I may write something about it one day. ;-)