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| - by user Speakeezie Smoking according to ITV News on the 24th April 2007 costs the economy £5 billion per annum in lost productivity and days off. It also apparently costs the National Health Service £1.5 billion annually. I have never heard so much twisted spin in my life. These statistics are stated as fact. However, since the source(s) of these so called statistics was not given, it is impossible for the public to cross-examine or question their validity. Image:ButtsOut.jpg This sort of reporting does not constitute real news. This is news with an agenda. In other words this is pure government initiated propaganda designed to scare and therefore control the public conscience. This is Big Brother on the rampage, spinning and twisting webs of illusion in an attempt to brainwash the nation. The statistics are based on half truths and damned lies and moulded to fit the government's desired position on any given subject on any given day. No account has been taken in the above statistics of the hundreds of billions of pounds greedily and heartlessly collected by the government through taxation on cigarettes and for that matter alcohol over many decades. We all know that taxation on smokers and drinkers has been a major contributor in the setting up and running of the NHS and much else besides. To now claim that these evils so encouraged by successive governments for so long actually costs the economy £5 billion a year, is an absurdity and an insult to the intelligence. The idea that nipping outside for a quick smoke and days off for smoke related illness costs x or y billion pounds in lost productivity is quite simply unquantifiable and therefore absurd. How many good ideas were developed by smokers whilst having a quick smoke break for example? How much have smokers contributed to the economy over hundreds of years as opposed to non-smokers? Let me tell you now that the net contribution of smokers is far greater than non-smokers, since a majority of the population were smokers until fairly recently. Smokers built the industrial revolution and made Britain great. In my professional career I knew many smokers who had no more days off than non-smokers and in many cases far fewer. I have been a smoker since I was 17 and my attendance record was second to none. And how come so many World War I and II veterans lived and are still living to ripe old ages despite smoking most of their lives? Yes of course smoking is unhealthy and should be discouraged but so are drugs, living in a big cities or close to busy roads, motorways or near nuclear plants or radio masts. Salt is bad for you. Chemical sprays and processed foods are harmful to the body. Sugar is bad for you. Hell even water is bad for you if you drink too much but for some illogical reason it is smokers and cigarettes who are society's pariahs. They are the major cause of ill health and death while drugs and all the consequences that lead from them are virtually ignored. Surely drugs are far more destructive of families, communities and society than smokers ever were. It's the disingenuous pull the wool over the eyes approach that angers me about the anti-smoking campaign more than the campaign itself. Frankly I am sick of the weak minded twisted logic that keeps vomiting out this unadulterated, almost pornographic slush. what makes me madder is the fact that those responsible expect us to swallow it hook line and sinker without a second thought. I have met thousands, possibly tens of thousands of people in the course of my life and know of thousands more by association with friends, family and colleagues. I do not know of a single case of a death of anyone that can be proven to be attributable to second hand smoking. How do you prove that the furring of the arteries was the result of second hand smoking and not some other cause. You cannot. It's a lie. It's rubbish and it's a scandal and I do not buy it and never will. It's time to start questioning the propaganda before we are all brain dead. It's time to demand an end to news broadcasts based on government agendas. I hate being taken for a fool and we need to let the powers that be know that they are only fooling themselves, because we are not as stupid as they obviously think we are. __NOEDITSECTION__ From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki. From The Opinion Wiki, a Wikia wiki.
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