SOTT
SIGNS
OF THE
TIMES
OF THE
TIMES
Welcome to Sott.net
The World for People who Think
Smoking
© JAMA
About 19 percent of adults smoke these days, compared with about 42% in 1965.
Smoking has become less prevalent in other countries, too, including Canada, Mexico and Iceland.
Overall, the prevalence of smoking has gone down worldwide over the past few decades. For men, smoking dropped 10 percentage points to 31 percent in 2012, from 41 percent in 1980. For women, it has been almost halved, falling from about 11 percent to 6 percent over the same period.
But that's not the case everywhere. So where is smoking still common?
© Reuters / Rick Wilking
Cheri Hackett, co-owner of BotanaCare, carries bags of the company's sample packs of marijuana in Northglenn, Colorado
Cheri Hackett, co-owner of BotanaCare, carries bags of the company's sample packs of marijuana in Northglenn, Colorado
Owners of the 37 just-launched dispensaries across Colorado tell the Huffington Post that they've already generated a combined total of roughly $5 million in sales since it became legal there on January 1 for adults to purchase and use marijuana for recreational reasons.
Some of the larger dispensaries unloaded as much as 60 pounds of pot each from their shelves during that first week, HuffPo's Matt Ferner reported on Wednesday, and combined sales on the first of the year alone totaled over $1 million.
"Every day that we've been in business since Jan. 1 has been better than my best day of business ever," Andy Williams, owner of Denver's Medicine Man dispensary, told the website.
Voters in Colorado approved a measure legalizing medicinal marijuana back in 2000, and dispensaries across the state had until just recently been barred from selling to those without a doctor's prescription. Denver's 3D Cannabis Center told the Colorado Springs Gazette that they averaged 25 clients a day in medical marijuana sales before the state's new law went into effect, but on Jan. 1 they served around 450 customers and before long were forced to close down in order to restock.
© TheRightCurmudgeon.com
Monday's lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan and seeks $52 million of civil fines and unpaid taxes from FedEx, which is based in Memphis, Tennessee.
It marks one of the last acts by the administration of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose more than decade-old campaign to ban smoking in various public and private places has been credited with saving thousands of lives and become a blueprint for other cities.
According to the city, FedEx created a "public nuisance" through its partnership with Shinnecock Smoke Shop, located on the Shinnecock Indian Nation reservation in Southampton, New York, to ship untaxed cigarettes to residential homes.
FedEx allegedly did so despite, and even while negotiating, a February 2006 agreement with then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to stop such deliveries in New York, an agreement later expanded to cover deliveries throughout the country.
© AFP Photo / Theo Stroomer
Tyler Williams of Blanchester, Ohio selects marijuana strains to purchase at the 3-D Denver Discrete Dispensary on January 1, 2014 in Denver, Colorado
Tyler Williams of Blanchester, Ohio selects marijuana strains to purchase at the 3-D Denver Discrete Dispensary on January 1, 2014 in Denver, Colorado
At the start of New Year day, at 8 am local time, pot lovers from across the state lined up to be one of the first residents to legally participate in a $578 million market. Some people had been waiting since 1 am.
"I wanted to be one of the first to buy pot and no longer be prosecuted for it. This end of prohibition is long overdue," said Jesse Phillips, cannabis enthusiast from Colorado.
State residents can now legally indulge themselves with up to an ounce of marijuana from more than 30 shops that have opened their doors statewide. Residents from other states can buy up to one-quarter of an ounce.
© Yahoo news
China is the world's largest tobacco consumer. Smoking is deeply entrenched in Chinese social life, particularly for men, and luxury cigarettes are frequently given as gifts.
Beijing pledged in 2008 to ban smoking in most public venues, including government offices, but enforcement has remained lax and no-smoking signs are frequently ignored.
"The phenomenon of smoking in public places remains prevalent, especially for a small number of leading cadres, who not only endanger the public health and environment, but also harm the image of the Communist Party and the government," says the circular issued by the State Council, China's cabinet.
Party cadres must not buy tobacco using public funds, and those who break rules on cigarettes should be "criticized and educated about their evil influence," the circular says. Leaders at all levels should deal with rule-breakers severely, it added, without detailing specific punishments.
The penalty aims to ensure normal operation of the railway system and passenger safety as China's railway system readies for the annual challenge of coping with an expected 258 million passenger journeys during the 40-day Spring Festival travel season.
Passengers intercepting trains, walking on railway lines, jumping off running trains or throwing garbage from trains will also face a fine of up to 2,000 yuan, the safety regulation said.
According to an official from the Beijing Railway Bureau who spoke on condition of anonymity, the fine is expected to considerably reduce the number of smoking passengers and ensure travel safety.
Comment: The main goal of smoking bans is "to change societal behavior" by stigmatizing smoking, making it less convenient and less socially acceptable. By raising the stakes, it helped transform a complaint into a right, so that people annoyed by tobacco smoke now felt justified in demanding that it be eliminated everywhere they might want to go, including other people's property.
In short, they have conditioned the majority of the people on the planet to behave like Nazis and think it is normal.
See also:
The devious plan of anti-smoking campaigns to control people and stop them from using their brain
Let's All Light Up!
5 Health Benefits of Smoking
Nicotine Lessens Symptoms Of Depression In Nonsmokers
Nicotine helps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients
Brain Researchers: Smoking increases intelligence
We don't need no 'education'... we don't need no thought control...
The majority of institutions clearing the air are community colleges and the 10 campuses within the University System of Maryland, which adopted a system-wide smoke-free policy last year. Only two private schools in the state, both with religious affiliations, have enacted smoking bans.
Across the country, colleges and universities are rapidly adopting smoke-free policies. Since 2010, the number of smoke-free campuses has more than doubled, and 1,127 institutions now prohibit puffing on their premises, according to the American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation, which collects national data on smoke-free initiatives.
"We're seeing activity in all corners of the country and by all kinds of campuses," said Liz Williams, a project manager for the American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation. "In the last four years, we've seen a massive uptake [of smoke-free policies]."
Comment: As these enforcers acknowledge, the main goal of smoking bans is "to change societal behavior" by stigmatizing smoking, making it less convenient and less socially acceptable. By raising the stakes, it helped transform a complaint into a right, so that people annoyed by tobacco smoke now felt justified in demanding that it be eliminated everywhere they might want to go, including other people's property.
In short, they have conditioned the majority of the people on the planet to behave like Nazis and think it is normal.
See also:
The devious plan of anti-smoking campaigns to control people and stop them from using their brain
Let's All Light Up!
5 Health Benefits of Smoking
Nicotine Lessens Symptoms Of Depression In Nonsmokers
Nicotine helps Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Patients
Brain Researchers: Smoking increases intelligence
In October, the EU Parliament elected that pictorial warnings on cigarette packs will be mandatory throughout the EU. The images and warnings must cover 65 per cent of the front and back of the packages and this type of horror images are already available in Australia, for example. Within a number of years the images on the right, will also adorn cigarette packets sold in Sweden. The goal is to reduce smoking, and fewer young people to start smoking.
But the impact of the images actually is debated - and now research into horror pictures has led to a big brawl between researchers at the Karolinska Institute and the State Public Health Institute, FHI.
Comment: Again the anti-smoking brigade are proving themselves to be anti-science. See also :
The devious plan of anti-smoking campaigns to control people and stop them from using their brain
Can nicotine be turned into niacin? There are those who declare there is no relationship between the two, that it is a mere accident of nomenclature. Well, let's see.
Here is the molecular structure of nicotine.
For those unfamiliar with the shorthand in these diagrams, every unlabelled 'corner' is a carbon atom and the single-hydrogen-atoms poking out all over the place are routinely omitted for clarity. Lines represent bonds, double lines represent double-bonds. Carbon makes four bonds so any corner with three bonds showing has a hydrogen tacked on the outside of the ring. Nitrogen makes three bonds, oxygen two, hydrogen one... oh hell, I'm not getting into lecture mode at this time of night!
Here is the molecular structure of nicotine.
Comment: These smoker demographics, without intending it of course, may have uncovered something very interesting about Eurasian resistance to fascism...