Wednesday 19 September 2012

'Domino Theory' Proven 100% Correct In Just Over A Year

OK, we've all been laughing about Deborah Arnott's broken crystal ball for a few months now, so for the purposes of this article we'll restrict her embarrassment to just a small snippet for those who may have missed it.
"[...] The “domino theory” i.e. that once a measure has been applied to tobacco it will be applied to other products is patently false."
She was reacting to an argument which was first made against plain packaging by BAT Australia in their advertising campaign of May 2011 with images such as these.


Looks like they were acutely accurate to me. With the ink barely dry on plain packaging of tobacco - and the measures not even being applied till later this year - the upside-down branch of career gloom merchants has already marched on to their next logical step.
Plain packaging for junk food? Health experts call for govt intervention

“What it is necessary to do is to create a neutral environment for consumers, because at the moment we have an environment that is obesity-promoting,” said Bebe Loff, director of the Michael Kirby Centre for Public Health and Human Rights at Monash University.

Professor Loff said stemming the tide of disciplines dedicated to the marketing of food was a huge ask, but controlling the portion size of sugary drinks was a good start.

She added that it took 60 years, and a decision by the government to ignore its own guidelines for regulating, to see the plain packaging crackdown on the tobacco industry.

“I’m not suggesting it be welfare-promoting, but suggesting that it be neutral so we’re not encouraged every time we turn around when walking through a supermarket, and being bombarded with all sorts of imaginative marketing techniques.”
When walking through a supermarket? The only "imaginative marketing techniques" I've ever seen in supermarket aisles are the packets themselves. I think it's pretty clear which way this prohibitionist is thinking, don't you?

So, it has taken one year and four months for BAT to have been proven correct with their warning. That is lightning fast and entirely contrary to the equally disastrous predictions of Arnott's antipodean counterpart, the oldest swinger in Sydney.
The tobacco industry and its stooges played the same slippery slope arguments over advertising bans, sports sponsorship bans and pack warnings . Ad bans started 35 years ago. No alcohol advertising ban and no momentum I’m aware of other than breaking the sport/alcohol nexus. So the slope ain’t very slippery folks ...
All of which proves that if anyone in the tobacco control industry tells you it's going to be sunny, don't leave home without an umbrella.

Not that this slope's lack of slipperiness stopped Simon Chapman himself suggesting what a good idea it would be for plain packaging to be shifted onto other products when presenting to his fellow public health bores, mind [ppt].


Hmmm, I think I've heard packaging of sweets lambasted somewhere before, and that was laden with references to precedents elsewhere too.

Pursuit of a bland, colourless and risk-terrified world seems to be a very lucrative earner for some, doesn't it? May God rot them all.


5 comments:

Vapingpoint said...

The illustrations in your post are not accurate! They are missing graphic health warnings showing decaying bodies...rotting teeth, diseased livers, enlarged hearts etc. Some photo-shopping could make them look REALLY good? THEN they would be "plain (sic) packaging".

junican41 said...

Perhaps the Zealots must be allowed to pursue their aganda without let. What is important is the response of our MPs. When our MPs vote in favour of persecution, we should perhaps not let them forget what they have done.

Chris said...

It's long been known that the puritan's argument are rubbish - maybe the following (oldie but goody) explains why


A glass of wine
To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine and those who don't and are always seen with a bottle of water in their hand:
As Ben Franklin said:
In wine there is wisdom,In beer there is freedom,In water there is bacteria.
In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. Coli) - bacteria found in feces. In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop annually.
However, We do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer (or rum, whiskey or other liquor)because alcohol has to go through a purification process of boiling, filtering and fermenting.
Remember:Water = Poop,Wine = HealthTherefore, it's better to drink wine and talk stupid,than to drink water and be full of Shit.
There is no need to thank me for this valuable information: I'm doing it as a public service

FatBigot said...

The froggy chocolate picture exemplifies the absurdity of the prohibitionists' position.

"Which one would your kids choose?" ... well, probably the colourful one because it looks more fun. If they are the same price adults would probably choose the colourful one too because it looks like a professionally produced product rather than a cheapo alternative of dubious quality.

But if both were in plain packaging there would be no reason to think the answer would be "neither". One or other would be chosen by a child in the mood for a choccy frog. Colourful packaging doesn't encourage more consumption it simply provides an enticement to choose one rather than the other.

The so-called obesity epidemic would not be affected one jot by plain packaging unless it led to children not choosing to forgo chocolate. I see no reason why it should do so.

FatBigot said...

Woops, I meant "choosing" rather than "not choosing".