Tuesday 17 June 2014

A Picture Paints A Thousand Words

While tobacco control in Australia desperately tortures statistics to pretend that their plain packaging experiment has been a game-changer - rather than the exercise in state-led mediocrity that it really is - a real expert begs to differ.

Judith Sloan, Honorary Professor for Economics at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, a proper number-cruncher - as opposed to professional tobacco haters posing as economists - has cast her practiced eye on the debate and called bullshit.
THE nannies are panicking. Why hasn’t the consumption of cigarettes collapsed after the introduction of mandatory plain packaging? How can we explain this one? Like kids who haven’t done their homework, the excuses are coming thick and fast. 
• We never expected the consumption of cigarettes to fall immediately. 
• The tobacco companies are making up the figures to suit their case. 
• A closer examination of the figures points to a fall in tobacco consumption this year. 
• Lower prices are driving up consumption; it has nothing to do with plain packaging 
[...] 
I’m not sure Nanny Roxon and her band of fervent supporters had quite thought this one through, assuming there were any economists among them.
Please do go read her full reasoned debunking of the latest customary anti-smoking propaganda here, but if you're short on time this graphic tells the story of plain packaging failure better than a thousand words from either side.

Source: The Australian - as always, click to enlarge

Does any of the above scream urgent to you, as UK tobacco controllers claim plain packaging is? No, of course not. What a load of old pony.



3 comments:

RooBeeDoo said...

It's worse than pony, even Tesco wouldn't put it in their pies

Sunex Amures said...

Anyone see this yet?

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/06/17/Ireland-s-legislation-for-plain-cigarette-packaging-delayed-by-European-Commission

harleyrider1989 said...

More Brits Joined Jihad Than Volunteered For UK Army Reserves

More British citizens joined the jihad in Syria and Iraq than signed up for the Army Reserves over the last twelve months, according to the MailOnline. Whilst “several hundred” have gone to fight for militants in the Middle East, only 170 have enlisted for the British Army Reserves despite a major recruitment campaign.

Foreign Secretary William Hague believes that as many as 400 Brits have gone to fight alongside the jihadists of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Isis). Their activities are now a major concern for the government, as they are likely to return to the UK radicalised and with military training. It is widely believed that these British militants will continue their ‘struggle’ when they get back to the United Kingdom.

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/06/17/More-Brits-Sign-Up-For-ISIS-Than-Signed-Up-For-Army-Reserve