Friday, February 19, 2010

Our nanny marches on.

Raise your hand if you think sticking a paper tube full of shredded leaves into your face and setting it on fire is a perfectly safe thing to do. Nobody?

Okay, how about if I write "light" on the side of the tube before you set it on fire. Still nobody?

Well, the .gov thinks you're too dumb to figure it out without their help. and passed sweeping legislation last summer, complete with all kinds of new regulations about labeling and packaging. But apparently just complying with the regulations isn't enough. Cigarette packs won't say "light" on them anymore, but they will still come in different-colored packs, and your betters are positively incontinent about it:
“They’re circumventing the law,” said Gregory N. Connolly, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. “They’re using color coding to perpetuate one of the biggest public health myths into the next century.”
Oh. Emm. Gee. Greg. Whatever shall we do? Let's pass more laws!

31 comments:

Jay T said...

Thank God for Harvard. They gave us this guy and Amy Bishop.

Tam said...

And Barry "A Unicorn In Every Yard" Obama.

Jay T said...

And Al Gore, creator of the internet, Global Warming and the triple stacker at Wendy's.

Stuart the Viking said...

This whole thing as a lot of parallels with the gun rights movement. They want to ban tobacco, but they can't SAY that they want to ban tobacco because there are still too many people who that would piss off. SO what do they do? They screw with tobacco by passing pissant do nothing laws and then cry that the tobacco companies are circumventing these laws. Gosh, this sounds familiar. Instead of lopping off the bayonet lug, the tobacco companies are just taking the word "LIGHTS" off the package and OMG! leaving the package the same colore as before! DRAT THEM FOR CIRCUMVENTING OUR STUPID DO NOTHING LAW!

I'm still rooting for the asteroid.

s

elmo iscariot said...

THEY"RE USUING THE COLOR LOOPHOLE TO CIRCUMVENRT TEH ASSUALT CIGARETTES BAN!!!!

genedunn said...

I agree, lets pass a new law that says "All laws must have a stated, measurable objective. If that objective has not been achieved within 5 years, the law will be determined ineffective and immediately repealed."

So, this law about cigarette labeling would need to have a stated, measurable objective (e.g.: reduce cigarette consumption by 20%). We measure in 5 years and if cigarette consumption hasn't reduced 20%, the law is repealed and we tell them to shut their pie hole.... or cigarette hole, as it were.

I know... its not that easy. But I honestly believe if we held "laws" and "lawmakers" to be accountable for all the crap they promise us, we would have way less laws.

og said...

As an ex-smoker who still socially smokes on occasion, I can say, all these people need to have an icewater enema so they'll chill the f*** out. The social leprosy that is smoking is such a bunch of horseshit that it will be the reason I finally cross the line and start bitchslapping people; I'll be the one that looks like a fat pete Townshend in black with a shoot me vest, my arm windmilling around and around, slapping f***tards left and right until they're all taking dirtnaps.

Anonymous said...

Society would be better served if these people's careers of figuratively picking flyshit out of pepper became literal.

"Ultra Light" is informative. Tells me it's less biting on my throat. That's the end of useful info, for my interest.

I'm comin' 76 years old. I don't drink much. Cancer surgery took sex out of my life. Arthritis in my shoulders and a hurtin' back cut way back on shootin' and huntin'.

And these "Willie off the pickle boat" sonsabitches wanna screw with one of my few remaining enjoyments? Ah, well. Nothin' wrong with 'em that a 12-gauge enema wouldn't fix.

Art

Phelps said...

I always love when someone "circumvents" the law by complying with it.

theirritablearchitect said...

The part that raises my ire the most isn't so much the issue of smoking, that's merely the excuse d'jour here, it's his insistance on kneeling in front of, and praying to, the almighty fucking LAW!

People are going to have to get over that stupid shit before we can set this country straight.

chris horton said...

Yeah,and Crack kills,but hey,a fat gagger now and then won't hurt you.

Just keep the spoons in the drawer.

CIII

Stranger said...

Being both old and skeptical, I like to have convincing data before I make my mind up.

Data on blood lipids, for example, now shows that bacon fat contains nice large, and harmless lipids. While the fats most beloved of food faddists are very small, dense, and harmful. And that vegetarianism deprives your nervous system of needed nutrients, and vegans brains shrink.

Gun control has the same effect on violent crime that a bucket of gasoline has on a fire.

And while there is no doubt that smokers lungs look like Dante's description of one of the anterooms of Hell, I still have seen no convincing proof of a link between cigarette tars and disease.

So do eat your bacon. It's good for you. Do shoot your guns. Burning powder is good for your hand-eye coordination.

Smoking? Sure, the smoking area is just beyond the door that says "egress." Be my guest.

Stranger

Dan said...

Ironically, the new color ink will be found to leak into the cigarettes and cause cancer in some monkeys that are forced to smoke 5 packs a day.

Weer'd Beard said...

Phelps, you just made my Quote of the day!

Thanks!

Sarah said...

If they make all of the cigarette packs the same color, I'm just going to consume more cigs every day out of pure frustration. Ever dealt with a new, non-smoking clerk who isn't sure what you're talking about? Isn't it nice to ask for a pack of Marlboro Gold? Yeah, it is, because the clerk can find that quickly - whereas if you ask for Marlboro Lights, s/he has to go on a scouting mission.

(Not, by the way, that I'm knocking the new clerks who don't smoke. It isn't their fault that they're no more familiar with the nuances of cig packs than I am with the intricate details of their stores' employee handbooks.)

Kristophr said...

Do they have shoulder things that go up?

jselvy said...

This is friggin' ridiculous.

I am so G-D tired of uppity servants on the coast trying to govern every aspect of my life. My body = my property. Right, isn't that the argument for pregnancy termination? Well its become my argument for government termination. Its my body and therefore none of their business.

Anonymous said...

If you will remember, in the 1960s and 70s, the tar and nicotine levels in fags were the big rage in the .gov camp, and it was because of this that "light" (or as they were called back then; "Low Tar") fags came out in the first place.

So just as with the "mortgage crisis", the light cigarette crisis was created by government meddling in the first place, and now we're to believe that the only answer is more government meddling.

The only alcohol, tobacco or firearm law we need is the one that finally bans government meddling. -- Lyle

IdahoHunter said...

Piss and Moan, Piss and Moan. If this kind of crap has not already crossed your line in the sand, your line will never be crossed. Baby steps, baby steps. Piss and Moan. Hearth and Home is to dear, but someday, "they will really piss me off." If only 10% of the people talking about having had enough of this type of bullshite, would haul a few members of our public "servants" from behind their desks by the knap of their necks, it would take two election cycles to remove the piss and shit stains from the Capitol. Untill that time Piss and Moan.

Tam said...

IdahoHunter,

I didn't know they had internet access in the hidden guerrilla camps of the resistance, you little Piss'n'Moaner, you!

IdahoHunter said...

No Tam, I have a Hearth and Home, It's just that some things are more important than a gun collection and a blog.

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

I start up smoking again whenever the gov't does this sort of shit.

The Truth ads got me to 3 packs a day. Sumbitz!

WV: brotard

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

And to the gentleman from Idaho: "I see..."

IdahoHunter said...

NJT,
Brother.

Tam said...

IdahoHunter,

How come the intertubes are full of a million different versions of The Patriot Purity Test?

I'm terribly sorry I failed yours. :(

Dr. StrangeGun said...

The funny thing about all this is I'm still tossing around a theory that it's not the tobacco, the tar, the treatment (ok, maybe a little there) or the filters that causes all the damage...

... it's the paper and the glue.

I figure over a lifetime of cigarette smoking a person has inhaled a large cardboard box and a pint or two of rubber cement.

(reaches for another one...)

IdahoHunter said...

Tam, Sorry if I have insulted you or in any way questioned your patriotism. Not my intention. Just tired of the waiting game. But I feel our talk (pissing and moaning) is just staving off the eventual conflict to come. I am in no hurry to hav it start, I just don't want to leave it to my grandson. To every thing there is a season, I am not talking about shooting (yet) but the season of talking has passed, some action must be taken. Some sacrifice and ACTION from us all must be expected. I know little of you, and you less of me, but I would be proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with you.You have no need to pass any test of mine.

Tam said...

That's the problem with this "death of a million cuts"; it's hard to point at any one of them and say "Okay, that's the cut over which I'm willing to saddle up and bust caps."

thorn said...

30 Years ago, the word "Light" was meant to indicate lighter addiction, lighter levels of tar, lighterheadedness... but these days, it's merely a label that tells you how strong the flavor is.

Leave it to the Ivy League educated non-smokers to tell smokers something we already know - that Light cigs aren't less dangerous. We know that, libtards. We smoke Lights because they TASTE DIFFERENT.

I don't care what color you make the box. Make it black, for all I care... hmmm, it would match my outfit a bit better...

IdahoHunter said...

Tam, My point exactly, Wish I had said that.

Brad K. said...

I understand that the cigarette, a roll of herbs used to inhale the smoke, can be an effective way of delivering various effects to the body. The Chinese apparently use the concept - if not tobacco - for several kinds of folk and not-so-rustic treatments. I mean, if you get the principle compound into the blood quicker with a quick toke of whatever, than waiting for a pharmacy company to crush it into a pill and wait for government certification, then there may be an argument for smoking this and that. Legal things, of course.

I think it is the recreational smoking that gets hazardous. Like recreational paint sniffing, or recreational chainsaw juggling, some things are just . . . dangerous.