'Hobbit' Movie Incites the Anti-Smoking Busybodies

[briarfriar]

From the New Zealand Herald of April 12:
"One of the world's leading anti-smoking researchers and campaigners has accused the New Zealand Government of hypocrisy and sabotaging its own efforts to eliminate tobacco use by 2025.
University of California San Francisco School of Medicine Centre for Tobacco Control Research and Education director Prof Stanton Glantz said the New Zealand Government was spending millions of dollars on anti-smoking advertising, yet it had paid millions of dollars in the form of tax breaks to producers of The Hobbit which had scenes with smoking characters."
Click the link to read the whole story.
Jay

 

[mustanggt]

Oh mein gottenhimel what will happen to us all!!!!!!!! My only response to worthless little Nazis like them is GFY!!!

 

[dragonslayer]

I have two gamer friends from NZ that I've known for over 10 years. When I've talked to them about all this anti-smoking going on, they remind me how lay-back Kiwi's are and the majority could care less about the entire BS. People smoke where they want and nobody cares.
GO "ALL BLACKS". Yeah like we would get away with our number one team, number one in the world here in the US. Plus it’s their only sport. LOL I could just hear us shouting that at all of our stadiums. Not sure they care about political correctness.
The spotlight is because of the movies, and is the same bills going on everywhere for child awareness.

 

[tonguebitepipecleaner]

Stupid people will be stupid!

 

[plateauguy]

You can't fix stupid

- Ron White

 

[cavendish]

Same deal with firearms being shown in British and Canadian movies. The anti's will always find something to bitch about to help their cause. It ticks me off to no end that people are just SO ignorant to the fact of a free life. They don't realize they are taking rights and freedoms away from themselves, their children, my children and their children's children. A 'Nanny Nation' is not a smart, or safe solution to the problems at hand. The more rights they take away from everyone the more it seems we are living in a sheltered land with rules for everything. This is the beginning of dictatorship and public opression by the government and it's caused by people who think they are doing right for the rest of the nation and their future.
Sure gov. isn't perfect and never will be but at least we can show them we arent sheep and we will not be pushed around.
The way I see it, if I want to smoke, hunt, fish, eat red meat and drink alcohol it's my choice and I have the right to do so and I will exercise that right until the day I die, or they day they say I must die..

 

[skunk]

I think that the accusations of promoting tobacco consumption is exaggerated, however, the overall demand for churchwarden pipes has increased.

 

[misterrogers]

"HOW DARE YOU PORTRAY THE CHARACTERS OF A FANTASY NOVEL DOING THINGS THEY DO IN THE NOVEL! HAVE YOU NO SOUL!"

 

[doctorthoss]

Cavendish:

Do you believe that pot use, heroin use, cocaine use, prostitution, gambling, etc., should be permitted as well? Because that's not only what our gov't does now, and it's shown itself willing to throw tens of millions of people in jail and spend hundreds of billions of dollars for. Tobacco kills more people than all the illegal drugs combined and multiplied by a factor of ten (yes, I believe the science and medical literature here).

I don't think ANY of those things should be illegal, thanks to a mile-wide libertarian streak. But most people feel they should be criminalized, and I really can think of no good reason for one to be legal while the others illegal. The simple fact is that no one in our country has cared for personal freedoms in a century or so (if they ever did), and no one's going to start now. We want to be "moral" and "pure," not free.

 

[skunk]

@doctorhoss,
interesting way of looking at the bigger picture. I'll need to reflect on that for a while. 'Moral and Pure' vs. 'Freedom'. Identifying the criteria between the three (if there is any) could be a challenge.
Cheers.

 

[cavendish]

I hear ya doc. I believe in some of our 'laws' however the laws and freedoms we have had for a century that make us 'free' are being stripped away. If I'm not mistaken alot of young men and women lost their lives for us to have these freedoms and rights. What they changed our world for is now lost history and, you're right, no one seems to care or wants to care. Everyone is passive towards our changing world. If we protest something we don't think is right and we try to fight for our right(s) we get gassed into submission, arrested and charged with an 'excuse charge' to get you into the system and make you think twice about fighting for our rights. That's not freedom, that's police state IME.
I don't want to voice anymore of my personal views on these topics espically on a forum for pipe smoking. I simply was stating about how our rights and freedoms are being taken away one by one and people stand idle and let it happen. The unspoken rule (and it might be written on here somewhere idk) is you don't talk about politics and religion on the interenet. If anyone wants to discuss these things it will have to be another time and place.