EU kicks off big 72 million euro campaign to brainwash citizens into quit smoking and reduce free speech to exclude all smoking related ads. Meanwhile the EU yearly waste billions of euros subsidising tobacco farmers mainly in Greece.
Much like how the EU insists on taking my money and spend them on initiatives to prevent me from getting fat while simultaneously massively supporting a highly inferior European sugar production.
EU: nothing but parasitic bureaucrats and rich peasant welfare queens – oh yeah lets not forget: lofty visions nobody takes serious and a Donald duck parliament.
I’m so looking forward to voting in favour of the constitution.
How do you “brainwash” someone into quitting smoking? Millions would love to know.
:rolleyes:
Those would be the subsidises they’re in the middle of removing, to be gone forever by 2010?
And those would be the subsidies ruled unfair by the WTO that the EU is being forced to remove.
Still, quite right, the EU shouldn’t be doing anything about smoking and obesity, the health and qualitity of life of EU citizen’s are none of its concern. (That was sarcasm that was.)
I don’t mind some Earl Gray but I’ll pass on the food. I’ve tried english cuisine. I think English cooking killed more Brits in this century than WWII Nazi bombings.
It is absolutely no business of the EU what health policies it’s nation states follow. It has as much right to dictate how the various governements spend their money as I have to go round my neigthbours and tell him what to have for his tea.
Except it is, of course, if those health policies contradict those which the community have decided are the best way forward. We did sign up to be part of this community after all. We don’t get to decide which bits we like and which bits we don’t (in for a penny, in for a pound and all that…).
Now I’m nigh on certain that’s about to lead on to an argument as to how that community chooses to degree what can be classed as “best,” which is fair enough.
My dear Rune, I think I remember you mentioned been from the Faroe Island, so I’ll cut you some slack… plenty slack.
Two weeks ago I was more than ready to compose a rambling pit thread about the smoking habits of the Danes. A a bitter thread about second-hand smoking a few packs a day even though I am more-than-visibly pregnant and about the two children in the group (a toddler and an infant) also taking their share of the cigarrette pack (sitting on grandma’s lap while she’s on a smoking binge). Trust me, this is not the exception, this is what I see in Denmark all the time. I saw this all the time and I have left places because when I go inside it seems like there is a fire somewhere. Fucking disgusting.
I love Denmark, really, but for the love of me I can’t wrap my mind around this attitude. I find it rude, inconsiderate and VERY stupid. Those 72 million Euros should be spent in Denmark alone.
Sure - but if you spent a significant chunk of your salary buying your neighbours’ products, and vice versa, wouldn’t you feel slightly more involved?
Or, to avoid silly metaphors, let’s take something meaningful. Health services. EU citizens can work in any EU country, and are entitled to the health care in that country. Would it not be better that, for example, Polish teenagers were educated about the huge health risks of smoking, or of STDs, or of anythign else, while still in Poland? Obviously, there’s going to be Polish workers coming here, so would it not be better to instigate health programmes as early as possible, irrespective of national boundaries?
While I don’t really subscribe to the general anti-EU tone of the first couple of posts, I hardly think arguing that the adverts are ineffectual is a good way of justifying the expenditure on them.
This is a pretty optimistic viewing of affairs - for “being forced to remove”, read “painfully slowly modifying, renaming as ‘structural investment’ or ‘decoupled incentives’ and generally farting around with rather than actually rectifying due to vast paranoia that our invaluable sugar producers might be unfairly competed with by countries who are merely vastly more suited to sugar production and are only in dire need of the money.” Don’t get me wrong, I’m quite desperate to see some subsidy reform, but glib suggestions that it’s all being sorted out are depressingly far from the truth.
Far more likely IMO that our subsidies are going to die on account of EU enlargement, as the system becomes simply unaffordable. Which, incidentally, is why I find it somewhat perplexing that those who oppose the enormous corporate welfare aspect of the EU object to the enlargement. They should be welcoming it with open arms, as it makes the prospect of an EU superstate quite ludicrous, just as it renders the CAP unsustainable. But for some reason, we instead get shouts for withdrawal. All very perplexing.
I got a letter last week with a doctor’s appointment tomorrow to a no-smoking clinic. [No, I didn’t request one, either]
Apparently my doctor’s practice is targetting every patient who is a smoker. I don’t know if this is a policy throughout the UK, but I wouldn’t be surprised.
I was thinking of maybe giving up later this year, as I’ll be a grandmother [again] in September - but I feel as if I’m being pressured to give up now.
Futile Gesture: Still, quite right, the EU shouldn’t be doing anything about smoking and obesity, the health and qualitity of life of EU citizen’s are none of its concern.
Absolutely agree. The personal life, choice & soul of the adult citizens should be of no concern to the government, in particularly not to a non-government so lacing in democratic foundation. But perhaps you do not see the stupidity in lavishly funding an anti-smoking campaign with the one hand while simultaneous pouring money into tobacco planting with the other.
I haven’t smoked a cigarette for seven or nine years or so and don’t stand anyone smoking in my vicinity when inside, which I’m quite capable of telling people without any help from the EU. I just think the damn government should keep it snout out and stop trying to nanny everybody. I especially think the EU which is severely lacking in democracy, should stop trying to detail manage people lives. And I’m even more especially pissed off at the stupid waste of EU welfare funds going to farmers who should be able to do without or alternatively not do at all. Now Futile Gesture, I already know the tobacco subsidising is being phased out (after decades of non-start and no doubt to be exchanged for some other completely useless subsidy) - in five years, or five billion euros time. God knows when they’ll get around to reducing the sugar subsidising (of which Denmark is a major receiver). To speak nothing of all the other fat and useless farm subsidies around.
. . .
When my wife was pregnant with the first child she told my mother she’d given up smoking. My mother, being my mother, boldly declared mothers today were such wusses. Now in her day, when she was pregnant with me and all her other children she did at least two packs a day – and none of hers came out wrong – as such.
Anyway if you think they’re heavy smokers in Denmark, you obviously have never been to the Faeroes, where they take smoking seriously, and which incidentally is the western country with the highest birth-rate bar none (we own you all! hah hah). Cigarettes are obviously a stellar fertility help. It isn’t member of the EU either, so when I’ve had it with the franco-german hegemony I’m off to my ancient and free homeland.
Don’t get me wrong - I think anti-smoking education is a good thing. Smoking is a Very. Bad. Thing. Indeed. However I think that the appropriate people to do any anti-smoking measures are the Governments of the countries concerned.
You make my point perfectly. We signed up to the “Common Market” remember, not a Euro superstate. This was not what we were promised. We’ve been conned (and both parties are equally culpable).
What I can see happening is that once we bin the Constitution (and that’s as close to a certainty as you’re likely to get) ther will emerge a two tier Europe - with the Franco German bloc moving towards integration and us and the Scandiwegians becoming semi-detached. It’s the best for all concerned IMHO.
The Danes have the same view on their beer and smokes as Americans have about guns: “From my cold dead hands”.
Which, as if by chance, happens sooner to Danes than any other Western European nationality, apart from the Germans. Even the French, Spanish and Greeks, notoriuos for smoking and drinking, have a higher life expectancy than the Danes.
