Smoke screen

Remember how, a year after the Scottish parliament banned smoking in public, the MSM widely reported the news that this had led to a cut in heart problems in Scotland? Well it was bullshit.

However, not everyone was convinced by the study. In November 2007, routine data from Scottish hospitals suggested the fall was much smaller – about eight per cent. And, as Michael Blastland pointed out in an article for BBC News, there has been a long-term fall in acute heart cases, which suggests smoking ban had an even smaller effect than first assumed. Blastland also noted that even bigger drops in cases had been reported in earlier years.

It actually gets worse.

The latest figures suggest a rise of 7.8 per cent in the second year of the ban, cancelling out the earlier drop. Putting the full picture together, we find that in the last 12 months before Scotland enacted its smoking ban (April 2005 to March 2006), there were 16,199 admissions for acute coronary syndrome. In the second year of the smoking ban (April 2007 to March 2008) there were 16,212 admissions – slightly more than there had been before the legislation was enacted.

The smoking ban has done nothing to improve the health of people in Scotland, but it has done much to damage legitimate private businesses as it is now doing in England too. We're being lied to by the people we elect to serve us. Whether you're a smoker or not and whether you approve of the ban or not the question is simple - are you prepared to accept being governed by people who deliberately lie to you to impose their own personal discriminations on you?