An ‘Outlandish’ Thought.

At the moment an outlandish idea keeps presenting itself: Keeps popping into my head. I have become increasingly cynical with regard to Tobacco Control and the Health Industry, but this idea seems to be a bit ‘beyond the pale.’ I dismiss it, only for it to present itself again. I have decided to post it in an attempt to purge it from my poor demented brain.

It goes like this…The Health Industry are trying to get young people to take up cigarette smoking.

The rational behind this being that they use publicity to highlight the dangers of cigarettes, therefore making them more attractive to thrill seeking youngsters. They emphasise that cigarettes are only for adults, again, making them more attractive. They hide them out of sight, and once again, an attraction. They have depicted tobacco as being ‘naughty’, something we should not do, and that society does not approve – “Wow! Let’s do it!” They have denormalized cigarette smoking, making it exotic and an act of rebellion.

 I have worked with teenagers for thirty odd years and all of the above reasons seem to me to be reasons for a large section of our teenage population to take up the habit.

I now apologise for posting this but I did really have to try to get rid of the idea. Let’s face it, the health industry are concerned about our health. We can see this through the efforts being made to stamp out e cigarettes. Even the pharmaceutical industry has weighed in to protect us from ourselves and we should be so ashamed of ourselves for even thinking it has to do with the millions in lost revenues – the same goes for government.  

We have to face it, the pharmaceutical industry have nothing to gain by keeping a large cohort of youngsters from starting smoking. The health industry have nothing to gain and governments have nothing to gain – have they?

And here I am presenting such a perverse, outlandish idea. 

So sorry!