Bad science = bad laws

Once again, this issue’s news section contains items on legislative initiatives intended to curb smoking incidences that are being proven to be ineffective and pointless.
Graphic health warnings (GHW) is one area that for years now has been touted by anti-smoking pressure groups as an effective way of forcing smokers to cut back or quit, despite there being ample evidence that, despite a minor glitch in sales at the outset, smokers rapidly become inured to the horrific images and even select packs based on their own particular image preferences.

The scientific justification that is typically presented to legislators for the introduction of GHW is, to put it nicely, flawed. It punishes legitimate manufacturers, of course, which may be the intention all along, by forcing them to deface their packaging and harm brand value.
But as for causing smokers to quit in any significant numbers? No. The evidence – properly researched, accurately reported SCIENTIFIC evidence – is very clear on this point. GHW has always been and will continue to be an ineffective anti-smoking strategy.
Increasing taxes? We don’t have to spend too much time debunking this myth, by now it ought to be clear to everyone that raising taxes simply forces smokers to buy from grey and black marketers, whose trade booms every time another tax hike is announced.

But the anti-smoking lobby, undaunted, continues to tout bad science and even outright lies to promote its aims, despite the fact that most of the strategies they insist legislators adopt are actually worthless, don’t really help to persuade smokers to quit, promote the sales of illicit, unregulated tobacco products, impoverish governments and enrich criminal syndicates.
E-cigarette smokers and manufacturers are among the latest victims of regulations based on bad science (actually, non-existent science, since there appears to have been no research done that proves the claims made by the naysayers at all).

Claiming that nicotine is carcinogenic may make a great sound bite and push all the right anti-smoking buttons, but it is in fact a lie. Tobacco smoke contains carcinogens, its true. But nicotine is not one of them. But this is one of the reasons given for banning the sale and use of e-cigarettes. The FDA in the US is apparently one of many government institutions to have accepted – and even touted – such bad science as justification for attempting to ban e-cigarettes. Its own Division of Pharmaceutical Analysis has now been pilloried for subverting the facts to justify the FDA’s negative stance on e-cigarettes which, as has been suggested by more than one FDA critic, are probably no less effective and certainly not more dangerous than most other smoking cessation therapies on offer. Tut tut.

Meanwhile, mentholated cigarettes, for years touted as more dangerous than regular cigarettes, have been found by no less a body than the National Cancer Institute in the US as being potentially less harmful than regular cigarettes, in part because menthol smokers tend to smoke fewer sticks than regular smokers.
Perhaps the most compelling issue pitting bad science against common sense, reason and logic is the absurd attempt by Australia (also being considered by other countries, including the UK) to force manufacturers to use plain packaging, besmirched with GHW, for all tobacco products.

And exactly what genuine scientific evidence exists to suggest that this ridiculous proposal is in any way going to prevent counterfeiters from swamping the market with easy to duplicate fake, unregulated and untaxed products at half the price?