by Pippa Starr
21 February 2021
It's no secret smoking kills more people in Australia each year than any other cause. In fact the amount of people dying from a smoking related illness each year hasn't decreased and is as bad now as it ever was!
In the last 5 years you would fill the MCG with the amount of people that have died from a smoking related illness.
Last year around 24 times more people died from smoking than Covid19 in Australia.
Smoking is expected to kill more than 1 billion people by the turn of the century and seems to be the real pandemic that no one wants to really address, although there are viable solutions now that can prevent this god awful tragedy.
What is a dirty secret is the way the Australian government deals with this issue. Our government has tied itself to a very small group of people to try and tackle the smoking issue in Australia for over a decade.
Initially the "group thinkers" that are tied to and benefit from millions upon millions of dollars worth of grants via the federal department of health, could almost justify their worth for the first few years. As the money kept rolling in, so did the enthusiasm to decrease smoking rates in Australia, but not too fast! You see as any shrewd person would realise, if you are getting paid big money for eliminating a problem and you eliminate it entirely, then the job is over, it's done and therefore you have nothing to justify putting your hand out for.
Over the last 6 years the rates of smoking decline has slowed significantly in Australia, especially over the last 3 years where Australia's smoking rate decline is now up to twice as worse as the UK & USA. What's particularly worse is our indigenous population has a smoking rate that is nearly four times the national average in what is a deplorable national shame. The majority of dollars in "smoking" government grants are funneled out to indigenous communities with a lack of accountability. In fact I'm yet to see any KPI set by the Australian Government for any money going out under the guise of assisting Australian smoking rates. Yet the Australian Government public health appointed "think tank" keep putting their hands out for millions more dollars each year and our government keeps delivering the millions upon millions of taxpayers money annually in what has seemingly become an unaccountable racket.
Would you pay someone who couldn't achieve a target or even make a bit of a difference towards a certain task or issue, especially when it kills more Australians than any other cause?
As a tax payer that is exactly what you are doing right now. Over the last few years we have seen a significant rise in the use of nicotine ecig products and a mix of other alternative non combustible nicotine products being used in Australia. In many other developed countries in the modern world, nicotine ecigs & other non combustible nicotine products like heat not burn tobacco products have been used with remarkable success. We are even seeing quit rates among smokers reach as high as 30 percent in areas like Japan. What would that mean for Australian smoking rates if these types of products became as available or more available as other deadly combustible smoking products are?
In the last 3 years the rapid rise of people vaping with nicotine in an ecig device in Australia began to equate with the amount of decline of people smoking in Australia. What does that mean for all the benefactors in the "think tank" who get those millions in government grants? If alternative non combustible nicotine products like vaping & heat not burn products were readily available, it's possible that we could see smoking rates plummet significantly and a lot faster than they have over the the last 6 years, as they have in every other modern country in the world where nicotine vapour & heat not burn products are legally available and accessible. But if they helped people quit and lowered Australia's smoking rates that would be a great saving for Australian taxpayers, right?
But what about those who have literally built their careers on receiving government monies from massive multi million dollar handouts under the guise of smoking? Guess who pushes back on Australia legalising and having nicotine ecig products accessible (which are much safer than smoking products) the hardest? You guessed it, it's those who have grown to benefit the most from those government grants and more recently even Mike Bloomberg has tipped in a bit of his spare change to keep the "think tank" going in their quest to prevent people quitting smoking. Wait what? Yup, the very people we trust our government to work with our hard earned taxes are doing their darnedest to eliminate safer non combustible smoking products that have seen around half a million people in Australia stop smoking with.
Although not one person has died as a result of quitting smoking with a non combustible alternative nicotine product over the last 17 years of use, Australian smokers are forced to jump through hoops to access them.
In October this year Australians who wish to quit via a nicotine Vapour product will be forced to get a prescription via their doctor in a move the government has taken as a world first!
There's only around 9 doctors prepared to serve over 520000 vapers with these prescriptions with NO telehealth option available, so it begs the question, is that even viable? Yet you don't you need a prescription for combustible cigarettes?
Isn't this a huge waste of even more taxpayers money? Indeed it is, but this is the absurd Australia we live in now, where we over regulate a product that has killed no one ever in the world, yet keep the product that kills over 21,000 Australians each year fully available through our biggest and widely accessible retailers! How does that make sense? If you're a government in charge of the health portfolio that continues to pay for information from a very small bandwidth, that leaves it vulnerable to all sorts of manipulation of information, ultimately that government is responsible!
Australia used to be the clever country where we would make great choices based on the widest scope of information, didn't we? To keep paying for and/or receiving huge amounts of money for little return had gone past the point of being suspicious. We have had science available to us for well more than 5 years that clearly indicates the overall health benefits of non combustible vapour products, yet the Australian Government Health Department are clearly taking information from a few who stand to lose the most money if the safer and more effective quit alternatives, ie. nicotine vapour products reach the market in an accessible manner as cigarettes are.
The government appointed "think tank" who deny any dialogue other than casual slander and blocking of those who question them on social media platforms like Twitter, continue to supply a sewerage flow of rhetoric and weasel words in a convincing display to those who don't understand the idiosyncratic nature of this issue. Yet they sell Australians a message through any media stream that will supply a means to assist them with their growing flow of bovine excrement.
If they sell a message for long enough, it becomes believable.
After all millions upon millions of dollars and livelihoods are at stake here.
So where does that leave the Australian smokers who have tried the legal products (that are no more than 10% effective) like gums, patches, spays lozenges ect to stop smoking that fail? Until the non performance of those that the Australian Government rely on becomes accountable, then it leaves them in the cancer ward or dead. Till then Australia is left susceptible to further diversions from reaching goals to truly reduce smoking rates and therefore improving lives and the economy for all Australian families. Right now the slanderous actions and misinformation towards scaremongering people away from safer nicotine vapour products that is often provided by the "think tank" is unacceptable and until we as Australians keep our government accountable for such neglect it can only be respected for what it appears to be right now, and that's a money laundering racket that effects the unnecessary deaths of over 21,000 Australians each year along with an over all economic burden of over 137 billion dollars a year that is nothing short of an unspoken but massive economic disaster!
Yet the government grant benefactors will stop at nothing to keep the income stream flowing. They try to out wordsmith, out wit, and baffle the public with absolute rubbish until they have you think that vaping or heat not burn products are deadly. They come in at all sorts of angles to manipulate you to think that these alternative nicotine delivery systems are the devil, when in fact what the "think tank" does is the devil's work.
They are essentially protecting the sales of all combustible tobacco products while also encouraging a huge and rapidly growing black market. 1 in 5 cigarettes in Australia are now sold via the black market!
This is due to the actions of people who our government trust?
It's beyond insanity, yet it's been happening for many years right under our noses!
ANYONE who has taken the time to get to the bottom of any of the rubbish that this "think tank" publicise directly or indirectly via "manipulated science papers & newspaper writer shills among other media outlets" will discover quite easily that they are clearly trying to insult your intelligence. For example they love to spruik how toxic vaping is by listing off all the scariest chemicals they can locate in a vape eLiquid that are often tested under highly extreme conditions that no human let alone a vaper could or would tolerate yet they call it science.
They list off chemicals that are well below the accepted standards for what is tolerated in our water supply guidelines. Yet they will sell you that information in a way that makes you cringe and in a way that makes you think you will certainly die.
They will even character assinate people who have quit smoking with these products, all with the slightest of information to make you think that all alternative nicotine delivery system products are a huge big tobacco conspiracy. Why? Once again, it's because they (in the thiink tank") want that flow of easy government taxpayers money to keep flowing! They have even accused public health England of lying because they endorse nicotine ecigs as a 95% safer than smoking alternative!
That is the very same super highly respected organisation that originally called out the harms of combustible smoking in the 1950's & 60's! Would they lie?
So why can I only refer to this select racketeering ring as the "Think Tank"?
They go after people to sue them at the drop of a hat and have so successfully in out of court settlements, I know of tens of thousands of dollars that have been dolled out to these dish lickers in the past and I have even almost become victim to their word-smithing ways in the past as well. They will take on the most vulnerable who are often vapers who are in the lowest income brackets and use trickery mixed in with some thuggery to run them dry, all in a massive effort to keep this racket covered up.
The bottom line here is while smoking is a thing, these racketeering "think tankers" will keep collecting our millions of hard earned taxes and will keep Australians smoking for longer!
They will shout the loudest lies about all non-combustible nicotine vaper products because it threatens their decade long gravy train! It's dirty, it's desperate, it's money funneling, and it's putting Australians into an early grave! How long will you keep tolerating this happening?
It's way past time to expose this mess and order a fully independent royal commission to uncover this mess that Greg Hunt and Scott Morrison must be ultimately responsible for!
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