Senator John Crown calls for ban on tobacco products by 2025

El Siglo · 28-06-2012 11:52AM

I can see this working well alright... An absolutely retarded idea.

Nothingbetter2d · 28-06-2012 11:55AM

Pedant wrote: »

Look at what happened during the Prohibition era in the US. This will only fuel criminality and gangland violence.

exactly also banning dope or other narcotics didnt work so why would banning ciggies work

Corkfeen · 28-06-2012 11:55AM

If it would be effective, I'd happily support but as history had proven. Banning drugs does not work and would create far greater risks such as funding crime etc.... Also feck it, it's up to each person what they want to do to their bodies...

Fishooks12 · 28-06-2012 11:56AM

i actually think it's a good idea. Smoking weed and drinking can be in someway enjoyable when done in moderation

But smoking is pretty joyless until you're hooked enough to really get a hit from it

mconigol · 28-06-2012 11:56AM

My name is URL wrote: »

I'm a smoker and I'd love to see them made illegal. It will reduce the number of deaths caused by the habit. Of course some people will buy them illegally, but the numbers of people taking smoking up in the first place would be greatly reduced, and the onus would be on smokers to at least try harder to quit.

I really hate the pussyfooting that goes on in relation to tobacco. Nobody denies that it's a lethal addiction but yet far more innocuous things are regularly banned.

Is tobacco the real problem however or the chemicals used to make tobacco products?

Not saying tobacco isn't a health issue but like all things I don't see an issue with moderate use. Painkillers can be addictive if incorrectly used but that doesn't mean we need to ban them.

I don't agree with banning things. That may have worked to limited success in the past but with the way the world is developing today and the ease of access to information etc. bans are easy to circumvent.

ejmaztec · 28-06-2012 12:01PM

The Untouchables, busting into people's houses and smashing up the Rizla rolling-machines.

rubadub · 28-06-2012 12:08PM

"It will give the companies time to re-tool the machines to make something else.

give the addicts due notice, if you're still alive in ten to 15 years, you won't be able to get cigarettes legally."

Dunno why they give these companies years to retool, and years of notice for users. Drugs like mdma & mushrooms were banned with little or no warning. Why no concern for their users and manufacturers/growers? Oh right because the lawmakers wee mammys & the local garda & priest didn't abuse those 'bad' drugs. They abused drugs which are considered by the medical community to be far more dangerous.

Research published in the medical journal The Lancet rates the most dangerous drugs (starting with the worst) as follows:
1. Heroin
2. Cocaine
3. Barbiturates
4. Street methadone
5. Alcohol
6. Ketamine
7. Benzodiazepines
8. Amphetamine
9. Tobacco
10. Buprenorphine
11. Cannabis
12. Solvents
13. 4-MTA
14. LSD
15. Methylphenidate
16. Anabolic steroids
17. GHB
18. Ecstasy
19. Alkyl nitrates
20. Khat

c_man · 28-06-2012 12:14PM

Ex smoker here, what a load of balls.

Stiffler2 · 28-06-2012 12:20PM

rubadub wrote: »

Dunno why they give these companies years to retool, and years of notice for users. Drugs like mdma & mushrooms were banned with little or no warning. Why no concern for their users and manufacturers/growers? Oh right because the lawmakers wee mammys & the local garda & priest didn't abuse those 'bad' drugs. They abused drugs which are considered by the medical community to be far more dangerous.

1. Heroin
2. Cocaine
3. Barbiturates
4. Street methadone
5. Alcohol
6. Ketamine
7. Benzodiazepines
8. Amphetamine
9. Tobacco
10. Buprenorphine
11. Cannabis
12. Solvents
13. 4-MTA
14. LSD
15. Methylphenidate
16. Anabolic steroids
17. GHB
18. Ecstasy
19. Alkyl nitrates
20. Khat

Fixed your List :

1. Crack Cocaine
2. Crystal Meth
3. Heroin
4. Cocaine
5. Barbiturates
6. Street methadone
7. Solvents
8. Alcohol
9. Ketamine
10. Benzodiazepines
11. Amphetamine
12. Tobacco
13. Buprenorphine
14. 4-MTA
15. LSD
16. Methylphenidate
17. Anabolic steroids
18. GHB
19. Alkyl nitrates
20. Khat
21. Ecstasy
22. Cannabis

XTC is actually one of the safest illegal drugs out there, very few deaths caused by XTC
It was originally designed by an old couple in their home for weight loss, I still have the old picture of them which is cool as they are old ass and have a lab in their kitchen.

I'll see if I can dig it out.

marcbrophy · 28-06-2012 12:20PM

Never heard of him!
Is this mook tryna make a name for himself?

shopaholic01 · 28-06-2012 12:31PM

Will he ban all other carcinogens?

Alcohol, unhealthy foods, exposure to UV light, pollutants - fossil fuels etc, nuclear energy - the list is endless.

Fact is most things are responsible for the production of free radicals in our cells.

Cigarettes are as avoidable as alcohol and unhealthy foods, it doesn't stop most of us overusing at least one of them.

mongdesade · 28-06-2012 01:02PM

Fúck Senator John Crown :mad:

davet82 · 28-06-2012 01:07PM

i'd like to see nicotine made illegal and still sell cigs, or at least try reduce the amount of nicotine in cigs over a few years to wean the nation off them.

i smoke btw

Carter P Fly · 28-06-2012 01:21PM

Stiffler2 wrote: »

Fixed your List :

1. Crack Cocaine
2. Crystal Meth
3. Heroin
4. Cocaine
5. Barbiturates
6. Street methadone
7. Solvents
8. Alcohol
9. Ketamine
10. Benzodiazepines
11. Amphetamine
12. Tobacco
13. Buprenorphine
14. 4-MTA
15. LSD
16. Methylphenidate
17. Anabolic steroids
18. GHB
19. Alkyl nitrates
20. Khat
21. Ecstasy
22. Cannabis

XTC is actually one of the safest illegal drugs out there, very few deaths caused by XTC
It was originally designed by an old couple in their home for weight loss, I still have the old picture of them which is cool as they are old ass and have a lab in their kitchen.

I'll see if I can dig it out.

LSD is not a dangerous Drug.

Stiffler2 · 28-06-2012 02:08PM

Carter P Fly wrote: »

LSD is not a dangerous Drug.

agreed, methadone can be very bad though, the methadone that the legal high shops sold, a few ppl ended up in the mental hospital as a result of methadone.

28-06-2012 02:13PM

rubadub wrote: »

Dunno why they give these companies years to retool, and years of notice for users. Drugs like mdma & mushrooms were banned with little or no warning. Why no concern for their users and manufacturers/growers?

Because at the time there weren't massive industries surrounding their production, sale etc. He explains it pretty well. Just backs-up the notion that money is the motivation though.

Pushtrak · 28-06-2012 02:16PM

Fishooks12 wrote: »

i actually think it's a good idea. Smoking weed and drinking can be in someway enjoyable when done in moderation

Ok, so you are a weed advocate. Lots of things I can bring to the table seeing as you mentioned that. Well, ok, first of all, generally people who talk about how it would be wise to legalize weed would point to cigarettes and alcohol with a "Look, its taxed and regulated, do that with weed." You seem to take a dim view to this. Perhaps it is because you find it easy to obtain weed even though it is illegal? Well, assuming that, do you suppose that somehow, with making cigarettes illegal they'd be hard to obtain?

Please, tell me what good making cigs illegal will do. I'm really curious.

Odysseus · 28-06-2012 03:15PM

Looks like someone felt they needed a bit of publicity, sad fcuk. Such a ban will happen about the same time as heroin is made freely available.

ressem · 28-06-2012 04:09PM

Odysseus wrote: »

Looks like someone felt they needed a bit of publicity, sad fcuk. Such a ban will happen about the same time as heroin is made freely available.

If he's spent his working life as a Professor of Oncology (Cancer Treatment) and consultant doctor in St Vincent's, and he puts in the time as a senator while donating the senator's pay to cancer research then its fair to say that he just has really strong views on the subject.

shopaholic01 wrote:

Will he ban all other carcinogens?

If he has to deal with the patients at the end of their lives as a doctor, then he probably would push for them to be moderated as any decent GP should give a bollicking to a patient that's worsening their life simply out of old habits or laziness.

Factories and jobs did leave Ireland for eastern europe (with a quiet legacy of cancer clusters) when we started to introduce air monitoring.

He's a senator. He can't ban anything. But he can raise the discussion.
E.g. would the end result be good or bad if adults were limited (by making purchasing into a timeconsuming PITA) to 10 cigs a day.

snubbleste · 28-06-2012 04:30PM

Odysseus wrote: »

Looks like someone felt they needed a bit of publicity, sad fcuk. Such a ban will happen about the same time as heroin is made freely available.

He's an oncolgist who sees first hand the lethal consequences of this over the counter product. He's also a former smoker himself. He's been harping on about it for years.

How is it I can't see what ingredients are in a pack of cigarettes?

B0 SELECTRA · 28-06-2012 05:17PM

So in 25 years time people will be getting contaminated tobacco and weed from their local dealer causing more damage to peoples health and more deaths to gangland violence brillant :eek:

Pedant · 28-06-2012 06:56PM

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

exactly also banning dope or other narcotics didnt work so why would banning ciggies work

If that's not sarcasm...

... then you'd actually be right. Banning narcotics has actually created more problem then the bans were intended to prevent. Gangland crime runs on the sale of narcotics.

Greentopia · 28-06-2012 07:15PM

Odysseus wrote: »

Looks like someone felt they needed a bit of publicity, sad fcuk. Such a ban will happen about the same time as heroin is made freely available.

To call a highly intelligent man at the top of his profession as Professor Crown is a "sad fcuk" is risible. Have you ever heard him interviewed? he's smart, articulate, doesn't suffer fools and is one of the few people in politics I could ever see myself voting for if he ever stood for Dail elections.

And what ressem said.

Jame Gumb · 28-06-2012 07:16PM

The State's hypocrisy won't allow it - On the one hand, it's "anti-smoking" but on the other it's reliant on the revenue.

Pushtrak · 28-06-2012 07:28PM

This Crown chap has brought forward two pieces of legislation. The smoking thing and also this one.

Government to block “bizarre proposal” restricting lobbying of judges

THE GOVERNMENT is to block a bill being brought to the Seanad today which would require TDs and Senators to inform the Minister for Justice of any attempt they make to lobby the judiciary – describing the proposal as “bizarre”. The bill is being introduced by NUI senator Prof John Crown today, but the government parties have already agreed to vote against the motion. A Department of Justice spokeswoman this morning the bill would have the opposite effect to its intended aim – to stop parliamentarians from trying to lobby the judiciary in legal matters.

The spokeswoman said the bill would provide a mechanism for communications to be made to the DPP, and to individual judges, concerning criminal offences – as long as they were reported to the Minister for Justice at the time. Such communications, the spokeswoman added, would be a “gross violation” of the separation of powers. As a result, the government was opposing Crown’s “bizarre proposal”.

Crown, however, believes the government’s motives are more ulterior. “The government was thinking of going along with the bill, but when they considered the impact on how the business of politics is done in this country, they decided otherwise,” he said. Crown added that he had not been approached by the government parties with any suggested amendments to the bill, though he would be happy to accept input in that regard.

He explained that his original hopes had been to introduce a bill which placed an outright ban on lobbying of the judiciary by TDs and Senators, but he had been advised that doing so would pose constitutional problems regarding freedom of speech. It is understood that the bill had been slated for discussion yesterday, to allow for the attendance of justice minister Alan Shatter. Shatter is unlikely to attend today’s debates on the bill, as he is due in the Dáil – taking ministerial questions as the Minister for Defence – while the debates on the bill will get underway.

Edit: This stuff is a year old, trying to find what has happened with it since.
Column: The war on drugs isn’t working. We need to medicalise heroin.

I am not an instinctive liberaliser of drugs. I am against drugs – but I simply don’t believe that our current policy of adding more harm to the harm they cause has worked. Heroin addiction is a major fuel for criminality in this country. The money which comes from the supply of narcotics helps finance the gangs that terrorise the poorer communities in our cities.

....

The war we are waging on drugs appears to not be working, not only here in Ireland, but also internationally. This is especially evident in the case of hard narcotics such as heroin and morphine. There are, by most estimates, twenty thousand opiate addicts in Ireland.

Its an article worth reading, but the main topic of it is heroin. This is written by Crown, too. He wants to medicalise one illegal drug. The worst one, by the measure of most I'd imagine. His sentiments with regards tobacco ought to make one pause for thought.

RUCKING FETARD · 29-06-2012 08:36PM

Scientists invent vaccine to help smokers quit habit

Scientists have devised a vaccine for smokers which prevents them from gaining pleasure from nicotine.

A single dose of the vaccine allowed the liver to produce antibodies that stopped most of the nicotine from getting to the brain, according to a study published yesterday in the US journal 'Science Translational Medicine'.

The researchers carried out their experiments on mice, and it showed that levels of nicotine in the brain were reduced by 85pc after vaccination.

Years of research are still needed before it can be tested on people.

However, Prof Ronald Crystal, who led the research team, is convinced there will be benefits.

Of the more than 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke, it is nicotine that leads to addiction, he explained. Keeping the substance away from the brain can stymie nicotine's addictive power by preventing smokers from enjoying their cigarettes, Prof Crystal added.

"This looks really terrific if you're a mouse, but they aren't small humans," said Prof Crystal.

The gene therapy delivers the vaccine to the liver using a virus engineered not to be harmful. The gene sequence for the antibodies is inserted into liver cells, which then begin to create antibodies to nicotine.

"The antibody is floating around like Pac-Man in the blood," Crystal said. "If you give the nicotine and the anti-nicotine gobbles it up, it doesn't reach the brain."

Other "smoking vaccines" have been developed that train the immune system to produce antibodies that bind to nicotine -- the same method used against disease.

The challenge has been to produce enough antibodies to stop the drug entering the brain and delivering its pleasurable hit.

Teyla Emmagan · 29-06-2012 08:47PM

I really like John Crown. He's intelligent and articulate and seems to have great integrity. We need more politicians who can think for themselves.

And although I think this is a great proposal (as a smoker), I can't see it working. I'd be all for the State giving it a go though...

Varied · 29-06-2012 08:52PM

I cannot understand why we have to be constantly trying to ban these things?

Are we going to fill our already overcrowded jails with smokers now?

Burt Lancaster · 29-06-2012 08:54PM

When are the banning booze, that other very costly drug ?

Senator John Crown calls for ban on tobacco products by 2025

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