A viral video showing Columbus, Ohio police accosting a man for smoking tobacco from a water pipe illustrates the knee-jerk reaction and guilty til proven innocent mentality of today’s cops.
Rather than approach the harmless man in a civil, orderly manner, several police officers initiate their interactions by grabbing at the man and detaining him until he reveals what he is doing is perfectly innocent and legal.
The overblown reaction is typical in a nation where everything, includingjogging, is now being treated as a potential terrorist activity.
This article was posted: Monday, March 3, 2014 at 2:16 pm
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Last week a French consulate employee was arrested at a border checkpoint after a large quantity of gold, tobacco, checks and cellphones was found in his diplomatic vehicle.
Following the arrest he was deported back to France with his belongings confiscated. The french government has denied any involvement or knowledge about the shipment.
In an interview with FRANCE 24, Vincent Floriani, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, said the driver was travelling on his own account, privately, and not on behalf of the embassy.
He insisted that the French and Israeli authorities had cooperated fully. “We have absolutely no tolerance for this kind of behaviour,” he said.
AFP reported that the driver was carrying “152 kg of gold, mostly in bars; 500 kg of tobacco; hundreds of new cell phones; and nearly $ 2 million in checks.”
Its difficult to speculate what exactly was taking place here. Was it some sort of back end deal or clandestine shipment between governments? Was it a robbery or the results of massive arms deal? Leave your suggestions in the comments below.
Sources:
[1] French consulate worker arrested at Israeli border with 334 pounds of gold and $ 2 million in checks – Rawstory
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JG Vibes is an Intellihub.com investigative journalist, staff writer and editor. He is also the author of “Alchemy of the Modern Renaissance”, an 87 chapter e-book and is an artist with an established record label.
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LONDON — Cigarette packs in Europe will have to carry bigger health warnings, and products with menthol or other flavorings face a total ban, under an agreement European Union ministers struck Friday after spirited negotiations.
A small group led by Poland won a reprieve for slim cigarettes, which are popular among female voters in several ex-Communist nations and had also been threatened with a ban.
The agreement Friday is not the final decision, as the new smoking rules would require approval by the European Parliament before coming into force. But the compromise is a milestone because it secured the support of national governments, including some that had fought hard to soften measures opposed by the tobacco industry and some smoker advocacy groups.
The measures reflect a concerted effort by European policy makers to reduce the attractiveness of tobacco to younger smokers in hopes of preventing them from taking up a habit notoriously hard to kick. Cigarettes with menthol and other flavorings are deemed easier for novices to smoke.
Under the deal Friday, a health warning combining pictures and text must cover 65 percent of the front and the back of all cigarette packs. That represents a reduction from the proposal going into the meeting of a 75 percent minimum, but it is an increase from the current 40 percent figure.
James Reilly, the health minister of Ireland, which holds the European Union’s rotating presidency, told a news conference in Luxembourg that about 700,000 Europeans die every year of tobacco-related causes and that smoking is “one of the greatest preventable and avoidable threats to health.” Packaging that appeals to younger smokers, he said, was tantamount to “entrapment of our young people.”
The ministers also agreed on tighter regulation of electronic cigarettes, which will require authorization if they exceed a nicotine threshold.
Currently, only some of the European Union nations apply such restrictions on electronic cigarettes, which produce vapors from a nicotine liquid, rather than burning tobacco. But Tonio Borg, the European commissioner in charge of health and consumer policy, said that e-cigarettes “can give a false sense of security.”
The debate over flavored cigarettes mirrors a longstanding debate in the United States. In 2009, Congress passed a law prohibiting flavorings but exempted menthol after heavy lobbying by the tobacco industry. Although Congress gave the Food and Drug Administration the authority to ban menthol if this was deemed appropriate on health grounds, the F.D.A. has studied the matter but has taken no action.
In Europe, a ban on menthol cigarettes would not go into effect for some time. National governments would have up to three years to implement the rules after the new tobacco law came into force. And the rollout of the new law itself, if finally approved later this year, could take about 18 months, Mr. Borg said.
Slim cigarettes, which were exempted from the compromise Friday, had been a target because of the fear that their supposed allure attracts young women to smoking.
Though slim cigarettes will still be permitted, new packaging and health warning requirements will prevent their sale in the smallest types of packs in which they are currently sold. “Tobacco should look like tobacco and not like a perfume or a candy,” Mr. Borg said. “And it should taste like tobacco.”
In light of the compromises, antismoking campaigners expressed disappointment that large pictorial warnings were not made mandatory on all cigarette packs. The new rules would be less strict than in Australia, which has legislated against logos and colorful designs, and New Zealand, which has proposed doing the same.
Florence Berteletti Kemp, director of the Smoke Free Partnership, a European organization that promotes tobacco control and research, described the outcome Friday as “disappointing.”
“Despite the formidable efforts of the Irish presidency, the agreement adopted goes against key measures such as large pictorial warnings, which cost nothing to governments but would better protect millions of European children,” she said in a statement. “It is outrageous to see so many concessions made to an industry that buys its wealth and influence by marketing a deadly product.”
