Sunday, 22 May 2011
Jay McInerney - The rich and powerful in handcuffs: one of the great sights of New York
The image apparently inspired a fair amount of indignation, and even outrage, in certain quarters in Europe. New Yorkers, however, are fairly inured to seeing rich and powerful men in handcuffs. Certainly it's been a major source of entertainment since I arrived here back in 1980. There's something deeply satisfying in the apparent incongruity of a well-cut business suit and handcuffs.
Back in the 1980s, during one of Wall Street's earlier bursts of irrational exuberance and criminal excess, then prosecutor Rudolph Giuliani made a specialty of cuffing white-collar criminals and presenting them for the cameras. Giuliani was criticised by some people for this behaviour, especially after some of the accused were acquitted, but the general public enjoyed seeing stockbrokers and investment bankers treated in the same fashion as other putative thieves.
More recently we saw Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire head of the Galleon fund, being taken from FBI headquarters in New York after his conviction on insider-trading charges. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, responding to criticism of the so-called perp walk, defended the practice: "The public can see the alleged perpetrators," he said. "I think it is humiliating," he added. "But if you don't want to do the perp walk, don't do the crime." The mayor seems to have forgotten about the presumption of innocence, but his statement probably reflects the attitude of his constituents pretty accurately. New York's a tough place. Deal with it...
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Fuxake
With the federal government's plans to introduce plain packaging for cigarettes expected to be challenged in the High Court, health experts are advocating even tougher restrictions, saying that public support is growing to ban tobacco.
Professor Simon Chapman, an anti-smoking campaigner from the University of Sydney, says a smoking ban could be a reality within 10 to 15 years, and believes a licensing scheme would pave the way.
''The government should consider issuing smokers with a licence to smoke, which would involve them passing a test, not dissimilar to a driving test,'' Professor Chapman said.
''They would get a swipe card with their photo on it and - just like the pre-commitment gambling card - they could say how much they wanted to smoke a day. If it was 10 cigarettes a day you'd get a category one licence, 20 cigarettes would be a category two and there would be a higher cost to the card if you wanted to smoke more. The most anyone could buy would be 60 a day.''
Mike Daube, president of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health and deputy chairman of the federal government's National Preventative Health Taskforce, backed the scheme but said the onus should also be on the tobacco industry to clean up its act. ''You could give them 10 years in which to produce a product that is acceptable by any health standards and if they can't do that then their product will be treated like any other product and may no longer be sold,'' Professor Daube said.
''The way smoking trends are going, it's not unrealistic to think that we should see an end to [the] commercial sale of cigarettes within 10 to 15 years.''
About 17 per cent of Australians smoke, and a ban would cost the government about $6 billion a year in lost revenue. This would be offset by health savings, as the annual smoking-related medical burden tops $31 billion.
The licensing push has angered smokers' groups and civil libertarians, who say consumers should not be victimised for using a legal product, and such extreme measures could fuel the black market in illegal tobacco.
But worldwide, there are growing anti-tobacco moves, from banning tobacco advertising to phasing out smoking entirely. A New Zealand parliamentary committee has recommended a total ban by 2025.
In Singapore, the country's top lung cancer surgeons and specialists have proposed making it illegal for anyone born after 2000 to buy tobacco products. With a study showing 70 per cent of Singaporeans support the move, the Ministry of Health is considering it.
And in Finland, the government has declared the country will be smoke-free by 2040, introducing tough laws to reach the goal, including jail terms for giving children cigarettes and a ban on vending machines.
Paul Duggan, 45, has started the Australian Smokers Rights Party on Facebook and hopes to get enough support to turn it into a political party. ''I had a sneaking feeling that non-smokers were going to get more and more aggressive in the next five, 10, 15 years and I felt that the only way to combat it, because of all the hysteria, would be to get one or two people in the federal Senate fighting for smokers,'' he said.
The vice-president of Liberty Victoria, Anne O'Rourke, rejected a licensing scheme. ''Over-policing people's behaviour, particularly when the product is legal, is likely to be viewed by many as the state over-reaching … so it's unlikely to work.''
Louise Warburton, spokeswoman for British American Tobacco, said forcing smokers to obtain a licence could lead to an increase in the illegal tobacco trade as smokers sought to bypass bans.
The tobacco industry is spending an about $20 million fighting the government's proposed plain packaging laws, and is set to face further battles as public health group Action on Smoking and Health told The Sunday Age of plans to push for further tax increases and the removal of additives that make cigarettes more palatable.
Smokers are increasingly running out of places to enjoy their habit. Last month, owners of a Sydney apartment block introduced a bylaw making the entire complex smoke-free.
Quit Victoria executive director Fiona Sharkie said a smoker's licence had merit but the group first wants a ban on smoking in al fresco dining areas and to limit cigarette sales to a small number of licensed outlets. She said if the number of smokers declined to about 5 per cent of the population then a ban should be considered.
Drug fight needs injection of reality
Regrettably, the plan, which needs legislative approval, is unlikely to proceed. The state government won't have a bar of it. ''I don't support the normalisation of any of this sort of behaviour,'' Premier Ted Baillieu said. The state won't be ''sending the wrong message''. What message is that and to whom? As The Age observed of this debate a decade ago, ''Hard drugs are bad. The law says so. Society agrees.'' Drug users and addicts are oblivious to ''messages'' of normalisation or disapproval. In any case, Victoria runs needle exchanges for the same public health reasons as apply to injecting rooms.
Security cameras and police operations push such problems on to other streets or, worse, deeper into laneways, yards, doorways and stairwells of residential areas. Last year, the Burnet Institute found two-thirds of drug injectors in Melbourne last did so in such places, increasing concerns about residents' well-being and safety. The point is that safe injecting facilities protect both users and local residents.
@'The Age'
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