6. We conclude that predictions based on the Sheffield Alcohol Policy Model are entirely speculative and do not deserve the exalted status they have been afforded in the policy debate.

The economic costs are obvious but what really strikes me is that a Tory-led government who in their 2010 manifesto promised to protect civil liberties, put an end to the nanny state and stop treating adults like children is now assuming that grown-ups are powerless to resist pretty packaging. This is not only damaging and patronising but profoundly illiberal. As Allister Heath notes, the problem that comes with treating adults like children is that they will start to behave like children. It is the first step of a self-fulfilling prophesy that results in a culture of irresponsibility and entitlement.

The war on drugs is just another attempt by the state to stifle innovation, limit creativity, and exert its control over every detail of our lives. Many well-meaning people endorse it and genuinely feel that they are doing the right thing. But the problem with wars is that they all end the same way: the result is not peace and prosperity, but widespread suffering and misery.

New Year's Eve is particularly miserable because it's when we celebrate the end of one miserable year and the beginning of another one. Don't be fooled. Next year is going to be just as shitty as this one, if not shittier.

People like him are an open goal for any tobacco company with guts. Maybe the prevailing narrative is that smoking is an unmitigated evil with nothing in its favour, it certainly seems to be so from my perspective here at FatBigot Towers. When a prevailing narrative is based on a fundamental flaw, it takes someone with guts to stand up and say "hold on a minute, is that right?". It is an Emperor's new clothes scenario. Tobacco companies can afford guts and they can afford to face-down those who seek to attack their lawful business by publishing conclusions that are unsound. I know not whether Professor Hastings' conclusions are unsound, what I do know is that he cannot be trusted to be objective.

And the dehumanising has another effect: we are ostracising our fellow man. The fact that someone smokes is not an indicator of whether or not they are decent human. Yet *many smokers are being talked to and treated like, well, shit, by anti-smokers (and increasingly non-smokers) and when they respond in kind, their attitude is taken by the anti-smokers as validation of the smoker's selfish attitude rather than a reflection of perhaps an understandable reaction to aggressively impolite approaches.

There is, of course, a bigger picture here. First it was the smokers, now the pseudo-science is ramping up the 'evils' of being overweight and of enjoying a tipple or two. Next (I suspect) it will be activities that regularly cause personal harm - so I hope you don't like cycling or playing rugby or football. And don't undertake any home improvements by yourself, as why should you expect the rest of us pay for you dropping that hammer on your foot - especially as you're unqualified. The point is obvious: once we start dehumanising those aspects that make us human we can find any excuse to make our fellow man sub-human and second-class; that's real discrimination.

But among us there are many intolerant, with political agendas – like banning smoking in pubs. If you read the anti-repeal comments on this thread, you will see that many of them are aggressive in tone. We have marxist style pronouncements like “health trumps property rights as a human rights issue”. We have threats, like “clean up your act or you will have more to complain about”. We have pejorative descriptions of smoking, like “wierd [sic] and dangerous addiction” that “hopefully will soon be a thing of the past”. We have smokers described as “suicidal/homicidal maniacs”. All these are signs of intolerance – or, otherwise said, of hatred of others’ freedom.

If you don't think it's good for you, don't do it. I haven't spent a single penny at a cinema for almost thirty years because I don't enjoy films sufficiently to be able to justify the cost - films are not good for me. During that time I have spent many thousands of pounds on cigars and cigarettes because I derive a pleasure from their consumption and feel the cost and risk involved are not so high that I cannot justify that expenditure to myself - smoking is good for me.