The latest problem for the doomsayers is that this week’s news has been full of evidence that the state of public health in America, for example, is actually improving rather than deteriorating. Furthermore, smoking – whether of the tobacco or joint variety – may have specific, previously undocumented health benefits.

Few things are more widely accepted by the global public health establishment than the ‘fact’ of an obesity epidemic in industrialized countries. Nothing has brought more politically correct scorn upon me and my long standing coauthor, Dr John Luik, than our critique of the myth of an obesity epidemic.

Yet, the Gallup research organization has now confirmed what a plethora of earlier data suggested: the growth in the number of obese Americans has peaked and is actually on the decline. Obesity rates for all demographic groups included in Gallup’s analysis are either trending down or were statistically unchanged in 2011.

For example, Gallup found that more Americans are a normal weight than are overweight. In the third quarter of 2009, 26.3 percent of Americans were officially obese. However, by the third quarter of 2011 the percentage was 25.8.

Of course, obesity statistics, such as official government statistics and Gallup’s own data, are based upon Body Mass Index scores, which are deeply flawed in a methodological sense. Nevertheless, even these crude, conventional numbers capture the true trend in contemporary American waistlines.

For years, we have been assured that epidemics of obesity, binge drinking, and problem gambling-induced suicide were going to shorten average lifespans significantly. Yet, brand new life expectancy data released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that Americans are projected to live longer than ever.

Life expectancy reached a historic high in 2010, as fewer people died from heart disease and cancer – diseases always projected to skyrocket as more Americans became obese and cancer-ridden on fat-laden diets of junk food and red meat.

Yet, the average American man now has a life expectancy of 76.2 years, and the average American woman now has a life expectancy of 81.1 years. Average life expectancy has risen by two years for both men and women over the past decade of allegedly deteriorating public health.

This week also brought good news for older smokers. An American study found that older adults who are starting to have memory problems might benefit from moderate amounts of nicotine.

The study by Dr Paul Newhouse, director of the Center for Cognitive Medicine at Vanderbilt University, and published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that older adults on nicotine therapy showed better results on cognitive tests for attention, memory, and on how fast and consistently they could process information.

After six months, the nicotine study group regained 46 per cent of normal performance for age on long-term memory tests, whereas the group of older adults that did not receive nicotine therapy worsened by 26 per cent over the same time period.

This week’s good news for legal smokers was matched by some very good news for smokers of an illegal product: marijuana. New academic research finds that occasional marijuana users have greater lung capacity than either tobacco smokers or non-tobacco smokers.

A research report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that there is reliable evidence that occasional marijuana use can cause an increase in lung airflow rates and lung volume. Volume is measured as the total amount of air a person can blow out after taking the deepest breath they can.

The study, which was carried out by researchers from the University of California and the University of Alabama, spanned more than two decades and involved more than 5000 men and women in four American cities.

Even at daily usage levels of one joint per day over seven years, people did not seem to have any degradation of lung capacity or function. And, even one joint per week for 20 years did not appear to have a deleterious effect.

At the very least, the growing volume of data confirming that the public health sky is not really falling should bolster both the arguments and the spirits of those who seek, over the long term, to rebalance the regulatory environment away from myth and towards reality. Evidence-based policymaking should not be held hostage to a public health establishment embarrassed and irritated by inconvenient truths.

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Patrick Basham directs the Democracy Institute and is a Cato Institute adjunct scholar. 

Lifestyle News

Whether it was the Black Friday attacks on poker or the US governments NDAA and Stop Online Piracy Act or even finding a full fat cheeseburger is becoming more difficult, we’re reminded that we need to take advantage of what personal freedoms we have left.

One man who is doing his part to enjoy his freedoms and fight for yours is the Patron Saint of CalvinAyre.com, Dr. Patrick Basham. Dr. Basham’s Book – Gambling a healthy bet is a best seller, at least in our office; his continued fight for personal liberties and personal happiness are something we all should stand behind, especially those of us in the gambling community.

On New Year’s Eve, Dr. Basham will be celebrating his birthday in the only way a man of saintly regard should, he’s indulging in all the little things that bring a little joy into his world.  The following is Dr. Patrick Basham’s personal plan for the celebration of his birth and we want to celebrate right alongside the good doctor.

- Bill Beatty

Patrick’s Saintly New Year’s Eve Birthday…

This December 31^st, one of my goals is to give the middle finger, ideologically speaking, to the public health crusaders – and to all anti-freedom activists –who work so hard each and every day to restrict our choices and minimise our pleasure.

To that end, my birthday kicks-off in free-market Guernsey, my birthplace and boyhood home, the 2^nd largest of the Channel Islands off France’s northwestern coast. After spending the morning literally and figuratively wandering down memory lane with maternal relatives and friends, I’ll reflect on the good fortune of growing up in a tax haven; hence, one birthday wish is for far more people to enjoy a flat tax on income – and no capital gains tax.

And, while gazing across the beautiful beaches and coastline, I’ll also reflect on the visible remains of Nazi Germany’s 5-yearmilitary occupation of these peaceable islands – a tangible, visceral reminder that freedom really isn’t free. Ever.

Then, it’s a short flight to London where I’ll darken at least one betting shop door to wager heavily on Arsenal, as well as on West Bromwich Albion and Ayr United, albeit a little less heavily. In a corner shop, I’ll ponder the condemned gantries displaying tobacco products. Next year in large shops, and later on in small ones, they will be banished to an under-the-counter ghetto, perversely transforming cigarettes into the New Pornography with the accompanying enhanced allure for adolescents.

My lunchtime pleasures will include either a McDonald’s Big Mac or a Burger King Whopper, large French fries, onion rings, and a McFlurry, all washed down with a super-sized, full-fat Coca-Cola. This calorie-laden feast should suffice until I reach the fabulous Langham Hotel’s Palm Court dining room that 140 years ago invented the nutritionally incorrect meal that is Afternoon Tea.

An indulgent, champagne-drenched Afternoon Tea gives me the energy to journey, as darkness descends, beyond the capital to the charming town of Clare, my paternal ancestors’ home in the heart of Suffolk’s rolling countryside.

Now, with an afternoon of dietary denial behind me, upon arrival in Clare I’ll head for the oyster- and ostrich-laden New Year’s Eve fare offered by The Bell, a wonderful16^thcentury traveler’s inn that no East Anglian visitor should ignore.

Following dinner, and literally supported on either side by the Democracy Institute’s public health fellow and director of development, respectively, I’ll engage in that most noble of politically incorrect social traditions: the pub crawl. By midnight, our alcohol-fuelled travels will carry our merry libertarian band, fittingly, to The Cock Inn, south Suffolk’s best pub.

As The Cock’s clock strikes midnight, another year and another birthday will have come and gone. Once more, I’ll appreciate that maximising freedom and fun – for myself and for others –remains the healthiest New Year’s resolution.

Dr. Patrick Basham
The Democracy Institute 

Lifestyle News

- Bill Beatty

Tobacco’s Graphic Warning for the Gambling Industry

Patrick Basham and John Luik

Gambling is the new tobacco. Very belatedly, the gambling industry is waking up to the fact that the global public health establishment’s social engineers are turning their regulatory sights towards those who provide gambling products and services.

Fortunately, it is not too late for the gambling industry to learn invaluable lessons from the tobacco, alcohol, and obesity wars waging throughout the Western world. Exhibit A is the regulatory push for new and larger warnings on ‘unhealthy’ products and services, such as cigarettes, alcoholic drinks, Big Macs and gambling.

On the tobacco regulatory front, the Obama Administration has just announced plans to introduce graphic health warnings (GHW) on American cigarettes; the EU is considering similar measures. Last week, Australia’s Labor Government introduced a draconian parliamentary bill to require the plain packaging of cigarette products whose commercial branding would be replaced by very large, colourful GHW. In London, the Conservative-led coalition Government is seriously contemplating a comparable debranding-plus-enhanced-GHW intervention in the UK tobacco marketplace.

On the gambling regulatory front, the Australian Government is currently studying whether to extend its would-be crackdown on tobacco marketing to gambling machines, as the South African Government introduces its own restrictions on gambling advertisements on television and at the cinema. And, in deference to federal American regulators’ anti-gambling agenda, last year Facebook banned all gambling advertisements on its ubiquitous social networking site.

Foreshadowing the direction of British regulatory policy, Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservatives, when in Opposition, argued in favour of health warnings on gambling advertisements.

Critically, the argument for marketing restrictions – and for health warnings, specifically – is consistently and conveniently applied (only the product-specific details differ) across all of the proposals to regulate the tobacco, food, alcohol, and gambling industries, respectively.

The anemic theory behind tobacco health warnings is two-fold. First, there allegedly exists a significant “information deficit” among the general public, especially among young people and potential smokers. Incredibly, the streets of London and New York are teeming with people who are completely unaware that smoking is bad for one’s health.

Second, in light of such widespread, if undocumented, public ignorance about the dangers of smoking, it is forecast that health warnings will educate such people that smoking is, in fact, dangerous and, consequently, many will quit smoking while others will never take up the dirty habit in the first place. And, we are assured, the scarier the warning, the better the outcome will be for public health.

All of which begs an obvious question. Do health warnings actually work? The equally obvious answer is no, they do not.

Although, according to the World Health Organization, more than 1 billion people in 19 countries are now covered by laws requiring large GHWs on cigarette packs (almost double the number of two years ago), several research studies published over the past year have found GHW to be a complete and utter policy failure.

For instance, a December 2010 US Food and Drug Administration study concluded that GHW have no influence upon quitting or smoking initiation, which confirmed earlier research by the Canadian Government, which found GHW neither reduce youth smoking nor youth initiation, nor do they reduce adult smoking levels. Similarly, Australian research published earlier this year found that GHW do not lead to any significant positive behavioural changes. Most recently, a team of German doctors found in a research study published June 21st that images of corpses and cancerous lungs on cigarette packs may do little to deter nicotine addicts.

These miserable results for tobacco health warnings occur for reasons that are clearly analogous to the gambling experience.

First, health warnings do not increase smokers’ information regarding the risks of smoking. The plain truth is that the information contained in health warnings is neither new nor useful to smokers and potential smokers. That is because, as Harvard University’s Kip Viscusi has documented, smokers actually over-estimate the risks of smoking to their health.

Second, most people respond to health warnings in a manner that the scientific literature refers to as “cognitive readjustment,” that is, we recognise the dangers contained in the warnings but we exempt ourselves from the potentially dire consequences, as we simply do not believe such bad things will happen to us.

Third, today most people suffer from “warning fatigue,” that is, we have been bombarded for so long with so many warnings about so many products and activities that we simply tune most of them out, including ‘new’ health warnings about tobacco products.

Fourth, low-income people disproportionately filter out ‘helpful’ public health information. Whereas high-income people are comparatively health conscious, such behaviour – and, hence, such information – is relatively unimportant to those with comparatively little disposable income. As modern-day smokers in Western nations are disproportionately low-income, the futility of new and larger health warnings is blindingly obvious. And, fifth, low self-esteem sufferers (who are disproportionately low-income people, too) also have a strong tendency to ignore danger warnings explicitly designed to influence their health and lifestyle choices.

Sixth, researchers have found that those potential smokers who possess less information about smoking’s risks are not more likely to start smoking than those who are better informed about the potential health dangers.

Seventh, many smokers have been brainwashed by public health propaganda into believing that their dangerous ‘addiction’ is so hard-core that it is beyond their own control and, therefore, beyond their own personal responsibility. They are convinced that nothing short of medical intervention will enable them to quit. As a result, they, too, simply ignore the warnings.

Finally, large, “scary” health warnings are usually counterproductive. Why? In the psychology literature, researchers employ the term “reactance” to explain people’s unintended response to such warnings. Put into common parlance, health warnings fail, in no small part, because they encourage rebellious acts, whereby teenagers in particular are attracted to risky behaviour that has been explicitly proscribed by adults in positions of authority.

In May, Oxford University’s Brian Earp informed a British Psychological Society conference that his research had found public health campaigns such as anti-smoking and anti-junk food advertisements can be counterproductive by encouraging the very behaviour they warn against.

There is plenty of other scientific evidence about such warnings’ failure with non-tobacco products. For example, a UK Government public health campaign in the 1980s to inform British teenagers about the risks of heroin use served primarily to attract risk-taking youths to the illegal drug. More recently, the US Centers for Disease Control found that alcohol consumption among pregnant women rose after the introduction of warnings about the dangers of drinking during pregnancy. Along these same lines, a US Department of Agriculture study concluded that food labelling is not an effective policy tool for altering consumer behaviour.

The international experience with health warnings on or about tobacco, food, and alcohol products suggests very strongly that health warnings on gambling advertisements, etc. would be ineffective, perhaps even counterproductive. Yet, rest assured, ‘new’ and ‘improved’ health warnings will be a part of the coming push to better regulate the gambling industry for the betterment of public health.

Nevertheless, by properly marshalling and appropriately communicating the wealth of warnings evidence, the gambling industry could strike a principled and powerful blow for regulatory common sense.

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Patrick Basham directs the Democracy Institute and is a Cato Institute adjunct scholar. John Luik is a Democracy Institute senior fellow. They coauthored the book, Gambling: A Healthy Bet

Business News

Dr. Basham’s latest book “Gambling: A Healthy Bet” argues that gambling is a net contributor to public health, economic life and an important component in a liberal society. We couldn’t agree more.

The following is an editorial from Dr. Basham, Is there happiness without risk?“

- Bill Beatty

 Patrick Basham

Here is a counterintuitive assertion: gamblers are indistinguishable from non-gamblers. Okay, that is not only counterintuitive; it is also not completely true.

Gamblers are distinguishable from non-gamblers, but in only one regard. Gamblers are more sociable, gamblers are more neighbourly, gamblers are more involved in community activities, and gamblers are more likely to give to charity than their non-gambling peers. Those are the consistent findings of studies commissioned by the British, American, and Swedish governments, respectively.

Why is the average gambler arguably a nicer and a kinder person than the average non-gambler?

Perhaps, it is because gambling sustains hope and optimism, which makes gamblers happier people. While many people are risk averse, gamblers are among those people who are risk preferring, that is, they are willing to take a risk – to gamble – to increase their wealth. For those who choose to gamble, the small sum risked for the possible return of a larger sum of money is justified by the opportunity of financial gain that a person would not otherwise have had the opportunity to obtain.

Such a taste for risk is essential to human development. Since gambling involves risks, it can teach the player to deal with real-life risks.

Risk-taking has always been an essential component of a progressive and a progressing society. A modern, dynamic economy requires risk. But contemporary policymakers fail to understand the requirements of a modern, dynamic economy. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that policymakers also fail to understand the requirements of a modern, dynamic society.

We should shout from the rooftops that tolerance for risk is a good thing. As gambling pits the human intellect against the unpredictable forces of chance that surround us, it is a concentrated form of the risk-taking behaviour we carry out every day, where luck deals us different talents and circumstances but we must use our intelligence to turn these to our advantage.

Gambling trains the mind to handle risk. A spectrum of skill runs from games of pure luck to games of pure intellect. But even games of pure luck challenge our judgment. They test our ability to wager only what we can afford to lose, and to know when to walk away with our winnings, or to cut our losses and stop playing, a skill we need in more calculating ventures.

Gambling honours the dual influences of chance and skill in our world. Both chance and skill are active in our lives all the time; we ignore either one at our peril. Gambling therefore educates people about the wider role of chance in life.

For example, as with so many well-intentioned public health interventions that lack an evidence base, the campaign to minimise, even eliminate, youth gambling may have unintended, negative consequences.

Not only does it limit young people’s ability to learn realistic lessons about risks and risk-taking, but it also makes it more, rather than less, likely that a young person will become a problem gambler. The possibility of developing a gambling problem increases the later in life you start to gamble. And those who start gambling later in life tend to develop gambling problems more quickly.

Therefore, the preoccupation with preventing, ideally eliminating, adolescent gambling may serve to increase rather than decrease the likelihood of certain individuals developing a gambling problem.

The historical record is clear. For nearly 5,000 years, societies have benefitted from gambling. To cite a comparatively recent example, illegal gambling in Victorian England encouraged numeracy and literacy among people who had had otherwise relatively little education.

Gambling has been a widespread leisure activity for several thousand years for a single reason: gambling adds to the sum of human happiness.

Despite the fact that the public health benefits of gambling are now well-documented scientifically, gambling’s critics simply do not understand why people gamble.

The simple, uncomplicated truth is that gambling is a terrific form of entertainment. Gambling is a leisure pursuit and a source of recreation that, like any other legal product, is a legitimate part of capitalist enterprise. Every individual gambles for different reasons and will derive pleasure from the activity according to his or her own set of preferences.

The bottom-line is that gambling is good for us. And, in a policy environment where illiberalism is the de facto governing philosophy, gambling is an important component of a truly liberal society.

Clearly, gambling is a risk worth taking – if happiness is your goal.

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