27 January 2009

The Cancer Council guns for Canberra Solariums

| johnboy
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The ABC informs us that the ACT Cancer Council is piling on the pressure for unilateral action by the ACT on solarium operators.

At issue is that the national standards, which include age restrictions and safety warnings, are still voluntary.

Chief Minister Stanhope is hoping to take part in a national approach but has indicated he’ll look at going it alone in forcing standards compliance if the multilateral process stalls.

With all the lotions and spray tans out there do the UV lights really offer anything over and above?

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You think that taxing something into oblivion is less nazi than banning it?

Nah, was drawing a sarcastic parallel to the governments approach to tobacco control.

I would be interested to see the statistics on the average user age of tanning salons – does anybody under 20 actually use them? I would be surprised if they did, as this generation of kids have had ‘slip, slop, slap’ drummed into them since birth, most schools have a ‘no hat, no play’ policy, the current generation of kids are smothered in sunblock and rashy tops at the beach and even the young surfer dudes seem to take pride in their facial zinc application. My kids are still little, but do teenagers these days actually covet a tan or have they learned from the mistakes of their parents?

p1 said :

Banning them does seem a little Nazi. Perhaps if the government made them put pictures of skin cancer on every packet then just taxed them into oblivion…?

You think that taxing something into oblivion is less nazi than banning it?

Against logic, warning labels and graphic pictures of consequences stimulate the craving centres of the brain amongst the addicted groups.
Putting them on damaging things makes those people who already have an interest in the damaging activity, even more likely to do them.
(So perversely, the graphic warning labels on cigarettes might prevent some people from taking up the habit, but keeps the addicted smokers smoking)

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/opinion/2008-12/18/content_7317544.htm

Banning them does seem a little Nazi. Perhaps if the government made them put pictures of skin cancer on every packet then just taxed them into oblivion…?

I for one would care because I’d have to start getting illegal solarium tans as a civil protest, and I don’t particularly want to do that.

Gives you cancer you know.

Novocastrian is saying that fighting for personal freedom should be about more important things than Tanning Salons. Too True.

I’d ban them outright – would anyone really care? Phase them out over 5 years or something.

People should be able to use their own common sense, but there is a certain sector of people who think ‘it must be ok, or the govt would have banned it.’

3 post nutbag (I really have to stop doing this)

Finally, if our veterans were not fighting for peoples freedom (and the right to vote for your master is a pretty crappy definition of freedom), then they weren’t fighting for the right reasons.

…millions of small chisel movements. Not my best metaphor. Our freedoms are very slowly eroded is what I’m trying to say, they are rarely stamped out in a day by a rampaging nazi horde.

Essentially Novocastrian is saying that we must only focus on the big issues of liberty (which apparently is multiculturalism), and that we must let the smaller issues (as Novocastrian defines them) slide. Because these are smaller issues, they don’t count as the initiation of force and the abrogation of freedom, but are ‘nuts and bolts good government’.

Apparently libertarianism isn’t about fighting against the initiation of force by Government or other people, but is about joining Novocastrian on….some thing that he/she is pissed off about.

As the resident hardcore libertarian I say this:
1, The small freedoms matter as liberty is destroyed like rocks on a beach, with millions of small chisel movements.
2, People do have the right to burn themselves silly and accept the consequences of their actions.
3, Ayn Rand was a sexual deviant…good for her I guess.
3, Finally, tanning salons don’t kill people, people kill people 😉

To be serious though, tanning salons are not my pet issue. I do think that tanning salons kill people and that it is a foolish endeavour. However that is my opinion and it applies to me and me alone. I have decided that the benefits of a tan from a tanning salon are not worth the costs. Some people may decide differently. I will try to pursuade them, however at the end of the day their priorities are not my priorities. I will not commit violence to stop them. It’s not my habit but it may be someone elses, and yes I will put my life and future on the line (hypothetically as strategy dictates that this would not be the optimum move) to defend their right to engage in acts that harm only themselves.

That is libertarianism, and anything less is not acceptable to me.*

nb, I reserve my right to accept less in order to further my political career in a mad grab for power. Yes I am a hypocrite 😉

jessieduck said :

Huh?

+3

novocastrian said :

The rightwards drift in RA posts such as this is interesting and a little surprising – the comments on fireworks is another example. All you Ayn Rand wannabes might want to focus on real issues of personal liberty – such as the nonsense dressed up as multiculturalism, which has drawn fewer comments than tanning or fireworks – rather than nuts and bolts issues of good government. Tanning salons kill people. Get rid of them and the sleazy reptiles who run them. If you talk up issues such as this, and fireworks, as “give me liberty or give me death” (Patrick Henry) die-in-a ditch stuff, you not only demean libertarian principles you sound like you have a shaky grip on reality. I await someone telling me that young Aussies died in two world wars for the right to give themselves skin cancer (at a price), let off fireworks in one tiny corner of Oz etc. No they didn’t.

Huh?

novocastrian7:32 pm 27 Jan 09

The rightwards drift in RA posts such as this is interesting and a little surprising – the comments on fireworks is another example. All you Ayn Rand wannabes might want to focus on real issues of personal liberty – such as the nonsense dressed up as multiculturalism, which has drawn fewer comments than tanning or fireworks – rather than nuts and bolts issues of good government. Tanning salons kill people. Get rid of them and the sleazy reptiles who run them. If you talk up issues such as this, and fireworks, as “give me liberty or give me death” (Patrick Henry) die-in-a ditch stuff, you not only demean libertarian principles you sound like you have a shaky grip on reality. I await someone telling me that young Aussies died in two world wars for the right to give themselves skin cancer (at a price), let off fireworks in one tiny corner of Oz etc. No they didn’t.

Yeah but it is even more un-Australian to try your best to get skin cancer via artificial means in a solarium.

We’ve worked so hard to put that hole in the Ozone layer and rather than get outside and make the most of it we’re using solariums???

– Seriously considering immigrating to New Zeland if this madness persists.

That’s actually a very good point, Mr Evil!

; )

It’s un-Australian to not try your best to get skin cancer.

You are gorgeous, Jessieduck! One big freckle indeed!!

: )

Not a laughing matter, however in relation to skin cancer. There should be a lot of energy put into educating young girls that they are beautiful just the way they are.

I have an older redheaded acquaintance who is so scarred from the removal of cancerous growths that he looks almost like a second degree burns casualty.

It is so important that people are effectively educated about the potential consequences of these decisions further down the track.

I just hate that particular industries will prey on and foster a feeling of inadequacy in order to boost sales of a product – particularly one which is known to do harm.

colourful sydney racing identity3:00 pm 27 Jan 09

ban them.

p1 said :

If you have dark skin why do you need to get a tan?

Some people seem to like that tandoori oven glow…

“Some states have already moved to ban people under the age of 18 and Victoria will prevent people with fair skin from using tanning salons.”

If you have dark skin why do you need to get a tan?

la mente torbida1:26 pm 27 Jan 09

Let the gene pool sort it out

VYBerlinaV8_the_one_they_all_copy12:15 pm 27 Jan 09

How about a register of solarium users that is made available for medical reasons, to doctors, health service providers and health insurers. If people want to potentially harm themselves, that’s up to them, but I don’t see why the rest of us should pay for it.

Holden Caulfield12:06 pm 27 Jan 09

Oh, back to my hobby horse of smoking at outside public dining areas … why can’t the Cancer Council get on the local council’s back about stopping that?!

Holden Caulfield12:04 pm 27 Jan 09

Age restrictions, by all means, but that is it.

If you are stupid enough to go and fry yourself then so be it. And Victoria’s rules are bizarre. Who is going to decide who has fair skin and who has not? One could say this is discrimination against reheads and those peachy complexes.

What next, ban fair skinned people from lying on the beach?

Once again we see government leaping in to tell us what is good and what is not. I can see a time in the future when people have no idea about rights and responsibilities simply becuse everything has been regulated and no-one has ever had to think about their actions.

“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?…The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness.” – Syme

jessieduck said :

it’s just your freckles merging into one super-freckle.

Wow … now there’s an entertainment idea to sell to Cube.

Age restrictions are a good idea but I don’t know what age people get the smarts to not give themselves cancer- it seems to vary judging by all the older smokers I know…

Most gingers (like myself) are sensible enough to shy away from tans because we realised very early on that it’s not really a tan if it’s just your freckles merging into one super-freckle. Alas it takes me less then a minute to start burning so I do my best to slip-slop-slap…

The tanning salons are bloody stupid and people who use them should know better, however I will never ever ever stop someone from being an idiot and harming themselves, it is their right.

I think age restrictions are probably a good idea though. Does the council have evidence though that the voluntary standards aren’t working? What is their definition of success?

“Some states have already moved to ban people under the age of 18 and Victoria will prevent people with fair skin from using tanning salons.”

Poor gingers, who knew that they would be the subjects of new Jim Crow Laws.

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