Its never ceases to amaze what makes TV News and what doesn't - and why - notes Smokers of the World Unite founder and libertarian Joy Faulkner.

This weekend started no differently than many others lately; hordes of drunken youths on the Shore and in West Auckand have become a regular occurance needing more and more riot police to quell them each time. It is almost becoming a sport for many of these charming well rounded youths, who hurl bottles and abuse, pee in letterboxes and spew on driveways. They will often end up in a drunken stupor sleeping in your garden or doorway, often in their own vomit or urine. The answer of course is that these louts need to be tought to drink sensibly.

Yet these events have become so frequent that they now only rarely see the light of day on our TV news.

Not so the smokers.

If some youth or grown men are caught enjoying a cigarette (gasp) in a compromising situation, they get only one piece of advice: Quit! Because Nanny knows best.

If Shane Warne - at the top of his sport and the very peak of his ability - dares to defy Nanny and sneak a guilt-ridden cigarette at a sports stadium while taking a break, he is dragged out in front of the nation like some sort of low-life scumbag and is made to apologize to the crawling zealots who have the cheek to call the best spin bowler in the world a loser. And they are branded as heroes! What lesson are we teaching these youths? This man is an adult enjoying a perfectly legal substance at a tense moment in a sporting contest, but it offends the noses of a select few who have the ear of government, and a biased media who in the end are reaping what they sow.

"Well I for one was sickened by what was done to this man because he chooses to use this perfectly legal product," wheezes Faulkner. "The whole anti-smoking thing is becoming pathetically mindless; next we will see Shane Warne being required to submit to a public flogging for flouting Nanny's anti-smoking edicts".

The youth of today have been educated to believe that tobacco is the scourge of the planet and the most dangerous substance known to man. They believe it is far safer to get completely off their faces over the weekend, congregate with others just as booze sodden and make everyones life a misery.

Give me Shane Warne and his ciggy anytime. You can have your swank North Shore nieghbourhood and your alcohol sodden youth. We were all young once and I know how far trying to tell them to drink sensibly will get you. The abuse meted out by Shane Warne to his politically correct accusers will pail in comparison to the abuse and ridicule you will get from the drink sodden youth. But what the hey, at least they are not smoking that big bad tobacco eh?

"Every smoker who attends the next cricket match between Australia and New Zealand should light up in support as the teams leave the field for the break," splutters Faulkner. "If alcohol can be consumed in the stadium, so should tobacco".

Joy Faulkner Libertarianz Sspokesman on Alcohol and Big Bad Tobacco Founder of Smokers Of The World Unite

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