ASA to uphold complaint against DoH
Tuesday, May 15, 2007 
The Advertising Standards Authority will tomorrow announce that it is to uphold complaints against the Department of Health for its anti-smoking advertising campaign. Advertisements showed smokers with giant fishhooks piercing their cheeks. Another showed a hook pulling a mother away from her small daughter. A third depicted a man being pulled through traffic and into a newsagent’s shop to buy cigarettes. Full details will be published on the ASA website tomorrow. Health minister Caroline Flint will no doubt try to wriggle off the hook (no pun intended) but this is still an embarrassment for her, health secretary Patricia Hewitt and the DoH.
Simon Clark
I have now seen the final adjudication, copies of which have been sent to the 774 people who complained to the ASA. I have also been asked to debate the issue with ASH on Sky News tomorrow. I'll comment further after that.
Reader Comments (41)
Excellent Simon. When you are interviewed ask when we shall all have to wear badges proclaiming that we are smokers.
Simon Clark wrote;
“Advertisements showed smokers with giant fishhooks piercing their cheeks.”
I do not think Simon Clark that you describe correctly that what is on the picture.
If you look on the picture you can see that there isn’t smoker but just a child.
Correct description should be; “Advertisements showed a child with giant fishhooks piercing his cheeks.”
Simon,
I look forward to seeing you staying calm and causing the ASH rep to lose their cool. You do it so well.
The ASA verdict is very welcome,but the idea that it will cause any embarrassment to the hate filled anti-smoking "health ministers" is laughable,these people who are quite happy to steal votes and freedoms are unlikely to be bothered by this ASA verdict.All along we the smokers have asked for fairness and tolerance in this matter,we have received none.There are now only 46 days left before we lose our freedoms altogether,surely the time is now right to consider some form of direct action against this appalling legislation.How about a brianstorming session to gather ideas.I will look forward to your ideas.
Abbeyfield
I complained to the advertising standards about the smoking advert with fishing hooks when it first came out and I was told it quite legal.
I see that they're still allowed to use the images though. I feel that these images are degrading to smokers and aim to mock them, providing further fodder for anti-smoking zealots to ridicule them and for children to disrespect adult smokers. It's interesting that there are so many rules regarding respect of people's dignity in care homes etc. but - if they are a smoker - any concept of treating them with dignity flies out the window. These adverts appear to me to be an exercise in humiliation. It's open season on smokers and the amount of brainwashing that is going on suggests an attempt to 'hook' the public into accepting an exercise in social engineering. I am sick and tired of it all. If I can't live freely in this supposedly free country, I will simply leave it to the autamatons. What next? Drinkers being pulled to the pub on a rope made up of statements describing various states of misery unhappiness? Workaholics being dragged to the office by their internal sense of inadequacy or their boredom with their home life? Overweight people being caught in a lassoo representing a string of broken hearts and yanked towards a cafe? Oh sorry... these ideas have some sense that people are complex and three-dimensional and have *reasons* for the things they do - whether those examples are true in a particular case or not. The fish-hook is blatant brutality with no sense of humanity behind it whatsoever. It presumes a slavish mentality that is unable to think for itself. The smoker is shown as a 'weakling' at the mercy of a higher power - as someone who needs help. Tell it to Churchill, Einstein, Mark Twain et al. Many of the great minds of history have enjoyed tobacco. They may not have been the greatest physical specimens - but there are many forms of greatness - to reduce what is 'good' to physical fitness is to narrow the human experience and its value system beyond belief. Personally, I think athleticism is highly overrated. Great minds change the world, 'Master Races' are so last century.
I thought the fish hook adverts were very good and support them completely.
If they discourage teenagers and schoolchildren from takling up smoking in the first place then that has to be a good thing.
Well said Poppy. I agree all the way.
Having lived with a ban in Scotland for over a year, I can tell you that you have no idea whats coming. You will witness intolerance and hatred of epidemic proportions. Its as if a door is suddenly thrown wide open, and smokers, now very, very visible, become the "target de jour" for the venomous, ignorant, spiteful and ill-educated anti-smokers.
Scotland, for me, changed from "the best little country in the world" to "the most bigoted little country in the world".
I am in Dublin on a short business trip, and I wanted to take a look at Scotland four years from now. The picture is not pretty. Pubs are as dull as ditchwater and having to run in and out for a smoke (into the rain, mind you, no shelter outside any of the pubs I have used) is no fun at all. Previous trips were memorable for the "craic", yet on this trip, the "craic" is woefully absent. The vast majority of customers, without exception so far, are smokers. Like Scotland, there is an obvious lack of the non/anti-smokers who demanded these smoke-free venues. They said they would flock to these venues once a ban was in place. They are liars. They stay at home. Just like they always did.
Its a crying shame.
That is so sad to hear, Colin. The rich tapestry of life is being reduced to greyscale by people of no imagination. My hopes lie in the natural and historical tendency for all things to find a reasonable level once the extremes have been tried and found to fail. It's a shame governments have not yet evolved enough to see from history that extremism is *always* a bad thing - and to avoid it like the plague.
Robert Evans - I would much rather see children learning to weigh up all sides of an argument and reach their own conclusions. To think for themselves rather than be brainwashed into one person's or one pressure group's way of thinking. I am totally opposed to 'one size fits all' mentalities. They are the domain of the expedient and deny the human mind it's full range of brilliant and fascinating creative possibilities.
Robert, you surprise me ;)
Would you support images of people being tortured to discourage the use of any other product. Or is it limited to cigarettes?
Let me ask another question. If it's OK (for you only, since the AHA seems to be in possession of SOME sanity) to show images of people being tortured to discourage the use of a product would it be ok to use in order to sell a product?
No matter what you are promoting, pictures of this kind are inappropriate, the product of a sick mind. We live in a time when violence is piped into our living rooms on TV, and even more graphic material is available on the internet. With the underground bombings and the university massacres we do not need to have the government resorting to blood thirsty techniques for any reason. I have seen some horrible accidents working in emerg. but we don't show a child with a pencil in their eye
or a drowning to promote safety around the home. Nor a young man impailed on a fence post to point out the dangers of motor cycles.
If you don't find this unacceptable, you have a problem.
Poppy
I agree with your posts and very well said, however governments learning from history is expecting quite a lot when they can't even work out that the earth on which we live has been heating up and cooling down ever since it has been in existence. Instead they are trying to brainwash us all with this ridiculous concept that it is us, the people, who are causing this global warming. I think it is extremely vain to think that we actually have that much power over the force of nature.
Still, I suppose the likes of Tony Blair do like to think they are invincible and, like King Canute, can command the elements to do his bidding.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for saving energy and the like, where practical and to save me money, but I am not prepared to be brainwashed by the fabrication of so called effects we are causing to global warming, just as I am not stupid enough or pathetic enough to believe the farcicle rubbish about smoking and SHS. Thankfully some of us still have a brain!
I am really glad that finally the ASA has seen sense about these adverts - now they need to follow through with the ridiculous lie that it being portrayed in the Second Hand Smoke advert, where they portray smoke as the silent, unseen killer.
I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at how low the government or its puppets in the NHS, Cancer Research and BHF are prepared to go; something must have spooked them into taking these more drastic measures, perhaps a few more people found their brains again and started to put 2 and 2 together and arrived at 4 instead of the 5, 6, 7 or more that the government manage to make from this simple sum.
Consider; 1. The government can contemplate the banning of smoking whilst driving and expect the public to buy it on the grounds that it might cause accidents.
2. The silent death SHS ads are considered to be legal, honest and truthful by advertising standards people.
3. Both the US and UK governments missed a trick with regard to Iraq. They didn't proclaim the existence of WMDs by showing a picture of a well stocked tobacconist.
Excellent points Diana. Lyn, I agree with you. Nature willl always win - we are mere specks of nothing in the face of its might - and a good thing too! On your second point - yes, I think the government (in the USA initially) suddenly twigged that 'knowledge is power' - and that this should only be the preserve of those who rule - so they decided to 'dumb down' the public. Unfortunately, the public both there and here have been very quick to relinquish the responsibility and effort of critical thought in favour of being told what to do and think. This gives them more time to slog their guts out trying to earn enough to cover the massive debts they've accrued through being easily led by the media i.e. the willing abandonment of critical thought leads to a life where there is no time to fit it in.
Bernie... LOL! I loved point 3!
Robert Evans's view is entirely predictable - approving the adverts showing people with fish hooks through their mouths! Just imagine all our decent pubs/clubs being filled with bigots like Mr Evans who, after 1st July, will be deliberately parading himself around public houses mocking the people he knows who smoke and displaying 'school playground' mentality! I'd like to see people like him who adhere to this government's nasty bullying campaign being depicted with fish hooks through their faces as well as the members of the government who voted in this cretinous unnecessary legislation. I am so bored with and irritated by these sanctimonious, self- opinionated, 'holier than thou' non-entities, who believe they are superior beings because THEY DON'T SMOKE. They deserve to be given a taste of their own beligerent poisonous medicine. I hope regular pub-going smokers (like me) have the courage to 'give as good as they get' and more besides.
PS - I liked all the other comments!! Yes, look at Ireland and Scotland and there will be even more grief here in England due to the density of the population.
I've never mocked anyone for smoking and don't consider myself 'holier than thou'. Some of my best friends are smokers and I'd never take the attitute that Jenny suggests.
So far as the very graphic 'hooked on smoking' adverts were concerned, they weren't cruel. Nobody suffered in their making. But they were distressing and shocking I admit. If they saved some people, however, from the shock and distress of learning that they had lung cancer, emphysemia, were in need of a heart bypass or a leg amputation then they will have served their purpose.
The verdict is welcome, but, in reality, the antis aren't going to suffer. Parliament isn't going to make Patricia Hewitt, Caroline Flint et al cough up the money from their salaries. Neither is the Scottish Parliament going to compensate the owners of the four (closed) pubs on and immediately around Leith Walk I saw on a recent visit to Edinburgh. At some point, we need not just to reverse the bans but to bring those responsible for them to account.
Hooks in mouths, pervading black smoke, word perfect and rehearsed anti-smoking, don't do it educationalists and the massive promotion of the smoking ban all have one thing in common. They all bring attention to SMOKING. Add this to the image of smoking camaraderie outside pubs and we've got one of the best adverts smoking could ever have. As a smoker who never promotes smoking I consider this a disgrace.
In times when we hear frequent calls of "Together we can............." why is it that smokers were never considered to be Stakeholders when opinions were sought for the Consultation? Were smokers, the subject of the ban, beneath worth? We were already declared 'the enemy'.
Togetherness, tolerance, and all-round Britishness is dead all for the incompetent dreams of the above reproach we-can-defy-death health Lobby.
Robert - it's good to know that you haven't travelled as far down the anti-smoking road as some. You do seem to think that lung cancer, heart disease etc. are a 'given' for smokers though, and that's simply untrue. I have lost many people in my life to all sorts of illnesses - both smokers and non-smokers, and the only lung cancer sufferer I've known was a very unsociable relative who lived alone in the countryside and neither smoked nor spent time around smokers. She died very young, didn't even make 40.
ChrisB - I like that... the "we-can-defy-death' health lobby." It's a strange premise to come from, isn't it? Not only are they in denial about their mortality, but they are too immature to even grasp the fact that this is something they need to accept and come to terms with if they are to ever truly enjoy whatever length of life they have. Bananas!
Cheers Poppy.
When we read comments such as the one by the Scottish CMO claiming the smoking ban would eradicate cancer in 20 or 40 years it really does make you wonder how superior some of these people think they are.
It seems they are all powerful but maybe it's worth remembering that all their dreams can turn into nightmares by an ever-increasing army of superbugs.
I feel I must come to Robert's defence here. Whilst me might disagree on whether the end justifies the means he is far, far, FAR from being an anti-smoking zealot.
Nowt on the Beeb about it, is there?
40 million see the ads, perhaps 1,000 learn about the breach of ASA standards. Didn't Auntie Patsy and her DoH chums also get done for those cigarettes-oozing-pus ads?
Oops, I correct myself. Not accessable from the main page, and I haven't heard any mention in the R4 News, but hidden away in a quiet corner of the BBC News site is this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6658335.stm
To Colin (on his business trip to Dublin):
Try living in Dublin. Granted, things have changed, but you're less than qualified to make a comment based on your time spent during a business trip.
It is preposterous to say that a decline in customers in pubs is down to the smoking ban. The fact of the matter is that it is obscenely expensive to live and socialise in Dublin.
Of course, there are many influencing factors to this; the fall of the 'celtic tiger', the Euro changeover... and perhaps, in my opinion, that people don't complain enough. I wouldn't go as far to say that there has been an erosion of personal freedoms. Instead, there were opportunities that the business and especially construction communities took, and nobody lifted a finger in complaint - until it was too late.
So there has been a decline. Interesting - Of course it's just a coincidence that it happened in the wake of the biggest change to the way pubs can do business in living memory.
Nelly,
I really only have four business trips on which to base my opinion. In fairness, they were all Monday to Thursday jaunts, so I cannot say how pubs fare at the weekends, which is arguably any pubs busy time. I only write about what I see and experience at the time. A "snapshot", if you will.
I am now back home in Soviet Scotland, and I really do not have any happy bar stories to tell anyone. Last time (pre-ban) I got back, I was telling my family and friends about the great times, the many laughs, and the always-interesting people that I met.
Having thought about it while writing this, I dont think I have to live in Dublin to know an empty sterile pub when I see one. On this most recent trip, I visited five pubs (two at lunchtime, three in the evenings), mostly empty, all sterile, all devoid of atmosphere, which, by any stretch of the imagination, cannot be coincidence.
There is a missing ingredient.
I'll let you figure it out.
Robert - the people in my family who have died younger have, strangely, been ones who never smoked. Two of my aunts died in their late 50s (of cancer) and my paternal grandfather died shortly after being caught up in an air-raid on Holbeck (Leeds) in 1943. Yet, my musical, elderly aunt passed away in 2005 (aged 92) and had enjoyed smoking and drinking. My 'smoker' elderly family members lasted a lot longer and lived through wars, rationing and worked very long hours in mills and mines. If it is my lot that I die younger, fair enough, but it should be MY CHOICE how I lead my life and not NANNY's telling me what to do all the time. This blanket ban from July 1st (and people are now starting to wake up and realise it will happen) will cripple thousands of businesses such as private and work men's clubs and wet pubs. If smokers don't die of cancer, they'll die of boredom because they will have nowhere to go and socialise - rather like the government closing all the post offices down - another 2,500 to go (announced this week) and the pubs etc. will follow suit!
Colin,
I would definitely agree that on a visit the pub 'landscape' has changed in Dublin. But this is something that appeared to decline long after the ban came to be. When the ban first started, it was a non-event. I think it was a huge surprise to many how little the atmosphere changed in pubs as a result. If anything, those who were affected by the ban saw it as nothing more than an inconvenience.
But being a popular destination for visitors has it's side effects, and one very notable result as I've mentioned earlier is the rise in the cost of living. I have a friend in Norway who compares Dublin's changing social trends to those there, where socialising has become so expensive that people meet in each other's homes before going to the pub.
Anthony... Are you Nelly?
lol - Only outside of work hours ;)
Rude!!
I think that the fact the decline in Irish pub culture is only becoming apparent now - three years after the ban was introduced - indicates that smokers gradually get out of the habit of going to the pub. At first they put up with the inconvenience of going outside, but over time they alter their social lives and go to the pub less often.
To the Dubs who are defending the ban and stating that the decline in pub takings is a result of other factors;
1. Drink prices increased to compensate for the drop in takings after the ban was introduced. This lead to a further decline in visitors and of course will only get worse.
2. The first casualty of the ban was Bewleys coffee bars which all closed almost immediately after the introduction.Was this because coffee bean prices rose?
3. Dublin has always been an expensive city but had an atmosphere that made it worth paying the money to enjoy. It no longer has.
I think it's fairly obvious, given how hard it is to find any information about the rate of pub closures after the ban - Either in Ireland or Scotland - what's really going on. If pubs were booming as the antis had everyone believe they'd be shouting about.
Instead they're staying AWFULLY quiet.
It was obvious before any ban introduced anywhere that the pubs/bars would not fill up with non smokers. And it is also obvious right now in May 2007 that come July and later the pubs in England will not fill up with non smokers either.
Why obvious? Because if there were that much demand for smoke free pubs the non smokers would have expressed that demand to the owners of such establishments long before any of the ASH types had even thought of clamoring for a ban by government. Pub owners want to make money. If there is a greater demand for a smoke free pub or even a smoke free room they will create it. If this whole ban thing was "by popular demand" then it would not have needed any laws at all.
That is actually quite a hopeful fact. We know we don't have a majority of people against us right now.
Bernie, if you go to any of the big forums where smoking is the hot topic it becomes obvious very quickly that the pro-ban people are heavily outnumbered by the anti-ban people.
The antis are also much more badly behaved with sentiments of how smokers should get cancer and die as soon as possible abounding.
Lets hope we don't go down the road of having diseased body parts all over the cigarette packets, like they do in less civil countries.
or maybe it may reinvigorate the nostalgic praactice of cigarette packet collection.
Bernie wrote:
“If there is a greater demand for a smoke free pub or even a smoke free room they will create it. If this whole ban thing was "by popular demand" then it would not have needed any laws at all.That is actually quite a hopeful fact”
It is strong argument. It is plenty other strong arguments presented with no affect.
It is questions why the majority of smokers accepting with masochistic obedience everything that comes from antismoking brigade. On stake is not only freedom of smoking but freedom in general.
Any idea how to do something about that?
Last night my colleague and I went for a Chinese meal in central London; then over the road, as we usually do, to a London hotel bar at Russell Sq. for a nightcap and coffee, around 10 pm. The barman knows us; usually at that time of night the bar is full - it is v. comfortable with leather chairs, lamps, seating areas and nibbles. It was empty. Seeing no ashtrays on the tables, I asked 'surely this is not non-smoking yet?' - to be told that the whole hotel was now non-smoking. Ah, I said, then we won't be staying. The barman - a most affable chap - winced and hid his eyes with his hand. Yes, I thought, and that's just the start. Down the road,at another venue, with outside and inside smoking tables, the place was of course packed. But we have lost what has been a lovely, civilised late-night venue.