Excuse me while I throw up
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 Allied to a "smoking ban: special report", yesterday's London Evening Standard reportedthat "nearly 22,000 Londoners are believed to have given up smoking". Claiming that this is a public health victory, the paper argues that it is "good news for former smokers" and welcome for "those who inhaled smoke in pubs and bars andare now free of that danger to their own health".
There is no evidence, the paper says, that the ban has encouraged people to smoke more at home and "there has been little evidence that companies have been driven out of business by the ban alone". A leading article (entitled "Smokers saved") concludes:
This picture puts into perspective the fears expressed by many that basic rights were being infringed by the ban ... Now, the fact that those who continue to smoke can adapt demonstrates that there was no fundamental right at risk. As a society, we should perhaps allow ourselves a moment of quiet satisfaction that change for the better has been achieved at no great cost.
Rarely have I read such smug, self-satisfied [insert a word of your choice here]. I think I'm going to be sick.
Reader Comments (6)
Where do they get their figures from? Is it the number of people who have contacted the NHS Stop Smoking line or signed up for help?
If it is, then it is also a well known fact that a much higher percentage fail to kick the habit, certainly the first time and often more. On top of this, do these people really WANT to give up or are they just trying so they can say they have tried and not succeeded? Unless a smoker geuinely wants to give up with his/her complete mind, body and soul, then no amount of help will achieve cessation.
I have been extremely dubious of these figures that keep being bandied about and the more unrealistic they sound the more likely it is that people just won't believe them, true or not, especially when there is nothing to back them up. Just like the number of people killed by SHS - no figure can be accurately given because there are no proven cases. Perhaps they can name the 22,000 who have given up in London then?
If they were to put as much effort into 'proving' these figures as they put into the LIES about smoking and SHS, then they just might come up with something a little more plausible. Sorry, forgot who I was talking about there - of cause they would only come up with more LIES as the truth would not look anywhere near so good!
'The lady doth protest too much' comes to mind. The higher the figures they make up makes ASH and the like sound all the more desparate and, personally, I think it just goes to show that they are in fact not winning the battle.
The increase in cigarette sales seems to tell a far more accurate story and there are at least figures to back this up and it does not include the tobacco products brought in, legally, from abroad, never mind the illegal ones.
They are running scare, we just have to keep up the pressure!
Who wrote that sneering article, and what exactly was the research they carried out to show that there was 'no evidence' that people were smoking more at home.
Do they just mean there's no evidence because no evidence actually exists? (i.e. it hasn't been researched at all?)
Who is this person to claim to know when a fundamental right has been breached? Isn't that for a court to decide? Who are they to decide the basis on which society should be quietly satisfied?
Please state who wrote this article. Such arrogance begs for an investigation into the motives behind it.
Simon - More unsubstantiated garbage. Perhaps the smoking ban is not that poular after all and the anti smoking brigade are having to resort to more outlandish articles to justify their position.
More importantly, Simon, what about the addition of fluoride in the water? If this was not an example of forced drug taking on the entire population by the state, I don't know what is? Basically, if you want fluoride, it can be readily obtained in toothpaste - end of consultation.
Bill.
I went to my local on Sunday to watch the football as my Sky was on the blink. It was dead. As I sat at the bar watching the game a man, his wife and two children came into the bar. He ordered 3 diluted orange drinks and a mineral water and his wife and kids took the best table in front of the fire. I then heard his kids singing 'The Barney Song' so I turned around to look. They had covered the table in colouring books and had proceeded to turn what was once a lovely pub into a playgroup. It was my first Sunday out since the ban and will be my last. My Sky is being fixed on Friday and my fridge is well stocked.
To read such drivel and blatant lies is offensive but while the publicans still profer rubbish about reduced profits being a temporary thing and the ban eventually being good for business, then these articles will continue to be published. Has any else not noticed that the current downturn coincides with the smoking ban. My wife does not even want to go out any more as the ban annoys her so much. We used to go out at least three times a week including one restaurant meal but this is a thing of the past. She would have bought a new top or pair of shoes but has no heart in that anymore because she has nowhere to wear them to.
Finally, I work in an insolvency practice and have seen a growth in the number of licensees in financial trouble. They are not blaming the weather or the American Sub Prime Market. It is the smoking ban and we are also seeing entertainers who would have made a living from pubs now in trouble because why pay for entertainment when your pub is empty? Try telling these people who have lost their homes and businesses that the ban has resulted in 'no great cost'
"...there has been little evidence that companies have been driven out of business by the ban alone"
Spot the careful wording of that:
"little evidence" = some evidence/an amount of evidence.
"...that companies have been driven out of business by the ban alone" = companies are going out of business, but factors other than the smoking-ban could be at play.
By such linguistic-tricks do lies become the new truth.
I've seen the evidence with my eyes. Pubs are closing all around me. Village pubs. Landlocked town pubs. Landlords tell me "the smoking ban is killing us".
People are adapting alright. By not spending evenings at the pub. The experience has been ruined.
The ASH/nu-labor statisticians will do here what they did in Ireland and quote post-ban figures for "the hospitality trade" as a whole, thereby swallowing the closure of traditional pubs by including motorway service-stations etc. in the figures. If the We Know Besters follow previous form, we will be fed stats in the summer indicating a 5-10% increase in business to this "hospitality trade".
Michael, your experience is typical. It saddens and angers me that our adult spaces, our refuges, have been taken away from us. Wonder if there'd be 70% popular support for banning flippin' kiddies from non-food pubs... I mean, all that alcohol on display... drunkenness... the potential of hearing non-peecee opinions expressed in exuberant spirit... having to walk through clouds of smoke just to get in the place... they could grow up to think it all Normal.
I like to know who influenced this person to write this article what lies.All i can say is i hope every publican who has seen his buisness suffer because of this ban, write to the london evening standard and complain that who ever wrote this article has indeed got their facts wrong.I bet who ever wrote the article is a non smoker or an ex smoker or has something to do with Ash on the quiet.!!!