Keep Britain Tidy - my reply
Thursday, December 17, 2009 Further to yesterday's post, I have replied to Natasha Piscitelli, marketing co-ordinator for Keep Britain Tidy, as follows:
Hi Natasha,
Thanks for your email which I have posted on my blog together with a link to the video.
You may be interested to read the comments. I wouldn't say they are necessarily representative of the majority of smokers but they do represent the frustration that many smokers feel at the barrage of anti-smoking propaganda that is pumped out by government and other agencies on an almost daily basis. Many smokers are simply fed up with the way they are constantly targeted and made to feel like social pariahs for doing no more than consuming a legal product.
On behalf of Forest I should add that we are very keen to improve the image of smokers and I would welcome the opportunity to get involved in a campaign that encourages smokers to dispose of their litter responsibly. (We have for many years distributed pocket ashtrays at party conferences and various social events.)
In fact, I would be very interested in working with Keep Britain Tidy on this issue but I don't think this particular video is helpful. It is so over the top and unrealistic that it completely negates the message it is trying to send. The shot of the child picking up a giant cigarette to her mother's obvious shock and alarm is especially gratuitous. I could almost imagine Forest making a similar video as a spoof to show how extreme the anti-smoking lobby has become.
The problem we have with many cigarette litter campaigns is that, rather than working with smokers to encourage them to act responsibly they try to make smokers feel bad about themselves and their habit and this is often backed up with the threat of fines and other penalties.
I think a great many smokers would like to behave responsibly but where are the cigarette bins? I feel that Keep Britain Tidy should do a lot more to persuade local authorities to install (or allow the installation of) cigarette bins on walls and lampposts, for example. Unfortunately we live in an age where the government wants to denormalise smoking and I believe there is a fear that cigarette bins "normalise" the habit.
Well, we can't have it both ways. Over ten million people smoke in the UK, a figure that is not going to change drastically for many years. We can encourage smokers to dispose of their litter responsibly but if we insist on turning smokers into social pariahs - without giving them the means to dispose of their litter - it will breed a great deal of resentment (as you can see from the comments on the blog) that will actually be counter-productive.
To repeat, Forest would be happy to discuss a cigarette litter campaign with Keep Britain Tidy just as long as it doesn't become an anti-smoker campaign.
Hope these comments are of use.
Kind regards
If you haven't yet posted a comment about the video, please do so HERE because that's the link I have given Natasha.
Simon Clark
Keep Britain Tidy has responded to some of the comments on my previous post (see Update below). I'll let you know if I get a response to my email above.
Reader Comments (11)
Brilliant Simon !!
A well crafted letter Simon, with you all the way on this one.
TBY
I have only one criticism with your letter, which otherwise is excellent.
'feel bad about themselves and their habit'
Please refrain from using the word habit...it is not a habit - it is a social enjoyment.
This word is always used by the antis at every opportunity.
An excellent letter and one I am sure most smokers could put their names to. Personally when smoking outside I look for a drain for my butt if there are no bins around and I do not just stub my cigarette out wherever I am standing. Most smokers do this and you will always see them looking for somewhere to put the cigarette end but gum chewers seem to just spit out wherever they feel like it.
I certainly would not get hung up the word 'habit' as at times it is a habit albeit a pleasurable one.
"I wouldn't say they are necessarily representative of the majority of smokers..."
Sorry, I didn't understand that bit, could you explain please.
Just a thought, but wouldn't it have been in order to mention that a significant cut in cigarette litter could be achieved if Keep Britain Tidy signed up to the Amend the Smoking Ban site?
It's unarguable that such a move would reduce litter, so they'd have no hesitation, would they? Or ...
Edit: The reduction in litter would materialise with the ban being amended, NOT merely Keep Britain Tidy signing up.
Just to be clear. ;-)
I would certainly be up for helping Keep Britian Tidy if they use the right approach and don't start from the premise that the smoker is the filthy enemy.
People should be made to see that the vast majority of smokers care about cigarette litter and are doing their piece to reduce the problem.
When cooperating with Keep Britain Tidy (or any other ogernization for that matter ). It should be stressed that smokers do care about their surroundings and other people.
Any cooperation that drives home the fact that smokers, if treated as normal adults will be happy to respond to any reasonable request to do their bit to help keep the streets tidy, would be most welcome.
Tom.
Smoking IS a habit. The importance of that statement is that smoking is NOT an addiction - in the sense that heroin or alcohol can be an addiction. It is, quite simply, a habit, although a habit that is very difficult to break. I remember reading a very learned treatise donkeys years ago about 'habits'. This treatise was actually about SINFULNESS - not a subject that one sees much about these days! The point that the author was making was that a sinful act became less sinful if the act became habitually repetitive. (I just thought that I would chuck that thought in for fun!)
To illustrate, when the smoking ban in airports first came in, I found it very difficult, but as time has gone by, I now find that the inability to smoke in an airport does not bother me much, any more that the inability to smoke on the bottom deck of a double-decker bus used to bother me in the old days. (Which reminds me of another little story - my six year old grandson asked me, a few months ago, what life was like 'in the good old days'. IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS! For heaven's sake!)
What is wrong is when people use the word 'filthy' connected to the word 'habit'. There is nothing wrong with the 'smoking habit'. That is the point that we must always make. Our objective must be to always connect the word 'pleasurable' to the word 'habit' in connection with smoking.
Simon's letter is excellent because he is non-judgemental in any way. He says that smokers want to co-operate with the idea of 'Keep Britain Tidy', and that is correct-ish. What we do not want to co-operate with is the deliberate use of anti-litter laws to demonise smokers - as lots of other posters have also said. And that, substantially, is what is wrong with the video.
Junican,
"Our objective must be to always connect the word 'pleasurable' to the word 'habit' in connection with smoking."
I agree.
We must always make it clear to outsiders that we smoke purely for reasons of pleasure. In public we must avoid using expressions like 'I am dying for a fag'.
In no circumstances suggest that you have ever considered giving up smoking. Any member suggesting that they lack the will power to give up will be expelled from the party.
We must convince the public and ourselves that we are autonomous individuals who - purely in the pursuit of pleasure - choose to smoke tobacco.