D-day for DH consultation
Monday, January 4, 2010 Today is the final day for submissions to the consultation on proposed tobacco control regulations for England. The Department of Health wants responses from stakeholders so if you want to have your say on the regulations to ban tobacco displays and vending machines, send an email (with your full name and address) to:
tobaccoconsultation@dh.gsi.gov.uk
A few lines will do. (Full details on the DH website HERE.)
Here's a taste of the seven-page Forest submission (which I am currently fine-tuning):
As stated in our response to the consultation on the Future of Tobacco Control (September 2008), Forest does not want children to smoke tobacco. Smoking is, we believe, an activity for informed adults only and we therefore support the majority of regulations and initiatives that prevent or discourage children from purchasing and consuming tobacco.
However, Forest does not accept that a ban on tobacco displays will reduce significantly youth smoking rates. In our response to the consultation on the Future of Tobacco Control we cited evidence from Iceland and Canada to demonstrate that a similar policy in those countries had failed to have a substantial impact.
We are not aware of any new evidence from either of those countries (or any other territory) that would cause us to change our opinion. Indeed, since the UK’s Government’s consultation on the Future of Tobacco Control in 2008, the government in New Zealand has decided against a ban on tobacco displays because it believes there is insufficient evidence to justify such action ...
Forest does not accept that a ban on tobacco vending machines will reduce youth smoking rates so we do not support the prohibition of vending machines.
We support strict enforcement of existing regulations, but we object strongly to Regulations that will seriously inconvenience some adult smokers who rely on vending machines when other retail outlets are closed or too far away.
The Regulations will not only restrict choice for adult consumers. Banning vending machines will almost certainly encourage illicit trade and the sale of counterfeit tobacco in pubs and clubs. Not only will the government lose revenue, adult consumers could be put at risk ...
We welcome the exemption given to specialist tobacconists from a blanket display ban. Nevertheless we cannot support Regulations that propose to ban window displays in such shops so they “cannot be seen by the public from outside the shop”.
To do so would not only support the denormalisation of tobacco; it would also support Regulations that, in effect, make specialist tobacconists little different from sex shops where consumer goods are also hidden from the gaze of the public outside the shop ...
Forest believes that the Regulations have less to do with reducing youth smoking rates and are part of a wider campaign to “denormalise” smoking in general rather than youth smoking in particular.
Denormalisation ... is about shaming adults into changing their behaviour. Denormalisation is designed to stigmatise smokers, placing them apart from the rest of society until they learn to behave in a government-approved manner.
Etc etc.
We conclude by saying:
Instead of banning tobacco displays and vending machines, we urge the Government to abandon the Regulations and instead do more to enforce the age-limit for buying tobacco by working with the retail trade to educate and incentivise shopkeepers, and by prosecuting and penalising many more shopkeepers who deliberately sell cigarettes to those under the age of 18.
We also recommend that ministers and officials read Hidden In Plain Sight: Why Tobacco Display Ban Fail by Patrick Basham and John Luik (Democracy Institute, April 2009), a condensed version of which was published by the online magazine Spiked HERE, and selected passages from Brian Monteith's The Bully State: The End of Tolerance (The Free Society, october 2009).
As if!
Reader Comments (6)
I began my email by pointing out, that if I had not visited the Forest website...I would not have known about this consultation.
This is supposed to be open to the general public.
Was anybody here aware of this consultation taking place?
The situation here is really weird.
The consultation finishes today, 4th Jan 2010. How is that Forest are only just responding? I'm sure that there must be some good reason. Perhaps it was because it was desirable to await other developments first.
Anyway, I have just responded. I really enjoyed the survey. Bearing in mind that whatever one says will make no difference, just enjoy it. Always tick the button which requires a comment and be original and amusing in your comments. It does not really matter what you say.
I too responded to the survey together with my comment, for what it was worth!
There is no point in responding. The DoH will do as it likes and it matters not what any smoker thinks about it. I've taken part in consultation before on this issue and I've discovered it's a waste of time. It is just a PR exercise - the Dept going through the motions to give the appearance of being "fair" when it is far from it.
Is there any point anyway as this bunch of loons might just be out and gone in 6 months time?
With the grace of god Pat these bunch of loons will be kicked out on their ass before 6 months.
I don't know about England and Wales, but we had a "consultation" about the smoking ban, which as you have said was just a PR exercise the Executive as they were called at the time having swallowed ASH, CRC, BHF shit and ingested it since Mc-Con-all have his epiphany on the road to Dublin.
Utter waste of trees, postage and our money.
Fuck you would be a most apt response