Tuesday
Mar092010
Catch me on Five Live - after midnight
Tuesday, March 9, 2010 I'm on Five Live tonight between midnight and 12.30. They want me in a studio - Cambridge or Manchester, where the programme is produced. We'll be talking about No Smoking Day.
Update on Wednesday, March 10, 2010 by
Simon Clark
Simon Clark
01:05 ... Just back from the BBC's studio in Cambridge where I was the only person in the building apart from Kelly, who was there to let me in and set things up.
Not my finest (half) hour. My opponent, councillor Pat Karney, NHS Director of Smoke Free Manchester, was so smarmy and annoying I lost my rag a bit.
Luckily no-one could hear me shouting at the radio as I drove home, still listening to Five Live and some really imbecilic comments ...
01:37 ... Can't sleep and I've just had a mug of very strong coffee. Not sure that was a good idea.
Reader Comments (15)
What is there to say about NSD?
Non-smokers won't smoke
Most smokers will smoke as per usual
Some smokers might see how they get on without cigs for a day - and find that they still want one because they haven't really made the necessary psychological commitment to stop
Some smokers might choose the day to quit but if NSD didn't exist they'd choose one of the other 364 days. In fact, there might even be grounds to suggest that NSD deters quitting because smokers who are feeling bullied into quitting use it as an excuse the other 364 days to put it off (cf Velvet Glove...)
A great idea! (like hell) But why stop there? Why not a no drinking day, a no eating fat content day, a no driving day, a no using electricity day, a no going on planes day, a no watching TV day, a no listening to any more rubbish from jerks like this day, and most importantly, a no voting Labour day.
What is the point of "no smoking day?" Are smokers everywhere expected to say "Whoopee, no smoking day has set me free?" Anyone who seriously wants to give up smoking, just has to say "OK I quit" and that is that. The anti-smoking brigade has built up a massive programme surrounding smoking, telling smokers that they are on the same level as drug addicts, and to give up is akin to junkies doing cold turkey. Forget it, you are not junkies, you just enjoy a perfectly legal pastime, and you can give it up as easily as you would give up a cup of tea and a scone.
It's time we threw this rubbish back in their faces, and told them we are grown up people who do not need help, we are perfectly capable of helping ourselves, when and if we should choose to do so. We do not need help from people like this who are just trying to sell us an alternative product!
I've been saving a really nice Cohiba cigar for no smoking day. I'll pour a glass of red wine (or two or three) and delight in the taste and longevity of these fine Cuban cigars. Needless to say this will be at home and not at the pub.
Oh dear, using NRT, quit rates are down to 0.8%.
http://www.annals.org/content/152/3/144.abstract
The actual number of subjects who achieved one-year continuous abstinence with the nicotine patch was 5, or only 0.8% of the sample.
Hi Simon, I wonder if you could maybe mention my website :
http://londonsmokersvenues.ning.com/
Anyone in the London area who opposes the ban, please check it out.
SIMON.
Do they get BBC Radio 5 Live in HMP Pendlebury, if so you will have a CAPTIVE AUDIENCE.
Has NSD run its course? Since tobacco advertising is banned, this is now one of the few ways of keeping smoking to the fore front. Is it, perhaps paradoxicaly, promoting smoking?
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For me, NSD is, and always has been, like somecody elses birthday who I don't know. I have only ever known because someone has told me, pre ban it was always on the day itself. It is not my birthday, or anyone I know, so it may be a special day for someone else, but not for me.
Great fighting talk, Simon! That dreary NHS guy's answer to everything you said seemed to just be to call it 'old news'. Which isn't any argument at all.
A stirling effort Simon, congratulations.
Phil Johnson
freedom2choose.info
Simon, I recorded your interview (and blogged it today) and you and your readers can listen to it here:
http://www.snapdrive.net/files/492358/Recordings/Simon%20Clark-Pat%20Carney%20interview.mp3
You will have to open it in your favourite media player. Enjoy.
Hi Simon,
I listened to the show and all Pat Carney could do was quote from the anti-smokin g standard response sheet. It was very interesting that they got Pat Carney on the programme,where was the Deborah Arnott ( she who is frightened to debate smoking live on the air.
Well done.
Excellent and heartfelt stuff, Simon - as far as I'm concerned you should have lost your rag a bit more (I certainly shouted myself hoarse whenever Carney came up with something particularly obnoxious)!
I was amused by his claim of 100% compliance across the country, given the story of yesterday's story about the clampdown in Waltham Forest:
"Environmental health officers are clamping down on businesses flouting the smoking ban.
On national No-Smoking Day tomorrow (Wednesday), the council's officers will be visiting bars, coffee shops and other businesses in the borough and prosecuting any business owners allowing smoking indoors.
The council said some businesses are still allowing people to smoke indoors, despite the no-smoking law being introduced almost three years ago."
Meanwhile, we should keep a transcript of the debate, particularly his derisive response to the idea of smoking bans being extended to homes and cars - while a doctor in Southampton was urging that smoking be banned completely!
This is classic Banzhaf "slippery slope" territory:
"When we started to fight for nonsmokers, we started with airplanes. No one then thought we'd be successful at banning smoking in bars, banning smoking outdoors. We took the easier ones first. Each step builds on the one that comes before."
Re smoking in cars, Carney must have his head in the sand or he is lying.Everyone knows this is the next target of the Anti-Smoking lobby.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8104062.stm
Use the recording as you wish Simon.
John H Baker