Increasing support for smoking bans, say ASH
Sunday, June 27, 2010 According to the latest YouGov survey commissioned by ASH "the [smoking] ban is increasingly popular with the public as a whole". More than three out of four people, including smokers, want it to be extended into other areas of public life.
The results of the survey are featured exclusively in today's Observer. Full story HERE. Forest is quoted, but only briefly. For our full response, read on.
The conclusions of the ASH report, which I have read, are summarised as follows:
Support for smokefree legislation has reached 80% with only one in 20 strongly opposing the law.
Support among daily smokers has doubled since the law was introduced and for every four smokers who oppose the law there are five who support it.
Since England went smokefree smokers increasingly regard the law as good for the health of most workers, good for the health of the general public and good for their own health.
Despite claims to the contrary, there is no evidence of overall harm to the licensed trade with the alcohol “on sales” licenses increasing by 5% in the first year of the law.
Research shows that the law resulted in a 2.4% drop in the number of heart attacks in England resulting in 12,000 fewer admissions and saving the NHS £8.4 million in the first year alone.
In response to these conclusions, here is the full statement I gave the Observer on Friday:
"Surveys conducted by the Office for National Statistics before the smoking ban was introduced showed that a majority of people, approximately 70 per cent, were opposed to a comprehensive ban. Polls conducted by Populus for Forest during the same period produced almost identical results. It was clear then that if offered a choice of smoking and non-smoking rooms in pubs and clubs, a substantial majority of adults supported choice.
"Of course attitudes have changed since the ban was introduced, but not as much as ASH would have us believe. Smokers have been forced to adapt, and many have done so, but there remains a great deal of anger and resentment at the extent of the ban. There is also considerable support for amendments to the legislation that would allow, for example, separate smoking rooms in pubs and clubs.
"According to independent research, a majority of smokers believe the legislation is too strict and should be amended. Of those who want to see the ban relaxed, three in five support designated smoking rooms and one in three believe the ban should be lifted in all pubs and bars.
"There are over ten million smokers in Britain and even if you accept ASH's figures that still leaves millions of potential customers dissatisfied with the law as it stands. In the current economic climate Britain's community pubs need every customer they can find and it doesn't help if millions of people are effectively being told, 'Sorry, we can't accommodate you'.
"It is ridiculous to suggest that the smoking ban has had no impact on Britain's pubs and clubs. The evidence is staring people in the face. Thousands of pubs have closed since the ban was introduced. Yes, there are a other reasons, including the recession, but the smoking ban is undoubtedly a significant factor. This has been acknowledged by a many people in the hospitality industry who know a lot more about the trade than ASH.
"A change to the legislation that would allow separate smoking rooms would be welcomed by many landlords and we know there is cross-party support for such an amendment.
"Any attempt to extend the smoking ban to outdoor areas or private spaces, including cars, will be resisted strongly. Smokers are fed up being the whipping boys for politicians and campaigners like ASH."
Responding to the claim by ASH that the smoking ban has resulted in a 2.4 per cent drop in the number of heart attacks in England resulting in 12,000 fewer hospital admissions, I added:
"This is another example of smoke and mirrors by the anti-tobacco lobby. The number of heart attack admissions had been falling for several years, even before the public smoking ban, so what we are seeing is part of a trend that has nothing to do with the ban. It is disgraceful to suggest otherwise."
Simon Clark
This post - Peter Kellner, YouGov and ASH - was originally written on October 8, 2008. In view of the latest YouGov poll commissioned by ASH (see above) you might like to read it again.
Reader Comments (19)
ASH also produced a comprehensive guide to quitting http://www.ash.org.uk/files/documents/ASH_116.pdf.
It looks to me as if they have drastically moderated their claims about the efficacy of NRT: 'Clinical trials have consistently found NRT helps between 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 quit attempts to succeed above those that would have succeeded anyway.' This is a long way short of 'you are four times as likely to give up with NHS help'. They also say that only 2-3 per cent of smokers give up long-term.
ASH fails here to follow the advice of Simon Chapman in this study http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000216. Its highlights include:
Research shows that two-thirds to three-quarters of ex-smokers stop unaided. In contrast, the increasing medicalisation of smoking cessation implies that cessation need be pharmacologically or professionally mediated. ...
Up to three-quarters of ex-smokers have quit without assistance (“cold turkey” or cut down then quit), and unaided cessation is by far the most common method used by most successful ex-smokers.
A serious attempt at stopping need not involve using NRT or other drugs or getting professional support.
According to the latest YouGov (thats Peter Kellner notorious smoker hater who wrote an article in the Guardian to that effect) survey commissioned by ASH .
Yea right .
what's happened to the post on Peter Kellner, Simon?
Belinda, on reflection I decided it was better to link to an old post (see update on this post) rather than publish it in full - which might distract people from reading this post.
I would like to know why fake charity ASH is still being funded by us in this so-called age of austerity. The whole thing seems like a massive scam to me, another way to get even more taxes out of us to fund the excesses of the bloated, bullying state. Judging by this sort of report, the non stop propaganda / ads which have returned and various other interfering ideas put forward by megalomaniac ministers (20 mph speed limits anyone?) you could be forgiven for thinking Labour were still in power.
Cameron and Clegg are behaving like the couple of chiselling expense fiddlers that they truly are. An end to the big state indeed. Lying tossers.
"Research shows that the law RESULTED in a 2.4% drop in the number of heart attacks in England resulting in ..........blah, blah, blah...................."
'Erewegoagain - the infantile (but saleable) confusion between Subsequence and Consequence that Dr Johnson warned us of over two hundred years ago.
Nobody listened then, either.
And how does the 'research' (I type this with a straight face) account for previous PEAKS in heart attack admissions ?
A short-lived fashion for deep-fried hedgehogs, presumably.
If a precocious fifth-former at a decent school had written this drivel in an essay on statistics, he'd have had a red line drawn straight through it - with some suitably caustic remarks at the bottom of the page.
But chuck him a few hundred grand and a nice office a few decades later - and he becomes the Oracle of Delphi.
Jesu.........................................
As a smoker I can safely say that three years on I am still seething about the ban. In fact, my anger grows by the day. No, I'm beyond angry. I'm a professional, middle class 30 something and I feel RADICALISED by the ban. It sums up everything that is wrong with the country and is the perfect barometer (and symbol) of someone's authoritarianism or libertarianism.
And as a Yougov respondent I can also confirm that I was never asked to contribute to this survey, despite doing one a week for them, Perhaps because of my responses to past surveys? As already pointed out, when a smoke-hating organisation uses a polling company run by a smoke-hater and that company doesn't ask respondents who have different views to contribute, I think one can easily file this where most tobacco-control research belongs - in the bin.
And as someone else has asked, why are ASH still being funded, again? George? GEORGE!! ASH! Axe! Get to it!
Martin,
But don't we already have the raw figures for the heart attack rate for the year after the one that's been officially released? Didn't the figures go UP by 3% breaking a 30 year steady decline? I'm sure they'll be suitably massaged by this time next year, though. Or perhaps just buried. After all, it seems that "Medical Journalists" (I use the term lightly) don't actually dig up stories - they just regurgitate press releases from the fake cahrities. Any medical or scientific journalist who unquestioningly published that heart attack story should be sacked immediately. A schoolboy could see through it. How did they even get their jobs in the first place?
Mr A
I too thought it strange that having done several surveys on a regular basis for YouGov, that I was never asked to take part in this one.
I suspect that somewhere along the line I was asked if I was a smoker...to which I of course answered yes.
What is important here is whether or not anyone is taking any notice or believes the propaganda being put out by ASH and co. As we have seen with the 'climate change' situation, no one with any sense accepts the doom scenario any more. As regards 'climate change', more and more people are saying that the data, upon which previous estimates of global warming were based, was suspect. What is the obvious answer? Well, it must be to start again and ensure that the data is accurate, and accurately interpreted. But politicians see climate change as a way to create jobs - the green revolution. The fact that the COST of these jobs is a doubling of energy costs is not relevant at the moment. Put it on one side. However, doubling the cost of energy must reduce peoples ability to spend on other things. But there are those economists who will say that, in macro terms, the reduction of spending by those paying more for energy will be counter balanced by the spending of those who are working in the new green industries. But this does not make sense. It seems to be to be spreading poverty.If I have to pay twice as much for electricity because it is being generated by expensive windmills rather than cheap power plants, then it stands to reason that, regardless of the desirability of green electricity, the reality is that these systems are just too expensive to maintain, Of course, a few people will make fortunes, but the overall effect will be to make us all just that little bit poorer.
Surely, anyone with any sense can see that ASH and co are making us all a little bit poorer day by day. In the same way that green technology is making us poorer, as are smoking bans and all the other silly, ill-thought out 'initiatives' . I am very much in favour of the government and the local authorities providing jobs for the unemployed, but it would be much better for the jobs to be 'real' jobs for the unemployed rather that jobs for people who show the unemployed how to write a CV.
Precisely, then, what is the value of ASH? If this organisation wants to survive, it can survive on the contributions of its supporters. Having achieved the smoking ban, it serves no further useful purpose.
A recent survey amongst the owners, workers and customer showed that 98% were
against smoking bans.
http://thetruthisalie.com
http://fightingback.homestead.com
Thomas -
That's MY kind of 'survey' !
And yes - I must confess to a certain bias here.......................................
Thomas Laprade -thanks for the fighting back link - the best link I've ever seen.
I see your post toes the official line of "at least 10,000,000 smokers" in the country, Simon. I wonder how many there REALLY are. It would be useful if Forest did an assessment of consumption of contraband which is now a major market. (Chinese cigarettes are really good by the way and they don't contain any cow dung.)
My county has done its own assessment of how many smokers it has and
it's currently assessed at 26%.
I just read this great little piece in the Ephraim Hardcastle column of today's Daily Mail. I was particularly interested, as Andalucia is "my" part of Spain, and not only that, but reports as recent as April this suggested that the dreaded smoking ban was about to be introduced there, by June 21st, which has obviously come and gone, and the good news is that smoking in Spain, at least for the time being, is safe and well, and living the type of free life that we here in Britain should be living.
This is what the article says:
A friend writes from Spain: 'It's the Feast of Saint John in Andalucia and along the Costa del Sol there have been firework displays, bonfires lit at midnight and people picnicking on the beaches and swimming.
'Following an old tradition, daring young men leaped over the high flames and there wasn't a health and safety inspector in sight.
'The bars and restaurants still put ashtrays on the tables and everybody puffs away.'
Are we the only country in the EU which complies with rulings from Brussels?
"Are we the only country in the EU which complies with rulings from Brussels?"
Oh, Peter - don't you know that "we're a Law-abiding people" ?
Whatever the Law (apparently).
Let's just be grateful that our pipe- and cigarette-smoking teenagers won the Battle of Britain for us.
And outraged that the cretinous generation of spoon-fed-and-pampered post-War baby-boomers (ie MY generation) lost it..............................
(For the moment, at least)
I'm also still angry and in despair of what life will be like for future generations who may not even be able to choose what they eat and drink if this kind of tripe continues.
I will blog about it soon, but I recently received a press release from the local PCT bragging about how they had saved £181,000 in three years from people who no longer need bed space at hospital - thanks, they say - to the smoking ban which everyone loves and is happy to comply with.
What they didn't say in the release is that the tax payer has poured in half a BILLION pounds in five years into smoke free so not much of any saving. They also didn't say that people only comply because they fear the "or else" if they don't. The woman who sent it was bemused as to why none of the local media here has picked it up. A great story, she said. I have no idea why not either but I passed it on to my editor saying that if they do something on it, then please balance it with other facts. I suspect it may get buried simply because other things are happening of more importance.
'Are we the only country in europe that complies with rulings from Brussels?'
Not by a long shot, when you have Ireland, who incidentally still dine out on being 'world leaders' in bringing in the smoking ban, are banning everything even before Brussels can think them up, the Greens stag hunting ban being the most recent and lots more on their agenda to come, like turf cutting and dog breeding.
Just yesterday the Civil Partnershop Bill flew through parliament without any objection or debate or without any clause in the law to protect religious freedom, which means that anyone with a conscientious objection will be liable to find themselves in court.
This now gives gays more rights, but persecutes the rest of us who dont wish to join in.
It amazes me how the Equality Authority forces a serious law through without debate to champion a minority group and doesent even acknowledge the existence of a disenfranchised minority group like us smokers.
Seems to me that dubious health policies now takes priority over established religious beliefs, which leaves irish voters in the unenviable position with nobody to vote for, only like-thinking parties entrenched in the skills of vote catching.
Majority rule is the bedrock of democracy fair enough, but it takes on a new meaning when you have spin doctors and psychobabblers cruising the airwaves frightening the life out of people, instilling them with their propaganda.
Then the majority of those frighened people will vote the way they have been told, the Lisbon treaty being a typical example. but the frightening thing is, that in the aftermath, and when people should have realised they have been hoodwinked, they still fall for the next bout of brainwahing.
Modern Ireland is beginning to resemble George Orwell's 1984 more and more!
What Yougov survey ,I have spoken to many friends who also fill in these surveys and not one ever had this ASH funded survey to complete, maybe it is because at some point they have admitted to being a smoker, which implies that Yougov surveys are cherry picked and therefore not a real picture of public opinion, just biased to suit the client. Which makes any surveys figures about as accurate as ASH's own.