What are governments for?

Writing on The Free Society blog, Forest's Neil Rafferty attacks the denormalisation of smoking and concludes:

"The proposals laid out in the consultation paper on the future of tobacco control are the enemies of choice. They are simply another stage in the government’s rolling programme of interference and intrusion into the lives of free individuals.

"Governments," he adds, "are not elected to tell us how to behave. They are not elected to bully, cajole and denormalise. If government has a role in public health it is to warn people of potential risks to their health in a measured and matter-of-fact way and then leave us alone to choose for ourselves."

Full article HERE.

Footballers' lives

How refreshing to read that England manager Fabio Capello has no problem with Wayne Rooney having the odd cigarette. Asked yesterday whether he would encourage Rooney not to smoke because of the health risks, Capello told reporters: "I know a lot of players who smoke, it is part of life. When I was a player, a lot of my friends and team-mates smoked. It depends if he smokes five cigarettes or 20 cigarettes."

Needless to say, in these politically correct times, these comments did not go down well with Capello's paymasters because The Times reports that "when he reappeared a short while later to make clear that he did not endorse smoking, it was plainly at the request of the FA, not because he had suddenly taken evangelically against the weed".

Full story HERE.

Caged like animals

Designer, photographer, musician ... Dan Donovan writes:

I was at the 2008 punk festival Rebellion, held at The Winter Gardens, Blackpool. The venue had provided a smoking area down the alley that runs next to the venue for the herded smokers to enjoy a beer and a fag hand in hand.

A cage fronted the area so that no one could drift onto the street with their alcohol. The most pertinent moment for me was when the queue had formed inside the bar as the punters restlessly had to wait for the smoking area to clear before they were allowed in, or should I say allowed out.

The designated area must have held up to 300 people and got pretty cosy at times. It’s clear to me that this so called ‘Smoke Free England’ isn’t and however much effort the government makes to curb our freedom and lead us to believe smokers are a thing of the past that they are fooling themselves.

As to be expected there were moments of drama inside. A young shaven haired girl lit up on one of the dance floors. After being pursued by four or five security men she managed to slip away.

The song being played on the jukebox was ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ by The Clash, a fitting song and the iconic smoker, Joe Strummer (Clash front man) would have smiled had he been there. I smiled for him.

Dan's band King Kool is playing the Peterborough Beer Festival on Saturday August 23. Details HERE.

All in the name of health

I shall be in Manchester today looking at possible venues for an event at this year's Labour party conference (although, after last night's Glasgow East by-election result, I am beginning to think, "Why bother?").

While I'm away you might like to discuss a story that first appeared in the Manchester Evening News on Wednesday and has been picked up by the Independent HERE. It reveals that "radical proposals put forward by the Greater Manchester Health Commission include plans to cut off all funding to local theatres that stage a play which includes smoking in it despite such performances being protected by law".

My quote includes the following. "These are obscene proposals with elements of totalitarianism ... It shows just how extreme the anti-smoking lobby is becoming ... To only allow a world where no-one smokes at all would be artificial and there is only one word to describe it: censorship."

I have been sent a copy of "Tobacco, Health and Health Inequalities: A Manifesto for Action" and will comment further once I have read it.

Meanwhile, a second smoking-related story in many of today's papers reveals that "a self-employed painter and decorator has been given a £30 on-the-spot fine for smoking in his own van because it is classified as a workplace" (HERE). Over to you.

Another conspiracy theory dashed

I have been asked to comment on a story that appears in some newspapers (and on the BBC website) today: "Menthol has been used to make some US cigarette brands more appealing to the young, say researchers" (see HERE).

I don't really have much to say on the subject. Obviously, I have no idea what the manufacturers talk about in the privacy of their research labs. All I know is, the tobacco industry is one of the most highly-regulated industries in the world and there is virtually nothing it can do without the approval of the authorities, so for the story to be spun as an example of the immorality of Big Tobacco is rather nauseating.

Funnily enough, when I was 16, and one or two of my friends smoked, the only brand I quite liked was "cool, clean Consulate ... Britain's largest selling menthol cigarette". I only smoked the odd one but I liked it more than a non-menthol cigarette because it had an edge, a flavour, that I could actually taste.

I'm not sure it was "as cool as a mountain stream", as the ads would have us believe, but to my tastebuds it was an improvement on a regular cigarette. Despite that, I never got hooked so the menthol made no difference whatsoever.

Truth is, I am struggling to think of any smokers I know who prefer menthol cigarettes. And yet, if this allegation is correct, surely lots of people would be smoking menthol flavoured tobacco?

Frankly, it sounds like yet another conspiracy theory. Lucky for the researchers, it must be a slow news day.

Joe Jackson Down Under

Joe Jackson first toured Australia in 1983. He liked it. "The people," he writes on The Free Society blog, "were laid-back, with a dry sense of humour, and the culture had a nice mix of American and British influences." Recently returned from his latest tour, he found the country "stifled by American-style paranoid health-freakery and a very British-style nanny state".

Most disturbing, writes Joe, was the email he received from a journalist from the Melbourne paper The Age, shortly after doing a telephone interview.

He'd been sympathetic to my views on smoking, and wanted to tell me that his article had been 'butchered' by his editor on instructions from their legal department. It seems there are now laws governing what can and can't be printed about tobacco, and it's actually illegal to say anything which might be construed as positive.

Full article HERE.

It's a crazy mixed-up world

"It’s not only national politicians who make one think the world is galloping mad," writes Allan Massie in today's Scottish Daily Mail." (Massie, for those of you who don't know, is one of Scotland's most respected writers and journalists.)

"One Scottish newspaper yesterday ran an interview with the campaigns manager for ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), the occasion being the BMA’s recommendation that the portrayal of smoking be taken into account when classifying films. Now, as a happy smoker for more than 40 years, I should perhaps tread warily on this one, for it’s now generally held that smoking is not only wicked, but, after knife crime, perhaps the deepest and darkest blot on society.

"But then again, perhaps not, for the campaigns manager touched agreeable heights of craziness. Asked his opinion of the portrayal of smoking in movies, he said: ‘It isn’t very realistic. Although you often see actors smoking on screen, you rarely see the consequences. So while you see someone stub out a cigarette, you do not see them having a heart attack or dying of cancer.’

"Well, no, you don’t – and it wouldn’t be ‘very realistic’ if you did because, no matter the possibility – or likelihood – that a smoker may die of a heart attack or lung cancer, you don’t often actually see one doing so each time he stubs out a cigarette. But in the mad world of ASH, I suppose we should have movies in which every cigarette smoked is followed by the actor clutching his throat and dropping down dead.

"Laughter," Massie concludes, "is often the only sane response to the lunacy of the modern world."

I couldn't agree more.

PS. See also Neil Clark ("Anti-smoking hysteria reaches new heights") on Comment Is Free in the Guardian HERE.

Tighter controls needed, say doctors

Today's newspapers report that the British Medical Association wants tighter controls to "de-glamorise" smoking among children. Anti-smoking adverts should be shown before programmes and films that feature people lighting up, and censors must consider smoking scenes when classifying films and video games.

I can't help wondering ... if smoking in films is to be targeted (ie with an anti-smoking ad before the film starts), what about movies that feature violence, promiscuous sex and heavy drinking? At this rate, the public information ads are going to be longer than the main event!

PS. Metro reports that the BMA is calling for Britain to be smoke-free by 2035. I assume they mean prohibition. In 2035 I shall be 76. Just old enough to start smoking in a final gesture of defiance before I pop my clogs. I can't wait.

A touch of class

Libby Brooks, deputy comment editor of the Guardian, has THIS to say about Forest, smoking, and class in today's paper. Discuss.

Update on Tuesday, July 1, 2008 by Simon Clark

See what ASH (and Forest) has to say: politics.co.uk has a feature on the smoking ban, one year on, HERE.

Any crusade will do

Rob Lyons, deputy editor of the excellent online magazine Spiked, has this to say about the latest anti-smoking campaign: 

"Even after their ban on smoking in public places, [anti-smoking campaigners] continue to come up with new ways to restrict smoking or access to cigarettes, and are always looking for other ‘vulnerable’ groups of ‘addicts’ to meddle with. Well, when you’re an unpopular government in desperate need of a purpose, any crusade will do."

He adds:

"What the proposals are really all about is the long-standing anti-smoking campaign technique of denormalisation. This is an insidious attempt at social conformism. If people who engage in some habit are marked out as different, as deviant, then others will reject them. If you have to ask for a packet of fags in much the same manner that dodgy men in macs have to ask for porn, you’re less likely to want to do it."

Full article HERE. Well worth reading.

Cigarettes and civil liberties

"I don't smoke and I don't care much for smoking," writes Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute, "but I'm outraged that the UK government plans to ban the display of tobacco products in shops. Which other of our 'unhealthy' pleasures will be driven under the counter next? Sweets? Crisps? Fizzy drinks? When you give political zealots so much power, you never know quite where it will end up."

Full article HERE.

DoH proposes tougher tobacco controls

I haven't blogged for a few days because I've been a bit busy. Yesterday was World No Tobacco Day. We were expecting a big announcement from the Department of Health and we got it. (Actually, we got it on Friday but it was embargoed until 00.01hrs Saturday morning.)

As well as proposals to ban 10-packs, cigarette vending machines, and the display of tobacco in shops (which we already knew about), the "tougher tobacco controls" promised could include (shock horror) plain packaging.

All this, we are told, is to reduce the number of people who start smoking in their teens, although there is little evidence to suggest it will make much difference. I won't go over all the arguments (been there, done that and I need a break!) but you can read Forest's response on our website. We were widely quoted by the British and foreign media including the BBC, Sun, Guardian, Independent, to name a few.

You might also like to read THIS post by Iain Dale.

It's worth noting that although we are only at the beginning of a three-month "consultation" period, health secretary Alan Johnson and public health minister Dawn Primarolo have already declared their support for a point of sale display ban and other measures. Surely they should keep their mouths shut until after the consultation period? Or am I missing something?

Lunatics, asylum

No, it wasn't a dream. I really did read this in yesterday's Bolton News.

Bolton Primary Care Trust spokesman, Debbie Collinson, said: "One of the problems with the smoking ban is that it has made smoking high profile. Getting rid of packs of 10 cigarettes will make them that bit harder to obtain because it will be so much more expensive. There is also the old adage of out of sight, out of mind, and if cigarettes are removed from view I think it'll make a real difference to the number of young people who start smoking."

Let me get this right. Government policy has resulted in smoking becoming "high profile". So, rather than amend the smoking ban, they now intend to ban the display of cigarette packets - in much the same way as some campaigners want to ban smoking in outdoor areas to cut down on "noise pollution" and litter which are the result of ... the smoking ban.

Is there no end to this lunacy? Story HERE.

They don't like it up 'em!

Last week I did a series of interviews on Irish radio, two of them alongside Prof Luke Clancy, chairman of ASH Ireland. We were discussing the news that the smoking rate has gone up from 27 to 29% in Ireland since 2002, despite the public smoking ban.

I can't let the final interview pass without mentioning how thoroughly depressed Clancy seemed. He sounded like a man about to self-combust as his dream of a smoker-free Ireland was shown up for what it is - a total fantasy.

I've met Prof Clancy on several occasions and I rather like him. He seemed more "normal" than many anti-smokers, and he was always polite and courteous. Listening to him this week, however, he sounded how I imagine a member of the Temperance Society would have sounded in the 1920s - well-meaning but deluded and out of touch with reality.

Not only is he convinced that EVERY smoker is hopelessly addicted to nicotine, he cannot tolerate ANY view other than his own. As a result, he spent much of the interview on Thursday castigating the presenter (and the radio station) for allowing me to speak at all!

The tipping point was my refusal to accept his claim - largely accepted in Ireland - that passive smoking is a serial killer. This heresy was too much for him.

All very entertaining. As Corporal Jones would say, "They don't like it up 'em!"

Smoking rates up in Ireland

I have just done an interview for a Dublin radio station. According to a survey published yesterday by the Department of Health in Ireland, smoking rates have gone up since 2002, despite the introduction of the public smoking ban in 2004.

The number of people in Ireland who say they are smokers is currently 29%, up from 27% in 2002. One theory is that the ban has made smoking cool again. Another is that as more and more people (including non-smokers) migrate outside, smoking is perceived as a rather sociable activity. You couldn't make it up.

Full story HERE.

Update on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 by Simon Clark

I'm doing another interview for another Irish radio station later this afternoon. Apparently, some anti-smoking campaigners have suggested that the way to reduce the number of people smoking is to remove all outdoor tables and heaters. I'm sure some of these people mean well, but ... words fail me.