Forest Eireann fights back
Thursday, July 28, 2011 at 10:21 My arrival in Ireland yesterday coincided with the news that Minister for Heath and Children Dr James Reilly wants to ban smoking in cars with children.
"I don't think anyone in their right mind could agree that smoking in a car with a child is a sensible, wise, moral or ethical thing to do," he said.
The good news is that in contrast to the introduction of the smoking ban in Ireland, when there was no organised opposition, our decision to launch Forest Eireann last year is at last being vindicated.
I've lost count of the number of interviews FE spokesman John Mallon did yesterday. He was even quoted by RTE, an important breakthrough.
This morning John is also quoted in the two quality dailies, the Irish Times and the Irish Examiner. The former, in particular, sets the news agenda in Ireland and is read by most politicians.
I still kick myself that Forest didn't establish a group in Ireland long before the smoking ban was enforced in 2004. I'm not saying we would have stopped it, but at least there would have been a debate.
The purpose of Forest Eireann is to make sure that no more tobacco control regulations are introduced in Ireland - with the potential knock-on effect in Britain - without a fight.
PS. I'm seeing John Mallon later today. I imagine we may have a drink or three to mark the occasion.
Reader Comments (14)
Looks like they are now going for the 'limited prohibition is unworkable' tactic and are shifting their agenda to banning smoking in cars full stop. John Mallon and FE need to get their boxing gloves on posthaste:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ireland/8666142/Ireland-could-ban-all-smoking-in-cars.html
Antony: A total ban on smoking in ALL cars, with or without children, is the stated policy of the Royal College of Physicians over here.
http://old.rcplondon.ac.uk/professional-Issues/Public-Health/Pages/Passive-smoking-faq.aspx
It's the option which ASH will push for, without a doubt.
"Moral" thing to do? When did smoking go from being a health issue to a morailty issue. God save us from these puritans. They are ruining lives.
Yes, ASH UK always leaves out the words "with children" when commenting on such proposals. They will probably try to make it a road safety issue. If such a law was passed, the outcome would be similar to what has happened with mobile phones, ie. widely flouted. There is no landlord at the risk of a £2500 fine. One consequence will be an increase in litter as many people won't want to have cigarette ends in their cars. Another consequence will be an increase in accidents as smokers concentrate on concealing their cigarettes from other road users. Also, multistorey carparks will become very smoky places. I'm not sure the Goverment will want the hassle of another anti smoking law. I think they realise the ban was a mistake.
Here is the link to the Irish Times piece. Note the comment of the AA spokesman. It be very useful.
AA Roadwatch spokesman Conor Faughnan said there would be mixed views from motorists on the issue and that there was also an ideological issue involved. He said motorists tended to regard their cars as their own personal space.
“Is the logical extension of that is that we should ban smoking in homes too or ban it altogether?” he asked.
Mr Faughnan said it would be a “profound mistake” if smoking in cars was made a road traffic offence as it was not a road traffic, but a health issue.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0728/1224301502295.html
Groups like ASH were always going to go for smoking in cars next. Much like the partial ban we were supposed to have until Labour changed it, so will it be for cars. The partial ban will then become a full ban because they won't be able to police a partial one (<think of the children).
lf they get that ... it's your homes next! ASH always have to have a target of some sort otherwise their reason for continued existance disappears.
Simon,
Don’t play the “appeasement” game. Don’t declare that parents know that they shouldn’t be smoking with children in the car and that there is no need for a law. There is no indication of harm to children from smoking in a car. This sort of ban is entirely ideologically motivated. It is part of an overall [eugenics] plan (Godber/WHO Blueprint) to essentially ban smoking in most/all of the places that people typically smoke. Antismoking has been manufactured into a “moral” issue by a [eugenics] framework that is morally destitute. The would-be [dangerous] social engineers are the last ones that should be “moralizing”: They have an horrific recent track record.
A new study is urging lawmakers not to let science get in the way of sound policy when it comes to laws on children's exposure to secondhand smoke in cars.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Science%20shouldn%20stand%20sound%20smoking%20policy%20study/4086184/story.html
These sorts of bans have no coherent basis. They are ideologically motivated. They rely on inflammatory rhetoric to garner public support or the appearance of public support:
"This issue has unstoppable momentum," said Rob Cunningham, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society. "These laws have enormous public support and they have been easily adopted with all party support in provincial legislatures."
These bans fraudulently remove [another] place where people can smoke and reinforces in children that smoking is “not normal”, SHS is “dangerous”, and that the State is in charge.
I agree Magentic. The other thing about smoking in cars is that it is a private matter for families who are quite capable of setting their own policies based on their own children's likes or dislikes. Imaginary harm caused to children from SHS is an ideological ruse to get the wider public onside in the harassment of smokers and the eradication of tobacco. ASH eill move ionto other things when this happens. They now describe thermselves as "A public health charity". What does that tell you?
If we allow their ideology to push Govt into making these personal decisions for us on smoking, and where we smoke in our own private spaces, then next they will be prescribing public weekly food shopping lists. This must end here and now and every resource we have must be used to fight it.
SH is right. It is a step by step process. It will be a full car ban and then it will be a full home ban with hotlines set up for neighbours to report neighbours. This is the wrong way for a decent, caring and tolerant society to go but the only way it can go if we take this next "logical" step.
"" "I don't think anyone in their right mind could agree that smoking in a car with a child is a sensible, wise, moral or ethical thing to do," he said.""
Nor is it an insensible, unwise, immoral or unethical thing to do.
The matter has now gone beyond propaganda. It has become thoroughly illogical. If the effect on children of a minuscule amount of SHS, as might occur on a car journey, is as devastating as described in the quote, then there is no excuse for allowing smoking in the presence of children at all - none. Further, since it is possible for people to smoke unobserved (eg. at home) in the presence of children, then smoking must be banned full stop. There is no alternative. 'Step by step' is no longer an option.
The illogicality is that it is inconceivable to continue to permit the vastly greater exposure to smoke in the home, when this exposure is so dangerous that it needs to be banned in cars.
Irish MPs should be made aware of this nonsensical illogicality in no uncertain terms. It is gross.
I think that this whole issue of harm to children needs to be brought into the open. It isn't simply that there is no evidence of harm to children, it is also that there are billions of us who were exposed to much more serious smoke (including much stronger cigarettes) and emerged totally unharmed. The tobacco companies should be taking out full page ads in the newspapers drawing attention to these matters.
How about a Forest Wales? ASH is currently mobilising in Wales at the rate of knots with little or no opposition.
Doesn’t the European HRA cover the state’s intervention into people’s personal and private lives? I ask only because I know that that was the reason given by one politician when asked by another why the exemptions of private vehicles and people’s homes were being made when the Health Act was being debated in Parliament.
Now, this may or may not have been the real reason. I personally think that the ban-proposing MP’s realised that intruding into people’s private spaces might well have been a step too far (at that stage, at least) for otherwise ban-supporting MP’s and might well swing the vote the “wrong” way, and so they made those specific exemptions so that the legislation would appear to be more “reasonable,” but the fact that they chose to hide their real motives behind the excuse of the HRA indicates that it was plausible enough to be accepted as the reason for the exemptions, so that there may well have been a grain of truth in there.
Might it be worth FE making some noises in this direction to see if the dragon flinches?
Very good point, Misty. The problem, as I am sure you know, is that the whole smoking ban is based upon ephemeral, unscientific principles - specifically, the science underpinning SHS. Because the ban is based upon a LOT of studies which seem to indicate a slight harm via SHS, then the harm is HUGE. Note the sleight if hand there. The ban is based upon a statistical trick. Also note that the real injustice of the ban has been, not the direct attack upon smokers, but the indirect attack. That is, the fact that employers in general have been forced to forbid smoking with severe penalties. What on earth stopped them from protesting violently, I do not know. Pubs and Clubs are different in that attendance is voluntary - unlike work.
A ban on smoking in private cars is on a different level. No employees are involved. I cannot help but think that there is a certain element of the seatbelt law here. I can certainly imagine conversations going on in which people might say: "Look how the seatbelt law was accepted after a couple of months" I think that that is what they are relying upon.
It is really weird how it is that we have these SERIOUS ENEMIES in our midst. Why? What is their problem? I do not think that we know the half of it. Could it be that the WHO Tobacco Control enterprise has gained a life of its own?
It will be far more dangerous to all road users if smoking in cars is banned, simply because smokers smoke when driving to aid their concentration, particularly when on long, monotonous journeys; it also helps with the road rage caused by the vast number of idiots and incompetent drivers on the road!
Sticking on a patch or chewing some nicotine gum does not come anywhere near having the same effect as it is the act of smoking itself that has the calming effect and that also aids the concentration.
As a truck driver I do not believe that the police are interested in pulling up truckers who smoke whilst driving, not judging by the numbers I see smoking and, even late at night and during the early hours of the morning when police are often parked up on the motorways, they never go after a smoking truck driver and I am sure they see them smoking.
Question is, would they be the same for car drivers? Should this law ever come in, I hope that enough police would have the common sense to realise that for many smoking whilst driving is more safe than not for many motorists.
In the meantime, as others have said, it is imperitive to do whatever we can to try and ensure that this is never put to the test.
Finaly, as Junican has said, over all the years my parents smoked in the home and the car when I was growing up and my daughter was exposed to the same, neither myself, nor my brother and later my daughter EVER suffered any ill effects. Nor, years on have we suffered any ill effects.