Happy Valentine's Day: Government's war on smokers leaves bad taste
Tuesday, February 14, 2012 at 9:50 It's Valentine's Day so welcome to the inevitable report that Smoking 'is a big turn off' in the dating game.
The BBC is quite restrained in its coverage of this "new research". The original source, the Department of Health, held nothing back:
New research from the Department of Health shows that if you are looking for a date this Valentine’s Day then be sure to keep away from cigarettes if you want to increase your chances of success.
Among people polled, it was the 18-24 year olds who were most put off by the smell of cigarettes.
Seventy four per cent claimed they would not kiss someone who had just smoked; seventy six per cent agreed that smoking makes people less attractive; and sixty four per cent of 35-44 year olds said they would refuse a kiss from a smoker.
As well as leaving a bad taste in the mouth of your date, 47 per cent of those polled said that if they knew someone was a smoker they would think twice about starting a serious relationship. So, people who want to stay one step ahead of the game this Valentine’s Day should put an end to their habit and quit today.
Shameless.
The BBC asked me for a quote so I responded to the press release as follows:
"What really leaves a bad taste in the mouth is the use of taxpayers' money for research like this. To then use it to denigrate a substantial minority of the population with cheap personal jibes says more about the Department of Health than it does about smokers and their attractiveness to other people.
"There's no love lost between smokers and regulators and if it continues to hurl insults at ordinary people the government can kiss goodbye to millions of votes at the next election."
The BBC have toned down the DoH's press release so only an edited version of this quote appears in their report.
Quite what it says about the Government's war on smokers when even the BBC decides to dilute the message, I'll leave you to judge.
Simon Clark
More fan mail:
I've just read yet another of your regular but ridiculous pronouncements – this time on the ‘smoking and dating’ poll which the DOH have just carried out, and which is merely confirmation of something which is blindingly obvious to anyone with a glimmer of intelligence.
It has prompted me to write to you to ask you this: can you really not see what a complete & utter fool you make yourself appear in the eyes of most people? Do you not hear the collective groan which emerges from the lips of millions of UK citizens every time you appear in the media with a predictably stupid opinion on anything to do with the issue of reducing the harm done by smoking?
For heaven’s sake, stop prostituting yourself to the tobacco industry and get yourself an honest job.
I came to Cornwall this week to get away from all this!!
Reader Comments (22)
Is the BBC becoming less gullible?
Good quote from you Simon - and I'm pleased the beeb are developing some independence on this issue.
Complete and utter rubbish. And that's from experience, not a poll of Smokefree.....(choose area).
I'm just amazed where they get these figures from, Simon your bang on about the Government can kiss goodbye millions of vote in the next election. what we have now is blue Labour.
Not to worry there is plenty of choice for those who are single.
http://smokersdatingonline.co.uk/?gclid=CIO0n4akna4CFQlpfAodnT7QLg
http://www.smokingpassions.com/
http://smokingsingles.net/
"Do you not hear the collective groan which emerges from the lips of millions of UK citizens"
The "fan" who wrote this obviously suffers from the same problem as my wife's late grandfather, whom she always described as having "selective hearing"
The fan hears exactly what he/she wants to hear and is totally deaf to everything else.
Well said, Simon. The DoH “poll” is simply the reinforcement of the idea that nonsmokers are “superior creatures” that should even question ever becoming seriously involved with “inferior” smokers, i.e., consolidation of a manufactured, negative stereotype.
Considering your “fan mail”, the antismoking theme is that smoke/smoking/smokers as “repulsive” is a self-evident “truth”. However, it [conveniently] overlooks a critical point – smoking had to be “denormalized”. For it to be denormalized, it had to previously be normal.
From Bayer & Stuber
“…..In the last half century the cigarette has been transformed. The fragrant has become foul. . . . An emblem of attraction has become repulsive. A mark of sociability has become deviant. A public behavior is now virtually private. Not only has the meaning of the cigarette been transformed but even more the meaning of the smoker [who] has become a pariah . . . the object of scorn and hostility.”
ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2005.071886
This change from fragrant to foul has not come from the smoke which has remained a constant. The shift is an entirely psychological one. Unfortunately, the way the shift is manufactured is through negative conditioning. The constant play on fear and hatred through inflammatory propaganda warps perception. Tobacco smoke, particularly exposure to tobacco smoke (SHS), has been fraudulently manufactured into something on a par with a bio-weapon such as sarin gas. There are now quite a few who screech that they “can’t stand” the “stench” of smoke, or the smoke is “overwhelming”, or that kissing a smoker is like “licking an ashtray”. This says nothing about the physical properties of tobacco smoke. These people are demonstrating that they have been successfully conditioned (brainwashed) into aversion. They are now suffering mental dysfunction such as anxiety disorder, hypochondria, somatization, and bigotry. Questionable social engineering requires putting many into mental disorder to advance the ideological/financial agenda.
It is hate crime Simon and encourages people like that Smokerphobic to contact you to hurl abuse. I'll bet whoever that person was, they abuse ordinary people who smoke too.
Thanks for sticking you neck out on the issue and long may you continue to do so.
What's the problem? Nonsmokers tend to prefer nonsmokers, although I never found it a problem. That's why only 20% of pubs and cafes allow smoking. Oh....I forgot.
"I came to Cornwall this week to get away from all this!!"
Should have left your computer at home.
They've tried this one before, Press cartoon of the early 70's. Two females, one glamorous, one not, glamorous one smoking. Two males stood at the bar, looking, one said to the other, "I'll have the one with breath like an old ashtray".
Destined for the same result, this time, too.
This is the DoH celebrating the 6th anniversary of England's own version of the Valentine Day massacre. The day the smoking ban was rushed through the commons and which has so far led to the closure of around 10,000 pubs and clubs, and generated division, isolation, fear and hatred.
Lovely.
As a non smoker I strenuously object to the creature who claims to speak for millions of non smokers throughout the country. Neither I nor any of my non smoking friends and family have any objection to sharing our lives, both public and personal, with smokers. This person writes utter rubbish and should be ignored by decent people everywhere.
Inept 'Call Me Dave' and the whole trashy cowardly crew lost my vote a long time ago. Yes Nu Labour in blue just sums it up.
Sorry Simon, I've only just realised it was you who went to Cornwall, not the author of the email.
Sorry. My introduction should have read,. Inept ' Call Me Broken Promise Dave'.
"These people are demonstrating that they have been successfully conditioned (brainwashed) into aversion. ......"
And on a more (or is it less ?) subtle level, I wonder what kind of 'image' now immediately springs to mind within the largely- vacant skull of Mr Average Briton (and his Yankee cousin) whenever the word 'Muslim' is dropped into the conversation ?
Does it ever occur to him why this should be the case ?
Does it ever occur to him whose agenda is being advanced thereby ?
And does he have ANY idea of the ultimate cost to him, his family, and friends of his State-sponsored ignorance ?
Never fear: one day - he WILL find out.
well, it seems to me as if certain people are deluding themselves. i used to smoke. i like people who smoke. But, when it comes to a kiss, id rather kiss someone who looks and smells healthy. smokers do not. You know, the big con out of all of this is the fact that smokers are just drug addicts. pleasure ? the pleasure of topping up a drug. thats all. Ive been off for a year now and dont miss it one bit. i sometimes think of it, and then feel so pleased i dont do it anymore. i watched three people die awful deaths from cancer in the last year. all under 50. all smokers. yes there are those who die of cancer without smoking, but the three i knew who smoked all said in their last hours they believed it caused it. what a shame. whether it did or did not, smoking benefits no one but the industry around it. 48 hours and the nicotine is gone. seven days and you will wonder why you ever bothered. and when you feel mad and desperate, have a glass of water. it works !!!
Keith, smokers may not smell healthy to you, but many of them certainly look healthy. And don't worry, you won't ever run out of of non smokers to kiss.
" i used to smoke."
Didn't you just! You're easy to spot. They've always said that converts are the most righteous. Probably because of their sense of guilt. You'll be waving placards about how you've been saved, next.
Good luck to you but some of us, actually, like smoking and don't buy the exaggerated bull about the risks. Must admit not too keen on the cost but there's a cost to everything one enjoys.
"...the fact that smokers are just drug addicts..."
This is something I hear trotted out all the time, and it displays a complete lack of understanding of the concept of "addiction".
An addiction is where one becomes physically (or occasionally mentally) dependent on something. By dependent, I mean that if that something is withdrawn for a period longer than what was the "top-up" period, then serious withdrawal symptoms begin to manifest themselves.
If smokers were "addicts", then you would not have seen thousands of people giving up as easily as they have.
If smokers were "addicts", they would wake several times during the night for a cigarette.
If smokers were "addicts", they would not be able to take long-haul flights.
"Addict" is just another underhand weapon in the propaganda armoury of the anti-smoking lobby to paint smokers in as poor a light as possible. There is no depth to which they will not sink in order to try to impose their warped morality on others.
In the fifty or so years I've smoked, I've given up a couple of times, for a year or so each time. It wasn't difficult.
I went back to smoking because (whisper it) I enjoy smoking. And to be perfectly honest, now we have the self-righteous puritans trying to coerce us to quit, my determination to keep on smoking is implacable.
If stopping smoking is what you wanted to do, Mr Jamieson, then good luck to you. But please spare us the smug, sanctimonious preaching. Particularly when what you say is straight out of ASH's propaganda book. We are adults, and we weigh the risks we take in our lives against the pleasure we gain from them.
There's nothing worse than an evangelising ex-smoker. Please don't turn into one, Mr Jamieson.
O/T - I just popped back to Stephen Williams' blog, (for the first time in a couple of weeks) and the comment count is up to 1328! And still counting!
"seven days and you will wonder why you ever bothered......"
Good try, Keith ! But I fear you may be 'generalising' just a little. Back in the Seventies, I gave up smoking for three months. Every day was sheer hell, and the emotional impact was analogous to a bereavement (following the death, say, of a Dear Friend).
One moonlit Summer evening I decided to reacquaint myself with La Diva Nicotina - and it was absolute bliss !
At least smokers are nowadays reasonably aware of the 'risks' they undergo.
Which is more than can be said of the poor saps who routinely take prescription drugs.
Often as the result of adverse reactions to the previous regime of life-enhancing poisons doled out by their over-worked and ill-informed GP.
Big Tobacco has nothing to gain from MAKING people ill.
Big Pharma has everything.
@keith - so, Debs A over Catherine Zeta Jones every time for you, eh, Keith?
When you really fancy a cup of tea, is it a pleasure to drink it, or are you simply satisfying the need to rehydrate? When you choose an alcoholic rather than a soft drink, do you anticipate more pleasure from the alcoholic drink or are you satisfying a craving for alcohol? Did you, by any chance, quit using the Allen Carr method?
I'm pleased that you take such pleasure in being an ex-smoker but, did you perhaps smoke without pleasure before you gave up or did you believe that you enjoyed it until someone told you that your belief was deluded? If the former, then why did you not quit sooner and, if the latter, then why do you trust another's judgment over your own?