Pros and cons of the smoking ban, five years on
Saturday, June 30, 2012 at 17:10 Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of the smoking ban in England.
Forest issued a press release renewing our call for a review of the ban (as promised by the last government) and an amendment that would allow separate smoking rooms in pubs and clubs.
See: Review the smoking ban and allow separate smoking rooms, says Forest
Media interest has been limited to say the least. However I shall be doing a few interviews tomorrow, including BBC Breakfast at 6:40 and 8:40.
The bad news is, I have to be in Salford ...
Update: The BBC has a report here - Smoking ban's impact five years on.
Simon Clark
According to the Guardian the Smoking ban 'has reduced asthma and heart attacks'.
If you believe that you'll believe, well, anything. At least the Guardian had the decency to use quotation marks.
See what Chris Snowdon thinks of the report: Five years of junk in one place (Velvet Glove Iron Fist)
Simon Clark
Got up 2.30am.
Left the house at three. Drove to Manchester (Salford). Arrived at six. In make-up at 6.15. On air with Andrea Crossfield, director of Tobacco Free Futures (formerly Smokefree North West) at 6.50 and again at 8.45.
There was quite a feisty exchange each time but off air we got on quite well (sorry).
This is my first visit to MediaCity in Salford. I am currently sitting in the Green Room which is at one end of a large open plan office and overlooks a large expanse of water and the Imperial War Museum North on the opposite bank.
Everyone else has gone home but I'll be here for another couple of hours doing local radio interviews.
After that I'll get back in my car and drive home.
Weird.
Reader Comments (13)
"At least the Guardian had the decency to use quotation marks."
..like yer average guardianista will even notice the speech marks or know what they mean?
For the Guardian to use quotation marks is important, because it says that they are sceptical about the so called study's that come out on a regular basis - and that is worth bearing in mind. Doubts now exists where they didn't before.
"Media interest has been limited to say the least". Oh? Well perhaps the most respected news organisations in the world appears interested - the BBC.
Good luck with your interviews.
Very good article by Chris Snowdon - chock-full of provable facts. If only such facts could be accessed by more people - if only more people would believe such facts when they do see them - if only we had a way of publicly debunking the "dodgy facts" dreamed up by the puritan myth-makers of the Guardian and their left-wing chums in the pharmaceutical industry.
Maybe it is time for the tobacco companies to invest, through organisations such as Forest, in some high profile advertising - no gimmicks - just straight forward facts?
Its now time to start talking about this in the strongest possible way. Professor Hilary Graham has criticised the smoking ban that has turned smokers into lepers making them a despised underclass, leaving them no place but to stand outside pubs or stay at home. It is keeping many thousands of people from going out that don't want to stand outside under fifty percent shelters (pig pens by law, should be eighty percent enclosed). Smokers understandably feel persecuted. If anti smoking groups treated any other minority in this way then they would be locked up.
Thousands have stopped going to pubs and are drinking more at home. We know that modern ventilation solves the perceived problem of ets. Buildings do not have to be completely smokefree in order to prevent non smokers and staff from being exposed to ets.Surely its better to have smoking rooms than to exclude thousands from society ?
Tobacco control.
The science of bent statistics.
Just watched your interview on the Beeb. Great! You won hands down. What annoys me about Andrea the anti-smoking zealot, is that she talked over you and wouldn't always allow you to speak.
You were in good form and she came accross as intolerant and not wanting to listen to your points. You will notice of course she remembered to mention the children.
Very good interview.
I have saved this comment and you don't have to publish if you are doing a post about it. I can post it then.
Hello
I've just seen you on the BBC, well done!
It is always difficult to get anti-smoking campaigners to understand that some people smoke because they enjoy it, this is continually overlooked.
Thanks.
Well done Simon. I should have invited you in for a coffee on your way home, even a 'bacon butty', sorry, sandwich. Media City?, about 3 miles.
Anyway, as usual, the TCI was represented by a woman, and a very rude one at that. When she spoke, you listened politely. When you gave your polite reply, she began attempting to shout you down.
I know that there is timing involved. I have to say however, that if I was ever in a similar situation, I would have to stop talking, and when she had stopped going on with herself, I would have to say that I could not discuss anything with such an impolite person, and leave.
I hope that people watching noticed the anti smoker's impoliteness rather than what she said.
I saw your interview this mroning. I was disgusted by the way that Andrea Crossfield spoke over you even though you were polite. I could not hear all opf your comments because of this.
Although I am a non-smoker I believe that smokers' should have a right to smoke if they so wish. Therefore I support the call for pubs to have a designated room for smokers that is well-ventilated.
It is done in other European countries why not here? I have seen the decline of pubs especially here on the east coast and the smoking-ban has most definitely had an affect.
Good luck with the campaign.
“I could not hear all of your comments because of this.”
Isn’t that the whole idea? The Tobacco Control lobby are running scared – funding is being cut, their usually-compliant politicians are avoiding the subject of smoking like the Plague, comments even from non-smokers are peppered with “enough is enough” type sentiments, and even their luvvies in the media have lost interest in them. (Witness the lack of publicity about this latest proposal, as opposed to the headline screechings which accompanied the run-up to the Big Ban. If it hadn’t been for this blog I wouldn’t even have known about it).
We’ve seen several attempts at “new angles” from the Tobacco Control lobby to re-invent itself since the ban, ranging from the fictitious Third Hand Smoke, outdoor bans, accusations of “poor little us” bullying and a whole host of “newly-linked” diseases mopping up the last few which hadn’t already been blamed on smoking. All have failed. People quite simply aren’t interested in them any more and, worse still, more and more non-smokers appear to be gradually acquainting themselves with the less-than-squeaky-clean “science” and statistics employed by the anti-smoking movement to achieve their aims at all costs.
So perhaps the only option left open to them is simply to shout louder and talk over anyone who disagrees with them. Which for a group of people who, until five years ago, held politicians, health professionals and many members of the public in thrall, hanging on their every word, is a pretty undignified way to end their once-glorious careers. Oh, well. The bigger they are, the harder they fall, as they say …
Indeed Misty but don't forget that THS is being pushed in NHS funded adverts as "Invisible Smoke". They still have the bully Govt on their side. There is no room for complacency especially as they are not averse to sheer lying to push through their latest wheeze.
http://patnurseblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/have-they-no-shame.html
As you can see, there are still some gullible MPs behind them and a media that appears not to know how, or simply isn't bothered, to scrutinise their propaganda fluff and stuff.
You maybe interested in my article today in The Commentator.
"Five years after the smoking ban, we are all smokers now."
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1365/five_years_after_the_smoking_ban_we_are_all_smokers_now
Nice one Dave. I see one of the commentators has been taking lessons from the TCI...maybe they were the TCI