Last night's tobacco control debate in Dublin had enough fireworks to light up the Liffey.
My colleague John Mallon was in the audience and he has posted an account on the Forest Eireann blog. Here's a taste:
If Chris Snowden, Jeff Stier or Dr Axel Klein are reading this, please accept my apologies for the appalling bad manners of my fellow-countrymen during your visit to Ireland ...
It was most embarrassing as an Irish citizen to have witnessed the ugly contempt shown to the three visitors and in the cold light of day I feel a sense of shame. If any good has come out of it then it can only be that they can finally understand just how extreme the spokespersons for tobacco control have become in Ireland.
Full post: Thanks to Senator John Crown I was embarrassed to be an Irish citizen.
In a separate email to me this afternoon, John wrote:
I'm just back from Dublin and I must say that I am deeply embarrassed by what I saw there.
[Prof] Crown had apparently insisted he should go first and he launched into a tirade against the IEA and the College of Physicians for hosting the event.
He shouted several times, mouthing the usual statistics, quoting from his experiences as an oncologist, and generally hamming it up.
It was a frightening spectacle. He finished by saying he intends now to turn his attention to the tobacco lobby in Ireland.
But that's not the half of it, reported John:
When [Crown] finished speaking he didn't return to the table [where the other panellists were sitting]. He came down to the front of the hall and sat sideways, never once looking up at any of the other speakers.
He produced a smartphone or iPad and proceeded to use it for the remainder of the evening, never acknowledging comments by either Chris, Axel or Jeff that were directed at him from the podium. It was the most arrogant, bad-mannered display I have seen in years.
When the speakers had all finished, Kathleen O'Meara of the Irish Cancer Society arrived. The debate was just being thrown open to the floor and the chairman, Ivan Yates, immediately deferred to her. She spoke for several minutes, then picked up her handbag and left.
John added:
In the context of the evening and having heard what was said, I took the microphone, introduced myself, and said I was a smoker. My main point was that activists like John Crown are not talking to me or any smokers out there.
They are talking 'at' us and as a result they were not being heard by the very people they claim to be trying to reach.
Sounds like quite an evening. Sadly I'm told there were no journalists present to witness Crown's behaviour.
Not that it would make any difference. They would probably shrug their shoulders and say, "John Crown? He's a character!"