Council set to introduce 'voluntary' ban on smoking in outdoor play areas
Friday, February 22, 2013 at 9:05 I have just done an interview for BBC Radio Newcastle.
On Tuesday Gateshead councillors will be asked to "give their backing to a voluntary code to discourage parents from smoking in children’s play parks".
It's obviously a done deal because Gatehead Council has already issued a press release that reads:
The move has been suggested by evidence which shows that children can be influenced by adult smoking behaviours and this greatly increases the likelihood of them taking up smoking themselves in later life.
The voluntary code aims to limit this effect by limiting the opportunity for children to watch adults smoking.
It even includes a supporting quote from anti-tobacco campaigner Ailsa Rutter, director of Fresh, which suggests a very cosy partnership.
According to Rutter:
"Most parents and grandparents who smoke certainly don't want their children to start. Many also have nagging concerns about their children seeing them and other adults smoking.
bq. "We really welcome Gateshead Council's vision of children having their own play areas where they don't see adult role models smoking."
As the parent of two now teenage children I never had any concern that they might be encouraged to smoke by the sight of a stranger lighting up around them.
My son has often been 'exposed' to the sight of a football or rugby coach smoking on the touchline and to the best of my knowledge it has had no effect on him at all. (Will that be next - a ban on smoking on all outdoor sports fields?)
It is generally accepted that children who smoke are influenced by peer pressure and immediate family members - but strangers? Where's the evidence?
I challenged Rutter on this and she said there are "hundreds" of studies. I invited her to name one and she didn't, of course.
Meanwhile, according to Councillor Mary Foy, Gateshead’s Cabinet member for Health, this is not a smoking ban.
“This is simply a request for adults to voluntarily refrain from smoking in and around children’s play areas. We know that children copy adults, and we want to limit the opportunities for children to watch adults smoking.
"If we can discourage smoking in these areas, we can help to discourage children from becoming smokers in later lives – and help extend their lives.”
Two points. One, it may be voluntary but its aim - prohibition - is no different to the introduction of a by-law or legislation. This is a ban in all but name.
The only difference is that a voluntary code can't be enforced with fines or other penalties, but given all those signs that will suddenly spring up overnight it will take a remarkably thick-skinned person to flout it.
Two, a code - voluntary or not - promotes the absurd implication that smoking in the open air is a risk to other people, children especially. The more this nonsense continues the more people will begin to believe they are in mortal danger.
Finally, according to the council:
An opinion poll carried out last summer concluded that 91 per cent of the 141 local people asked supported a ban on smoking in outdoor children’s play areas in Gateshead.
Ignoring the ludicrously small sample (141 people!), this rather supports a point I made on the radio this morning.
In reality the number of adults who light up in children's play parks is very small. Just as most smokers no longer light up in a car carrying children, the overwhelming majority have decided - without state intervention - that it may not be appropriate to light up in a children's play area.
So why we need a code - voluntary or otherwise - I really don't know.
PS. Note the comment "We want to limit the opportunities for children to watch adults smoking" and ask yourself how many other activities - drinking alcohol, for example - that could be applied to.
Reader Comments (6)
"In reality the number of adults who light up in children's play parks is very small. Just as most smokers no longer light up in a car carrying children, the overwhelming majority have decided - without state intervention - that it may not be appropriate to light up in a children's play area."
So, no harm done by state intervention then - the state is only adding its voice to the "overwhelming majority" who already consider it entirely appropriate to refrain from using a legal product in case a five year old clocks the thought that in 13 years time they must try that.
I did a recorded interview on that seconds before I had to dash out this morning but I don't know if they aired it. Perhaps you know?
I said I didn't have an issue as such with a voluntary code, as opposed to jackbbot and enforceable law, but there was no evidence to suggest that smoking outdoors harmed anyone and certainly not as much as the fumes that belch out of car exhausts that drive past play parks. The only reason to impose it was to deny smokers the right to public spaces that they are entitled to access like anybody else.
I also said that if it was about children seeing smokers then get us back inside and off the streets where we belong in our own pubs and clubs etc..
And when asked if this to was ostracise people, I said of course it is to force people to stop smoking because as much as the likes of Rutter always say they are not trying to force people to quit, I'd really like to know where they are not forcing us to quit as they have banned us from every public place and know want want to ban us smoking in our car - even if we don't carry children - and our own homes.
Rutter is a liar and one day those whoppers will come back to haunt her.
.. . as my spelling mistakes will clobber me one day too. Sorry for those. Posted in haste.
The danger with the voluntary code is that, they run it for a few months, and those that would smoke anyway, continue as before. Then you will read that the Council "tried" that approach and it just didn't work, with the insinuation that smokers are from the hopeless lower social orders. Then, you will hear the demands for legislation ! The Tobacco Control Industry is well organized and quite strategic. They are in this for the long game and will play any trick to achieve their overall objective.
Congratualtions to the ante-tobacco lobby. The public note that smokers are in decline. The government should now decide a job well done and cut the funding which comes from health budget which desparately needs funding for the massive ageing budget. THey the antesmoking lobby are now irrelevant and should seek work outside of oldies are costing the taxpayer heaps more for pension and living beyond our useby date with chronic illness. I read from a Guardian an article by a well known author that he tax bonanza for goverment is 5 billion pounds profit which does not go to health budget. Who are the real benificiaries of smoking tax ?? There is a need for more transparency
From
DEE
" and help extend their lives.”
(assuming all those OTHER 'health initiatives' by the WHO - such as mass vaccination, Codex Alimentarius, and water fluoridation - don't kill them first !)
Yep - if there's ONE thing local authorities and national governments have absolutely NO concerns about, it's the prospect of finding ways to support an exponentially rising population of the world's non-productive 'elderly'.
And if there's ONE thing ALL Young People REALLY look forward to, it's the prospect of getting really, really, really 'old'.
It's got to be a winner, surely ?