Why this fascination with the irrelevant?
Friday, September 20, 2013 at 8:25 The BBC (via The Times, I think) reports that:
Smoking ban considered for prisons.
There was an interesting discussion on the issue on the Today programme (Radio 4) this morning.
Ben Gunn, a commentator on prisoner reform, said that in his experience there are hundred of issues that concern prisoners but passive smoking is not one of them.
Mark Johnson, founder of User Voice, suggested that a smoking ban could unite and politicise prisoners in a way that hasn't been seen for years.
When presenter John Humphrys suggested the solution could be nicotine patches his guest's scornful laugh said it all.
The best line also belonged to Johnson. The debate, he said, represented a "fascination with the irrelevant".
I shall be discussing the issue myself on BBC Radio Suffolk at 9.10 and Radio Cambridgeshire at 9.30.
There must be a lot of prisons in East Anglia.
Update: I'm also doing BBC Radio Oxford at 4.15 and BBC Coventry & Warwickshire an hour later.
Reader Comments (14)
I predict widespread riots if this happens. If people are no longer allowed to smoke in their own homes the government can expect a lot of trouble. Its either legal to smoke or it isn't. If it is legal then they should be allowed to do it.
Of course prisons are stuffed with people taking all sorts of drugs and the officers don't seem able to stop this effectively so how will they stop them lighting up?
Basically, this is happening because they can do it. Prisoners have no control over what happens inside and certainly they would never be consulted about it and no one will defend them - easy targets in other words.
Anti-smokers will enforce their ideology wherever they can and however they can.
Prisoners will continue to smoke, tobacco will go underground in prison and become a highly valued currency and a cause for fights, blackmail, violence and bullying behind those walls.
Those who cannot get tobacco will smoke tea leaves rolled in bog paper. I believe that's what happened when they first forced a prison to accept anti-smoker politics in the Isle of Man.
What next? Refusing to hire prison staff who smoke off the grounds or at home? Isn't that probably the real reason for it? It aids the cause to dispossess smokers of their jobs. It is nothing to do with health.
Tobacco Control is out of control and becoming dangerous to the health and security of others.
This might be an opportunity to expose the fraudulent science behind the original smoking ban, particularly has many of those involved have since felt it safe to admit the ban had little to do with protecting employees, but was an attempt to denormalise smoking and make life unpleasant for smokers. Spending four hours a day in a smoky room has been measured directly as being equivalent to smoking six to ten cigarettes a year - the health risk of which is negligible - far less than a daily walk alonside a road. The best the Anti Smoking Industry has ever come up with is three cigarettes a week and you can be sure they've tried. To ban ventilated smoking rooms on staff health grounds is easily demonstrated to be ridiculous and in the past, our politicians have evidently agreed. Remember this
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2009/3/12/g20-exempt-from-smoking-ban
The fact came to light when a builder involved in creating the smoking rooms alerted the Sun newspaper. It was never confirmed or denied, but seems entirely plausible. I can't imagine Obama having to stand outside the entrance evrytime he wanted a smoke. The Daily Mail wrote a large feature, since mysteriously removed from its website but still accessible using wayback.
I agree with what Jonathan Bagley has said.
It is thought the move is linked to potential legal action by staff and inmates who have suffered the effects of passive smoking.
Note the quote assumes they have suffered effects. If they really have suffered and can prove their case, then let them take legal action. This will settle the matter. Why have a ban with *potential* problems and *potential* additional costs because of unproved allegations?
If anyone wants to fund legal action on my behalf I'd be very willing to sue the Govt for social discrimination against one group of consumers and for failing to protect that same group of consumers from employment discrimination.
However, the outcome of the case would depend solely on whether the judge is personally an anti-smoker or pro-choice and pro-human.
I do wish someone would test all of this rubbish in the courts though. I don't think any legal action brought or threatened by smokerphobics so far has ever resulted in a win or even a case getting to the courts. Bullies use empty threats all the time to get their own way and terrify people into submission.
I think the tobacco companies owe their consumers legal action on their behalf. How come they are doing nothing to stick up for us if there is no commercial gain for them to fight for?
They will fund campaigns on such things as loss of branding but they won't fund consumers who want to take legal action against Govt , ASH, and employers who jump aboard the discriminatory band waggon.
Jonathan there is some of my research.
Commuter train 0.004/hour
Commuter bus 0.005
Bus waiting room 0.001
Airline waiting room 0.003
Restaurant 0.004
Cocktail lounge 0.009
Student lounge 0.002
The last figure is the the equivalent of cigarettes per hour based on the nicotine the machine picked up.
“The most highly exposed workers, both living and working with smokers, would potentially inhale over 20 cigarette equivalents (CE) per annum as based on the upper decile levels. Housewives living with smokers could inhale up to 11 CE per annum as based on the upper decile levels. Locations outside the workplace, including the home, contribute most to overall RSP and ETS particle exposure. Consideration should be given to extending the personal monitoring period in cities where levels appear to be quite low."
http://daveatherton.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/a-critical-review-of-the-evidence-on-passive-smoking/
I must disagree with Pat Nurse here, prisoners do have plenty of influence on what goes on as hapash says. I don't think even this gov't is stupid enough to shoot themselves in the foot. The last thing they want is publicity over smoking issues. This is why the ban was sneaked in via the back door on day 1, why smokers are never allowed to express there opinions in the media, why the only publicity permitted is the childish rantings of the anti-brigade. Prisoners are more organised than the rest of us. Imagine the impact of the whole population seeing films of hundreds of prisoners up on the rooftops hurling slates down onto the warders. No, this idea is a non-starter, Let them try it, they'll soon have second thoughts.
This proposal exposes, in its raw and very ugly reality, the sadism, unrecognised (at best) even by themselves, which exists at the core of the zealots against tobacco.
It's ultimately more divide and conquer. A FB post I saw today from a smoker thought banning it in prisons was a good idea : "because why should they have the luxury of smoking inside when I have to stand outside a pub in the cold."
I did point out that it isn't the prisoners fault we have the ban and it is the first step towards other home bans. Once "the public" accepts a home ban in one situation (a cell) then they will accept it in another (a hotel room perhaps) and then another (our own homes - for the children of course.)
Those without kids would then be targeted on the grounds of fraudulent harm caused by Third Hand Smoke, backed up with yet more junk science. Debs and chums do know how to pull off a good confidence trick to fool the gullible so never underestimate how far that type would go.
The real problem on this Pat is the overwhelming apathy of the general public to really become vocal and help us in our fight. If it doesn't affect me then why should I care - is the publics' attitude.
Yes, Pat. I agree divide and conquer and something to do with it. Very insidious.
The members of the mainstrean political parties are career politicians now; they don't care about their citizens (or their country for that matter) anymore.
They will make sure that the pilot is successful so that it can be rolled out across all prisons. It's in their interests afterall, so why shouldn't they?
As far as I'm concerned, it leaves both the Labour party (due to the original ban) and the Conservative party (if the pilot and successful roll out goes ahead) not worth voting for.
The truth, not the funded propaganda, has yet to eventually prevail.
It will take years, unfortunately probably beyond my lifetime, so my endeavour is to blatantly expose those who oppress their own citizens through their sheer belief in the propaganda surrounding the fiction relating to SHS/passive smoking/3rd hand smoke.
Afterall, it is well documented in the government archives that the original ban was imposed as an attempt to force people to stop smoking and nothing to do with the risk of SHS which didn't even exsist at the time.
Are our politicains so gullible; are they uneducated; are they just corrupt? I don't know what to believe anymore.
From Jonathan Bagley's post above "The fact came to light when a builder involved in creating the smoking rooms alerted the Sun newspaper."
I have to post as Anonymous because I work in the field of private security. I have worked at a number of venues at which Members of Parliament and the House of Lords have been in attendance. At each and every such venue there is an absolute requirement that an enclosed area is made available for smokers, the area must also be serviced as per all other enclosed areas at the venue, this includes food and drink.
The same requirement is always made for a large number of other VIPs like businessmen, bankers, industrialists and other 'movers and shakers'.
The venues include hotels, horse racing grandstands and other places at which the 'Great and Good' congregate.
The last venue at which I was in attendance where this situation applied was this month, September 2013.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/prisons-smoking-ban-may-spark-6072540